On Fri, 9 Dec 2022 at 20:19, tim@pelican.org <tim@pelican.org> wrote: Hey Tim,
Or at least, you've moved the problem from "generate config" to "have complete and correct data". Which statement should probably come with some kind of trigger-warning...
I think it's a lot easier than you think. I understand that all older networks and practical access networks have this problem, the data is in the network, it's of course not the right way to do it, but it's the way they are. But there is no reason to get discouraged. First you gotta ignore waterfall model, you can never order something ready and have utility out of it, because no data. What you can do, day1 a) copy configs as-is, as templates b) only edit the template c) push templates to network boom, now you are FAR, and that took an hour or day depending on the person. Maybe you feel like you've not accomplished much, but you have. Now you can start modelling data out of the template into the database, and keep shrinking the 'blobs'. You can do this at whatever pace is convenient, and you can trivially measure which one to do next, which one will reduce total blob bytes most. You will see constant, measurable progress. And you always know the network state is always what is in your files, as you are now always replacing the entire config with the generated config. -- ++ytti