Go to an industry trade show or hop on Google and you may think you’re working for one of the last organizations still using spreadsheets and/or Visio diagrams to track your circuits and cabling infrastructure. As someone who talks to folks like you every day, I can say this with confidence: if you’re still using outdated spreadsheets and Visio diagrams to track your cabling infrastructure, you are not in the minority (and, in fact, you may be in the majority).

Far too many organizations are using manual methods to try and document ever-changing cabling infrastructures…and, as you probably already know, this leads to big problems. Slow troubleshooting times when you can’t trace your circuits. Stranded ports and subcomponents because you haven’t fully decommissioned your fiber. The list of various inefficiencies and headaches goes on (and on…and on)!

I get it: when companies are dealing with the day-to-day issues of keeping network and data center infrastructures up and running, it’s easy to overlook how important cabling infrastructure software can be…however, your circuits and your cables are the glue holding your entire infrastructure together. Got IT headaches? Maybe it’s time to look into cabling infrastructure software.

In this blog, let’s look at some of the things you can do with cabling infrastructure software like netTerrain:

Manage Your Copper & Fiber

With good cabling infrastructure software, it’s easy to navigate your IT inventory, networks, telecom rooms, and data centers. In netTerrain, for example, you can access our pre-existing catalog of cables or model your own custom ones in just one minute. Add your own rules and properties to your cables and apply them, or don’t, to thousands of cables in a click. You can track properties like the type, the length, the connectors, and whatever else you want to track by simply using one of netTerrain’s unlimited custom fields, and you can also color code, change the line style, add arrows to your cables based on your own criteria.

You get full path visualization of your port-to-port connectivity: you can view your cables at any level, from the port to the card to the backplane, rack, floorplan, and more. You can track your fiber from your LIU to splice enclosures (and any hop in between). Get complete circuit layout records so that you can trace, end-to-end, each fiber strand or copper cable and associate fiber strands to trunks and conduits. Using bend points, it’s easy to route your cables with precision with GIS based latitude and longitude maps.

In netTerrain, use bend points to route your cables with precision

Manage Your Trays

In cabling infrastructure software, it can be simple to manage and track both your underfloor and overhead trays. In netTerrain, for instance, you can route cables, of any type, through any number of tray sections. Automatically (no data entry required) track your tray occupancy rates and create your own fill rate equations and you can, dynamically, color code your trays based on current fill rate thresholds.

Tray reports make seeing what’s in your project easy-peasy

Manage Your Outside Plant Connectivity

Now, take note: the last time we checked, netTerrain (our software) is one of the few cabling infrastructure software that offers seamless visualization of both your inside and outside plant connectivity. There may be other solutions out there, but we can only speak to what netTerrain offers. In netTerrain, you can visualize your manholes, conduits, ducts, trunks, other containers and termination elements. It’s easy to create and manage splices (all the way down to the strand level, with splice points) and cross-connect each fiber strand to panels and other inside or outside plant elements. You can associate strands to trunks, ducts and conduits and re-route and overlay them on geo-referenced maps. You can even document your radio and wireless equipment (such as towers, antennas, equipment, and associated circuits and frequencies).

Example of an Outside Plant Map View in netTerrain

Manage Your Circuits

How much of a hassle is circuit design and allocation for you? In cabling infrastructure software like netTerrain, it’s actually fun (yes, we really mean that). It’s easy to create and model your own circuit and service elements with unlimited custom properties and rules – in minutes. You can document and manage L1 through L7 connectivity (port-to-port) and create associations between layers.

netTerrain can automatically discover and document your L3 IP/MPLS connectivity. You can document your SDH, SONET, Ethernet, DWDM and other circuits. You can map low-level circuits to their higher level containers (like T1 to T3, T3 to OC-3, etc.) You can also create easy-to-understand circuit layout records that include all outside and inside plant elements.

Circuit Layout Record in netTerrain

Manage Your Power Cables

With software like netTerrain, you can create and model your own power cable types (again, with unlimited properties and rules) in a minute. You can track any number of properties (like type, amperage, length, or whatever custom properties you need to keep track of). It’s easy to display power connectivity all the way down to the power plug and you can color code your cables based on your own criteria. You can also create power-specific circuit layout records for complete end-to-end tracing of each power feed you have.

To sum up, if you’re sick of dealing with cabling headaches, look into cabling infrastructure software. Tackle your issues and start gaining efficiency plus saving on IT expenses. If you’d like to test-drive netTerrain for free, click here to let us know.

About Fred Koh

As a seasoned sales executive, Fred Koh serves as Director of Sales and is responsible for Graphical Networks sales and channel partner program, marketing strategy, and operations.