Methods, computer systems, and computer program products for configuring ports of interconnected communications equipment include, defining configuration parameters for at least one port of a plurality of ports of a plurality of interconnected communications devices; defining a group of the at least one port of the plurality of ports of the plurality of interconnected communications devices into a configuration group; and creating an explicit link mirroring the defined configuration parameters of the at least one port of the plurality of ports of the plurality of interconnected communications devices to the defined configuration group of at least one port of the plurality of ports of the plurality of interconnected communications devices, such that changes made to the defined configuration parameters are replicated and synced to the defined configuration group.