The One DCIM Feature That’s a Deal Breaker
By Fred Koh - July 20, 2022When it comes to Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM), we’ve often written articles in this blog about how features shouldn’t necessarily guide your decision making. Why? All the features in the world won’t make up for software that isn’t usable, updated frequently, or scalable. When it comes to features, what really matters is that the…
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Boutique DCIM vs. Big DCIM
By Fred Koh - July 19, 2022If you’re in the market for a data center infrastructure management solution (DCIM), you want to find the best solution you can. You need to buy something that will deliver on its promises, and, when you’re looking at the various features and vendors out there, you might find yourself a bit lost. Before you jump…
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Is Your Fiber Plant “Area 51”?
By Fred Koh - July 12, 2022You want to believe: you know your fiber’s out there…somewhere…but exactly what it’s all doing and where it all is…that’s the mystery! If you’re dealing with a fiber mystery, this blog’s for you! Question: does any of the below sound familiar to you….? When you need to figure out where something goes to in your…
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How OSP Network Software Saves the Day
By Fred Koh - June 6, 2022Do you manage your fiber infrastructure? If you do, here’s a big round of applause to you: working on fiber plant networks isn’t easy! Afterall, you’re managing the day in and day out maintenance, problems that come out of nowhere, fiber cuts or loss, managing fiber capacity, and dealing with the complexities of circuit design…
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Outdated Network Documentation Solution? How to Replace It
By Fred Koh - May 2, 2022You know what they say about the best laid plans…they don’t always go according to plan! “I’d like to get home by 5PM and catch up on my tv shows, play more with my kids…or maybe I’m so backlogged with my work tickets and need to make progress”…and then boom: a network outage happens just…
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Fiber Mapping Software: 4 Biggest Benefits to Your Organization
By Fred Koh - April 28, 2022If you’re managing a large network of fiber, you already know that finding where it all goes and getting that documented can be a major pain in the neck. When connections don’t indicate your end points, you can find yourself tracking fiber over many miles just to find the endpoint! Documenting your fiber plant is…
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What is Automated Network Mapping?
By Fred Koh - April 20, 2022Automated network mapping is often discussed in forums like Spiceworks and Reddit. Folks ask questions like, “should I get it…?” or “which mapping tool do you recommend?”. If you’re reading this, you may be wondering, before you dive in further as to whether you need it or not: what is automated network mapping, anyways? What…
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Fiber Documentation is Critical: Here’s Why
By Fred Koh - March 21, 2022In IT, documentation has the power to save you time, money, and space…plus, it allows you to troubleshoot far more quickly (which saves a whole lot of hassle, annoyance, and even loss of reputation). As we’ve discussed in this blog over the years, far too many organizations and managers still skip documentation — even as…
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4 Ways DCIM Helps Data Center Managers Gain Control
By Fred Koh - March 15, 2022Data centers today are constantly growing and evolving — without the right tools (and team), it can be all but impossible to gain control over an ecosystem that’s in a constant state of flux. Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solutions help data center managers regain control over issues that may be causing you, and/or your…
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The #1 Problem with Visio Network Diagrams
By Fred Koh - March 1, 2022Many organizations today are still using a combination of Visio and spreadsheets for their network documentation. I get it: these are good applications to use, they’re included with Office 365, and they’re easy-to-use and store. I have seen some really detailed spreadsheets and Visio network diagrams and they are most impressive! The big question that…
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Graphical Networks Exhibits at BICSI Winter 2022
By Hannah Ash - January 24, 2022Graphical Networks, makers of netTerrain — IT visualization software used by hundreds of fiber professionals to help document and manage the fiber plant — will be attending the upcoming BICSI Winter Conference and Exposition 2022 in sunny Orlando, Florida . The exhibit hall opens on January 31st – February 2nd at the Orlando World Center…
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Change Management Series: Task & Work Order Management
By Jan Durnhofer - November 30, 2021Welcome back to the final installment on our series on change management in netTerrain (our IT documentation software). In the previous two blogs, we discussed documentation management and work order basics. In this blog, we’ll go over some more additional features of the built-in task and work order management features (a basic functionality in netTerrain…
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