Tail-f Systems, the leading developer of on-device configuration management for networking equipment and software providers, today announced its ConfD product will support the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) draft standard YANG data modeling language.

The IETF is a large, open international community of network designers, operators, vendors and researchers focused on the evolution and smooth operation of the Internet architecture. The IETF has developed a base protocol for configuration management, but the protocol does not include a modeling language or accompanying rules to model the management information. To solve this problem, the NETCONF Data Modeling Language (NETMOD) working group has worked towards a human-friendly modeling language. This language, called YANG, will be used to define the semantics of operational data, configuration data, notifications and operations with focus on readability and ease of use.

“With YANG as a modeling language, device vendors and network management system designers now speak a common language,” said Håkan Millroth, CEO Tail-f Systems. “Before the introduction of NETCONF in the managed devices, vendors defined the capabilities of their devices largely through a set of command-line interface (CLI) commands with an accompanying user guide. YANG models give the vendors the means to communicate a precise data model of the device to network management system designers. The YANG model works as formal glue between the team that designs the device and the network management design team.”

Tail-f’s recently released ConfD 2.8 provides support for the YANG language and is currently in use with several customers.

About Tail-f Systems
Tail-f Systems is the leading developer of on-device configuration management software for network equipment vendors. Customers using Tail-f’s technology radically reduce their time-to-market and benefit from carrier-grade implementations of NETCONF, CLI, Web, and SNMP interfaces. Tail-f is a venture-funded company headquartered in Stockholm. For more information see www.tail-f.com.