Johan Bevemyr, Tail-f Director and Co-founder, describes why the CLI is a critical component to management systems.
ConfD is a powerful solution for building on-device management systems for all kinds of networking equipment. Tail-f Systems customers can choose among different modules of ConfD depending on their requirements and use ConfD either to extend an existing management system or to implement a new one.
ConfD enables developers to build carrier-grade applications in less time and with less risk and is the only product that renders all critical northbound interfaces (NETCONF, CLI, SNMP and Web UI) from a single data model. Designed with a robust infrastructure, ConfD includes transaction management, high availability, security, and role-based access control.
Sebastian Strollo, Senior Developer, explains why Tail-f developed a purpose-built database for configuration management.
Complete On-Device Management Solution
SNMP, Cisco (IOSXR and IOS) and Juniper-style CLI, NETCONF, and Web interfaces
Integrated database for configuration and operational data
Fully meets carrier and enterprise class requirements
Faster Development Time
Auto-render management interfaces from single data model
All management interfaces share one set of common instrumentation functions avoiding maintenance overhead associated with stovepipe architectures
Extensive schema validation
Modular architecture with well-defined APIs between all components
Reduced Risk
Mature software that is proven from development through deployment
Integrated database
TailPack libraries of source code pre-integrating protocols, middleware, and operating systems
Experience support team and professional services available to balance resources
Support for Key Industry Standards
Full NETCONF support (RFCs 4741, 4742, and 5277) including support for transactions, validations, confirmed commits, rollbacks, event notifications, partial locking, and XPath filtering
Support for YANG data modeling language
SNMP Agent support for v1, v2c, and v3 including USM and VACM
Transaction Management
Two-phase commit transaction protocol
Session management
Rollback management
Data validation
High Availability
1:N data replication
Ability to perform in-service data model upgrades without restarting the ConfD application
Powerful Administration
Auditing and event logging
Role-based access control
Authentication over RADIUS and LDAP
Single system view through centralized console
Scalable Performance
Support for symmetric multicore processing enabling ConfD to distribute processing loads over multiple cores to maximize performance
Configuration database optimized to allow very efficient operations on binary encoded XML data structures
Flexible and Extensible
Management API allows development of additional interfaces
The Database API provides support for external data stores
CLI with rich features for extensions and customization
The Database API provides support for external data stores
Web UI customizable with CSS and XHTML templates
ConfD implemented as a lean daemon with few library dependencies and efficient use of RAM, and disk footprint
ConfD Core Engine
The ConfD Core Engine is a shared backplane that connects configuration and operational data on the device to all management interfaces through a transaction-oriented API.
ConfD CLI
A fully functional CLI is automatically rendered from the data model used to describe configuration data.
ConfD NETCONF
ConfD NETCONF implements the NETCONF RFC 4741 and 4742.
ConfD Web UI
The ConfD Web UI enables very rapid development of modern, dynamic, and graphical network management applications.
ConfD SNMP
ConfD SNMP Agent is a fully featured SNMP agent providing a northbound SNMP v1, v2, and v3 interface.
ConfD User Guide
Comprehensive technical manual (800+ pages) covering all ConfD modules and guide to using ConfD to develop on-device management applications. Available upon request.
