infra-inventory-cmdb

# 🏢 Infrastructure Inventory, IPAM, DCIM, and CMDB This skill guides the AI to act as a **Physical, Logical, and Network Asset Infrastructure Mapping Specialist**, managing the Single Source of Truth for networks, servers, racks, cabling topologies, WAN circuits, and enterprise service configurations. --- ## 🏛️ 1. Infrastructure Data Model and Source of Truth Modern infrastructure management relies on the concept of **Infrastructure as Code (IaC)** supported by a centralized Source of Truth: ```mermaid flowchart TD subgraph SOT["Central Source of Truth (NetBox / Device42 / Ralph)"] IPAM["IPAM (VRFs, Prefixes, IP Addresses, VLANs)"] DCIM["DCIM (Sites, Racks, Devices, Interfaces, Cables)"] CIRCUITS["Circuits & WAN Providers"] VMS["Virtualization (Clusters, Hypervisors, VMs)"] end subgraph AutoDiscovery["Active Discovery & SNMP"] NETDISCO["Netdisco (SNMP L2/L3 Discovery)"] OPENNMS["OpenNMS (Topology & Fault Monitoring)"] GLPI_AGENT["GLPI Agent / FusionInventory (Hardware/OS Agent)"] end subgraph ITSM_CMDB["ITSM & Service Management"] GLPI["GLPI (IT Asset Management & Helpdesk)"] ITOP["iTop (ITIL CMDB & Service Management)"] RACKTABLES["RackTables (Datacenter Asset Catalog)"] end subgraph Automation["Network Automation & Provisioning"] ANSIBLE["Ansible / Terraform Dynamic Inventories"] CI_CD["Switch Configuration Pipelines"] end AutoDiscovery -->|"Sync / Import"| SOT SOT -->|"CMDB Integration"| ITSM_CMDB SOT -->|"API REST / GraphQL"| Automation ``` --- ## 🛠️ 2. Specialist Inventory and CMDB Tools ### 1. NetBox (The Network Source of Truth) - **Concept**: An open reference platform for IPAM and DCIM. It was designed to document and model computer networks with relational rigor (Sites -> Racks -> Devices -> Interfaces -> Cables -> IP Addresses). It provides comprehensive REST and GraphQL APIs for network automation. - **Automation via Python (pynetbox)**: ```python import pynetbox nb = pynetbox.api( url="https://netbox.corp.local", token="${NETBOX_TOKEN}" ) # Create a subnet prefix and allocate the first available IP prefix = nb.ipam.prefixes.get(prefix="10.20.0.0/24") available_ips = prefix.available_ips.list() print(f"Next free IP: {available_ips[0]['address']}") # Query the topology of interfaces connected to a switch device = nb.dcim.devices.get(name="sw-core-01") for interface in nb.dcim.interfaces.filter(device_id=device.id): if interface.cable: print(f"Interface {interface.name} connected to {interface.connected_endpoint}") ``` ### 2. OpenNMS (Enterprise-Grade Network Management) - **Concept**: A high-scale enterprise network monitoring and discovery platform. It supports SNMP v1/v2c/v3, gRPC Telemetry, WMI, and OpenNMS Compass protocols for mapping L2/L3 topologies through LLDP, CDP, and Bridge-MIB. ### 3. Netdisco (Automatic Layer 2/3 Network Discovery) - **Concept**: A Perl and SNMP-based utility that automatically discovers all interconnected network devices via CDP/LLDP, mapping which MAC and IP address is connected to each switch port in real time. - **Netdisco CLI Queries**: ```bash # Locate the port and physical switch for a specific MAC/IP address netdisco-do location -d 192.168.1.50 netdisco-do macsuck -d sw-access-floor2.corp.local ``` ### 4. Ralph (Asset Management & DCIM) - **Concept**: An IT asset management system (Hardware, Software Licenses, Rack Servers, Cloud) focused on accounting, asset lifecycle, and integration with physical data centers. ### 5. GLPI (IT Asset Management & Helpdesk) - **Concept**: A complete open-source IT asset management (ITAM) and CMDB system compatible with ITIL. It automatically collects detailed inventories of hardware, operating systems, software packages, and peripherals through agents installed on endpoints (`glpi-agent`). - **Manual agent inventory command**: ```bash glpi-agent --server https://glpi.corp.local/front/inventory.php --force --debug ``` ### 6. iTop (ITIL Service Management & CMDB) - **Concept**: A relational CMDB with a change impact analysis engine (*Impact Analysis Engine*). It lets you model the dependency chain between physical components (servers, switches), virtual components (databases, instances), and business services (*Business Services*). ### 7. Device42 - **Concept**: An agentless automated discovery solution for data centers and hybrid clouds. It automatically maps network topologies, hardware inventory, application dependency maps (ADM - Application Dependency Mapping), and expired SSL certificates. ### 8. RackTables - **Concept**: A classic tool for managing data center space, IP addressing, and rack unit (RU) allocation with mapping of patch panel connections and network ports. --- ## 📊 3. Comparative Matrix: IPAM vs DCIM vs CMDB vs ITAM | Tool | Primary Focus | Collection Protocols | APIs and Integrations | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | **NetBox** | Network Source of Truth / IPAM / DCIM | Manual / GitOps / IaC Scripts | REST API, GraphQL, Webhooks | | **Netdisco** | L2/L3 Switch / MAC Mapping | SNMP (v1/v2c/v3), LLDP, CDP | REST API, native PostgreSQL | | **OpenNMS** | Discovery and Fault Monitoring | SNMP, ICMP, gRPC, JMX | REST API, Kafka Ingestion | | **GLPI** | ITAM, CMDB, and Incident Management | Local Agent (WMI, DMI, lshw) | REST API, Plugins Marketplace | | **iTop** | ITIL CMDB and Impact Analysis | REST / CSV / Sync Data Collectors | REST API, OQL (Object Query Lang) | | **Device42** | Enterprise Auto-Discovery & ADM | SNMP, WMI, SSH, Cloud APIs | REST API, Jira, Confluence, ServiceNow | --- ## 🎯 4. Best Practices for Inventory Maintenance - [ ] **Distinguish Source of Truth from Discovery**: Treat NetBox as the *intended design* (what should exist) and tools such as Netdisco/OpenNMS as the *observed state* (what is active), alerting on drift (*drift detection*). - [ ] **Use Universal IDs and Serial Numbers**: Record serial numbers and MAC addresses as immutable unique identifiers to avoid asset duplication during migrations. - [ ] **Dynamic Population of Ansible Inventories**: Replace static `hosts` files with the NetBox dynamic inventory plugin (`netbox.netbox.nb_inventory`).