Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

RANCID VS Entity Framework

Compare RANCID VS Entity Framework and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

RANCID logo RANCID

RANCID - Really Awesome New Cisco confIg Differ.

Entity Framework logo Entity Framework

See Comparison of Entity Framework vs NHibernate.
  • RANCID Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-04-08
  • Entity Framework Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-18

RANCID features and specs

  • Version Control
    RANCID automatically collects and stores device configurations in version control systems, providing an audit trail and making it easy to track changes over time.
  • Automated Backups
    The tool automates the process of regularly backing up network device configurations, reducing the risk of configuration loss due to human error or device failure.
  • Change Detection
    RANCID can notify administrators of configuration changes via email alerts, helping to maintain network integrity and quickly spot unauthorized changes.
  • Multi-Vendor Support
    It supports a wide range of network devices from different vendors, making it versatile for environments with diverse equipment.
  • Open Source
    Being open-source software, RANCID is free to use and can be customized to fit specific organizational needs without licensing costs.

Possible disadvantages of RANCID

  • Complex Setup
    Initially setting up RANCID can be complex and time-consuming, especially for those not familiar with command-line interfaces or scripting.
  • Limited GUI
    RANCID lacks a robust graphical user interface (GUI), which might be challenging for users who prefer visual configuration management tools.
  • Dependency on External Tools
    It heavily relies on other tools like version control systems (e.g., Git or CVS) and requires these to be set up and maintained alongside RANCID.
  • Scalability Concerns
    Performance may degrade or require additional configuration as the number of managed devices increases significantly.
  • Limited Support
    Being open source, formal support is limited; users often rely on community forums and mailing lists for troubleshooting issues.

Entity Framework features and specs

  • Productivity
    Entity Framework automates database-related code generation, reducing the amount of boilerplate code developers must write and maintain. This allows developers to work more efficiently and focus more on business logic.
  • Abstraction
    It abstracts the database interaction details, enabling developers to work with higher-level .NET objects instead of raw SQL queries, resulting in clearer and more manageable code.
  • Code First Approach
    This allows developers to define their database schema using C# classes, making it easy to evolve the database alongside the codebase using migrations.
  • Support for Multiple Databases
    Entity Framework supports a wide range of relational databases, including SQL Server, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and MySQL, providing flexibility and choice to the developers.
  • Change Tracking
    It provides automatic change tracking of entity objects, simplifying the process of updating data in the database without manually tracking object changes.

Possible disadvantages of Entity Framework

  • Performance Overhead
    The abstraction layer can lead to performance overhead compared to plain SQL queries, as the generated queries might not be as optimized as handcrafted SQL.
  • Complexity
    For simple or small applications, the complexity introduced by using an ORM like Entity Framework might be unnecessary and could complicate the architecture.
  • Learning Curve
    Developers need to learn the specific concepts and configurations of Entity Framework, which can be time-consuming compared to traditional database access methodologies.
  • Debugging Difficulty
    Debugging issues can be more challenging because of the abstraction, making it sometimes difficult to trace the exact query being executed and pinpoint performance bottlenecks.
  • Limited SQL Features
    While Entity Framework supports a wide range of SQL functionalities, there are advanced features specific to certain databases that may not be fully supported or could require custom implementation.

RANCID videos

Puppet Perspectives - Rancid "Troublemaker" Album Review (feat. Dan)

More videos:

  • Review - Rancid Life Won't Wait Album Review
  • Review - Review: Rancid “Trouble Maker”

Entity Framework videos

Entity Framework Best Practices - Should EFCore Be Your Data Access of Choice?

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Entity Framework 6 Tutorial: Learn Entity Framework 6 from Scratch
  • Review - Getting the best out of Entity Framework Core - Jon P Smith

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to RANCID and Entity Framework)
Network Automation
100 100%
0% 0
Web Frameworks
0 0%
100% 100
Configuration Auditing
100 100%
0% 0
Development
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using RANCID and Entity Framework. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Entity Framework should be more popular than RANCID. It has been mentiond 15 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

RANCID mentions (9)

  • Cisco switch backup/restore?
    A decade ago I worked for a shop that needed to routinely back up 100+ cisco switches and routers and refused to pay for solarwinds. I setup a light weight freebsd vm to run this open source software: https://shrubbery.net/rancid/ (Rancid: Really Awesome New Cisco config Differ) and set it to scrape all the equipment every 12 errors. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Version control for network configs
    Anyways Rancid does support cvs, svn, and git. Though I have only used it with cvs. Basically what it does, is checks out the configuration, downloads the configuration with other information about the state of the device, commits the configurations(which only changed ones will be in the latest check-ins, and then it can send an email of the changes. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Management Software for Cisco Devices?
    RANCID - Really Awesome New Cisco confIg Differ monitors a router's (or more generally a device's) configuration, including software and hardware (cards, serial numbers, etc) and uses CVS (Concurrent Version System), Subversion or Git to maintain history of changes. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • What all are you doing with Ansible?
    If you want to use this as an opportunity to learn Ansible, or you don't want to add another tool to the stack, this is a fine use case. Otherwise, I would consider using either RANCID or Oxidized for configuration backup. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Starting with python at 30
    Before I knew about RANCiD (https://shrubbery.net/rancid), I wrote my own Perl application to telnet into a Foundry Networks switch and TFTP its configuration to my computer so I could back it up. At a future employer, I rewrote another coworkers Perl application that collected SNMP values from devices and did stuff with it (forget what all I did then). Source: about 3 years ago
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Entity Framework mentions (15)

  • Create a Simple .NET Workflow App From Scratch – Your Ultimate Guide
    For the simplicity we will use MSSQLProvider to fetch the data from the database. This class has basic functionality, if you want to create complex database queries, for example JOIN, you'd better use something like Entity Framework. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Entity Framework Core in .NET 7 7️⃣
    I only wanted to give a simple preview of what can be done with Entity Framework, but if this is something that interests you and you want to go further in-depth with all the possibilities, I recommend checking out the official docs where you can also find a great tutorial which will guide you through building your very own .NET Core web application. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Got an internship, need help with .NET
    Entity Framework documentation hub - Entity Framework is a modern object-relation mapper that lets you build a clean, portable, and high-level data access layer with .NET (C#) across a variety of databases, including SQL Database (on-premises and Azure), SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Azure Cosmos DB. It supports LINQ queries, change tracking, updates, and schema migrations. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • How to create a "Database Project" that can be used across multiple .NET apps?
    You can create the DAL using your existing code or start using a Object Relational Mapper like Entity Framework which will do a lot of the work for you, check this out here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/ also check out LINQ. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Website with Database. use C#
    And, possibly (not strictly speaking necessary but very useful) Entity framework as a backend part of it. Source: about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing RANCID and Entity Framework, you can also consider the following products

Unimus - Unimus is a Network Automation and Configuration management (NCM) solution designed for fast deployment network-wide and ease of use. Unimus does not require learning any abstraction or templating languages, and does not require any coding skills.

Sequelize - Provides access to a MySQL database by mapping database entries to objects and vice-versa.

Oxidized - configuration backup software (IOS, JunOS) - silly attempt at rancid

Hibernate - Hibernate an open source Java persistence framework project.

GenieACS - A fast and lightweight TR-069 Auto Configuration Server (ACS)

MyBATIS - MyBatis is a top-rated SQL-based data mapping solution used by Programmers, Software Engineers, and Database Architects for developing object-oriented software applications.