A retail switch was edited by hand and no longer matches the approved baseline stored in change control. What should operations do with that drift?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
You can treat the golden configuration as the approved target and reconcile the production switch to match it. Updating the baseline without review, leaving unexplained drift because traffic is flowing, or reverting to an older factory default would not restore the approved build.
Full Explanation
The golden configuration is the approved baseline held in change control, so you should reconcile the production switch to match it. A hand edit that makes the live configuration differ from that baseline is configuration drift; restoring the approved configuration addresses the mismatch, using a reviewed change where required. Updating the stored baseline to match the hand edit without review may make the comparison look clean, but it blesses an unapproved change rather than restoring the approved build. Leaving the drift in place because the switch is passing traffic ignores the mismatch: working traffic does not make the configuration approved. Rolling the switch back to its factory default is also unsuitable because that default is older than the approved baseline and would discard the reviewed build as well as the hand edit. Exam caveat: if the hand edit is an emergency fix on which production depends, blindly restoring the golden configuration could cause an outage; assess the impact and use change control to review any baseline update. Practical check: compare the live configuration with the golden configuration, restore or formally review each difference, then verify that a new comparison shows no unexplained drift.