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IT Administration: Change And Configuration Management
April 23rd, 2010 by admin
Upgrading network configurations is one of the many tasks of a network administrator. While this can cause turmoil among users while waiting for the network to be activated or be stable again, changing network configurations is necessary when introducing new devices or troubleshooting problems with the aim of improving the user experience.
However, it is all too easy to make errors in implementation or documentation. In fact, many network problems can be traced to configuration errors. Most configuration changes must be coordinated across multiple devices, and an error on a single device can send data into a dead end.
Adding an extra link, upgrading the capacity of an existing link or adding a new server are examples of configuration changes that could affect network performance. A complete lack of connectivity is obvious, but tools are needed to detect more subtle problems. For instance, network performance monitoring using network management software may reveal reduced performance. However, security vulnerabilities may not show up until there is a successful attack or until administrators notice them during future updates.
Automated network change and configuration management tools can significantly lower the risk for such errors and increase staff productivity. At the minimum, they detect and report when someone has made a manual change to network devices and instances of security vulnerabilities and performance problems. Each change can be also be analyzed before it is applied, so that errors are caught earlier. Some tools can be programmed to check configurations against corporate policies and standards such as PCI, HIPAA, and ITIL.
Other advantages offered by these tools include the simplification of the task of applying a standard configuration to multiple devices, as well as the elimination of the need for staff to learn different command syntaxes for different vendor devices in a multi-vendor network. Changes made with the tool are automatically documented for audit purposes.