Introduction
 A big “Howdy” from SolarWinds
based in Austin, Texas
» Josh Stephens - Head Geek, Monster Blogger,
Constant Tweeter
» Chris LaPoint – Senior Product Manager
 Today’s Topic: Boosting Network Reliability
thru Configuration Management
 Who is SolarWinds?
» What we do…
» Who are our customers?
» The SolarWinds community…

Housekeeping
 Can you hear me now?
 If not, use the WebEx Q&A panel to
contact the moderator
 How do you win the free stuff?
 How do you ask questions?
 Will this thing be recorded?

Agenda
 Introduction to network reliability reporting
 Common causes of network destabilization
 What is Configuration Management?
 SCP Questions
 Backing-up Device Configurations
 Bulk Changes
 Change Notification
 Inventory Management
 What to look for in an NCCM solution
 Summary and Q&A

Network Reliability Reporting
 Network reliability = Availability
 Network wide availability is the key high level metric
 Remember device level availability for more detail
 Always baseline first…
 Availability reporting mechanisms
 Reports
 Charts
 Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Common Causes of Destabilization
 According to EMA, 70% of network issues are
caused by config problems*
 Config mistakes and typo’s
 Inconsistent or non-standardized configs
 Inability to track config changes
 Network issues last longer than they should
when…
 Device configs aren’t backed up regularly
 Config rollbacks aren’t an option
 Change tracking isn’t in place

What is Configuration Management?
Network Configuration & Change Management (NCCM)
 Management of device configurations
 Typically used for network infrastructure devices
 Routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, VPN
concentrators.
 Any text or menu based config device
 NCCM includes
 Config backups and restores (rollback)
 Bulk change deployment
 Inventory management
 Change tracking and detection

Configuration Backups
 Always backup your configs
 Periodically (I recommend daily)
 Before significant changes
 Backups are useful for…
 Compliance
 Rollbacks
 Comparisons

Bulk Changes
 “Bulk changes” means changing many devices
at once or within a short period of time
 They can be done on demand or at a scheduled
time
 Avoids human error and significantly speeds up
the change process
 Includes logging of changes for tracking
purposes

Change Notification and Tracking
 Wouldn’t it be nice if…
 Your NMS automatically notified you when someone
made a change
 It told you exactly what was changed and by whom
 It gave you the ability to rollback the change if
needed
 Change tracking should include:
 Who made the change
 Why the change was made
 What was changed
 Details of before and after configs

Inventory Management
 Discovery and tracking of devices
 Automatic discovery of devices
 Tracking of device moves/changes
 Inventory information usage
 Hardware maintenance contract renewal and
tracking
 Theft/Loss prevention
 Failure swapouts

What to Look for in an NCCM Product
 Integration with your primary NMS
 NCCM, Fault, Performance, and Traffic Analysis in a
single pane of glass
 Correlation between config changes and
performance anomalies
 Easy to install and use
 NCCM features
 All the things we just discussed…
 Breadth of device support
 Extensibility
 Policy and Compliance Reporting

Summary and Q&A
Thank you for attending!
To learn more or to download free 30-day trials of
SolarWinds products visit: www.SolarWinds.com
Contact information
Josh Stephens, Head Geek
headgeek@solarwinds.com
twitter: sw_headgeek
Blog: http://thwack.com/blogs/geekspeak/
p.s. Remember to renew your maintenance!!!