For years I’ve wanted to build a tool that helps you to manage configuration in a heterogeneous environment. I’ve been frustrated by the myriad of vendor specific tools for managing configuration on their devices, and the state of the art hasn’t really advanced all that much in the 8 years I’ve been thinking about the problem seriously.
I made small inroads into the problem, while I was busy with other projects: BEEPy, libsnmp, seafelt management reporting, client projects. Finally, in the last few months, I’ve found the time to turn my latest thinking into working code: ModiPY.
For example, let’s say you need to add some NetApp storage to a Unix
server. You need to configure the NetApp, via commandline or NetApp
specific web tools. You also have to configure the Unix server, also
via commandline, or possibly through remote deployment of configuration
files; perhaps scp, rsync or subversion (if you’ve got a really
advanced setup).
So that’s 2 or 3 different tools to do a simple job. Add in a
dedicated IP storage network using Cisco gear, and now you have even
more configuration to do, touching maybe 8 different devices in a fully
redundant setup. Suddenly the job isn’t so simple. Now do this more
than once a day, every day. Add in the expected growth of storage of
about 60% every year. You end up with a team of operations staff doing
nothing but cut&paste from change control documentation. Surely
there’s a better way? There is.
ModiPY gives you a flexible framework for creating a provisioning system for any of your equipment. It allows you to create a system of change templates that can be combined in a myriad of ways to provide structured, auditable, and automated provisioning and change management. You can define a change set that configures your NetApp, Cisco and Unix gear with a new set of storage, or just to grow the existing storage. You can automatically deal with failures, backing out failed changes.
For more information on how ModiPY can help you manage configuration changes in your network, head over to the ModiPY wiki to grab yourself a copy. Start making life easier today.