Thursday, November 7, 2019

Documenting a large network

We have lot's of branches all around the country, and some larger campuses. Currently we're trying to document everything in Visio files, but it's getting really difficult. For example where to end one Visio diagram and strat with another. Should we draw the core routers, or just put in a cloud. Or how should we split the campus in different Visio files. Also everyone has a bit different "handwriting" when they are doing the graphs. Adding management IPs to the diagram either requires us to use graph attributes or add text fields, and searching for something from hundred Visio files is quite hard. Also if we have a DC diagram that has link to other city's DC, which files are the ones we should draw the fiber link to...

This is why we're looking for another solution to draw the diagrams. Something that doesn't require the Visio client to be installed on every laptop, as quite often techs write the cable routes on a paper and then try to remember to add those to Visio files when they're back at the office, often times forgetting that.

So I've looked at NetTerrain, which seems like a proper tool to do this. Web GUI, eveyrone can access that and all the diagrams are in different levels and everything in one central system.

Just wondering what would be the alternatives? Is there something else we should look in to? We're not really that interested in where the actual fibers go, as we just rent the fibers from ISPs. We just need to know that there is a fiber connection from this panel to the building 20 miles apart.

Thanks!



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