I’ve seen a few posts around the web that say, in essence, ‘you shouldn’t buy netTerrain DCIM, as it’s just outside plant (OSP) software.’
When I see posts like that, I have to just scratch my head and think: who on earth came up with this one?
Yes, we make amazing outside plant software but outside plant is just the tip of the iceberg for what netTerrain does and offers. Afterall, Graphical Networks (our company, which makes netTerrain) has IT documentation and visualization roots that stretch back to 1993. Prior to founding Graphical Networks, we all worked for a company called netViz. netViz was a pioneer in network documentation: the company was acquired by Concord Communications in 2003 and subsequently acquired by CA Technologies in 2005. We then went on to found Graphical Networks in 2007. So, it’s fair to say that the team here at Graphical Networks has truly been entrenched in IT documentation for decades.
With our many decades of experience in the IT Management space, our team understands the main pain points our customers are trying to address: poor IT visibility. Poor IT visibility results in stranded or underutilized IT assets, lengthy troubleshooting times and inefficient capacity planning. Through our flagship software, netTerrain, we address these pain points in a highly efficient, and usable, manner.
Because we understand there isn’t a one-size-fits-all types of IT situations, netTerrain comes in two flavors (or varieties): network documentation (netTerrain Logical) and rack and cable management (netTerrain DCIM). Managing fiber across the outside of buildings and inside of them (netTerrain OSP) is offered as an add-on module.
With netTerrain, you only have to pay for what you actually need:
Need to document your network, and use our network discovery to document your network assets and connections? netTerrain Logical is your solution.
netTerrain Logical: Network View
Need to document your racks/cabinets in your data centers with the ability to track the rack space, power, and weight availability, utilize the Work Order tasks for change management, and management style dashboard reports, with built in data center capacity reports? netTerrain DCIM is your solution.
netTerrain DCIM: Rack View
As netTerrain is an IT visualization program, many customers can also document their office workspace environments: such as from telecom rooms, to office rooms, wall jacks, workstations, and printers. You can track your assets, not only from your data center room, but also your telecom rooms and office space
This brings us back to the discussion of our outside plant software, netTerrain OSP.
netTerrain OSP is an add-on module that can be added on to either netTerrain Logical or netTerrain DCIM. If you need to track the fiber plant, the fiber strands, and view our OpenStreetMaps integration to place cabling, manholes, handholes, enclosures, buildings on the maps with six decimal places precision, you will need to add netTerrain OSP on to your netTerrain version (either netTerrain Logical or netTerrain DCIM).
Here’s an example: if you combine netTerrain DCIM and netTerrain OSP, you will have an inside and outside plant solution. This combination means you can document your entire office/building campus environment and outside plant, from manholes, handholes, enclosures, and inside the buildings to splitters, and patch panels.
Regardless of the variety and/or add-on module you choose, netTerrain always comes with the netTerrain Collector, which houses netTerrain’s SNMP network discovery and API connectors to third party data sources for automated diagram creations.
In sum, I hope this answers the myth that netTerrain is ‘just an OSP tool’. netTerrain is a powerful and popular IT Documentation and Visualization solution to help organizations create a single “visual pane of glass” into their infrastructure.