Itential ‘modernises’ legacy network configuration management with low-code automation platform

Itential, a specialist in intelligent network automation, has updated its low-code network automation platform. This is said to modernise the legacy Network Configuration and Change Management (NCCM) market by simplifying and automating the management of network device configurations and compliance remediation.

Version 2019.1 of its software further accelerates the adoption of network automation and empowers Network Engineering and IT operations teams across the enterprise with an easy to use drag-and-drop environment for creating end-to-end automation workflows for operations, configuration and service orchestration management.

Traditional options for managing the configuration and change of networks remains highly manual and CLI driven, forcing network engineers to sift through thousands of config files to find the right version to make a change to the network. With such a high degree of manual involvement, human errors account for over 35% of network outages. Studies also show that the cost of unplanned network downtime averages several hundred thousand dollars per hour, leading to a massive loss in revenue, productivity and reputation.

“Today’s enterprise and service providers are challenged with increased network configuration changes and patch updates due to complex network environments, ongoing compliance requirements, and pressure from cloud-based services that are dependent on an agile network to deliver services,” said Mike Fratto, senior analyst at 451 Research. “Current tools only proliferate manually driven processes and are unable to keep pace which is why automation solutions like Itential are critical for today’s modern networks.”

Itential 2019.1 helps organisations replace manual tasks with automated processes and eliminates the current challenges associated with network configuration management. With the addition of several new advanced capabilities to its network automation platform, Itential simplifies device configuration and management for multi-domain environments.

From Branch Site Turn-Up, CPE and Device Turn-Up, Firewall IP Route Automation, Software Upgrade and Device Migration, Itential’s Configuration Manager provides comprehensive functionality that enables organisations to deliver services faster, dynamically respond to changing network conditions and gain process and configuration agility.

The Itential Configuration Manager provides users with the ability to:

• Define & manage golden configuration – Mitigate config drift by defining the base “Golden Configuration” of devices deployed in your network. With a tree-based, parent-child configuration inheritance structure, device configuration management is centralised across your entire network, eliminating errors when managing multiple base templates at the domain/controller level for different device classes.
• Zero-touch, score-based remediation of configuration drift – Monitor the compliance score and configuration drift errors/warnings for each device in your network. Easily schedule Zero Touch, Score-based Remediation automation through a workflow, which is executed only when certain compliance criteria are met.
• Flexible & streamlined device management capabilities – Reduce device management complexity in multi domain environments as well as human errors associated with managing device configurations with scripting tools. View and modify devices in deployments across your organisation, manage groups of devices, backup devices, and compare backup configurations of devices in multiple combinations.
• Robust device compliance analytics – Gain complete insight into the compliance level of all your devices on the network and identify the top issues to remediate at the tree and node level with Itential’s consolidated dashboard. Individual device analytics enable you to quickly remediate compliance issues.
• Simplify device compliance audits – Simplify device compliance auditing by evaluating the current and historical compliance score and configuration drift details for each device. Users are able to remediate issues rapidly, effectively eliminating side-by-side device configuration comparisons via excel or text files.

Additionally, Itential 2019.1 includes new platform features that improve overall usability and extend DevOps principles to NetOps groups with the addition of Automation Catalog, Global Search and Tags and Single Sign On (SSO) through OpenIDConnect.

Itential’s Automation Catalog enables organisations to expose network automations to more departments by allowing them to execute specific tasks. Users are provided with a self-service catalog for creating, viewing and executing automations as well as the ability to manually start or schedule single or recurring automations.

“Network automation is a strategic priority for enterprises and service providers, but the existing disparate silos of network configuration and change management point solutions are unable to scale in order to meet the needs of modern infrastructure,” said Chris Wade, CTO, Itential.

“Itential 2019.1 eases the migration from NCCM to orchestration by providing integrated change management, configuration and remediation capabilities that eliminate these domain specific automation silos and provides end-to-end network automation.”

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