About configurations and trails
This topic provides information about configurations and trails, and how they are used by TrueSight Network Automation.
Configuration
A configuration refers to a configuration file that defines the set of operating parameters for controlling the behavior or functioning of a device. The following table describes the standard configurations used by Network Automation:
Configurations are either in ASCII or binary format. Encoded binary configurations support a limited set of configuration actions. Some devices allow decoding of their binary configurations for display purposes. Network Automation performs this decoding automatically.
The following figure shows configuration of a Cisco device that is stored in ASCII format:
Trail
A trail refers to a chronological sequence of configurations of the same kind, archived over time, representing the history of changes detected by Network Automation. The newest configuration within a given trail is known as the current configuration. Older configurations are known as historical configurations.
Examples of trails: Startup, Running, and other arbitrary configuration files that are required to capture a complete snapshot of a device (such as a vlan.dat file for Cisco IOS).
Network Automation includes, out-of-the-box, all of the trails necessary for the complete set of device types that it supports.
Related topics
About-device-configuration-management
Creating-a-span-job
Managing-templates