The Totally Biased Guide to Documenting Your Network: What Can Be Documented?
By Jason Sherman - June 5, 2018Now that you’ve identified what it is that you actually need to document, let’s dive into the details….aka what does that look like in your brain? Imagine you have a crystal ball and look into the future: what does your documentation look like. By ‘future’ I mean that you should set a realistic timeline —…
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Manage Your Outside Plant: Tracing Circuits
By Jan Durnhofer - June 4, 2018In this 4th segment (and video) of our series on managing your outside plant with dynamic maps, you will learn to trace a cable in our outside plant software netTerrain. In the previous segments in this OSP series, you learned how to: create a map in netTerrain OSP software, how to add objects to it…
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Why Big DCIM Vendors Have a Big ROI Problem
By Fred Koh - May 31, 2018Regardless of how much large software vendors may want it to be otherwise, DCIM, aka data center infrastructure management software, isn’t — by its very nature — a one-size-fits-all solution. It can function across a number of different data center functions. Don’t just take my word for it: ask ten DCIM vendors to define exactly…
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How to Reserve Resources in DCIM, Network Documentation, & OSP
By Jan Durnhofer - May 30, 2018In this blog, and accompanying video, you’ll learn how to reserve resources in netTerrain. Time and time again, we’ve seen countless situations in which our customers need to reserve a resource in netTerrain without making it active — while still being able to see the resource reserve reflected in the diagrams. Maybe a user wants…
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Manage Your Outside Plant: Mapping Fiber Strands in a Splice Box
By Jan Durnhofer - May 29, 2018In this article and video, the third segment in our series on managing your outside plant with dynamic maps, you will learn how to apply netTerrain OSP to a very common scenario in GPON network mapping and fiber documentation: creating fiber strands and mapping them to a duct (you can click here to watch the…
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How to Keep Your Network Diagram Project Right-Sized
By Jason Sherman - May 17, 2018When it comes to mapping and diagramming the network, is there such a thing as inviting ‘too many people to the party’? Of course, it’s always more fun to invite others to your (network documentation) party…and, of course, sometimes you have to. Sometimes, however, it is more effective to start small and do just what…
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Manage Your Outside Plant with Dynamic Maps: Manholes, Conduits, Ducts
By Jan Durnhofer - May 14, 2018Welcome back to our series on managing your outside plant with dynamic maps: in this second installment in the series, you’ll learn how to place manholes, conduits, and ducts within your outside plant diagrams. In the introduction to this series, you got an overview of how you can create maps in netTerrain. To recap, these…
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The Totally Biased Guide to Documenting Your Network: Want & Need
By Jason Sherman - May 11, 2018In the first installment in this series, we discussed whether or not you have pain. If you’re still reading, you probably determined that you do, indeed, have some very real pain points that you want to solve with automated network mapping and documentation. Your next step, then, is to define what you want to do…vs….
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Totally Biased Guide to Documenting Your Network
By Jason Sherman - April 27, 2018Here at Graphical Networks, we see it every day: automatic network documentation and diagramming makes life easier for our customers. With automation, users can fix network outages faster, troubleshoot issues quickly, reduce expenditure on unnecessary IT stuff, and save time and resources managing changes to the network. If you’re considering making the jump from no…
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The Art of Data Center Migrations
By Jason Sherman - April 20, 2018I know what I want to do next week: move some servers….what fun! I might as well move some mountains while I’m at it. So, how the heck do you plan out a data center migration? With a notebook and piece of paper (of course): 1. Draw a picture of the servers switches and routers….
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Tales of Fiber Network Outages
By Jason Sherman - April 18, 2018Ever seen the insurance ad that goes something like, “Insurance: when you need it, you really need it” alongside a photograph of a house with extensive damage? Fiber network documentation goes something like that: when you need it, you really need it. Fiber networks are, by their nature, vulnerable to damage. Wondering what the top…
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Why Airports Need Inside & Outside Network Maps
By Jason Sherman - April 16, 2018Ever really look at a map of the airport? It’s a bustling network of terminals, concourses, shopping centers, food courts, kiosks, security checkpoints, and, of course, airplanes. If you’ve ever been delayed for hours, you know that airports can be a destination unto themselves (for better or worse). Airports are constantly evolving — and their…
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