[c-nsp] 12.2SXH 'archive' / Configuration Management

[Eric Van Tol]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net [mailto:cisco-nsp-
> bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of Alex Howells
> Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2008 11:15 AM
> To: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
> Subject: [c-nsp] 12.2SXH 'archive' / Configuration Management
>
> Aloha :)
>
> What is the collective opinion on the best way to do change
> monitoring /
> management with router and switch configurations?
>

We use a combination of RANCID and Solarwinds Cirrus.  RANCID is great for most popular vendor equipment, but only pulls configs and certain command outputs.  It's also a pain to try and configure with non-out-of-the-box-supported equipment.

Solarwinds Cirrus works on *anything* that has a telnet/SSH login (even most menu-based systems) and can also track changes in realtime through the use of SNMP traps.  It can download configs via SSH/telnet/TFTP, track changes, poll devices, perform inventory on certain MIBs, and gives you a single source for multiple device configuration changes.  For instance, it's password change time again and rather than SSH into 75 devices one by one, we just configure Cirrus to do it once and let it run.  It's a big time saver.  The downside is, it's expensive.

-evt