Strech mentions in his blog that Gooeys are not better than CLIs. He references Ivan's post on the subject. I will jump in with both feet and beg to differ...Now there are generally two camps:
- Command-line challenged - typically network management types who haven't the foggiest how network technology works.
- Telnet jockeys - unable to think outside the box.
The reasons Ivan provides for why a cli is better are working is more efficient, troubleshooting is easier, configuration backup is easy, you can identify the changes and you can develop a library of “configlets.” Now these reasons are precisely why a Gooey is better than a cli. Visualizations are a crucial part of networking, but admittedly Cisco has done a less than acceptable effort in this area. Compare PIX versus Checkpoint!
The only place for a cli is bare metal, when you have bricked you equipment and need it recovered.
The only place for a cli is bare metal, when you have bricked you equipment and need it recovered.
Hm, you were off to a good start until you brought up checkpoint as an example, and then spoke in absolutes.
ReplyDeleteIMHO there's a time and place for everything. Firewall policies and log viewing are a good example of why GUIs are good. What Checkpoint has going for it is that it's easy to manage a lot of firewalls. The GUI is nothing special, it's clunky and hasn't changed in years. The support blows, it's expensive, and many Checkpoint customers sit around waiting for something better to come along.
CLIs lend themselves to automation. Whether I'm a unix systems admin or a network guy, I see my job as to automate myself out of existence. CLIs are essential to allowing me to do that.
Sea, my point is that even through the Checkpoint Gooey sucks it was always better than the PIX.
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