Change Management Series: Work Order Basics
By Jan Durnhofer - November 30, 2021Welcome back to the second blog in our change management series (a series designed to give you a basic understanding of how to use netTerrain for change management). In the previous blog in this series in our IT documentation software netTerrain, we discussed documentation management and, if you read that blog, you should now have…
Learn More
Complaint of the week: missing fiber strand counts!
By Jan Durnhofer -To put the cap on this year, we’re revving back up our “complaint of the week” series —as you may recall, this series is devoted to exposing holes in our product. While it may be a bit different for a software vendor to discuss real-life problems users encounter, we aim for a collaborative environment and…
Learn More
Handholes, Manholes, & Other OSP Location Maps
By Fred Koh - November 15, 2021Need location maps of your fiber plant’s handholes, manholes, conduits, and more? With netTerrain OSP software, it’s easy: you can add, view, and search for any elements in your OSP network in seconds (no more sorting through various spreadsheets and Google Earth customizations!).You can document all of your connections, your manholes, handholes, fiber enclosures, splitters,…
Learn More
Every OSP Network Professional Should Read This Blog
By Fred Koh - October 19, 2021Do you work on OSP (outside plant) / fiber plant networks? If you do, hats off to you: your job is tough. Are you stuck using spreadsheets and Google Earth customizations to manage but your fiber’s outgrowing it? Do visions of damage from backhoes keep you up at night? Under pressure to manage fiber capacity…
Learn More
The Automated Network Mapping Software Checklist
By Fred Koh - August 27, 2021Before you buy automated network mapping software (software that helps network operations to understand all the devices on a network and how they are interconnected through network discovery), you typically go through the process of making sure you really need it, make the case to the bosses upstairs that they really need to fund it,…
Learn More
DCIM Software Racks: Basics
By Jan Durnhofer - August 26, 2021In this blog series all about racks, we’ll dive into using racks in netTerrain and explore some of the capabilities in terms of: ease of rack mounting, modeling, the different kinds of racks or cabinets that you can create, and some of the capacity planning features. In this blog, the first in a five part…
Learn More
DCIM Software? Your Expectations vs. Reality
By Fred Koh - August 16, 2021If you read some of the Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) vendor’s descriptions of DCIM software, you could be tricked into thinking DCIM is as seamless and easy as slipping on a pair of Google glasses and bam: you’re immediately slash power costs, planning for capacity by clicking a button, and gaining control of the…
Learn More
Got Fiber Plant Diagrams?
By Fred Koh - July 20, 2021During the intervening years since we first launched netTerrain Outside Plant (OSP) — it’s an add on module to netTerrain Logical or netTerrain DCIM — we’ve fielded many questions about the type of GIS-enabled maps that netTerrain supports as well as netTerrain’s ability to import existing maps/diagrams. What’s netTerrain OSP (Outside Plant Software)? First, what’s…
Learn More
Beavers vs. Your Outside Plant
By Fred Koh - July 16, 2021When we first saw this news story back in April of this year, we said, “we have to write a blog about this.” What’s it about? Well, you probably “wood”n’t believe it, but: beavers caused some massive headaches in a Canadian town. Yes: beavers. If you’re new to working on the outside plant, that may…
Learn More
OSP Network: 3 Ways Software Improves Efficiency
By Fred Koh - May 21, 2021Your fiber plant and OSP networks can be incredibly complex. If there is a problem with a connection, how do you know what you’ll need to fix it, where exactly it is, and so on without an up-to-date map/diagram? How can you plan for, and manage, fiber capacity? Outside Plant Software (OSP) software can help…
Learn More
Buying DCIM Software is Like Buying a Refrigerator
By Fred Koh - April 30, 2021When it comes to significant purchases, a few things come to mind: new home, booking a cruise, a new car, selecting a college, and the more mundane home appliances (such as a new refrigerator). All of these purchases are, in some way, investments that you hope will pay off by delivering you the desired results….
Learn More
Need a Cable Management System Software Solution?
By Fred Koh - April 23, 2021Keeping spreadsheets current by hand is a daunting task….but what if you’re tracking your cabling in spreadsheets? How daunting is that? Yikes. As my company, Graphical Networks, makes software that helps organizations manage cabling through cable management software (in addition to other capabilities), I speak with a lot of people who are interested in getting…
Learn More