4 Wrong Reasons Not to Buy DCIM Software
By Fred Koh - July 25, 2020As a DCIM vendor…the title seems to contradict what we sell. It’s not that we don’t believe in our product (we do), it’s that we’ve been in the business of DCIM for many years and have seen prospective customers come, go without making a purchase, and eventually come back and buy DCIM so many times…
Learn More
3 Reasons You Should Replace Visio Network Diagrams
By Fred Koh - July 23, 2020Change is hard. I get it. I understand why most folks don’t want to make changes: whether it is staying in the same job even if you don’t love it, waking up at the same time, eating at the same restaurants, and for network engineers, hopefully updating their network diagrams using Visio software diagrams and…
Learn More
DCIM & Documentation Software: Easily Import Your Data
By Fred Koh - July 22, 2020As I discussed in a recent article about tracking changes in the network, keeping your network diagrams up-to-date is critical to fostering greater adoption and usage of a network documentation and/or Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solution. With a proper change management solution in place, you can ensure your documentation will be up-to-date (and, for…
Learn More
Need Software for Network Diagrams and Network Mapping?
By Fred Koh - July 14, 2020Recently, I wrote an article (about the three top reasons to replace Visio for network diagrams) which dives into the importance of having an automated solution for network mapping (you can read it by clicking here). So, how do network mapping and network diagrams correlate with each other? According to Wikipedia’s entry on network diagram…
Learn More
DCIM Software with Cable Management: Do You Need It?
By Fred Koh - July 13, 2020Do you need Data Center Infrastructure Management software (DCIM)? If so, what are your requirements when looking for a DCIM software? If you’re going through your checklist of features and looking at many DCIM software vendors (you can read more about putting your list of DCIM requirements together by clicking here) —- don’t forget to…
Learn More
How to Track Changes with IT Documentation Software: Change Management
By Fred Koh - July 12, 2020So, you’ve stepped up to the IT visualization plate and started to use netTerrain — either on a trial basis or as one of our customers…and now, you’d like to avoid your time investment becoming shelfware. Take note: one of the aspects that leads software straight into the abyss of ‘shelfware’ is a lack of…
Learn More
Enhanced Layer 2 Network Discovery Coming Up!
By Jan Durnhofer - July 10, 2020A key aspect of mapping the network is the ability to automatically discover the entire topology! This is so crucial that, in fact, at least half of the requests we get from our customers involve what we call ‘Layer 2 Discovery’. It’s called Layer 2 (you can click here to read more about it on…
Learn More
What’s Your DCIM Roadmap?
By Jan Durnhofer - July 2, 2020Customers and prospects frequently ask us about our roadmap. While it’s a good question, it’s tricky to answer….not because I feel we have a ‘roadmap problem’ at Graphical Networks, but because, if I have to explain our stance and the reasoning behind it, it would lend itself to a long philosophical debate on the nature…
Learn More
netTerrain Complaint of the Week: where’s your feature request system?
By Jan Durnhofer - June 30, 2020A customer who uses netTerrain for Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) recently asked us why they couldn’t access some sort of customer-centric feature request database or roadmap tool. It’s a good question (and it’s one that also invites some interesting philosophical debates that are fodder for more than the one heated discussion our team had…
Learn More
netTerrain Logical vs. netTerrain DCIM
By Fred Koh - June 22, 2020As the executive director of sales at Graphical Networks, I’m often asked about the various differences across our product offerings. This article will highlight the key differences between our network mapping and diagram software (netTerrain Logical) and our data center infrastructure management software (netTerrain DCIM). Graphical Networks has just one IT Visualization platform: netTerrain. What…
Learn More
Good DCIM Software: What to Look For
By Fred Koh - June 18, 2020Data Center Infrastructure Management Software (DCIM): how do you define it? Ask what DCIM means to your colleagues and management and I have no doubt that you’ll end up with different responses from each person you ask! Over the many years that we’ve been selling our DCIM tool (netTerrain DCIM), we’ve written numerous articles (and…
Learn More
How to Win Friends & Influence Bosses (Using Network Diagrams)
By Fred Koh - June 15, 2020Finally…you’re about to head home. Then…the calls start. Then..the emails. The network is slow…or even worse, it’s down. Troubleshooting takes up so much time compared to actually fixing the underlying network issue. How can managers and IT directors help their staff reduce the time it takes to find and fix an issue? Network diagrams save…
Learn More