CA Service Management

  • 1.  Chromebook Chrome O/S support

    Posted Mar 10, 2017 10:30 AM

    I asked this question last year about using Chromebooks to access the sdm analyst interface. 14.1 provided no support for the Chrome o/s and I voted on the idea of its support. We have installed 14.1.03 in our test environment and the Chromebooks still do not work. I could not find documentation that specifically states that the chrome o/s is not supported. Can someone point me to the document that states it is not supported, or if it is, do I need to open a support case? In addition, with the upcoming new release of sdm (17?), will it support the use of Chromebooks? and is there any documentation on the new features and support for the new release?



  • 2.  Re: Chromebook Chrome O/S support

    Posted Mar 10, 2017 01:38 PM

    Hi John,

    Typically in documentation, most software vendors will not provide you a list of what is NOT supported, but rather will only provide a list of what IS supported - which is what we do as well.   So the rule of thumb is that if its not on the list of supported items for that category, then its assumed its not supported.  With that, I wanted to share my thoughts with you and a bit (ok more like a book) of explanation on this.  Now, your situation is a bit "stickier" in some ways because when we talk about accessing the SDM interface, we talk about accessing it via a browser, and thus we dont actually list the supported OS'es as the supported browser versions should work to access SDM regardless of the OS they are installed on .  Now (even stickier...the stickiest of the stickies if you will...)  Chromebooks fall under their own category - meaning - are they a computer?  a tablet? or something new all together?  In my view, at a physical level, they appear to be laptops just like any other laptop (meaning in shape and form), BUT, they are running a mobile or tablet OS.  Thats where the confusion starts.  For example,(and not a great one, but it gets the point across)... lets say you have a Dell Laptop, and you choose to install Ubuntu Linux on it.  Then you install Chome on that Ubuntu machine.  Technically as long as its a version of chrome that we support, then it should work. We dont specify that we support the Ubuntu OS itself, but rather we only say which versions of chome should work with the product.  With Chromebooks its different because it does not allow you to install just any old variety of browser - if I am not mistaken, it has an app store, and allows you to install the mobile versions of some of the popular browsers correct?  So when you open that browser and attempt to access any website, it sends the request such that its coming from a mobile browser, and so the website will usually return the request with whatever its set to display to a mobile browser.  There in lies the issue - how can one trick the chromebook into sending the request from the browser as if it were a desktop browser and not a mobile browser?  If we could somehow do that, then I have a feeling this would be a non issue.  Having said that, the truth is that we dont come across many customers that are using chrome books - which is probably the reason why its not something that has been looked at in depth yet.  The majority of customers are either using Windows machines with IE, Firefox or Chrome, OR an iPad or Android device with a supported browser, BUT we have not had any customers really asking about using a chromebook as a laptop.  SO where to from here?  Well first, let me reach out to product management on this and at least find out what the current stance is and if something is on the roadmap.  Along with that, what I would do is take a look online to see if you can find a solution to force a chromebook to send browser requests in Desktop Browser format instead of Mobile Browser format.

    I will let you know as soon as I have some feedback on this.

    I hope this clarifies a bit as well,

    Regards,

    Jon I.



  • 3.  Re: Chromebook Chrome O/S support

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Mar 10, 2017 02:38 PM

    Hi John,

     

    This is not currently on the roadmap. I see that you commented on an idea from last year. We haven't gotten to that Idea yet in our review process. However, it does not have many votes at this time and that does weigh heavily in our decision making.

     

     

    Regards,

    Carol