netTerrain Settings: Fiber and Outside Plant Diagram Tuning
By Jan Durnhofer - March 17, 2020In our first blog in this series on settings for our outside plant software, we explained the need for settings in the context of fine tuning you Data Center, Network Documentation or Outside Plant project and we looked into a specific repository of parameters called Settings.xml. In our second blog in this series we looked…
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Press Button, Picture Network, Go to Sleep…?
By Jan Durnhofer - March 13, 2020If you work in IT, and you’ve spent more than 5 minutes trying to troubleshoot the network, you probably know the usual deal with network documentation . It’s very important and at the same time… it’s usually the last thing people update. In ‘Steady State’ mode, aka when no alarms are going off, you run…
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Where’s the Deployment Guide?
By Jan Durnhofer - March 3, 2020This week we opened a very interesting email from a potential customer who wanted to check out netTerrain’s deployment guide (they’re seriously considering deploying netTerrain DCIM for their Data Center Infrastructure Management needs). After providing this prospect with the installation guide, he came back requesting more documentation that would specifically address firewall rules. I thought…
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IT Visualization Software: “what can it do?”
By Fred Koh - February 27, 2020In one of my previous articles — about what netTerrain is — I discussed some of the items you can visualize in netTerrain. When doing demos for prospects, most people don’t know the full capabilities of our IT visualization software, netTerrain. It’s more than just a network documentation, DCIM, and fiber plant solution…it’s a web-based…
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Need to Migrate Away from netViz?
By Fred Koh - February 21, 2020Back in the early 1990’s, a company based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, offered a desktop-based, IT documentation system called netViz. netViz did what it did great. It gave users the ability to document networks, data centers, and enterprise architecture diagrams. Users were using netViz to document its data center racks and cables, well before the term…
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netTerrain Settings: Secrets for Fine-tuning Your DCIM, OSP, and Network Diagrams
By Jan Durnhofer - February 20, 2020One of our mantras as a software company is to try to deliver a product that you can “manage by exception”. This means that, ideally, the software should already be configured in such a way that it accommodates your most likely needs. Only in case of an exception, in which some setting needs to be…
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netTerrain Complaint of the Week: the previewer isn’t smooth enough!
By Jan Durnhofer - February 19, 2020Welcome back to our complaint-of-the-week series. After a rather long hiatus, we’re back again with this series dedicated to unearthing some of the weaknesses you may come across while using netTerrain. Exposing weaknesses…from a software vendor? Yep: as good software is an iterative process of improvement, we have no problem exposing some of the things…
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Zoom & Pan: a Gazillion Ways to Do It, but Stick to the Shortcuts!
By Jan Durnhofer - February 15, 2020As you may know, we usually poke fun at ourselves by writing about complaints customers have in our complaint of the week series that focuses on what our users don’t love about our software for network mapping, data center management, and outside plant. Today, however, I’m turning the tables a bit: I’m putting you, our…
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What is netTerrain?
By Fred Koh - February 10, 2020How did you reach our website? Hear about us from a coworker? Maybe Google or other search engine? Perhaps one of your staff recommended us. However you landed here, you may be wondering: “what exactly is netTerrain?” If you’ve checked out a page or two on our website, read a blog, or maybe watched a…
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How is DCIM Software Priced?
By Fred Koh - January 17, 2020Your boss has tasked you to research procuring a DCIM software for your organization… after a series of exhaustive and endless meetings with different stakeholders to determine your set of requirements what you need from a DCIM solution should include from your department and colleagues, its time to finally start the search for DCIM vendors…
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Complaint of the Week: headers and footers giving me trouble!
By Jan Durnhofer - January 7, 2020Another week, another complaint here at GN… If you are new to this blog series, we like to poke holes at all things netTerrain, because, why not? Our customers love the tool, from its DCIM capabilities, network mapping and cable management features, to fiber and outside plant, but it ain’t perfect and showing our weaknesses…
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SNMP discovery vs. Network connectors – which is better?
By Jan Durnhofer - November 18, 2019As netTerrain (for DCIM, Network Mapping, OSP software) offers both options, I get asked this question often: “what should I use? netTerrain’s native SNMP discovery or some connector to an existing system?” And the answer, as you may expect, is “…it depends.” SNMP discovery: “the magic button” netTerrain’s SNMP discovery is a nice feature. You…
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