BackBox strengthens automation platform with configuration management capabilities

BackBox this week announced it has added network configuration management (NCM) capabilities to its flagship Network Automation Platform that the company says will enable network operations teams to improve security, enhance performance, and resolve incidents faster.

BackBox NCM now incorporates configuration management automation into its NetOps workflows, adds a searchable repository, and integrates with ServiceNow. NCM capabilities can be used by organizations to keep network and security devices running efficiently, and the technology can also help maintain accurate, secure configurations that are compliant with company or other policies.

“BackBox NCM’s no-code automation means that engineers don’t also have to be developers,” said Josh Stephens, CTO emeritus and board advisor at BackBox, in a statement. “The API-first approach means that any automation can be integrated into a NetOps workflow.”

In larger enterprises, configuration drift can occur when events or changes alter configurations. But trying to manually track configurations across myriad devices and store accurate configuration data can be daunting for network operations. If a device configuration changes, it can open an environment to security threats or cause performance issues. Industry watchers, such as Gartner, catalog configuration management capabilities as standard for network automation platforms.

“More than 65% of enterprise networking activities are performed manually,” according to Gartner’s Market Guide for Network Automation Platforms. “Multivendor network automation platforms help organizations scale the level of network automation and create workflows that connect disparate automation tools.”

According to Enterprise Management Associates’ recent report, Enterprise Network Automation: Emerging From the Dark Ages and Reaching Toward NetDevOps, “Security policy management, configuration compliance management, and network validation/assurance are the more important features organizations are seeking” from network automation tools. Of 354 IT professionals surveyed by EMA for the report, nearly 27% said that configuration compliance monitoring/alerting/enforcement features were most important to their organization, second only to almost 32% of respondents citing security policy design/implementation/audit as a critical capability.

“In the world of network automation, tool categories are emerging that solve very specific problems around network automation, such as task orchestration, configuration management, data management (e.g., network sources of truth), and network validation (network modeling and digital twins),” the EMA report states.

BackBox built NCM into its automation platform, enabling:

• Improved network configuration performance and scalability
• API-first driven integration
• Automated tasks without scripting
• Broad multivendor support, including firewalls and other security devices
• BackBox backups, OS updates, compliance, and network vulnerability management

The updated automation platform now also includes integration with ServiceNow, which will improve device discovery because the BackBox Automation Platform can directly connect to the ServiceNow configuration management database (CMDB) to import devices. Another integration win, according to the company, is that network operators will now be able to automate trouble-ticketing with the ability to open and close tickets, populate technical details into a ticket, and streamline problem investigation.

The BackBox Network Automation Platform is a virtual appliance that can either be run on-premises or in a data center or delivered by BackBox via a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. The software supports network and security devices from more than 180 vendors, using an API-first approach for integrating with other applications in the network operations center. The platform ships with 3,000 automations out of the box, which can be tailored to specific customer environments.