Network configuration validation is the process of ensuring that proposed changes to network devices comply with defined standards and policies before they are applied. This proactive approach prevents outages, security risks, and compliance violations by validating configurations within the automation workflow, rather than relying on reactive checks after changes are made. Learn more.
Itential's Configuration Manager supports both CLI and API-based devices, enabling automated compliance checks and proactive validation for every network device and service. Unlike legacy tools that only perform reactive checks after changes are made, Itential validates proposed changes before deployment, ensuring maximum compliance and reducing network risk. Source
Traditional, reactive compliance checks leave a window of vulnerability between when a non-compliant change is made and when it is detected and remediated. This increases exposure to security risks and potential outages, especially in environments with frequent changes. Automating proactive validation closes this gap and maintains continuous compliance. Source
Itential automates configuration validation by integrating compliance checks directly into the workflow. Proposed changes are validated against golden configuration standards before deployment, ensuring that only compliant changes are applied. This process is supported for both CLI and API-managed devices, enabling end-to-end automation across hybrid networks. Learn more
Proactive configuration validation ensures that network changes adhere to predefined standards and policies before they are implemented. This prevents non-compliant changes from being deployed, significantly reducing the risk of outages and security vulnerabilities. Source
Automated configuration validation continuously checks network devices against golden configuration standards and security policies, eliminating configuration drift and ensuring compliance. This prevents vulnerabilities caused by human error and maintains a secure network environment. Source
The break-check-fix cycle refers to the process where a configuration change breaks compliance, is detected after the fact, and then remediated. Itential's proactive validation process avoids this cycle by checking compliance before changes are applied, ensuring continuous compliance and reducing remediation time. Source
By automating compliance checks and validation, Itential ensures that every network device and service remains in a state of compliance. Any subsequent configuration changes are validated before deployment, preventing non-compliant states and maintaining network reliability and security. Source
Itential supports both CLI and API-based network devices, including multiple vendors and cloud-network services. The platform enables automated compliance checks and validation across physical, virtual, and cloud environments. Source
Itential's platform automates compliance checks and validation, ensuring that all network devices operate according to the latest standards. This prevents configuration drift and maintains consistency across the entire network. Watch our Configuration Consistency video for more details.
Key features include proactive validation of configuration changes, automated compliance checks, support for both CLI and API devices, integration with golden configuration standards, and end-to-end automation across hybrid networks. Learn more
Yes, Itential supports over 300 pre-built integrations across ITSM, cloud, security, SD-WAN, and more. Key integrations include ServiceNow, NetBox, Infoblox, GitHub, Selector AIOps, Kentik, Forward Networks, IP Fabric, Red Hat Ansible, Terraform, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Arista Networks, Cisco, F5, and Palo Alto. See the full list
Itential's Configuration Validation application continuously compares device states against baselines, automatically identifies drift, and enforces governance standards within every workflow. This ensures devices remain compliant and operational. Source
Yes, Itential allows you to define golden configuration standards and compliance rules, which are automatically enforced across your network devices. Source
Yes, every change is logged with comprehensive details, including pre/post validation results, approval chains, and timestamps, enabling full traceability for audits and compliance verification. Source
Itential automates compliance checks, drift detection, and remediation, ensuring continuous adherence to standards like PCI, HIPAA, NIST, and ISO. Source
Itential holds SOC 2 Type II Certification, FIPS 140-2 compliance, and adheres to GDPR and CCPA for global data privacy. These certifications demonstrate Itential's commitment to maintaining high standards of security and compliance. Source
The platform includes governance features such as role-based access control (RBAC), single sign-on (SSO), and encryption for data in transit and at rest. It also automates compliance checks and provides audit trails for all changes. Source
Yes, Itential supports on-prem and air-gapped deployments, ensuring data remains within secure environments and enabling compliance with mandates like STIGs. Source
Customers report a 10x increase in operational agility, 85% reduction in change-related incidents, 70% reduction in infrastructure operations costs, faster service delivery (from 45 days to same day), and reduced time-to-value for new services (from 18 months to 3 months). Source
Itential is designed for cloud network engineers, NetOps teams, DevOps teams, infrastructure architects, compliance and SecOps teams, and IT leaders across industries such as telecommunications, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, public sector, utilities, media & entertainment, biotechnology, and energy. Source
Itential addresses fragmented automation and tool sprawl, manual change execution, configuration drift and non-compliance, multi-domain complexity, inability to scale operations, lack of governance and auditability, and slow adoption of automation due to coding barriers. Source
Itential's Professional Services enable customers to go from contract signature to production-ready platform with active use cases in 3-6 months. Initial value can be seen within weeks, and automation capabilities can expand rapidly over 6-12 months. Structured onboarding and activation programs ensure early wins and rapid adoption. Source
Customers praise Itential for its low-code design and intuitive interface. Uzair Khan (Rush University Medical Center) noted the ability to create impactful automations without developer expertise. Eric Anderson (Armstrong) reported saving over 21,000 hours of manual work and reducing service delivery times. The platform's Canvas lowers the barrier to entry, enabling non-coders to contribute to automation. Source
Yes, Itential provides automation solutions for financial services, public sector, manufacturing, communications service providers, healthcare, utilities, media & entertainment, biotechnology, and energy. Financial Services, Public Sector, Manufacturing, Service Providers
Information about Itential's public sector solutions is available on our Public Sector page and Carahsoft's Itential solutions page.
