Tales from the Net: Network Documentation Woes
By Fred Koh - October 4, 2021Need software for network documentation? Ideally, if you need to document the network this is what happens: you go out and buy network documentation software, install, implement, and bam: you click, view network, fix, and go home early. That’s the goal, right? Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Recently, a member of my team dived…
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Computer Network Diagrams 101
By Fred Koh - September 28, 2021Sick of troubleshooting headaches and trying to fix issues when you just don’t have the information you need? Computer network diagrams can be a big help: they keep mission critical business operations up and running. When something goes wrong in the network, computer network diagrams are the key to solving the problem and minimizing downtime….
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Finding the Right Network Diagram Software: Features vs. Usability
By Fred Koh - September 24, 2021In the last two blogs in this series on finding the right network diagram software, we discussed identifying your pain and basic vendor research. After you’ve identified your pain and narrowed your vendor search down, what’s next? You’ve got to look at how the features that a vendor offers will solve your pain and evaluate…
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Network Documentation Explained
By Fred Koh - September 22, 2021Network documentation: what is it? Who uses network documentation? Do you need it? Documenting network info isn’t exactly a topic that’s going to trend on any social media platform soon (unless, of course, there’s a security breach, ahem), but still: it’s an important consideration for most businesses that rely on the network to help a…
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Finding the Right Network Diagram Software: Research Vendors
By Fred Koh - September 20, 2021Welcome to the next blog in this series on Finding the Right Network Diagram Software.Run a quick Google search and you’ll see that, if you’re looking for network diagram software, you’ve got lots of options. With so many different vendors out there, how do you determine which software option will best solve your network headaches?…
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What’s the Best Cable Management Software on the Market?
By Fred Koh - September 16, 2021When you can’t accurately manage and plan for capacity, you end up not knowing how many ports inside a device are active or not, which can cause unnecessary IT expenditures realizing the number of ports are not sufficient and need to buy new equipment, but in actuality it’s not. This also leads to managing your…
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Finding the Right Network Diagram Software: What’s Your Pain?
By Fred Koh - September 14, 2021This blog series on finding the right network diagram software will explore some of the important considerations and research to undertake to ensure you find a solution you, your team, and your company is happy with not just today, or next week, but for the long haul. In this, the first blog in this series,…
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Cable Management Software? What You (& Your Boss) Should Know
By Fred Koh - September 13, 2021Are you dealing with “cabling spaghetti” in your infrastructure? Do you need a surefire way to untangle yourself from this mess? If you’re not using good cable management software, you could be dealing with too many inefficiencies and too little time: slower troubleshooting because circuits cannot be properly traced, stranded ports and subcomponents due to…
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Need Layer 2 Network Diagrams?
By Fred Koh - September 1, 2021I just wrote an article that gives you a checklist to run down before you purchase automated network mapping software (you can read it here). One of the items mentioned in this checklist is the need for Layer 2(L2) discovery. By Layer 2 discovery, I mean: how are network devices connected to each other? A…
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The Automated Network Mapping Software Checklist
By Fred Koh - August 27, 2021Before you buy automated network mapping software (software that helps network operations to understand all the devices on a network and how they are interconnected through network discovery), you typically go through the process of making sure you really need it, make the case to the bosses upstairs that they really need to fund it,…
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DCIM Software? Your Expectations vs. Reality
By Fred Koh - August 16, 2021If you read some of the Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) vendor’s descriptions of DCIM software, you could be tricked into thinking DCIM is as seamless and easy as slipping on a pair of Google glasses and bam: you’re immediately slash power costs, planning for capacity by clicking a button, and gaining control of the…
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Convince Your Boss You Need Network Diagrams with 5 Statistics
By Fred Koh - August 12, 2021Do you manage the network? Is relying on Visio and spreadsheets driving you crazy? Know you need network diagrams but you’ve got to make a strong case to the bosses upstairs? If just promising them that you’ll get more done, reduce downtime, meet Service Level Agreement (SLAs), lessen the burden of overtime, and keep crucial…
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