Re: Asset management recommendations

["John A. Kilpatrick" <john () hypergeek net>]

Agreed. Current environment is a saltstack/netbox combo that's, shall we say, "in development".

On Sat, Aug 24, 2019, at 5:43 AM, Raymond Burkholder wrote:
> Expanding further, there are those that use ansible for network management. But I don't think it does well in scaling 
> out for functionality. I have used saltstack for network config and server builds, as it becomes the source of truth 
> for the infrastructure, allowing for consistent upgrades and additions. Combining with something like netbox for 
> infrastructure source of truth, one can build to spec, and then use something like rancid as an independent 
> confirmation of 'build to spec'.
>
>  I've been able to script builds to automatically boot a blank device via pxeboot, get an operating system and 
> customized modules installed, restarted, automatically registered to receive the starting configuration, register 
> against a check_mk/nagios based monitoring system, and for servers, to automatically create and build containers and 
> their contents. It greatly simplifies the maintenance and upgrade tasks in to repeatable and reproducible build 
> solutions. Plus the source of truth configuration files can be version controlled to provide a history infrastructure 
> adjustments.
>
>  What I like about saltstack and netbox, is that they are both based upon python, which is a relatively common 
> skillset and a growing ecosystem.
>
> https://netbox.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
> https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/states/
>
>
> On 2019-08-24 6:05 a.m., J. Hellenthal via NANOG wrote:
> > I would have to agree with this too. Unless you are looking at a multifaceted approach where you can compare two 
> > different sources of knowledge then use the config mgmt tools to cover that baseline is pretty adequate until.... 
> >
> > You have client computers and hardware along that level to track. So in that instance since everything has an IP 
> > these days then phpIPAM or similar can do quite the job storing serial numbers, makes, models, descriptions and 
> > tracking the on and offline status plus plenty more.
> >
> > https://phpipam.net/documents/screenshots/
> >
> >
> > -- 
> >  J. Hellenthal
> >
> > The fact that there's a highway to Hell but only a stairway to Heaven says a lot about anticipated traffic volume.
> >
> > > On Aug 24, 2019, at 03:37, George Herbert <george.herbert () gmail com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Do you really want asset management tools, or configuration management tools with asset discovery / inventory 
> > > capability? 
> > >
> > > Juniper supports Chef configuration management pretty extensively, and is widely used for systems management and 
> > > patch management on Linux. Scales to multisite well. There are tie-ins to be able to export monitoring and alerting 
> > > tool configurations based on server and network inventories, etc.
> > >
> > > https://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/junos-chef11.10/topics/concept/chef-overview.html
> > >
> > > There are also Puppet, Ansible, and Saltstack in this product space, slightly less well supported with Juniper as I 
> > > understand it (haven't looked extensively, someone else may have better info).
> > >
> > > On Fri, Aug 23, 2019 at 9:10 PM Mehmet Akcin <mehmet () akcin net> wrote:
> > > > Hey there
> > > >
> > > > I am looking for a tool recommendation for network and server asset management which can scale in multiple sites 
> > > > and integrate with other platforms like nagios, librenms. Being able to do patch management is plus. Mostly linux 
> > > > and juniper shop
> > > >
> > > > Any recommendations?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > >
> > > > Mehmet
> > > >  +1-424-298-1903
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > -george william herbert
> > > george.herbert () gmail com