[asterisk-users] Using XML for configuration management, single-source-of-truth, etc.

[Philip Prindeville]

Kristian Kielhofner wrote:
> On Dec 9, 2007 2:05 AM, Philip Prindeville
> <philipp_subx at redfish-solutions.com> wrote:
> ..snip..
>   
>> You think that an Asterisk configuration is a lot larger than a Cisco
>> 5850 Access Server or a 7216 core router?
>>
>>
>>     
>
>   IOS doesn't use XML for configuration.  What's a 7216?
>
>   

Actually, it does....  I just don't know if that ever got exposed to the 
public or not.  (Of course, the customers that wanted XML-based configs 
also wanted ION, so it might only have been exposed on ION.)

While I was there (2000-2005) there was a big effort to have all config 
files be represented as XML.

If you ever tried to "diff" two configs of a 7216 (VXR/CMTS) that were 
from different releases, you'd know why.

This would drive customers crazy: portions of config would move around, 
whitespace would appear where it wasn't previously, names of commands 
would gratuitously change, etc.

Parse-trees would be easier to diff.

There were some interesting efforts floating around to have the 
configuration be sucked up via XML/secure-RPC to a client, edited there, 
and then pushed back into the router/IAD/firewall, what-have-you.

The IOS parser was one of the hairiest pieces of code I had ever had to 
maintain.

But we're getting off the subject.

-Philip

P.S. I know zip about Skinny, so don't ask...