urgent help on Cisco switch configuration

[sherrikhan]

Gents i have 200 switches in my datacentre and i need to update configuration on each switch as vlans are changing our design is core and access. 

Most of the configuration will remain the same only configuration for vlans is changing. I have come up with an idea that i should download the config file and update the file with new vlan and add it back to the flash and on the change night i just copy flash file name to running? is this the good idea?? or is there any other way of doing it keeping in mind there are 200 switches. I will use local TFP server (as management IP of switches are not changing). I will add a TFTP server in network. I really want to make it simple and easy. The vlan.dat file?? will that has any issue?? secondly do i really need to reboot the device?

[Seb Rupik]

Hi there,

Creating a modified config file, uploading it and then copy xxx running-config would be a good option. This will merge the source config with running-config, so you only need to include the config that is changing, and not copy and re-apply the entire running-config. This will take effect immediately. If you were copying to startup, then yes, you would need to reload the device.

cheers,

Seb.

[gs.skills]

Hello,

I propound you another way[EDIT] if your are using end-to-end VLANs and many switches share the same VLAN configuration[/EDIT]:

If your switches can use VTP version 3* and your are using trunks between switches, i would create a VTP domain for each group of switches sharing the same VLAN configuration. Your VLAN configuration will no more be stored in your running-config nor startup-config. Then you only have to make your VLAN configurations on your vtp primary server and the changes will be propagated to each VTP domain.

Option: When your deployment of VLANs is done, you can set all your swtiches to VTP mode transparent, and all your vlan configuration will return in your running-config (and then copy run start of course)

No need to reboot.

*required if you deploy VLANs from the extended range or private VLANs (if not, version 1 or 2 are fine)

Regards, Guillaume