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David,<br><br>
Almost all of what you're talking about is network device configuration
file management -- there are several solutions out there today that do
this. The rest is template-based configuration provisioning tools, which
typically have no operational model of the network -- so it should be no
surprise that they generate the wrong configurations. So there are two
questions:<br><br>
The first is why aren't operators using even simple config management
tools (Is every single one lacking somehow, or is it operational
intertia?)<br><br>
The more interesting one, IMHO, concerns operational complexity. It seems
that complexity is really what makes it hard to operate an IP network --
even with highly skilled engineers -- and is also the barrier to writing
useful network provisioning and configuration software. What abstractions
would make it easier to understand the network and hence figure out the
right configuration changes to make, so software wouldn't generate config
changes that are broken?<br><br>
Regards,<br><br>
Mathew<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
At 01:38 PM 6/12/2002 -0400, David Daley wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><font face="arial" size=2>A couple
of times during NANOG25, from the floor and from the podium, it was
identified that the tools available for managing networks were garbage. I
was surprised to hear that even real basics, such as change control
and configuration management, weren't widely adopted. There definitely
seemed to be an acceptance (and perhaps this is only true at some
carriers) that many problems facing providers today are as a result of a
dearth of decent tools to configure 'best common practices' into the
routers - and as a result of this, the 'problems' with the networks were
not with the h/w and/or the protocols they support, but with the people,
and their lack of experience and/or ability to properly configure the
boxes.</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2> <br>
A couple of comments that I heard over the last few days:<br>
1) User interfaces are horrible and counter intuitive - I want 'xyz' out
of my GUI<br>
2) Systems blindly apply bad configurations to routers - they should be
able to do 'some' verification before crashing my network - and can't
roll back after they wreck things<br>
3) Change control either doesn't exist, isn't usable, or isn't granular
enough<br>
4) There isn't anything to track non sanctioned changes to the network
(i.e.: hacker induced re-configurations)<br>
<br>
I would very much like to hear about "specific" needs for
(provisioning) tools that would satisfy your needs - needs that are
either being poorly met to today, or not at all. In the hopes of
preventing a vendor-bash extravaganza, I would suggest as a point of
reference, that the NMS recommendations presented by Avi Freedman during
the conference ("Industry/Government Infrastructure Vulnerability
Assessment: Background and Recommendations". Of the recommendations
pertinent to network management, many refer to future-features. As an
additional attempt to constraint the discussion, I would recommend that
the needs identified be realistic (i.e.: supportable on current
equipment, the cost of the solution would be less than the cost of the
problem, etc).</font><br>
<br>
<font face="arial" size=2>Cheers,</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2>David</font><br>
<br>
<font face="arial" size=2>-</font><br>
David Daley <br>
+1.905.922.6560 (global) <br>
daley@montagueriver.com <br>
<a href="http://www.montagueriver.com/" eudora="autourl">www.montagueriver.com</a>
<br>
Montague River Networks Inc. <br>
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