[Infrastructures] using IA methodologies to build network element configuration

[Giovanni P. Tirloni]

Heilke, Rainer wrote:
  > 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.

  We're a FreeBSD shop here that used to think like that when we had 
only a few systems. Now that we manage dozens of machines that approach 
doesn't seem to work because no mather how much to do you follow the 
instalation guidelines.. every system gets different. And those small 
details that change here and there cause some stress on the staff (even 
with few machines).

  So we're planning to deploy some kind of automated installs and, where 
possible, re-bootstrap existing systems to have a common ground.

-- 
Giovanni P. Tirloni / gpt@tirloni.org / PGP: 0xD0315C26