[Infrastructures] using IA methodologies to build network element configuration

[Heilke, Rainer]

I'm just going to jump in with a quick comment...

> The ironic part is that it is often the "stuff that is meant 
> to be the 
> same on every device" type of configuration that diverges!  And that 
> causes the most grief (since hey, it's meant to be the same, 
> 'we needn't 
> automate that').

And that's exactly why it SHOULD and CAN be automated ("can" for people
of even limited skills). If it should be the same, why NOT automate it?

I know someone who is very emphatic about having similar disk partitions
for all systems (wandering away from networks for a moment), so, for
example, all root partitions should be "4GB". Well, he makes that
4000MB, another makes it 4096MB (4 x 1024), and another actually
(sometimes) does the 2^x calculation. If installs were automated
(JumpStart, et al) he would actually get what he wants, but he's someone
who also thinks setting up JumpStart or the like is a waste of time,
"because the OS installs so quickly, it wouldn't really save me any
time". So, I suspect everyone on his team does their own thing. I know
of other teams that are exactly the same way.

Rainer