[159087] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: IP Address Management IPAM software for small ISP
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (George Herbert)
Fri Dec 21 11:22:03 2012
In-Reply-To: <CAAAwwbWF_kPrYn=xsNDQ2K=9JwYm=JcMJhhWg=L_Tp=Bdj6f_Q@mail.gmail.com>
From: George Herbert <george.herbert@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2012 08:21:45 -0800
To: Jimmy Hess <mysidia@gmail.com>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Dec 20, 2012, at 10:01 PM, Jimmy Hess <mysidia@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/20/12, Charles N Wyble <charles-lists@knownelement.com> wrote:
>> Zenoss works very well as a cmdb.
>=20
> Zenoss is very visually appealing, but a monitoring system for network
> hosts, not a CMDB.
>=20
> In particular, except through extensive custom programming, I see no
> mechanism to manage CIs with it or query for facts...
>=20
> Zenoss doesn't seem to have any way you can represent or, query, or
> model a fact that a certain IP address terminates in Vlan X, on
> device Y, with default gateway IP G that has NSAP ID H, and device Y
> lives in building A room 1 aisle 2 rack 4 rack slot number 5,
> fed by breakers 186 and 237, with upstream Ethernet cable ID #G296R
> plugged into port 39 on patch panel 2, which lands on Switch K
> port Gig8/44.
> Networks have many "items of importance" that are not hosts, also,
> and are not readily modelled using SNMP.
Much less the application layer, physical SW installs or logical groupings l=
ayer, or a virtual hosts or internal cloud stack layer. Or tie ins to the r=
elease management or DevOps control layer.
I know this is NANOG, but configuration control runs a ways up the stack... =
A proper CMDB will have to be able to take a much bigger picture.
Not to slight Zenoss; it's good at what it does do. But that's not a CMDB.
That is not to suggest that products that handle a limited slice of the stac=
k in a more organized manner are not valuable. Every little bit helps, in t=
he current absence of a delivered off-the-shelf comprehensive product. =20
But if you've ever watched a comprehensive product run, partnered with a sys=
tems deploy tool with all the business logic on physical anti-affinity for p=
ower, rack, network layers, ... Provisioning a 1000+ node, 60+ server types=
app environment into a data center with one command line, selected, booted,=
network side VLANs allocated and configured, apps installed, apps configure=
d, and ready for traffic...
The data to be able to pull that off can be gathered and can be managed and u=
sed effectively. That's the power of a real, comprehensive CMDB.
George William Herbert
Sent from my iPhone=
