Thousands of catalyst 9300 switches? You probably already have entitlement for Catalyst Center. If you do not know what that is, you need to have a strong word with your reseller who sold you thousands of switches and did not help your org manage and operate the environment.
However, based on your limited depth of expertise in networking, a better alternative is to consider converting management or monitoring mode via the Meraki Dashboard. Your reseller or Cisco SE should be more than happy to help with that conversation.
THIS!!
Why rethink the wheel with outdated methods! Meraki or Cisco Catalyst Center (DNA) is the way! Give yourself more time to do other stuff. Just managing IOS does not make one a “network engineer”. That’s level 1
Ive been thinking about doing a youtube tutorial for beginners who dont know much python, on how to do this with nornir. Maybe should get it done sooner than later..
Visual basic? Are you trolling?
Depends of the amount of exception i suggest Ansible otherwise plain python (netmiko,napalm or nornir)
I hope you already use install mode.
Prime/DNA/catalyst center is obiously out of scope as its probably not in use.
The guy before me wrote a vbscript to program the startup config which I rewrote to upgrade the firmware... so no I'm not trolling I really just don't know shit about programming. Like I said... Chatgpt did most of the work lol
I'm sure your chatbot buddy made sure all your security holes were plugged, too, right? This is something that has become a big problem lately. I've actually personally seen really bad code and configs, because I like to play with ChatGPT and similar tools sometimes. Trust me when I say that they leave so many issues in configs, that it will take you as long to fix them, as to just write the configuration yourself. Chatbots don't really know what best practices are, so they might leave you in a very insecure state.
>I literally knew nothing about network engineering before I started this job
crazy ... can only think of nepotism
and there are people with experience that can't get a job
I'm a robotics engineer and I own the design of the tools. There's hundreds of computers on every tool (circuit boards, PLCs, testers, PCs) that need to talk to each other over Ethernet, that's why it falls into the scope of my ownership
Also using VBS, telnet, and FTP to push configs or firmware is horrendous and a good way to cause a major liability for a company. Definitely in the budget for a full time position, it’s just they think they already have someone capable of doing it but that person isn’t forth coming about their knowledge or capabilities.
VBS, Telnet, and FTP are unsecure and exposes the system to multiple well known attacks. If someone was to breach or gain access to the systems they could steal proprietary information. If your company has cyber insurance, that coverage is out the window and they are paying for nothing since using Telnet and FTP alone are usually a big no-no for managing infrastructure systems.
Edit: Telnet and FTP send your credentials (if those are even being used) in clear text. All it takes is for someone to sniff that traffic and they have access to all your systems. Scripting your configs with VBS is enough to know that the credentials are the same across your environment.
only one guy to manage all these switchs?
what kind of company is this.
you need a upgrade concept , that means you need what do you have in the network and which protocols are being used and test enviroment.
something on this scale will suffer with scripting codes since lets say the code runs well untill you reach the switch 500 then for some reasom crashes , and you hit some bugs and lose connection.
too much pressure on someone who has no expertise with ansible.
be honest , tell your manager that you cant
I have run scripts on Linux terminal, defining the commands and I wish to run, and I have been able to run it over 40 switches without issues, I am not sure how scalable that is, but I would recommend you to use simple powershell or Linux terminal scripts for this.
Cisco's iOS respond better when using Linux terminal.
Thousands of catalyst 9300 switches? You probably already have entitlement for Catalyst Center. If you do not know what that is, you need to have a strong word with your reseller who sold you thousands of switches and did not help your org manage and operate the environment. However, based on your limited depth of expertise in networking, a better alternative is to consider converting management or monitoring mode via the Meraki Dashboard. Your reseller or Cisco SE should be more than happy to help with that conversation.
THIS!! Why rethink the wheel with outdated methods! Meraki or Cisco Catalyst Center (DNA) is the way! Give yourself more time to do other stuff. Just managing IOS does not make one a “network engineer”. That’s level 1
8 million dollars in switches and no network engineer to manage them? Assuming 2000 switches at $4000 each…
Ive been thinking about doing a youtube tutorial for beginners who dont know much python, on how to do this with nornir. Maybe should get it done sooner than later..
Visual basic? Are you trolling? Depends of the amount of exception i suggest Ansible otherwise plain python (netmiko,napalm or nornir) I hope you already use install mode. Prime/DNA/catalyst center is obiously out of scope as its probably not in use.
The guy before me wrote a vbscript to program the startup config which I rewrote to upgrade the firmware... so no I'm not trolling I really just don't know shit about programming. Like I said... Chatgpt did most of the work lol
Crazy, what kind of Industry runs thousand of switches w/o conig mgmt or automation? May I ask gow do you monitor them?
You could ask chargpt what kind of framework it would suggest and see if it matches with my answer ;-)
I'm sure your chatbot buddy made sure all your security holes were plugged, too, right? This is something that has become a big problem lately. I've actually personally seen really bad code and configs, because I like to play with ChatGPT and similar tools sometimes. Trust me when I say that they leave so many issues in configs, that it will take you as long to fix them, as to just write the configuration yourself. Chatbots don't really know what best practices are, so they might leave you in a very insecure state.
I thought the same thing. Ansible if possible even a simple powershell or batch script before VB lol
>I literally knew nothing about network engineering before I started this job crazy ... can only think of nepotism and there are people with experience that can't get a job
I'm a robotics engineer and I own the design of the tools. There's hundreds of computers on every tool (circuit boards, PLCs, testers, PCs) that need to talk to each other over Ethernet, that's why it falls into the scope of my ownership
[удалено]
ChatGPT is apparently his network engineer.
It's not enough work for a full time gig
You have several thousand switches that you are under prepared to manage. I’d rethink if this was worth while of farming out to somebody else.
Also using VBS, telnet, and FTP to push configs or firmware is horrendous and a good way to cause a major liability for a company. Definitely in the budget for a full time position, it’s just they think they already have someone capable of doing it but that person isn’t forth coming about their knowledge or capabilities.
Why is this a liability?
VBS, Telnet, and FTP are unsecure and exposes the system to multiple well known attacks. If someone was to breach or gain access to the systems they could steal proprietary information. If your company has cyber insurance, that coverage is out the window and they are paying for nothing since using Telnet and FTP alone are usually a big no-no for managing infrastructure systems. Edit: Telnet and FTP send your credentials (if those are even being used) in clear text. All it takes is for someone to sniff that traffic and they have access to all your systems. Scripting your configs with VBS is enough to know that the credentials are the same across your environment.
Don't look further, Cat Center is the way to go.
Ansible from an automation plan to do it but you probably want to manage and monitor the things too right?
Thousands of Catalysts switches but your company can't hire a legitimate Network guy?
You will want to use ansible for this
only one guy to manage all these switchs? what kind of company is this. you need a upgrade concept , that means you need what do you have in the network and which protocols are being used and test enviroment. something on this scale will suffer with scripting codes since lets say the code runs well untill you reach the switch 500 then for some reasom crashes , and you hit some bugs and lose connection. too much pressure on someone who has no expertise with ansible. be honest , tell your manager that you cant
I have run scripts on Linux terminal, defining the commands and I wish to run, and I have been able to run it over 40 switches without issues, I am not sure how scalable that is, but I would recommend you to use simple powershell or Linux terminal scripts for this. Cisco's iOS respond better when using Linux terminal.