Configuration Management

Configuration management provides several of the most powerful and interactive features in the NetMRI software, including the ability to view, compare, and edit configurations for all devices in the network. You can also automate repetitive processes across any number of devices, correct discovered issues, and create Policies to verify network configurations. If you are used to having dozens of Telnet or SSH windows open on a desktop to inspect devices' configuration files, with no ability to compare or search, this feature set was made for you.

In NetMRI, this feature set is termed as Configuration Management.

Configuration Management features also allow viewing and editing of configuration files for any virtual device contexts detected and managed by NetMRI.

Config Management provides the following features:

• Config Archive: This tab provides tools to browse, view, compare, and edit device configuration files across all devices and virtual devices in the managed network.
• Config Search: This tab allows you to search for specific configuration strings or expressions across any and all configuration files for any device in the managed network. For more information, see Using Searches in Config Management.
• Job Management: This tab allows you to create, schedule, approve, and run Job Management scripts, and define custom issues. Job Management is used by NetMRI to automate common network administration tasks. For more information, see Job Management and Automation Change Manager.
• Policy Design Center: This tab allows you to create rules and policies, and deploy policies on the network. NetMRI supports Policy Design and Policy Management. Rules are the building blocks that form a Policy. For more information, see Policy Design Center.

Elements of configuration management apply across numerous parts of NetMRI, including the Device Viewer, which provides its Configuration Management section for viewing and editing specific config files and viewing their history, and the Settings window, which provides a set of global settings for configuration management.

NetMRI also filters 'collection noise,' by removing artifacts from the configuration collection process, filtering elements such as command prompts, line breaks and page breaks, and extraneous header/footer information during configuration data collection. This process occurs automatically without user intervention.

You can also filter and ignore configuration changes executed by automated systems, or changes executed through a NetMRI Automated Change Management (ACM) process, using a designated login, which the admin may wish NetMRI to ignore while the job executes. For more information, see Filtering Change Notifications from User Accounts.