Below are common positioning questions asked about HP's performance products. Some of these questions have been previously published in the HP PerfRX Information Guide (RXINFO on the SWT Performance Hotline). Questions and Answers ===================== What's the difference between HP PerfRX, HP PerfView, and HP GlancePlus? Both HP PerfRX and HP GlancePlus are node-specific applications geared for analyzing and monitoring a single system at a time. HP PerfRX provides an in- depth, historical perspective to global, application, and process level system activity information. HP GlancePlus is an on-line diagnostics tool which provides current system activity information. HP PerfView is a site level application which provides the ability to centrally monitor multiple systems in a distributed computing environment. HP PerfView utilizes a management-by-exception approach and a sophisticated alarms technology to provide problem notification and characterization within the distributed environment. Is HP PerfView or HP GlancePlus required for HP PerfRX? No, HP PerfRX is a separate product and does not require HP PerfView or HP GlancePlus. However, the features in HP PerfRX, HP GlancePlus, and HP PerfView complement each other to provide the complete performance management solution for customers. How does HP PerfView tie in with HP OpenView Network Node Manager (NNM) and HP Operations Center? HP PerfView is a fully integrated application with the HP OpenView platform. Together HP PerfView, NNM and HP Operations Center complete an industry leading distributed management solution. HP PerfView provides performance and resource management of the nodes on a network, including resource management alarms and a graphical Motif interface for detailed analysis of performance data. Network Node Manager (NNM) provides system and network management functions, for instance automatic discovery of nodes in the distributed computing environment, tracking of network statistics and utilization levels, and identifying network problems such as duplicate IP addresses. HP Operations Center is designed to provide operations management and administration. It includes central system console management, message management, and the integration point for other system management applications such as distributed print spooling and network backup. Does HP PerfRX collect the performance data? No, HP PerfRX is an interface to the performance data collected by the HP Performance Collection Software (previously known as the HP LaserRX Collection Software). If a customer does not already own the HP Performance Collection Software, it can be purchased as a separate product for UNIX or as part of the HP GlancePlus Pak bundle. Can HP PerfRX analyze the data collected by the HP PerfView Agent? No. While the HP PerfView Agent and the HP Performance Collection Software share common technology, HP PerfRX accesses only the data in the log files created by the HP Performance Collection Software. Why is HP Performance Collection Software (PCS) becoming an industry standard for collecting performance data on open systems? Standard facilities within most UNIX based operating systems provide some performance information. Iostat, vmstat, and sar are examples. These tools were designed to help system developers tune the system kernel, not to help IS staff manage performance and capacity. PCS reports on all aspects of system performance including information at three levels: Global, Application, and process. At each of these levels, metrics are available on the utilization of individual resources such as CPU, memory, disk, and LAN. Information is also available on service levels such as response times and transaction rates. In all, over 175 metrics are available. What's the difference between HP PerfRX and HP LaserRX? HP LaserRX is a PC-based analysis tool and HP PerfRX runs on an HP-UX workstation using the Motif user- interface. While both products fulfill the same function of long-term data analysis, HP PerfRX does contain some features not in the LaserRX product. For example, HP PerfRX can analyze both HP-UX and MPE log files. It will also be the interface for future versions of the HP Performance Collection Software on third party platforms (for example, Sun SPARC systems). Other features in HP PerfRX include customizable graphs and an editable script for a command line interface.