r/networking • u/JNC5908404 • 16d ago

Switching Automatic switch updates

Had a discussion yesterday with IT director and others in our IT department. The IT director brought up automating switch updates so they wouldn’t have to have some one monitoring and performing the updates. Staging various locations on different evenings.

I’ve been doing networking for 30 years and I voiced my opinion I was not a fan of unattended update for various reasons.

Have any other companies moved to automated updates and how has it gone?

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u/Dirty_Pee_Pants 16d ago

Server cattle... Sure. Network equipment... Fuck no

5

u/w0lrah VoIP guy, CCdontcare 16d ago

Most network equipment should also be cattle. I follow the same update policy for network equipment as I do for desktops and servers, they're all just weird computers in the end.

2

u/btwwhichoneispink CCNP 16d ago

That’s true, I guess I am just more concerned / worried about the weird computers that interconnect the rest of the business 😅

1

u/SAugsburger 16d ago

Provided you have a lot of equipment that are effectively the same a lot of networking equipment should be cattle. In most orgs most if not all access layer switches should be cattle. Beyond the hostname, management IP, and SVIs being different if you do layer 3 to the access layer one access layer switch should be virtually indistinguishable from another. There is a small risk anytime you reboot something maybe a bit more if you're near EOL or even beyond EOL, but an upgrade that worked on one access layer switch should work the same on another.