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Managing Router and Switch Inventories?
JabbaTheFart asks: "How does the Slashdot community deal with network equipment inventories. After searching Slashdot and seeing this post, I found a few good projects that work with computers (such as IRM, Request Tracker) but they don't cope with the specifics that you would need to work with routers and switches like: port info, firmware versions, currently running config, and so forth. I have looked into network monitoring projects like NMIS, Orion, and others but I would still need regular management information like serial numbers, contract status, price, etc. A simple database could work, but it would be nice to have web access. What do you use to keep track of all that network equipment that you are in charge of?"
Altiris' Network Management Solution is supposed to do all that and more. Go to www.altiris.com and you can get a 30 day eval of the product Suites - requires a machine with 1gb or more of memory and SQL server as a back end.
Best of Luck.
Altiris is a major POS
Look sally! Look at zonk die; die zonk die!
I would bet money that the "big players" all have their own management/tracking/response software.
That being said, our workplace uses Epicenter - Extreme Networks' monitoring software. It does all that you've asked for. As well, we also use SNMP and a common event logger - so that any errors and configurations automagically show up in our centralized network control.
Seriously, if you have a big enough shop, you should probably be centered around one vendor for a solution for switches, and there should be management tools for those. Of course, this tends to work not-so-well for those who have linksys switches all over the place... but then again, you wouldn't need firmware revs etc for dumb switches.....
Karnal
Ruby on Rails for quick web interface to a simple database. Unless you don't know Ruby, in which case it's not so quick.
"they don't cope with the specifics that you would need to work with routers and switches like: port info, firmware versions, currently running config, and so forth"
Too true. If only there were some sort of file type that could handle arbitrary ASCII data. Then I could store any information that I wanted by just typing it on a keyboard! Of course, there would have to be utilities for searching based on arbitrary text or wildcard text entries. An even more ambitious person might want a file type that could arrange this data into columns and rows that could be easily sorted on their contents. As you can see, this would quickly break down into a monstrously difficult undertaking.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
You should check out RTx::AssetTracker, an asset management extension to RT. Like RT, you can easily create custom fields to hold your router configs, firmware versions, etc.
Demo here.
To correct the submitter, RT is more like a Helpdesk Ticketing system. Users open tickets, you fix the problem, then close the ticket.
...
It's not an Inventory Tracking system at all
samag has an article in sept 2004's issue called "System Inventory Using LDAP". their goal isn't quite the same as yours (they are mostly after installed software), but the principles apply in nearly the same way. try to find a copy and give it a read. it doesn't look like it's available online though =(
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Sounds like you're looking for a single solution to the problem. That might be a lost cause, but that being said, there are tons of things you can use. We use a few tools, Nagios pulls or configs and stuff. Alot of the tools out there are highly configurable and you can expand on them. If you're using Cisco Systems routers and switches, you can pretty much pull the serial numbers, and IOS revs from the devices with SNMP gets, I say most, since alot of the older ones do not give up their serial info via SNMP. One thing we do, is add info to the SNMP variables that makes it easier to pull data from them. Like this; snmp-server chassis-id (XXXXXXX/XXXXXX/.../XXXXXX/XXXXXX) snmp-server location (location) snmp-server contact (POC) The example above is from a c3750-48TS-S switch. These switches are stackable via the stackwise cable, which when stacked they act like one single multi slotted switch. Since you can pull the IOS rev and Serial number natively, we add the "snmp-server chassis-id xxxxxx/xxxxxx/xxxxxx to the system. The xxxxxx are replaced by the asset tag barcodes and are in order that relates to the position of the switch in the stack. you could add other info to this as needed. With the proper programming know-how, you can expand this, and also use various other methods, such as telnetting via script pulling info, SNMP configuraion downloads, etc..
DISCLAIMER: Yes, it's a plug, but it seems like it's worthwhile given the lack of useful tools listed in this thread.
/like/ it to be, but it's much better than what they had previously (spreadsheets, which proved to be entirely unscalable). It allows for asset types to be defined, which have specific criteria associated with them (various field types available). It also supports ticketing, with tickets assigned to assets. It was built with both ticketing and asset tracking in mind (tickets will have different fields based on the asset type, as well...this makes it easy to get those helldeskers to ask appropriate questions).