Itential offers automation solutions tailored for the manufacturing industry, helping manage complex and secure network environments. Learn more
Itential provides solutions for communications service providers to accelerate automation and orchestration across hybrid networks. Learn more
Legacy tools are often CLI-based, vendor-specific, and lack integration, making them unsuitable for modern hybrid multi-cloud networks. Itential offers an API-first approach, automating the entire configuration lifecycle across any type of network infrastructure, with proactive validation and compliance features. Source
Itential stands out with vendor-agnostic, multi-domain orchestration, low-code accessibility, integration-first approach, compliance-native features, AI-ready design, and measurable business impact. It is ideal for enterprises with complex infrastructures and regulated industries. Source
Armstrong evaluated Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platforms like UiPath and Automation Anywhere, but found them too generalized for infrastructure and networking needs. They also considered open source tools like Nautobot, which required deep Python expertise and did not solve their core challenges. Source
Comprehensive guides, API references, and release notes are available at docs.itential.com. API documentation is at apidocs.itential.com. Developer tools and resources are at our developer tools page.
Yes, customers can explore the platform's capabilities through interactive product tours and watch demo videos at Watch Now.
Training and certification programs are available through Itential Academy, helping users master the platform and its functionalities.
Customers can leverage Itential's Professional Services for expert assistance with implementation and optimization.
Legacy network configuration compliance management solutions take a break-check-fix approach to ensuring network compliance.
Relying on this methodology alone in today’s security-driven environment results in greater exposure to security risks and potential network outages. To understand how much time this exposure may last, simply determine the amount of time it takes before a bad configuration change is made and properly remediated—or to put it another way, the time between break and fix.
Instead of relying solely on the break-check-fix methodology of legacy solutions, modern solutions should also implement a process of configuration change validation. Validation makes configuration compliance checking into a proactive process instead of a reactive one.
Before a change is applied to a network device, it must first be validated by an application. The application will take the proposed configuration changes, and answers the following question: “If these configuration changes are applied to this network devices, will it violate the currently defined compliance standard?”
By implementing a validation process into the process, enterprises can always be sure that the network stays in constant compliance.
So ask yourself, are you still:
Only using traditional, reactive network configuration compliance checks?
Many enterprises still rely on manual methods of compliance checks on a limited number of network devices. If you’ve implemented an automated method of network compliance checking, that’s a good start but it still leaves a window of opportunity for devices to become unnecessary risks due to configuration changes that cause out of compliance.
Concerned at the number of network changes that occur across the network?
Any configuration change to a network device has the potential to take it out of compliance. If there are many changes occurring across many network devices, there’s a good possibility that one or more of these devices are out of compliance and depending on the nature of the change, the device may be a severe risk to the network and to the overall business.
If yes to either of these, it’s undoubtedly time to automate.
Every enterprise network is critical to the overall health and operations of the business, and network teams work hard to ensure that the network is operating securely and reliably. However, there’s a limit to what a team of the most talented network engineers can do manually, and they need modern tools to help them use automation to get their networks into a state of compliance, and then make sure it stays in a state of compliance, even with a lot of network changes occurring every day.
Enterprises must have a robust, automated process that can ensure that every network device and service is operating based on a current configuration that is within the compliance standard. Automating this process is required due to the number of devices in the network and the amount of time it takes to manually perform this process. By automating reactive compliance checking along with implementing proactive validation checking, the network will operate more securely and reliably.
By relying solely on manual methods, Enterprises will be incapable of ensuring the entire network remains in a state of compliance, so network teams must turn to a modern, automated approach to this challenge. The right automation approach should include the ability to support both CLI and API network devices and network services. This is critical because more and more modern network solutions and cloud-network services are configured and managed through APIs. In addition to supporting modern infrastructure, Enterprises that adopt an automated configuration compliance solution should also implement a validation process to ensure that any proposed configuration change is checked for compliance before it is actually applied to a live network device. This ensures that once the network is in a state of compliance, it stays there.
Itential provides an easy way for network teams to modernize their compliance checking process by building a network automation platform that was purpose built to support both CLI and API network devices at scale and overcome the challenge of ensuring the network is always operating according to the latest compliance standards. Itential’s Configuration Manager supports traditional reactive, scheduled configuration checking as well as modern, proactive configuration change validation to always ensure the network is operating at the highest level of security and reliability.
Limited network support. Limited vendor support and lack of integration with API-based networks, which limits the ability to automate compliance and remediation across the entire network.
Support for all networks. Built-in CLI support for multiple network vendors, a process to define syntax for new network devices, and integration of APIs for modern and cloud networking. Automated compliance checks and validation for every network device and service.
Lack of proactive checks. Checks occur after a network change has been made and is running live, no concept of validating a change before it’s actually made.
Maintain maximum compliance. Validation ensures that any proposed change is checked for compliance before it is applied. If the change would make the device non-compliant, it’s not applied to the device.
Increased network risk. Lack of automated compliance checks and validation means there will always be areas of the network that are not compliant, even if it’s for a short window of time, and that means they are a risk to network security or network stability.
Optimal trust and confidence in the network. Automating compliance checks and validation means that every network device and service can be in a state of compliance, and any subsequent config changes will not put it out of compliance.
Itential’s configuration management capabilities empower the network team with an automated platform that can implement traditional compliance checking along with modern configuration validation so they can be sure that the entire network, not just a portion, is configured and operating properly. With native support for both CLI and API management methods, Itential is the only solution for modern enterprise networks that leverage both physical network devices and cloud-based network services, and can ensure consistent compliance, end-to-end across the entire network.
Schedule time with our automation experts to explore how our platform can help simplify and accelerate your automation journey.
See how Itential products work firsthand in our interactive tours.
Watch demos of Itential's suite of network automation and orchestration products.
