Sick of Backhoes and Magic 8 Balls? 3 Big Reasons You Need OSP Software
By Jason Sherman - October 1, 2019“Oh, why didn’t I document my fiber…woe is me. Now, I’ve got a hole where my bytes used to be.” Ah, the reasons you may need outside plant software…as if you need more reasons you need it! That said, below are some of those real big-ticket reasons that many of our netTerrain OSP users ultimately…
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What’s in a Network Diagram? Choose Your Flavor
By Jason Sherman - September 20, 2019We get a lot of visitors to our website who want to know (Google tells us this, we’re not psychic), “what’s in a network diagram?”. This makes sense, as we make netTerrain, a leading IT and network diagram software solution — and we write about network and IT diagrams/maps all of the time. They are,…
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How Network Diagrams Help You Secure the Network
By Jason Sherman - August 6, 2019Just as the Equinox data breach seems to finally be on its way to being settled, Capital One gets hit with a massive data breach. In 2019, data is no longer just personal information: it’s a commodity that hackers want to steal and sell. For companies who are entrusted with keeping any kind of personal…
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Network Diagram Software: What Is It? What are the Options?
By Jason Sherman - January 23, 2019Are you ever confused about what the heck network diagram software is? Over the course of this blog, we talk a great deal about why it’s so important to document the network and to keep that documentation up-to-date. For us, the means to this end is our network diagram software netTerrain Logical ( there is…
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The Importance of DCIM Software in Avoiding Network Disasters
By Jason Sherman - January 8, 2019Not every organization needs data center infrastructure management software (DCIM). As we’ve discussed over and over again on this blog (and will continue to do so), it’s not a solve-every-problem-and-boil-the-ocean kind of software. What DCIM software is, however, is a way to manage and control key aspects of data center life that, when not controlled,…
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How to Connect Solarwinds to Your Network Diagram Project in netTerrain
By Jason Sherman - November 29, 2018In this blog about our IT visualization software netTerrain, we will show one way of creating a connector to Solarwinds using netTerrain’s Integration Toolkit (ITK). This is not the only way, and maybe not even the recommended one in certain scenarios, but it sure is a quick one, as we connect directly to the database….
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How DCIM Software Impacts Data Centers
By Jason Sherman - September 14, 2018True DCIM (aka data center infrastructure management software) offers far more than sensor data and pretty 3D pictures. What is DCIM, anyways? It’s certainly not just any software that you can use in a data center. In a nutshell: while many data centers use spreadsheets to track assets, DCIM gives data center managers a way…
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Maximize Fiber Networks with Outside Plant Software
By Jason Sherman - September 13, 2018IT infrastructure and networks today are growing at an incredibly fast pace. Daily modern life is only becoming more dependant upon technology, not less: as a result, the need for networks is skyrocketing. What does this mean on the network level — and for those in the trenches of fiber and telecom management every single…
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Stop Managing Your Outside Plant (OSP) In the Dark
By Jason Sherman - August 28, 2018Lately, I’ve been working on a great deal of OSP projects. While the scope between these different outside plant projects can vary a bit: some may be limited splicing and some may be heavy on the splices. One common thread, however, is how hard it is to track all of this information. While inside plant…
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What Does DCIM Stand For?
By Jason Sherman - August 24, 2018Call me old school or just call me old: when DCIM first started making headlines here and there, I never really understood the acronym. What does it stand for and what does it really mean? DCIM stands for ‘Data Center Infrastructure Management’. Why is it ‘DCIM’ for ‘Data Center Infrastructure Management’ anyways? My best guess…
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Network Diagram Software 101
By Jason Sherman - August 23, 2018If you manage a complicated network, or if you’re establishing one, network diagrams are a necessity. A good network diagram defines the network’s structure and layout using a variety of symbols that represent the devices and connections between them. A ‘completed’ network diagram for a complex network will, most likely, have hundreds of symbols —…
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Can You Diagram the Network with Visio?
By Jason Sherman - August 17, 2018If you manage a network, you know (all too well) that IT documentation is one of those things you need to do but never seem to have the time to get done. It can be an especially daunting (and joyless) task if you plan to diagram and document with Visio network diagrams. That being said,…
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