Has anyone developed a way to restore a configuration to a switch? For example if you have a hardware failure and need to replace the switch.

[dparsons]

In our environment we cannot use templates to configure the switches as each switch is unique in the port layout. Without templates there does not appear any way to move the configuration to the new hardware. Even if you pull the configuration from the switch itself and restore it to the new switch you cannot pull that back into HiveManager. Currently it is a 2-3 hour process for a 48 port switch to replace hardware.

[dparsons]

And in the template world that is great. Now imagine having 100 switches and the configuration is unique on each one. In addition the setting that are only available on a per switch are also different (speed and duplex). That throws the template idea out the window in its current form as the only settings you can set in the template in NG is the port type. Then with over 200 VLANs, not to mention the combinations of voice and data, the list would be huge. Oh and then there is the trunks, little issue there as you have to create a new port type for each group of allowed vlans and "allow all" does not work in a stack.

[AnonymousM]

That's exactly how I use the device templates and classifications. The top level device is the specific model (say SR2124P). And all switches get that config unless they specifically fall in under the Templates via Classification. From there, I say that if the device has name SwitchA, the 1st 12 ports would be configured for access points (trunk ports) and the last 12 ports would be configured for PCs (access ports). If the switch was a device name of SwitchB, I could say the 1st 8 ports are configured for APs, next 8 for PCs, next 8 for Phones and apply appropriate switch port profiles for each.

After that I simply name my switches appropriately and push updates. Both switches get their respective configuration. And a switch named SwitchC gets the default config that the Device Template has configured.

I imagine (with a fair amount of certainty), if I physically removed "SwitchA" from my HM instance and added a new one and named it SwitchA and pushed a config update, it would get the config that the prior SwitchA had. I feel like I've even done this in the past.

We don't use NG, so I don't know how this translates there though...

[bruce_stahlin]

I was thinking the same thing Brian, but then I read where there were specific port configurations unable to be managed within the template, only at the device level. You can indeed configure classification rules within cloud (NG) now.

[AnonymousM]

I have to side w/Doug here. I've long questioned why Aerohive has no replace hardware option. It's not uncommon in other vendors to allow the swapping of entire configurations via MAC. Ruckus does it in their SmartZone platform. Meru did (possibly still does) it in their System Directors (Controllers).

Possible HM Classic only option here...

One possible way to do this Doug might be to use the Device Templates but the Add Templates via Classification. As you can add templates based on hostnames. Simple make the new device have the same hostname of the old device (requires removal of the old device from the HM instance). This also requires the hardware to be an exact version match as well.

You might could also use Device Classification tags to drop a template file onto a new switch. It still would require a hardware match but might work to just apply a Device Classification tag to the new device and it should in theory get the config of the switch template that is using that specific tag to assign configuration.