What is the purpose of router configuration management?

A central goal of router configuration management is to improve network reliability and performance and reduce security concerns. Unfortunately, faulty configuration changes are a common reason for network outages. With every change to router configuration, there comes the risk of causing a network outage, performance degradation, and even creating security issues. Unplanned and unexpected configuration changes can make the network more vulnerable to these risks. However, effective router management can help mitigate these risks.

Do I need professional router configuration management software?

Router settings are a very valuable and versatile resource with have a range of benefits for your organization, including boosting security, speeding up your connection, and helping you prevent and address potential vulnerabilities.

How does the router management software in NCM work?

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager is built to make router management easier by offering the ability to automatically track and manage device configurations.

Router Management - Router Configuration Management Software

Improve reliability with automated router configuration management

Download Free Trial Email Link to Trial

Fully functional for 30 days

Learn More

Configure Routers

Reduce Errors

Troubleshoot and Audit

Save Time and Energy

Make wide-scale, routine changes in less time with router configuration management software

Network Inventory Software - Device Inventory Tool and Scanner Use case type 1 3 Features Array Item - features item image

SolarWinds^® Network Configuration Manager (NCM) is designed to save you time by helping you make wide-scale configuration changes using the available Configuration Templates. Each Configuration Template is device neutral and lets network engineers define what changes must be made. NCM then takes the parameters and directives from the template and creates a device-specific set of change commands. NCM also lets you review changes and schedule them for deployment. Templates are built to be user definable and reusable, making them ideal for making routine changes.

Download Free Trial Email Link to Trial

Fully functional for 30 days

Learn More

Reduce errors and dramatically improve network reliability with a router management tool

Router Management - Router Configuration Management Software Use case type 1 1 Features Array Item - features item image

Human error is a leading cause of network downtime. Network Configuration Manager is designed to reduce errors that can cause misconfigured devices and network interruptions by using roles and permissions to restrict access to devices, helping prevent unauthorized modifications. In addition, NCM lets you review and approve changes prior to deployment and can alert you in real time about what and who made the changes when a configuration is changed.

Download Free Trial Email Link to Trial

Fully functional for 30 days

Learn More

Use a tool to help troubleshoot and audit configs significantly faster

Switch Configuration and Switch Management Software Use case type 1 3 Features Array Item - features item image

Standardizing your configurations can make them easier to search, audit, and troubleshoot. That’s why Network Configuration Manager is built to make configuration changes uniformly on each target device. Need to know where TACACS+ has been enabled, show auditors network controls are properly implemented, or find a misconfigured VLAN assignment? Network Configuration Manager can easily search each configuration across your network and quickly reveal the information you need.

Download Free Trial Email Link to Trial

Fully functional for 30 days

Learn More

Save time and energy with the help of router management software

Switch Configuration and Switch Management Software Use case type 1 Product Hero - hero image

Router configuration management can be easily automated to save you hours of repetitive work. That’s where SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager comes in. NCM can automatically perform a wide range of configuration tasks for routers and other network devices and is built to help you more easily ensure router configurations are optimized and accurate, which leaves you free to work on other projects in need of your attention.

Download Free Trial Email Link to Trial

Fully functional for 30 days

Learn More

Get More on Router Management Software

Do you find yourself asking…

What is router configuration management?
What is the purpose of router configuration management?
Do I need professional router configuration management software?
How does the router management software in NCM work?
What other features does NCM have?

To understand router configuration management, which is an element of network configuration management focused on ensuring your router can effectively communicate with and support your network, it’s important to understand the role of network configuration management

Network configuration involves setup and configuration processes across software, hardware, and other supporting components or devices. Network configuration management is the continuous process of overseeing the setup and maintenance of all these components. It involves discovering devices, monitoring the status and configuration of devices, and maintaining the inventory.

Key elements of network configuration are:

Software configuration
Host configuration
Router configuration

Router configuration and router management is essential for making sure your network is complete. Without it, your router can’t communicate with your other network components.

The basic steps of router configuration are:

Enabling the router’s firewall and ensuring it’s secure
Setting a Service Set Identifier, or SSID, for your wireless network, so it’s easier for users to locate it
Setting the encryption for the network, which is known as the Wired Equivalent Privacy or WEP

For more experienced admins, router configuration can involve configuring the base stations, engaging in Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), and more.

