Router Configuration Management Software

What is router configuration management software?

Router configuration management software is designed to make managing routers easier, including helping automate the maintenance and deployment of device configurations. Router management software can also help ensure if a problematic configuration change is made, you can more easily revert to the last good configuration to help minimize the impact of the problematic config change.

Router management software can also help you oversee and standardize router configurations to make sure configurations aren’t changed without your knowledge.

How does router configuration management software work?

A router configuration tool is built to help you track and manage router configurations across your network by making it easier to create either individual or bulk changes as needed. The tool can help you implement routine, wide-scale changes across your network with the help of both device-neutral and device-specific configuration tools and change commands. You can even apply the same configuration files to multiple devices at once. Without staying on top of these routine configuration changes, you could be putting your network at both performance and security risk.

By keeping records of old configurations, a router management tool can also help you compare configurations and analyze changes as needed to help with everything from troubleshooting problems to optimizing performance.

The basic goal of a router configuration management solution is to ensure routers on your network can effectively support and communicate with the rest of your network. This involves configuring your routers and standardizing configurations to simplify processes like searching, auditing, and troubleshooting when problems arise.

Why is router configuration management software important?

Router configuration management software can help support everything from the most basic upkeep of your network to maintaining security and troubleshooting problems when they inevitably arise.

When your routers have proper configurations, they can be a versatile and valuable resource offering benefits for your network, including increased security, faster connections, and help with addressing potential vulnerabilities.

One of the main goals of router management of device configurations is improving network performance and reliability while reducing security concerns. Unfortunately, problematic configuration changes are one of the more common reasons for network outages. Whenever you make a change to a router’s configuration, you risk accidentally causing performance degradation, a network outage, or creating a potential security issue. When your router configuration changes are unplanned or unexpected, the risk of these problems occurring is even higher. By automating much of the process, router configuration software helps to mitigate this risk.

With a router configuration tool, you can more easily keep track of configuration changes. This means fewer surprises, security risks, and outages, which means fewer interruptions to your business.

What does router configuration management software do?

In addition to increasing the effectiveness of router management for configs compared to trying to manage configurations for routers manually, router configuration management software can also save network admins time and effort by automating much of the configuration management process and allowing you to make bulk configuration changes. These bulk configuration changes also help reduce the chances of human errors putting your routers, and your network more broadly, at risk.

Router configuration management software also comes with alerting features to help ensure no configuration changes, including accidental and potentially malicious changes, pass under your radar. A router configuration tool can help you detect configuration changes and send you an email alert right away.

Router management software lets you generate configuration and device reports to make it easier to keep track of configuration changes happening in your network. In fact, the best tools offer out-of-the-box reports in both HTML and text file formats, so you can understand and share those reports with anyone who needs them.

How does the router configuration management software work in Kiwi CatTools?

SolarWinds Kiwi CatTools is a network automation tool specifically designed to help network admins manage configurations across their network devices, including switches, firewalls, and routers.

Kiwi CatTools works as an effective router config management software solution designed to help you work more efficiently by scheduling automatic configuration backups across your network devices and by helping you roll out configuration changes to a variety of devices at the same time. Kiwi CatTools is specifically built to simplify everything from configuration change alerting to backup management to network administration.

Some of the specific ways Kiwi CatTools can work as a router configuration management solution include being able to:

• Make Bulk Configuration Changes: Kiwi CatTools lets you make configuration changes across multiple devices at the same time. With the built-in TFTP server you can apply configuration files to various devices at once. This also makes it easy to roll back to a previous configuration if you need to.
• Schedule Automated Backups: Kiwi CatTools customizable configuration backups let you schedule backups for whatever time interval you want, so you always have a record of your last good router configuration.
• Increase Security Through Alerting: Unauthorized configuration changes can be a sign of malicious activity—or they can simply be an accident that creates security vulnerabilities. Whenever Kiwi CatTools detects a configuration change, the software automatically alerts the proper network admins, so they can quickly track these changes.

SolarWinds Kiwi CatTools router management software solution comes with a built-in TFTP server to help with everything from configuration backups to bulk configuration changes. The TFTP server lets you make configuration changes on multiple devices at once and apply configuration files to devices. If you don’t want to make the configuration change right away, you can schedule it for a more convenient time—including after business hours to help ensure employee workdays aren’t interrupted.