VENDOR-INDEPENDENT NETWORK CONFIGURATION TOOL

• US 20090216867A1
• Filed: 02/04/2009
• Published: 08/27/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/15/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: J & A Shoe Co
• Original Assignee: J & A Shoe Co
• Inventors: Pusateri, Thomas J., Hubbard, Charles Keith
• Granted Patent: US 7,870,238 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/222
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/022 Multivendor or multi-standard integration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/085 Retrieval of network configuration; Tracking network configuration history
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0856 by backing up or archiving configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management

Abstract

Techniques are described for managing and configuring network devices from a plurality of vendors with a single network configuration tool. This vendor-independent network configuration tool may extract configuration information stored to devices from disparate vendors, and parse tags from extracted configuration information. Each tag defines a configuration property. The tool may further analyze the tags to determine relationships and present configuration information based primarily on the determined relationship and only secondarily on the devices. The tool may also perform analysis on the tags to detect one or more errors or configuration inconsistencies, as well as, update or change tags, which causes the tool to push any changes to the appropriate device. Furthermore, the tool by automatically share information related to the above described steps with other vendor-independent network configuration tools to more quickly propagate efficient extraction and updating techniques.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

connecting, with a computing device that executes a network configuration tool, to a first network device from a first vendor, wherein the first network device stores a first set of configuration information;

adaptively extracting, with the network configuration tool, the first set of configuration information stored to the first network device by issuing vendor-specific commands to and receiving, in response to the commands, the first set of configuration information from a first management software interface presented by the first network device;

parsing, with the network configuration tool, from the first set of configuration information a first tag, wherein the first tag_defines a configuration property for the first network device;

connecting, with the computing device, to a second network device from a second vendor, wherein the second network device stores a second set of configuration information;

adaptively extracting, with the network configuration tool, the second set of configuration information stored to the second network device by issuing commands to and receiving, in response to the commands, the second set of configuration information from a second management software interface presented by the second network device;

parsing, with the network configuration tool, from the second set of configuration information a second tag, wherein the second tag_defines a configuration property for the second network device;

determining, with the network device, a relationship between the first and second tags; and

presenting, with the network device, aggregate configuration information in a manner that organizes a least a portion of the first and second sets of configuration information based primarily on the determined relationships between the first and second tags and secondarily on the network devices from which the first and second sets of configuration information was received.

2. The method of claim 1,

wherein determining the relationship between the first and second tags comprises:

the network configuration tool determining whether the first tag and the second tag are of a same kind of tag; and

when the first and second tags are of the same kind of tag, the network configuration tool determining that the first tag and second tag each define similar configuration properties that are comparable, and

wherein presenting the aggregate configuration information comprise, when the first and second tags are of the same kind of tag, organizing the first and second tags based primarily on the kind and secondarily on the network devices from which the first and second sets of configuration information were received.

3. The method of claim 1,

wherein connecting to the first network device comprises connecting to the first network device in accordance with one of a hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP), a secure shell (SSH) protocol, a extensible markup language (XML) based network management (XNM) protocol, a simple network management protocol (SNMP), and a telecommunication network (TELNET) protocol,

wherein adaptively extracting the first set of configuration information comprises receiving the first set of configuration information as text-based configuration information via the connection to the first network device,

wherein connecting to the second network device comprises connecting to the second network device in accordance with one of the hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP), the secure shell (SSH) protocol, a extensible markup language (XML) based network management (XNM) protocol, a simple network management protocol (SNMP), and the telecommunication network (TELNET) protocol, and

wherein adaptively extracting the second set of configuration information comprises receiving the first set of configuration information as text-based configuration information via the connection to the first network device.

4. The method of claim 1,

wherein adaptively extracting the first set of configuration information includes:

retrieving a first command from a memory of the network configuration tool in response to a user selecting to connect to the first network device;

issuing the first command with the network configuration tool to the management software interface presented by the first network device;

in response to the first command, receiving with the network configuration tool a first portion of the first set of configuration information;

parsing, with the network configuration tool, from the first portion the first tag; and

based on the first tag, retrieving a second command from the memory of the network configuration tool,

issuing the second command to the management software interface presented by the first network device; and

in response to the second command, receiving with the network configuration tool a second portion of the first set of configuration information, and

wherein adaptively extracting the second set of configuration information includes;

retrieving a third command from the memory in response to the user selecting to connect to the second network device;

issuing the third command to the management software interface presented by the second network device;

in response to the third command, receiving with the network configuration tool a third portion of the second set of configuration information;

parsing, with the network configuration tool, from the third portion the second tag; and

based on the second tag, retrieving a fourth command from the memory,

issuing the fourth command to the management software interface presented by the second network device; and

in response to the fourth command, receiving with the network configuration tool a fourth portion of the first set of configuration information.