Router configuration management, like network configuration management, is the ongoing process of overseeing and maintaining the configuration of routers. This includes making changes to configurations as needed and ensuring those changes are uniform across devices.

To understand router configuration management, which is an element of network configuration management focused on ensuring your router can effectively communicate with and support your network, it’s important to understand the role of network configuration management
Network configuration involves setup and configuration processes across software, hardware, and other supporting components or devices. Network configuration management is the continuous process of overseeing the setup and maintenance of all these components. It involves discovering devices, monitoring the status and configuration of devices, and maintaining the inventory.
Key elements of network configuration are:
Software configuration
Host configuration
Router configuration

Router configuration and router management is essential for making sure your network is complete. Without it, your router can’t communicate with your other network components.
The basic steps of router configuration are:
Enabling the router’s firewall and ensuring it’s secure
Setting a Service Set Identifier, or SSID, for your wireless network, so it’s easier for users to locate it
Setting the encryption for the network, which is known as the Wired Equivalent Privacy or WEP
For more experienced admins, router configuration can involve configuring the base stations, engaging in Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), and more.
Router configuration management, like network configuration management, is the ongoing process of overseeing and maintaining the configuration of routers. This includes making changes to configurations as needed and ensuring those changes are uniform across devices.
A central goal of router configuration management is to improve network reliability and performance and reduce security concerns.
Unfortunately, faulty configuration changes are a common reason for network outages. With every change to router configuration, there comes the risk of causing a network outage, performance degradation, and even creating security issues. Unplanned and unexpected configuration changes can make the network more vulnerable to these risks. However, effective router management can help mitigate these risks.
With router management, users can constantly monitor network routers and keep track of configuration changes, which can lead to fewer surprises, outages, and security risks. By using router management software, configuration changes can also be made on a wide scale across devices to help reduce the chances of human error causing a network risk.
In addition to reducing security risks, router configuration management can help you improve your cybersecurity by allowing you to:
Enhance the security of your password by changing it from the default to something more unique, which can make it harder for cyberattackers to access your router settings.
Configure your router settings to tweak or disguise your IP address.
Change your router settings to enable multi-SSID and guest Wi-Fi, so you can have separate access points available for known, trusted devices and for guests. You also won’t need to share your Wi-Fi password with anyone who doesn’t need it.
If you want even more security, router configuration management can let you set “parental controls” to let you control what websites employees can access with the help of web filtering.
SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager isn’t just a powerful router management tool. It also comes with an array of other features and abilities to help make it stand out from other router configuration management solutions.
Some general features included in NCM are:
Comprehensive visibility: The intuitive, in-depth dashboard offers a robust view of the network infrastructure, making it easy to identify where configuration errors occur.
Network compliance: Out-of-the-box compliance assessments and reports are built to make demonstrating compliance with industry standards easier.
Centralized delegation: Get help controlling who can view device details and make configuration changes.
IOS vulnerability detection: More easily identify known vulnerabilities entering the system thanks to an integration with the National Vulnerability Database.
NCM also offers more specific features designed to enhance its network configuration abilities, including:
Network device management: Get automated configuration backup and real-time change detection and notification.
Automated switch configuration management: Identify switch configuration errors to reduce outages and security vulnerabilities.
Automated network device configuration: Get centralized control for monitoring and managing configuration changes across devices and device types. Automatically store full device configs that can be copied or restored to replace a failed device or to set up a new device.
Network audits for network compliance: Monitor devices and perform audits all from one view while automating policy violation audits and inventory reporting.

"We are using it to monitor and manage configurations of different switches and routers from different vendors. Our network is diverse and we need a configuration and monitoring tool to let us know in case of any network failure and which component has failed."

Sean Ardalan

Senior Network Architect

Tibco software

Configuration change automation with router configuration software

Network Configuration Manager

Automatically back up configurations for routers, switches, firewalls, controllers, and more.
Quickly and reliably deploy standardized configuration changes across your routers and other devices.
Know when a configuration has been changed and see exactly what changed and who changed it.

Starts at

NCM, an Orion module, is built on the SolarWinds Platform

Download Free Trial Email Link to Trial

Fully functional for 30 days

Learn More

Let's talk it over.

Contact our team. Anytime.