OpsMill is excited to announce the release of Infrahub 1.2, which introduces significant enhancements to Infrahub’s infrastructure data management capabilities. This release focuses on improving efficiency, transparency, and control by implementing new features and optimizations.

Key Features of Infrahub 1.2

• Templates: Facilitates standardized and efficient object creation.
• Activity Log: Provides a detailed audit trail for enhanced transparency.
• Enhanced Webhooks: Expands event triggers and payload customization.
• User Interface Refinements: Offers a cleaner and more organized experience.
• Performance Optimizations: Includes object list retrieval speed-ups and query efficiency.

Templates: Accelerating and Standardizing Data Creation

One of the standout features in this release is the introduction of Templates. If you’ve ever found yourself repeatedly entering the same configurations for devices or components, you’ll appreciate this. Templates allow you to define reusable blueprints for complex objects, dramatically reducing manual data entry and ensuring consistency across your infrastructure.

Imagine setting up a new rack with a standardized patch panel configuration. With Infrahub 1.2, you can create a “PatchPanel” template with 48 pre-defined ports and any relevant metadata and then instantiate new panels with a single click. Templates aren’t just about saving time; they are about minimizing errors and ensuring your data is reliable.

Creating a Patch Panel with the option to utilize a Template

This feature is a game-changer for large-scale deployments and ongoing maintenance, allowing you to focus on strategic tasks rather than tedious data entry.

Not Just for Devices

One of the things that makes Infrahub templates different from what you’ve probably seen before is that they can create reusable blueprints for any object type, including complex relationships. NSoTs have previously offered a limited version of this capability, such as NetBox Device Types, which focused only on ensuring consistency in hardware device configurations and inventory management. 

Infrahub’s templates provide greater flexibility and dynamic object creation, applicable across diverse infrastructure elements, not just devices. For example, you could use Infrahub templates for Sites or Services, allowing you to easily blueprint higher-level concepts in your environment. For example, templating Sites would enable you to have straightforward Small/Medium/Large site templates with related and common attributes populated for each Site you create in Infrahub. Alternatively, templating of Services would allow you to quickly and consistently re-create a higher-level service construct, such as an L3 VPN or a VPC and EC2 instances for an application.

Activity Log: Complete Transparency and Auditing

The Activity Log is a pivotal addition to Infrahub 1.2, a feature deeply integrated with our enhanced event system (from Infrahub 1.1). Maintaining a meticulous audit trail is essential in today’s compliance-driven landscape, and this log delivers just that. By capturing every event—creation, update, deletion, and more—the Activity Log provides a comprehensive, contextual view of all changes to your infrastructure data.

The Activity Log Page

This detailed record, powered by our robust event framework, allows for precise tracking and effective troubleshooting, ensuring unparalleled transparency and accountability. Also of note, this is just the beginning of the new event framework’s power, and more exciting things are on the horizon!

An Activity Log Entry

The Activity Log on an individual object

This feature is more than just a log; it’s a dynamic record of your infrastructure’s evolution, empowering you to understand and manage changes confidently. Think of it as a recorder for your infrastructure data; every create, update, and delete action is tracked, giving you precise power to see what happened in the past. This level of transparency is invaluable for maintaining data integrity and accountability.

Enhanced Webhooks: Greater Flexibility and Control

We’ve also significantly enhanced our Webhook functionality. You can trigger Webhooks based on various events, including node creation, updates, and deletions. This flexibility allows for deeper integration with your existing workflows and systems.

Moreover, the ability to execute custom Infrahub Transformations on Webhook payloads opens up a world of possibilities. You can tailor the data sent to your endpoints, ensuring seamless interoperability with your tools and services.

The new Webhook view.

UI and Performance Improvements

Beyond these significant features, we’ve made numerous UI enhancements and performance improvements. These changes reflect our commitment to providing a smooth and efficient user experience.

New and Improved Tables

One of the most immediately noticeable improvements in Infrahub 1.2 is the redesign of its object tables to improve usability and efficiency. Improvements include:

• Infinite scrolling has replaced pagination.
• Filtering capabilities have also expanded; users can now filter specific columns directly and utilize new conditional filters such as “contains,” “is empty,” and “is not empty.” 
• When available, the HFID (Human-Friendly Identifier) is now displayed as the lead column, aiding in precise object identification.  

Finally, a new action menu has been added to each row to allow quick edits and deletions without going to the object’s detail page. These changes collectively contribute to a more streamlined and responsive data management experience within Infrahub.

Migration and Documentation

We’ve provided detailed documentation and migration guides to help you seamlessly transition to Infrahub 1.2. As always, we recommend backing up your environment before performing any upgrades.

• Templates Documentation: https://docs.infrahub.app/topics/object-template
• Activity Log Documentation: https://docs.infrahub.app/topics/activity-log
• Webhooks Documentation: https://docs.infrahub.app/topics/webhooks
• Infrahub Database Backup and Restore: https://docs.infrahub.app/guides/database-backup

Looking Ahead

Infrahub 1.2 represents a significant advancement in Infrahub’s capabilities. OpsMill continues to prioritize developing features that improve operational efficiency and data integrity. User feedback remains integral to the ongoing evolution of Infrahub, and we look forward to hearing about your experience with this new release.

We’re excited to see how you use these new features to optimize your data and automation workflows!

Stay tuned for more updates, and happy automating!