RE: Silvon Software? -- MIDRANGE-L


>I'm currently evaluating SILVON software and their change management
>products.

>Does anyone have any personal opinions on the company or the software?

David,

I can only address Silvon's Change Management products. I last used 
Implementer in its 'Synon/CM' (version 4.0) incarnation about a year ago 
now. I understand there's been a new release since then which supports ILE 
, but anyway, here's my two-pence worth:-

It is certainly a mature product, that works well once set up. Technical 
support is adequate.

In my opinion, the main deficiencies with the verson I used were (from 
memory):-
a) Tedious set up process with no 'wizards' to help you along the way. 
 Environments and User Profiles badly need 'template' functionality - 
'copy' just does not cut it.
b) Strangely, many settings which you would naturally associate with 
'Envirnoments' ('Test', 'Production' etc.) are linked to the User Profiles 
instead. A good example of this is 'Delete Object and/or Source from Source 
Evironment after promotion'.
c) Troubleshooting problems generally involves searching through long job 
logs. Even though the tool copies the job log to preserve it, it makes no 
effort to deduce the cause of the problem, or eliminate spurious messages 
arising out of sloppy CL programming. Likewise, the tool does not alert the 
operator or administrator if a promotion job ends abnormally (in an 
un-controlled manner).
d) APIs and Exit Programs are poorly documented and limited in number and 
function.


Some good features are:-
a) User-definable 'Object Codes' allow the administrator to set up and 
program site or environment-specific actions which must take place on each 
promotion.
b) Remote module works well.
c) Good integration with Synon/2E, if you're using that tool.
d) Integrates with othe Silvon offerings such as 'Design Tracker' and 
'Pathfinder'.

I've heard that Turnover is a better engineered product, although I have 
not had direct experience with it. Also, Aldon's 'CMS' is worth looking in 
to.

BTW: Does any one use IBMs ADM/400? I'd be interested to know what people 
think of it.

Hope this helps!


Chris Jewell
jewellcj@jewellconsult.com
http://jewellconsult.com/~jewellcj/consult.htm
 

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