Kiwi CatTools 2.2 Enterprise. Kiwi Enterprises. www.kiwisyslog.com
Network configuration management has always been a great concept. IT operations suck up between 50 percent and 80 percent of the IT budget, according to Gartner. So managing changes that affect topology and transaction flow is key to reducing complexity and cost. But in the real world, it's been a challenge to control even tested and tracked changes that went through production channels. Forget managing one-off tweaks or keeping track of security-device reports.
Time to lose the negativity. Vendors have mastered the basics, such as tracking and limiting change, providing access to those who need it when they need it, and automating repetitive tasks, such as changing passwords and ACLs (access-control lists), and are adding slick features, like reporting on the compliance aspects of network configuration and managing more than just switches--wireless devices, firewalls, load balancers, even VPN gateways, are fair game.
We tested AlterPoint's DeviceAuthority, Kiwi Enterprises' Kiwi CatTools and Opsware's Network Automation System in our Syracuse University Real-World Labs. Kiwi's affordable CatTools is easy to use but lagged behind its rivals in more advanced functions like policy management. DeviceAuthority let us manage policies and more, but Opsware's NA System took our Editor's Choice; we liked its comprehensive feature set and its raft of unique features, including compliance reporting.
We set up the products under test in our Syracuse University Real-World Labs® and managed about 100 device configurations from both the Syracuse lab and our Green Bay, Wis., business-applications lab. This gave us a healthy mix of Cisco Systems, Extreme Networks, Hewlett-Packard and Nortel Networks devices to target as we backed up, changed and updated configurations and software across these devices.
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