I'm one of the programmers at http://www.inline.com/, and we developed an application called InTrac that we sell that does basically this. It's not as full-featured as our internet department (the router dealers-with) would
One big benefit I find when using InTrac (because it's used for all kinds of assets, not just routers - web sites, web hosting, SQL database information, etc.) is that I can oftentimes solve a problem quickly just by looking through the ticket history for the asset. It's obvious, and any ticketing system will allow you to do this, but we had HEAT previously, and that's why we built InTrac (that and a need for centralized asset management...but if HEAT's ticketing had worked as well as it should have, we wouldn't have developed the software most likely)...
Anyway, if anyone's interested in more information they can either contact myself or use the contact information listed on the website.
-knewter
If you are relatively homogenious - you can use the manufacturers management utilities that will do this. I haven't run across a manufacturer of decent manageable hardware that doesn't ship a management utility that does everything that you want.
If you are in a more hetrogenious environment (or want a better interface) the standards are of course OpenView and Netview (HP, or IBM/Tivolit) that are your standard network management tools.
Don't expect to see them as projects on SourceForge though. There is a little too much value to give away.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
We're using a Wiki for this sort of thing. In particular, we are using TWiki. I'm sure other wiki's have the features we are using.
We have a template for adding new hosts and we use the %SEARCH{}% stuff to generate tables of devices. We even use the %CALENDAR{}% plugin to map out when events happen.
-- DrZaius - Minister of Sciences and Protector of the Faith
I'm on a neverending quest for basically the same thing. Every piece of asset tracking software I've tried either has extra bells and whistles like a ticketing system or other nonsense included, or is far too focused on software or Windows to be useful to me. Ideally, I'd love to find an open-source, web-based asset tracking system that allows for custom fields, hyperlinks, and user/group permissions to allow different levels of access to different assets/groups of assets. No ticketing, no monitoring, no nonsense. Too many tools try to become monolithic pieces of software that do everything for an enterprise, with the end result being that they do none of the tasks well.
- Discover just the machines "interesting" to you,
via something like ping or snmp queries initially, then discard those which do not meet your standard of intrestingness, such as those which aren't talking on a port of interest. Order N.
- Then build a topology with a gui that allows a human to organize the machines into a visual layout that is of use to them. The old TKINED is a simple example. Order 1.
- Finally, inventory the interesting machines, optionally by running the various vendors' tools against them, and capture the information into
something that can be used with the topology tool. Order N)
You now have a diagram for humans to lok at and a table for programs to grep through. Hopefully connected together in some loose way.--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Intermapper at www.intermapper.com
Sorry, but you are wrong. See the previous comment.
...a simple database with an in-house PHP web front-end. *grin*
"How does the Slashdot community deal with network equipment inventories"
Excel sheets!
If thats not enough Access.
If thats not enough use something like mysql in the backend. I doubt you'd hit that limit with the number of routers and switches.
Ask Slashdot: How does the slashdot crowd sell hairtonic, to Bald Eagles, in Nebraska?
Dude, research a LITTLE.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
http://ftp.shrubbery.net/rancid
Will store your configs including SW versions in a CVS tree. You could easily parse this stuff and dump it into a DB.
Unless you're dealing with thousands of routers/switches, a simple spreadsheet ought to suffice.
MRO's Maximo product does a good job at managing just about any physical plant activity.
http://netdisco.org/ Does network discovery and layer 2 topology.
We use Voyence for configuration management of almost 2000 Cisco devices. It gets the job done, does diffing of configurations for easy to see changes, scheduled jobs, things like that. As an alternative, you can probably roll your own around something like CVS.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
http://www.kiwisyslog.com/cattools2.htm
check out: http://netdisco.org/
It also draws a layer 2 map and records device IP, MAC, and switch port locations which can be very handy.
If you're loaded, the above mentioned products START in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
Expensive, yes... but so worth it
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
samag has an article in sept 2004's issue called "System Inventory Using LDAP".
Many, many moons ago, Cisco supported Novell Directory Services:
I don't know what became of that project [Cisco subsequently got in bed with Microsoft & Active Directory], but if Cisco were still supporting Novell, then maybe you could tie it all into Zenworks' inventory management system [which can publish to Crystal Reports].This seems like something that ought to have been done by a commercial entity, but whether it has, I know not. And if it hasn't, then it would certainly be a nice opportunity for a startup.
Have you tried Centrata? http://www.centrata.com/ They've got a full-featured asset management database that automatically integrates with trouble ticketing and workflow systems. Might be a more complete solution than what you're looking for, but they're pretty flexible and may be willing to piecemeal the implementation.
Ever heard of databases? They are able to store various information in an highly-configurable way.