Ref: 11030062
Title: Comparison of MaxView and Netview PC
date: 12/6/89

Copyright 3Com Corporation, 1991.  All rights reserved.

MaxView is a software application that works in conjunction with
3Com's Maxess SNA gateway.  It converts data that it receives
through the serial port of the machine on which it resides into
NMVT (Network Management Vector Transport) format.  MaxView
passes the newly formatted data to Maxess and Maxess supplies the
connection up to the IBM host where the NetView application is
running.

MaxView and Maxess do not replace NetView PC.  NetView PC
requires a dedicated node on the network that can only be used
for collecting and monitoring network management information.  In
this sense, the MaxView and Maxess combination is "better" than
NetView PC.  Maxess can function as the network gateway to the
mainframe for regular 3270 and APPC sessions, as well as work
with MaxView to pass Alert information up to NetView.  Two
separate products and two separate sets of hardware are not
needed.

On the other hand, NetView PC has some extra capabilities that
MaxView does not have.  MaxView is currently a one-way
communication.  Alert information is passed up to NetView on the
mainframe.  No control or local monitoring information is passed
back down to MaxView.

MaxView does not require the use of NCS.  MaxView was designed
with the NCS in mind.  The NCS release 2.0 has a special option
that allows NCS Alarm information gathered in the NCS to be
passed on to MaxView.  But MaxView will handle any data it
receives in the proper format through its serial port.  The data format
is specified in the NCS Operation Guide, and is similar to output
that would be sent to a printer:  ASCII characters, providing a
time-stamp and error and probable cause codes, etc.  The main
thing to remember is that only the NCS connection is
pre-configured.  Additional configuration and programming is
required to use MaxView to convert error information from a source
other than an NCS.

