DaaC: The Lost XaaC Nobody Talks About
I needed three new VMs. Fine, easy, except I needed to know which IPs in the subnet were actually free first, and the "system of record" for that was, depending on the day, either a NetBox instance nobody had touched since the person who set it up left, or a Google Sheet that three people had "the current version" of. So I did what everyone does when they don't trust the doc: I started SSHing…
The article discusses the challenges and frustrations encountered while trying to effectively manage and document the infrastructure of a network. The author, who works in the field of information technology, recounts their experiences with outdated tools and inconsistent methods for gathering information about the machines running on the network.
The main problem lies in the fact that there is no single, reliable source of truth for the network infrastructure. Instead, the author relies on multiple sources such as a NetBox instance, a Google Sheet, and monitoring tools, none of which provide a comprehensive and up-to-date view of the network.
This lack of a consistent source of truth leads to significant inefficiencies and wasted time. The author spends several minutes manually connecting to random IP addresses to determine which ones are currently in use. They also mention how outdated information in a spreadsheet and a NetBox instance create confusion and make it difficult to accurately track the status of each machine.
To address these issues, the author created a solution called Auto-Doc, which is an Ansible playbook designed to automatically document the network infrastructure. Auto-Doc uses SSH connections to scan the subnets and gather information about each machine, such as its operating system, CPU usage, memory, storage, network configuration, and installed tools. By directly asking the machines themselves for this information, Auto-Doc provides a more accurate and up-to-date view of the network.
The author emphasizes that this approach aligns with the concept of "Documentation as Code" or DaaC, which treats documentation as a codebase that is version-controlled, reviewed, and diffable. By treating documentation as code, it becomes easier to maintain, update, and trust, ensuring that it remains a reliable source of truth for the network infrastructure.
In conclusion, the article highlights the importance of having a consistent and reliable source of truth for network infrastructure documentation. The author shares their personal experience with the challenges faced in this regard and presents Auto-Doc as a solution to automate the documentation process, thereby reducing manual effort and improving the accuracy and reliability of the network documentation.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
