OpenVMS Management Station Overview and Release Notes

This document, dated April 2001, provides an overview and release notes for OpenVMS Management Station Version 3.0, a Microsoft Windows/NT-based tool developed by Compaq. It's designed for system managers to manage user accounts, printers, and storage across multiple OpenVMS Cluster systems and nodes.

Key Highlights of Version 3.0:

• New Storage Management: This is the primary new feature, enabling comprehensive creation, deletion, monitoring, and management of disk volumes. It can preserve disk configurations across reboots, offers faster volume mounts, and generates emergency mount procedures.
• Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Integration: The application is now implemented as an MMC snap-in, providing a common management framework and allowing for multiple management windows and the saving of console settings.
• Remote Management Support: Enables remote administration via TCP/IP dial-up connections.

Core Management Capabilities: The station allows for monitoring, modifying attributes, creating, and deleting objects in three main areas:

• Storage: Disk volumes and managing volume sets.
• Printers: Printers, print queues, and individual print jobs.
• User Accounts: User Authorization File (UAF) entries, rights identifiers, directories, disk quotas, and mail settings.

System Organization: It uses "OpenVMS Management Domains" to group systems, allowing operations to be applied across multiple systems based on a hierarchical scope. The client communicates with primary servers exclusively using TCP/IP, though OpenVMS servers detect both TCP/IP and DECnet.

Compatibility and Restrictions:

• Incompatibility: Version 3.0 is not compatible with prior versions; existing management domains must be recreated. Older databases (V2.1) are updated to V3.0, an irreversible process.
• Supported Platforms: Requires OpenVMS VAX/Alpha 6.2 or higher, Compaq TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS 3.2 or higher, Windows NT 4.0 (SP3+) or Windows 95 (or higher), and Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.02 or higher (for MMC files).
• Key Limitations: Requires the connecting OpenVMS user account to have all privileges. It only manages cluster-unique disks visible to all nodes (not privately mounted or foreign volumes), has limits on bound volume members, and does not support write-locked shadow sets. Several known issues exist regarding DECnet proxies, renaming users/printers, DMA attributes, and duplicate queue names with DQS printers.