Network Configuration Management

Tue Mar 12 18:31:03 UTC 2013

Just an FYI on "if you can tolerate their sales borg". 
If you request a quote and do not purchase, get ready for a borg attack of emails and calls. 

On topic:
We're trying to survive with RANCID, which is great for pushing changes without any feedback...  Last job we used Solarwinds NCM, and that's a fairly nice tool.
We also had HP on site with their "Configuration Management System", which looked good until we started looking into support for Enterasys and Brocade. There were some short comings and expectation for custom written code to support 3rd party hardware. 
-P

-----Original Message-----
From: Warren Bailey [mailto:wbailey at satelliteintelligencegroup.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2013 11:15 AM
To: chip; chip at 2bithacker.net
Cc: North American Network Operators Group
Subject: Re: Network Configuration Management

Solar winds ncm is great if you can tolerate their sales borg.

>From my Android phone on T-Mobile. The first nationwide 4G network.

-------- Original message --------
From: chip <chip.gwyn at gmail.com>
Date: 03/12/2013 11:09 AM (GMT-08:00)
To: chip at 2bithacker.net
Cc: North American Network Operators Group <nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: Re: Network Configuration Management

I've never found anything that hits all of my needs.  The closest off the shelf thing I've ever found is the Network Control System from Tail-F ( http://www.tail-f.com/network-control-system/).  We're using a custom built app that's been refined over the last decade and does a really nice job.
 It uses a very similar model of configuration management as Tail-F does but now quite the application.  Just generating config isn't all that difficult.  The hard part is pushing to the devices and  working out what to do when on-box and off-box doesn't match.

Good luck in your search, and if you find something really cool, be sure to post back!

--chip

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 1:58 PM, Chip Marshall <chip at 2bithacker.net> wrote:

> Just curious what people are using for network configuration 
> manangement systems. I'm guessing most places have something built 
> in-house, but before starting down that road I figured it would be a 
> good idea to see if people have any off-the-shelf systems they like.
>
> Some features I'd like to have:
>  * Interface configs
>  * Firewall filter configs
>  * BGP session configs
>  * User management
>  * Support for multiple router and switch vendors (at least
>    Juniper and Cisco)
>
> --
> Chip Marshall <chip at 2bithacker.net>
> http://2bithacker.net/
>

--
Just my $.02, your mileage may vary,  batteries not included, etc....