5. The method of claim 1,

wherein parsing the first tag comprises executing with the network configuration tool a first tagger that parses the first tag from at least a portion of the adaptively extracted first set of configuration information,

wherein parsing the second tag comprises executing with the network configuration tool a second tagger that parses the second tag from at least a portion of the adaptively extracted second set of configuration information,

wherein the first and second taggers comprise respective first and second independent software modules defined in accordance with a programming language, and

wherein executing the first and second taggers includes providing within the network configuration tool an execution environment in which the first and second independent software modules execute to parse the respective first and second tags form the first and second sets of configuration information.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

maintaining with the network configuration tool a hierarchical directory structure to store a plurality of taggers in an increasing device-specificity from higher to lower levels of the hierarchy, wherein each directory of the hierarchical directory structure stores one or more commands for interfacing with either of the first and second management software interfaces;

receiving from either a user or another network configuration tool the first tagger;

storing the first tagger to the hierarchical directory structure to associate the first tag with one of the commands such that the first tagger is stored to one of the directories that includes one of the commands to extract from the first management software interface the portion of the first set of configuration information for which the first tagger is executed to parse the first tag;

receiving, upon establishing the connection with the first device, identifying information from the first network device that identifies a type of the first network device and a type of the management software interface presented by the first network device; and

determining, based on the identifying information, whether to execute the first or the second tagger to parse the first tag from the first set of configuration information.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second tags each further define a name of the respective first and second tag, a kind that identifies a category of similar tags, a context that identifies other tags from which each of the first and second tags depend, and a reference that identifies a file to which each of the respective first and second sets of configuration information are stored.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second tags are stored to respective first and second archives files stored in the memory, the method further comprising:

storing the first and second sets of configuration information as raw data files to the respective first and second archive files; and

storing meta data associated with the extraction of the first and second sets of configuration information to the respective first and second archive files, wherein the meta data includes one or more of a timestamp, a log message, a package name, a package timestamp, a snapshot identifier, and a user.

9. The method of claim 1,

wherein the first and second network devices each comprise one of a router, a wireless access point, a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, a Domain Name System (DNS) server, a Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM), a border gateway controller, a gateway, and an application layer gateway, and

wherein the memory comprises a database,

wherein storing the first and second tags comprises storing the first and second tags in accordance with a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file format, and

wherein parsing the first and second tags includes parsing each of the first and second tags by utilizing one or more of an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) Path (XPath) language, a regular expression, and tokens and pattern matching.

10. A computing device comprising:

a control unit that includes a network configuration tool to manage a plurality of network devices from different vendors, the network configuration tool comprising;

a management interface module that connects to first and second network devices of the plurality of network devices, wherein the first network device is from a first vendor and stores a first set of configuration information, and the second network device is from a second vendor and stores a second set of configuration information;

an extraction module that adaptively extracts the first and second sets of configuration information stored to the respective first and second network devices, interfaces with first and second management software interfaces presented by the first and second network devices, parses from the first and second sets of configuration information respective first and second tags, and stores the stores the first and second tags to a database, wherein the first tag defines a configuration property for the first network device and the second tag defines a configuration property for the second network device;

a graph module that determines a relationship between the first and second tags; and

a user interface module that presents aggregate configuration information in a manner that organizes a least a portion of the first and second sets of configuration information based primarily on the determined relationships between the first and second tags and secondarily on the network devices from which the first and second sets of configuration information was received.

11. The computing device of claim 10,

wherein the graph module further determines whether the first tag and the second tag are of a same kind of tag, and when the first and second tags are of the same kind of tag, determines that the first tag and second tag each define similar configuration properties that are comparable, and

wherein the user interface module further organizes, when the first and second tags are of the same kind of tag, the first and second tags based primarily on the kind and secondarily on the network devices from which the first and second sets of configuration information were received.

12. The computing device of claim 10,

wherein the management interface module further connects to the first and second network devices each in accordance with one of a hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP), a secure shell (SSH) protocol, a extensible markup language (XML) based network management (XNM) protocol, a simple network management protocol (SNMP), and a telecommunication network (TELNET) protocol, and

wherein the extraction module further receives the first set, the second set, or both the first and second sets of configuration information as text-based configuration information via the connections to the first and second network devices.

