[AusNOG] Network Management and Tools

[Darren Moss]

Hi Simon,

We have just over 300 application servers across 8 datacentres, plus onsite kit at customer locations which we monitor/manage 24/7.

To manage the configuration and asset database for all our kit we wrote an app that is presented in a browser using Ajax, which then ties into Nagios for host information. The app is called Site Manager (yeah, it's all we thought of at the time) and runs on Windows IIS / DotNet (not preferred, however the programmer was excellent with this platform and we needed a solution quickly).

When you first start up, it begins with a site by site view, then you can click into each site, which shows routers/networks/racks.
Then you can click into racks and see equipment at each RU, which is fetched from Nagios.

It's a lot of hassle to code up such a solution, however there was nothing remotely available 5 years ago when we did this.

Since then it's been almost a monthly update of enhancements and suggestions.

We can update this via Site Manager and more recently via OpsView (thanks Daniel for your suggestion on this, it is a very good tool).

The Ajax code allows for drag-and-drop of servers and equipment.

Our system allows you to create an inventory of equipment (ie: create new router), which is then dragged to the applicable site and into the appropriate rack. Once in the rack, click on update and we write the changes to Nagios.

Very good for helpdesk people as our provisioning techs can send an email with new host info and pretty much anyone can create the new equipment record, then drag it to the applicable datacentre -> rack.

It's a lot of coding and stuffing around, but to us it's worth it as every single device is tracked from the time it enters our organisation to the time it leaves (including staging/test).

Hope this helps.


Regards, 
 
 
Darren Moss
General Manager
Australia and New Zealand
[p] 1300 131 083 [f] 03 9017 2287
[e] Darren.Moss at em3.com.au [w] www.em3.com.au
 
em3 People and Technology | Managed Technology Experts
postal: PO Box 2333, Moorabbin VIC 3189

New Zealand Airedale Street, Auckland City
postal: PO Box 39573, Howick 2045
[p] 09 887 0550 [f] 09 887 0273


-----Original Message-----
From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Simon Knight
Sent: Monday, 5 July 2010 9:06 PM
To: phil colbourn
Cc: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Network Management and Tools

I'm particularly interested in any answers to your question of configuration management.
This is my area of research, so I'm interested in how people in industry are generating and maintaining their device configuration files.

Off-list replies welcomed.

Cheers!
Simon

On Mon, Jul 5, 2010 at 8:30 PM, phil colbourn <philcolbourn at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you for sharing your experience. I appreciate your detailed 
> replies, experience - good and bad - and anecdotes.
> If other people have anything to add, I - and it seems others on 
> AusNOG - would be interested in the tools you use to manage your networks.
> Phil
> _______________________________________________
> AusNOG mailing list
> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
>
>
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