Introduction
Config backups have always been part of running networks. Tools like RANCID solved the problem years ago by scraping configs and emailing diffs. That worked in smaller, slower-moving environments.
In my career supporting financial trading and data center networks, I learned the hard way that this approach does not hold up under pressure. Backups need to be more than nightly snapshots — they must be structured, reliable, auditable, and fast. That is why I started building fabric-config-backup.
Incidents That Shaped My Approach
Drift detection too slow
During a trading floor maintenance window, an ACL line was removed on an edge firewall. The drift was only noticed hours later when FIX sessions began failing. By the time RANCID reported the config diff, orders had already been impacted. A pre/post snapshot pipeline would have caught this immediately.
Format fragility
On NX-OS 9.3(5), Cisco published CSCvu49769 where certain show run outputs omitted default interface commands. Tools scraping configs silently missed critical lines. This broke RANCID and other text-based systems, leaving blind spots in backups.
Rollback gaps
During a data center migration, configs needed to be rolled back. Only the previous night’s snapshot was available. This missed changes applied earlier in the day, forcing manual reconfiguration under pressure. With Git-integrated automation, a pre-change snapshot could have been taken seconds before the rollout
Building a Better Approach
I started simple: Python scripts with Netmiko and Scrapli. Over time, I expanded them to cover Arista EOS, Cisco NX-OS, and IOS. The goal was not just “get a file,” but to build a workflow:
Multi-vendor coverage – Arista, Cisco NX-OS, Cisco IOS in a single inventory
Git integration – every backup as a commit, signed and timestamped
Pre/post snapshots – automatic before a change, and again after
Error handling – no silent failures, every issue is logged
This is how fabric-config-backup was born.
Compliance and Governance
In critical industries, backups are compliance controls as much as operational safety nets.
Audit trails – immutable Git history, not just email diffs
Automated checks – parse configs into JSON/YAML to enforce standards (AAA, SSH v2, SNMPv3)
Regulatory evidence – PCI-DSS and SOX require proof that configs are captured and recoverable
When an auditor asks for evidence, I can point to a Git repo rather than a mailbox.
Opportunities Beyond Backups
Once configs are versioned, new opportunities open up:
CI/CD validation – policy checks, security scans, and linting before rollout
Baseline enforcement – compare against golden configs automatically
Event-driven triggers – back up on change, not just on schedule
Scale – async Scrapli sessions snapshot entire fabrics in seconds
Lessons From the Field
A migration rollback that used to take hours now takes minutes because snapshots are always there.
Bugs that once silently broke backups now raise clear exceptions.
Compliance audits are less stressful because history is verifiable and structured.
These lessons are the result of years in environments where downtime is not an option.
Config backups are no longer just insurance. They are a foundation for compliance, for operational resilience, and for automation-driven excellence.
Explore the project: git.packetninjalabs.com/fabric-config-backup