Who in the world wants to work as part of a collaboration? Boo! It’s all about me and that’s all there is to it! Well, ok now: that’s how I like to work (no wonder no one likes me in the office). OK…so maybe you prefer to be one of those radical people who want to work well with others and get things done. How Hallmark movie you must be!
Maybe if I really wanted to be a team player, I would do it using my network diagram software netTerrain. Why? Because I use netTerrain and it allows for collaborative network diagrams and network documentation. Let me explain: I have heard, time and time again, about departments that don’t have information that can be accessed or shared easily. I’ve also been told that the information is not just siloed but exclusively lives in the brains of a few people and they are always on vacation.
Yeah, that’s no good. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a central place to go and get answers about the network, such as:
- How it’s connected together?
- Where the equipment is located?
- How many widgets we have?
- Maybe vendor details about our primary network circuits?
- How about that cable cut between the buildings? Who or what will that impact?
In netTerrain, different users can collaborate by tracking and accessing the same information from one central place
If the network engineers and planners and designers and support staff would go into one place to add information about the network then we could all work as one. No, not as a borg collective, you can still be your own person — but to have information in one place is a great thing. Yes, we do use our own software and I have to say we use it every day. We use it so much that if I can’t get into netTerrain, I am lost. We have vendors, systems, application overviews, logical drawings, documentation, etc.
Basically the whole network — and more. We all use it here — from support, to engineering to sales. We all have information in the tool to help us…wait for it…collaborate together whether we planned for that or not.
Can you collaborate using any flavor of netTerrain (DCIM, Logical, OSP)? Yes, this collaboration can come from the base (netTerrain Logical, network diagrams/documentation software) with different user options, so you can have a bunch of read-only users who have access to the data and then other who can bring in the data. Or, of course, automate with discovery and API integrations.
What are you waiting for? Get out there and start being a team player.