User`s guide

9030944 E10 Introduction

1-3

The Conﬁguration Management Process

Conﬁguration Management involves identifying, controlling, and monitoring

the “managed objects” that make up a communication network. A managed

object is any device that is modeled in the SPECTRUM database. These

include not only hardware devices such as PCs, workstations, hubs, and

routers, but also software applications on these devices. ECM uses the

management modules developed by Cabletron to manage the conﬁguration of

these objects.

SPECTRUM continually monitors the network, maintaining a database of

information about every managed object on the network. Enterprise

Conﬁguration Manager obtains the values of the attributes in the

conﬁguration by interrogating the SPECTRUM model of the managed object.

The ECM administrator uses this information to manage the network. With

ECM, the administrator can capture existing conﬁgurations or create new

ones, load conﬁgurations to devices anywhere on the network, and then verify

whether conﬁgurations have changed.

About ECM Templates

Enterprise Conﬁguration Manager allows you to create conﬁgurations with

templates or manually without templates. Before you begin working with

ECM, it is important for you to understand the difference between ECM

templates and conﬁgurations.

A template is a list of attributes for a speciﬁc device and its subdevices, if

selected. You use ECM templates for only one operation — capturing the

conﬁguration of a device. When you create a template, Enterprise

Conﬁguration Manager provides a list of all readable/writable and non shared

attributes for that type of device (with subdevices, if selected). In ECM you

select the attributes you want to include in the template. Depending on the

purpose of the template, your template might contain a single attribute (port

status, for example) or dozens of attributes.

When you use templates to capture the conﬁguration of an existing device,

Enterprise Conﬁguration Manager captures the instance IDs, if any, and the

values of the attributes listed in the template. The attributes listed in the

template plus the instance IDs and attribute values captured by ECM make

up the new conﬁguration.

Remember: A template is only a list of device-speciﬁc attributes, whereas a

conﬁguration is a list of device-speciﬁc attributes with instance IDs, if

applicable, and their values. See Figure 1-1.