NIM SMIT enhancements, new UI

In AIX5.3/6.1, there was a great deal of functionality available in WebSM to manage NIM operations. Aside from it being graphical, which may appeal to some users, it was very handy in that you could select multiple targets for an operation (without having to pre-define them as a group), initiate NIM customization scripts, etc. Moving to AIX 7.1, WebSM is no longer supported, and the theoretical replacement (IBM Systems Director Console for AIX, a.k.a. "pconsole") really is not feature-equivalent. It can act as a graphical front to SMIT, and it allows use of DCEM, but neither of these can be used to run NIM scripts, and neither allow selection of multiple targets. Furthermore, moving to AIX 7.2, pconsole is also no longer supported, ultimately leaving command-line as the only option remaining.

What I would like to see is that (1) the SMIT panels for NIM be updated in two ways to provide functionality available from command-line and formerly available in WebSM, and (2) ultimately for these features (and SMIT functionality in general) to be baked into a modern AIX management platform similar to WebSM or pconsole.

1A. Please allow NIM scripts to be executed from SMIT panels. In theory the execution of these scripts is part of a Customization NIM method, but are not strictly speaking provided by the "nim -o cust" command, and so do not currently fit into the Perform Network Install Customization/nim_mac_op panel. The command-line method to do this is simple and already available:
/usr/lpp/bos.sysmgt/nim/methods/m_cust -a script=ScriptName TargetMachineOrGroup
I suggest this fall under the "Manage Machines -> Perform Operations on Machines" and "Manage Groups -> Perform Operations on Machine Groups" selections as something like "script = execute NIM customization script."

1B. Please allow the selection of multiple targets for NIM operations. The functionality already exists in many places (customization, NIM script execution, Reset, etc) for NIM to iterate through multiple targets for an operation, for example if you specify a Machine Group rather than a specific Machine, you will see something like this:
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Initiating "cust" Operation
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Allocating resources ...

Initiating the cust operation on machine 1 of 2: host01 ...

Initiating the cust operation on machine 2 of 2: host02 ...

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
"cust" Operation Summary
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Target Result
------ ------
host01 INITIATED
host02 INITIATED
However, this depends on the creation of a Machine Group beforehand, and does not allow for selecting multiple Groups or an ad-hoc collection of Machines unless you take extra steps to create them as Machine Groups temporarily and then remove them afterwards. It would be helpful if you could select multiple targets in typical SMIT fashion, either by typing a list in the Target Name field or using F7=Select / Enter=Do. If necessary, a shortcut to accomplish this could be creating a temporary Group behind the scenes and then removing it when finished the batch operation, which is how WebSM did it:
# lsnim -c groups
wsm_Tmp_Multiple_Targets@1 groups mac_group

2. It's really sad to see IBM take steps backward instead of forward. With the depreciation of IBM Systems Director, WebSM, and pconsole, the availability of good tools for AIX System Administrators has dwindled to almost nothing. I applaud progress being made in scalability and automation a la PowerVC / PowerSC / PowerVP at the platform level, but these products just underscore the fact that our environments continue to sprawl and we need effective tools to manage them, including at the OS layer. NIM scripting has been a perfect solution in many cases, allowing reliable/reproducible configuration changes that can be pushed out to many systems in an organized fashion, or to execute information gathering scripts across the entire AIX landscape - all leveraging trusted native utilities and no questionable 3rd party products. Unfortunately this technology is underappreciated and increasingly becoming the province of shell-savvy AIX experts, mainly because it's not well integrated into a modern, easy-to-use management platform. It would be ideal if IBM would take this functionality, or for that matter the whole realm of SMIT capabilities, and bake it into a management product to replace what we used to be able to do with WebSM and pconsole. Perhaps BigFix might have a place for this?