Hi
There is no realy good answer to that question since the answer depends on any different factors such as number of switches, previous experience, number of persons, amount of money it may cost, hardware available and many many more variables.
But I would say that I like to configure the switches directly from CLI in IOS.
but if you fx have 1000 switches and an environment that changes often, then this will not work.
I like to manage, control and set baselines and so on trough the solarwinds orion. and kiwi syslog. (www.solarwinds.com)
but if the switches are not able to speak to a management platform then that will not work either.
so there is no "best solution for everything" but if you factor in what you want to do with what you can and are allowed to do then I think you get a good solution.
If you have nothing else then atleast setup a syslog server, that will tell you so much when you have trouble and so on.
Good luck
HTH
Message was edited by: hobbe
