Strategies for managing multiple appliances

About the multiple-appliance management feature

The multiple-appliance management feature is a CLI-based tool that enables administrators to remotely configure one or more appliances. The multiple-appliance management CLI options enable the administrator to apply a common set of configuration settings to multiple appliances on the network. You enter these common settings in text files called global configuration files.

Automatic configuration strategies

The appliance administrator can use one of several automatic configuration strategies, as shown in the following table.

Strategy	Description
Global automatic configuration file strategy	This strategy is the most automated. The administrator can create and maintain one or more global configuration text files whose settings will be periodically read and downloaded by target appliances configured to do so. For details, see the following sections: About global configuration files Multiple appliance management by automatic configuration
Global pushed configuration file strategy	The administrator can create and maintain one or more global configuration text files and manually push those files to directories on target appliances configured to use those files. For details, see the following sections: About global configuration files Multiple appliance management by pushed configuration files
Appliance configuration cloning strategy	The administrator can choose not to create a global configuration file, but instead copy the active configuration of a source appliance to a target appliance. For details, see Cloning appliance configurations.

Strategy

Description

Global automatic configuration file strategy

This strategy is the most automated. The administrator can create and maintain one or more global configuration text files whose settings will be periodically read and downloaded by target appliances configured to do so.

For details, see the following sections:

Global pushed configuration file strategy

The administrator can create and maintain one or more global configuration text files and manually push those files to directories on target appliances configured to use those files.

For details, see the following sections:

Appliance configuration cloning strategy

The administrator can choose not to create a global configuration file, but instead copy the active configuration of a source appliance to a target appliance.

For details, see Cloning appliance configurations.