ISP network management systems

nel

hi guys,

im interested in knowing what applications that any of you at ISPs use for things such as configuration management and network performance?

I need to look into this as a project and were just interested as i know a few of you work for big isps.

Cheers

darkerosxx

Configuration mgmt for what types of devices?

Network performance... you mean monitoring of network performance?

nel

darkerosxx wrote: »

Configuration mgmt for what types of devices?

Network performance... you mean monitoring of network performance?

Configuration mgmt for what types of devices?
-juniper routers/switches
-cisco routers/switches
-Allied Telesys switches

Network performance... you mean monitoring of network performance? - yep

darkerosxx

If you just mean backing up the configs, tftp server and scripts.

For network performance, Cacti: The Complete RRDTool-based Graphing Solution

nel

So, not to sound stupid, but do most isps who have changes to make just do them manually? Or is things script driven?

We are looking for WebUI's which allow simplified administration for each vendor - its for the techies who arent familiar with each platform. Would i be looking along the lines of products like Juniper NSM, Ciscoworks etc?

darkerosxx

Yeah, it just depends on the mentality of your organization. If they like to build their own apps, it's likely going to be tftp and scripts (which can be run by techs who just need to know the command or can be activated by a web gui front-end). If you want to pay for it, there are numerous utilities. One I know of and like is Network Configuration & Change Management with NetMRI - Infoblox.com

Forsaken_GA

RANCID is very popular for backing up configurations.It uses SVN/CVS to version configurations. It basically logs into your network gear at predefined intervals, pulls the configuration, compares it to the most recent stored configuration, and if it's different, generates a new version, stores it, so you'll always have access to your past configs. It can also send an email out with what changed between versions, so you'll know if your junior admin screwed the pooch and how.

Now, as far as frontends for folks to make changes to equipment, I've never been in an environment that makes uses of it. I've seen a few instances where scripts have been deployed to allow some simple changes, but otherwise it's always been escalation to someone who knows what they're doing from the commandline. I have been in an environment that deployed RouterProxy so that the NOC could pull information off of network devices, but it didn't allow them to make changes. RouterProxy is useful in that it allow you to define which commands the user can run, and gives a web interface with the options.

bertieb

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

RANCID is very popular for backing up configurations.It uses SVN/CVS to version configurations. It basically logs into your network gear at predefined intervals, pulls the configuration, compares it to the most recent stored configuration, and if it's different, generates a new version, stores it, so you'll always have access to your past configs. It can also send an email out with what changed between versions, so you'll know if your junior admin screwed the pooch and how.

Good call. I particularly like the e-mail function which has often caused much amusement - or panic depending on your point of view - when I end up ringing someone asking why they are making configuration changes without the necessary paperwork

Forsaken_GA

bertieb wrote: »

Good call. I particularly like the e-mail function which has often caused much amusement - or panic depending on your point of view - when I end up ringing someone asking why they are making configuration changes without the necessary paperwork

We also deployed sec to monitor the syslogs. There were a few times where I received phone calls from the senior within 2 minutes of exiting priv 15 mode, wanting to know wtf I was doing hehe