Organizing Hosts Services and Contacts

[toleolu]

I'm hoping to get some tips, suggestions, and pointers from the forum on things you have done with respect to orgranizing all the hosts, groups, and services on your systems. I'm looking for ways to organize all of this in an efficient manageable manner, expecially when it comes to notifications.

As an example, do you you group devices by server, network infrastructure, enviornmental devices, etc.

My set up is fairly simple, about 500 host devices, about 1200 services, a mix of servers, switches, routers, UPS's temp sensors, etc.

Any tips on how best to set this up on the front end would be appreciated so I don't end up painting myself in a corner and have to go back and redo things after the fact.

Much Appreciated.

[tmcdonald]

I think one thing people overlook is the usefulness of using parent-child relationships. This is usually the first thing I try to get configured, as doing so often reveals previously-unseen connections between various hosts/services. For example, if you already know that hosts hA, hB, hC and hD are connected to router X, then you don't need to make a "Router X" hostgroup for the sake of grouping them. It might still be helpful from a configuration standpoint, but you should really be using templates for configuration and groups for management.

In addition, parent-child relationships help with troubleshooting and map visualization. Being able to visually trace out the network routes and problems is a nice feature.