Checking configurations for compliance to policies & standards
Automation of device configuration tasks
Success Stories
"Ability to create & push configurations at will saves us a great deal of time"
- Kevin Spies, LightYear Network Solutions, LLC» Download Free Edition | 30-Day Trial
Device configuration management starts with addition of your devices to the inventory. Enterprises have hundreds of devices and it would be a laborious task to add devices manually one-by-one. DeviceExpert provides discovery option to add SNMP-enabled devices in bulk in a single click. Other devices can be manually added or could be imported in bulk from a flat file.
DeviceExpert establishes communication with the devices via SSH / Telnet / SNMP. The configuration files are transferred from and to DeviceExpert using TFTP. It helps create a device inventory with all device details, hardware properties besides enabling you to view, label, edit and upload device configuration from a single, centralized web GUI. The inventory would be a powerful tool at the hands of the administrator allowing him to gather vital information of the devices being managed. Administrators gain visibility into the network and devices.
The devices in the inventory can be grouped based on any logical criteria - for example 'Cisco Router Group' containing all Cisco routers. Configuration operations such as backing up configuration, uploading configurations to devices and others can be performed on all devices of the group at one go.
In typical IT enterprises with a good number of network devices such as switches, routers and firewalls, IT Managers face three important challenges:
The configurations of devices are very sensitive from the standpoint of security. Any faulty configuration change could lead to network outage. IT Managers have the responsibility to ensure continuous availability of network resources.
With increasing security threats to mission-critical network resources and serious legal consequences of information mis-management, IT managers everywhere are required not just to follow standard practices, internal security policies, stringent Government regulations and industrial guidelines, but also demonstrate that the policies are enforced and network devices remain compliant to the policies defined.
Automation is the buzzword in IT operations nowadays. IT Managers should always be on the look out for automating repetitive and time consuming tasks in order to reduce operations cost and improve productivity.
DeviceExpert precisely helps IT Managers overcome all these challenges with ease. It helps managers prevent unauthorized configuration changes and reduce network outages due to faulty configuration changes. Managers can define compliance policies and DeviceExpert will automatically check configurations for compliance to the policies. It provides compliance reports too. DeviceExpert also helps automate all configuration tasks and helps improve productivity.
Network administrators in enterprises are required to carry out configuration changes to a large number of devices quite frequently. Any faulty configuration change could lead to network outage. As configuration changes have to be made almost continuously, administrators are struggling to keep track of the changes done to the configurations. In the face of network outages, it becomes difficult to troubleshoot.
A good part of the configuration changes are repetitive in nature and consume most of the administrator's time. As a result, administrators are left with little time to concentrate on their main job.
DeviceExpert has been designed keeping in mind the needs of network administrators / network engineers. It helps maintain versions of device configurations and enables viewing, comparing, editing and uploading them from a single, centralized web-interface. Administrators can monitor configuration changes in real-time, get notifications, prevent unauthorized changes and approve genuine changes - all from a central GUI. Besides, they can automate all device configuration & change management tasks.
Network security professionals are responsible for ensuring that their network is perfectly secure. Network devices are the crucial components of the enterprise and any unauthorized configuration change could wreak havoc on the network. Even when genuine configuration changes are done, the security professionals are required to ensure that the changes do not create any impact on the network security.
DeviceExpert helps the network security professionals to take total control of the configuration changes. The role-based access control mechanism restricts permission to upload configuration changes to authorized users only. The real-time change detection & management mechanism helps prevent unauthorized changes. The comprehensive audit trails generated by DeviceExpert provides detailed information on 'who', 'what' and 'when' of configuration changes. Security professionals can define standard practices and policies and enforce administrators to adhere to the guidelines. DeviceExpert automatically checks configurations for compliance to the policies defined and provides compliance reports too.
