As a general view, this is a function that I see have a limited functionality for most customers.
a few pointers wich make me doubt this is a good idea.
- We (the customer) have no nondisclosure agreement with cisco, ie we will not send config information to cisco if we can avoid it.
- We already have monitoring inplace, if the cisco device breaks down it will show up on our monitoring system
- If the device breaks down, how will it send the information to cisco ? in many scenarios it will not so it is nothing we can depend upon.
- Do we realy want sensitive information to be sent to a third party without our knowledge ?
As a general point this should be a on/off feature that if off should not show up in the config.
Will I use the "feature" ?
Never!
Why not?
This feature made me quite jumpy since quite often I aswell as the most of you most likely get to handle what companys thinks are quite sensitive information such remote access accounts and other things that this "feature" will send out. How can we trust it ?
Add to that that proper monitoring is a much better solution that gives you a heads up always.
Is it a good thing ?
To me or customers of mine ? most likely not.
Are there anyone needing this ?
Yes and No.
- Yes in the sence that I more or less frequently comes accross firewalls who does not have any type of monitoring, then and only then this can be a solution for a problem that should not exist.
- No since the existance of a monitoring station gives so much more/better information and not only that of the feature.
which means that if you have given thought to your system and monitoring you will never be in a situation where you can benefit from this "feature".
It is not a feature I want and I wish they could take it away.
However that said it would be a good thing if one could encorporate it so that it would send the information to a monitor station in care of the customer.
that would mean that we might get extra information to check incase something breaks.
Sorry its not an overwhelming warm welcome for this feature.
Good luck
HTH
