As a result, there is a vital need today for automated configuration management software that can support the massive rollout of devices that will be required for the continued expansion of the Internet. Sometimes there is confusion between provisioning software and configuration management software. Configuration management software, on the other hand, ensures that the entire configuration of each device is maintained properly. When used together, the provisioning system will tell the configuration management system to make a small change. The configuration management system will perform the appropriate changes to the total configuration of each affected device, ensuring that it is carried out in a manner that will not disrupt other services and consistently enforcing the change over time.
Configuration management puts authenticaton and control in one administrator's hands.
Configuration management software provides ISPs with centralized, vendor-independent control over all device configurations. This is accomplished through automated policy-based configuration management, in which predefined policies are enforced consistently across all devices, and periodic configuration verification, in which the system checks to make sure that proper configurations are maintained across all devices over time. It also administers security for each device, provides mechanisms to track when changes are made and who made them, and archives device configurations to enable quick recovery of service if a device fails and a new one needs to be installed and reconfigured. One could draw an analogy between how software engineers use source-code control software to manage the development of large software programs, and how ISPs can use configuration management software to manage the various equipment configurations that turn the growing global inventory of IP routers, switches, Web servers, DNS hosts, etc., into the operating Internet. Both software code modules and pieces of network equipment need to share consistent definitions of their interfaces to each other, the functions they can perform and their role with respect to the rest of the network.