[geeks] documenting the environment

[Alex Feinberg]

At $previous_employer we've used a SQL database, which for every
machine name catalogued:

    - Physical location in the datacenter
    - Switch, switch port
    - The cyclade, the port on the cyclade
    - The mac address of the hardware ethernet device
    - The model name/mfg
    - The actual tag of the machine

Model names were standardized and documented on a Wiki. The
information could then by queried through a SOAP or REST API (and
with a web interface) or through a command line and we used that to
generate DHCP/other configuration.

    Excel spreadsheets could easily be inserted into the database
and the database could easily be exported to excel or CSV

    DNS was sort of the key component: the names in the database had
to be kept in sync with the names in DNS (else DHCP configuration
would fail).

    The failure points of this would be: machine is moved without
updating the database, machine is mislabeled, someone fat fingers a
mass query on the database and the information would have to be
manually scraped by the datacenter techs using a crash craft.

    One thing to be kept in mind is that the core comptency of the
said employer were web applications, so creating this in-house was
fairly trivial as a spare-time project. I am sure there are many
vendors selling "enterprisey" software like this (likely some
horrible monstrosities in Java or .NET with a $1-mill/yr mandatory
support/maintenance contract).

    Hope this helps,

    - Alex

On Friday, 30 May 2008 at 11:30:57 +0200, Frank Van Damme wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> many of you are probably familiar with the topic of documentation. I
> mean the process of documenting a network of IT environment, including
> servers, routers/switches/firewalls, physical and virtual hardware, ip
> addresses and ranges being used, ports occupied on network hardware,
> SAN, physical locations etc.
> 
> There must be a dozen ways to do this, but I was wondering how people
> cope with this problem in real life , and if some methods turn out to
> work better than others. I am also dreaming of a method allowing me to
> track changes to the documentation as the environment changes/expands.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Frank Van Damme A: Because it destroys the flow of the conversation
>  Q: Why is it bad?
>  A: No, it's bad.
>  Q: Should I top post in replies to mails or on usenet?
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