If you’re responsible for an ever changing network – establishing, fine tuning and managing configuration changes is likely one of your biggest headaches. As your network grows in complexity, so do the tasks related to maintaining accurate device configurations. For better or worse, configuration files, access credentials, and information requirements vary by device type and from vendor to vendor. Soon you have a plethora of devices that are impossible to manage without some automation and standardization. And if your change management policies require you to ensure compliance – managing through manual configuration changes becomes nearly impossible.
So how do you manage this complexity and still ensure your device configurations are accurate and not contributing to network problems? Or even making them vulnerable to data loss and malicious attacks?
Life just got a little easier. With our new WhatsConfigured plug-in you can feel confident your network is well configured, your configuration data is protected, and secure from unauthorized users. Fully integrated into the WhatsUp Gold product family, WhatsConfigured automates network device configuration file backup, restore, storage, and change management processes – eliminating common manual and repetitive configuration tasks. And it provides in-depth traceability and accountability of changes by tracking changes when they occur. With Whatsup Gold and WhatsConfigured in place you’ll know exactly what’s on your network, how it is configured, and how everything is performing.
With WhatsConfigured you can:
Key features of WhatsConfigured include:
Extensive Vendor Device Support
Network configuration management presents a host of challenges because of the diversity of vendors, devices, and access mechanisms supported. Infrastructure components like routers, switches, gateways, wireless access points, firewalls, VLANs and routing protocols including OSPF and BGP, as well as management mechanisms such as IPSLA and flow monitoring add to the complexity.
Automated Configuration Task Execution and Monitoring
WhatsConfigured automates the execution of scheduled tasks relating to current network configuration backups, startup configuration file backups and password change management for an individual device or across groups of devices. Each scheduled task is carried out through the execution of task scripts. Scheduled tasks can also be monitored for successful completion – generating alerts when failures occur, or when configuration changes are detected.
Integrated Alerting and Reporting
WhatsConfigured integrates with WhatsUp Gold’s Alert Center to provide alerting on configuration management events. Like other Alert Center items, notification policies can be assigned to alert conditions once they are configured. Comparison of network file configurations against stored configurations or between two selected devices can be initiated from the WhatsUp Gold reports tab. All alerts and reports are easily accessible anytime, anywhere through the integrated WhatsUp Gold web console.
Secure Configuration and Change Management
WhatsConfigured helps navigate through this maze of configuration choices by supporting multiple protocols including secure SNMP v1-3, SSH2, Telnet, and TFTP to enable the management of your entire network infrastructure from a single platform.
Policy Based Monitoring
Policy based monitoring in WhatsConfigured ensures that all device configurations are audited against policy before being backed-up. Policies can also be audited on-demand against existing configuration files. Policy definitions can include any number of “include patterns” – things to look for within the configuration files, as well as “exclude patterns” – things that should not be present in the configuration files. Network managers are alerted if a configuration back-up fails the policy audit.