Re: Network Configuration Management

[Charles Mills <w3yni1 () gmail com>]

I've used Kiwi Cattools as well as some homegrown perl and shell script
stuff for versioning / audit trails.

Cattools works OK and scales.  Unsure of pricing structure though.

I never liked Ciscoworks for doing it even though it will manage your
devices that way.


On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Stefan <netfortius () gmail com> wrote:

> On Mar 13, 2013 9:31 AM, "Eric Van Tol" <eric () atlantech net> wrote:
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Chip Marshall [mailto:chip () 2bithacker net]
> > > Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2013 1:58 PM
> > > To: nanog () nanog org
> > > Subject: Network Configuration Management
> > >
> > > 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.
> >
> > Solarwinds NCM is what we use.  It's multivendor and even handles
> menu-driven configurations and can easily be used to run commands on
> devices such as Linux servers for iptables firewall rules.  It can perform
> inventory management and do things like search for MAC addresses on your
> network.  Moreover, it can do policy reporting to ensure that your devices
> meet your configuration standards, both custom-made and for regulatory
> compliance like HIPAA/SOX/PCI/etc.
> > We used to use RANCID, which worked great, but we outgrew it when we
> needed something to backup multiple vendors and didn't have the resources
> to modify the code to do what we needed.
> > As other posters mentioned, their sales force is unrelentless, even after
> you purchase.  It took a lot of complaining to finally get off whatever
> internal sales list we were on.  Cost is also a concern, as it increases
> with the more devices you need to manage, plus there's a yearly maintenance
> fee.  That said, I feel the cost is somewhat justified, as they have a
> pretty good development team that is quite active on their support forums
> and they listen to customer feedback for features.
> > -evt
>
> To those of you using Solarwinds: what about scalability? How many devices
> do you presently support with this solution, and under which hardware or VM
> and storage configuration, if you don't mind sharing that?
>
> Stefan