13. The computing device of claim 10,

wherein the extraction module further:

retrieves a first command from a memory of the network configuration tool in response to a user selecting to connect to the first network device;

issues the first command with the network configuration tool to the management software interface presented by the first network device;

in response to the first command, receives a first portion of the first set of configuration information;

parses from the first portion the first tag; and

based on the first tag, retrieves a second command from the memory of the network configuration tool,

issues the second command to the management software interface presented by the first network device; and

in response to the second command, receives a second portion of the first set of configuration information, and

wherein the extraction module also;

retrieves a third command from the memory in response to the user selecting to connect to the second network device;

issues the third command to the management software interface presented by the second network device;

in response to the third command, receives a third portion of the second set of configuration information;

parses from the third portion the second tag; and

based on the second tag, retrieves a fourth command from the memory, issues the fourth command to the management software interface presented by the second network device; and

in response to the fourth command, receives a fourth portion of the first set of configuration information.

14. The computing device of claim 10,

wherein the extraction module further executes a first tagger that parses the first tag from at least a portion of the adaptively extracted first set of configuration information tag, and

wherein the extraction module also executes a second tagger that parses the second tag from at least a portion of the adaptively extracted second set of configuration information.

15. The computing device of claim 14,

wherein the first and second taggers comprise respective first and second independent software modules defined in accordance with a programming language, and

wherein the extraction module further provides an execution environment in which the first and second independent software modules execute to parse the respective first and second tags form the first and second sets of configuration information,

wherein the extraction module maintains a hierarchical directory structure to store a plurality of taggers in an increasing device-specificity from higher to lower levels of the hierarchy, wherein each directory of the hierarchical directory structure stores one or more commands for interfacing with either of the first and second management software interfaces, and

wherein the extraction module further receives from either a user or another network configuration tool the first tagger and stores the first tagger to the hierarchical directory structure to associates the first tag with one of the commands such that the first tagger is stored to one of the directories that includes one of the commands to extract from the first management software interface the portion of the first set of configuration information for which the first tagger is executed to parse the first tag.

16. The computing device of claim 14, further comprising:

wherein the management interface module receives, upon establishing the connection with the first device, identifying information from the first network device that identifies a type of the first network device and a type of the management software interface presented by the first network device, and

wherein the extraction module determines, based on the identifying information, whether to execute the first or the second tagger to parse the first tag from the first set of configuration information.

17. The computing device of claim 10,

wherein the first and second tags each define a name of the respective first and second tag, a kind that identifies a category of similar tags, a context that identifies other tags from which each of the first and second tags depend, and a reference that identifies a file to which each of the respective first and second sets of configuration information are stored, and

wherein the extraction module stores the first and second tags to respective first and second archives files stored in the memory, the first and second sets of configuration information as raw data files to the respective first and second archive files, and meta data associated with the extraction of the first and second sets of configuration information to the respective first and second archive files, wherein the meta data includes one or more of a timestamp, a log message, a package name, a package timestamp, a snapshot identifier, and a user.

18. The computing device of claim 10,

wherein the plurality of network devices each comprise one of a router, a wireless access point, a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, a Domain Name System (DNS) server, a Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM), a border gateway controller, a gateway, and an application layer gateway,

wherein the memory comprises a database, and

wherein the extraction module stores the first and second tags in accordance with a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file format.

19. The computing device of claim 10, wherein the extraction module, to parse each of the first and second tags, utilizes one or more of an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) Path (XPath) language, regular expressions, and tokens and pattern matching.

20. A computer-readable medium comprising instructions for causing a programmable processor to:

connect, with a computing device that includes a network configuration tool, to a first network device from a first vendor, wherein the first network device stores a first set of configuration information;

adaptively extract, with the network configuration tool, the first set of configuration information stored to the first network device by interfacing with a first management software interface presented by the first network device;

parse, with the network configuration tool, from the first set of configuration information a first tag;

connect, with the computing device, to a second network device from a second vendor, wherein the second network device stores a second set of configuration information;

adaptively extract, with the network configuration tool, the second set of configuration information stored to the second network device by interfacing with a second management software interface presented by the second network device;

parse, with the network configuration tool, from the second set of configuration information a second tag;

determine, with the network device, a relationship between the first and second tags; and

present, with the network device, aggregate configuration information in a manner that organizes a least a portion of the first and second sets of configuration information based primarily on the determined relationships between the first and second tags and secondarily on the network devices from which the first and second sets of configuration information was received.