AlterPoint  announced at the Gartner Enterprise Networking Summit an open source project named ZipTie. The goal of ZipTie is to create a community that will advance network management beyond the limitations imposed by proprietary, vendor provided device management. The ZipTie community, which can be accessed at ziptie.org, will allow network engineers to leverage AlterPoint’s enterprise caliber network configuration and mediation technology to reduce their reliance on vendor supplied device management solutions which have limited value when managing a complex, multi-vendor network.

ZipTie open source software is a framework for network inventory management that expands device coverage for network engineering and operations teams and offers open source network management technology that goes beyond monitoring. The project will also help network equipment providers and network and systems management vendors by offering an open, extensible framework for easy integration.

“Open source technology brings a number of natural benefits to the market place,” said Robert Bays, chief technical officer of Vyatta. “Among these are greater flexibility and increased speed of development by harnessing the energies of an entire open-source ecosystem. As an open source router vendor, we think it’s a natural evolution to see the development of high-quality open-source network management tools. We’re looking forward to interoperation between Vyatta’s Open Flexible Router (OFR) and ZipTie.”

ZipTie features include:
* Discovery, backup and restoration of network device configurations
* Comparison of network device configurations across devices and over time
* Detection of configuration changes
* Distribution of single- and multi-device configuration changes
* Organized, extensible set of tools for performing administration tasks to any network device
* Single, common ‘language’ for controlling the configuration of any network device, regardless of manufacturer

"Configuration management technology is one of the fastest growing areas in the IT operations management marketplace," says Cameron Haight, research VP at Gartner Inc. "End users seeking solutions in this area owe it to themselves to fully understand the wide range of options available including the potential use of open source alternatives."