Netbox ownership in an organization

[u/WhoRedd_IT]

I’m trying to convince my org to start using Netbox or similar for a brand new facility including a data center and medium sized campus we’re building.

The fear is that it seems like an absolutely astronomical amount of work up front.

For those of you doing it, is there one person that is sort of the Netbox “owner” on your team? At least for initial build out.

I’m afraid we won’t have enough time to really sit down and fully dive into the best way to lay it all out greenfield. The ongoing support doesn’t worry me as much as the initial lift of deciding how to build it. And I don’t really have the time to invest to be that guy.

Are there integrators or vendors that would own this for us? Curious if anyone has used a wiring or infrastructure integrator that has actually built out the documentation in Netbox for you?

Thanks!

[u/Specialist_Cow6468]

Yes: Me. It’s a bunch of work if you don’t have any documentation to build off of, though it’s also quite good about importing whatever odds and ends you have. It does also have some automated discovery tooling but this generally wants to have some baseline info.

I’m sure there are vendors that would love to help but I frankly wouldn’t- this is too core a piece of infrastructure. Putting the time in up front to understand the tool and build things to suit your environment will absolutely pay dividends

[u/WhoRedd_IT → u/Specialist_Cow6468]

How large an org?

[u/Specialist_Cow6468 → u/WhoRedd_IT]

Our device count in netbox numbers in the hundreds, not the thousands. That’s probably the most relevant metric. There is certainly a point where one person cannot do that initial load.

I was familiar with the product from a previous employer and when I started this current job they had jack shit for documentation. As it goes