3 Network and Data Center Diagramming Success Stories
By Fred Koh - May 18, 2022Considering a software program to document your network, your data centers inventory, and your cabling? Have you outgrown tools like Visio and spreadsheets and you’re ready to find a centralized, visual repository to view, search, report, and find information quickly? If you are, you may be curious as to how other organizations are using netTerrain…
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The 5-Minute Guide to DCIM Software Licensing
By Fred Koh - May 13, 2022If you’re investigating potential Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solutions to transform your data center’s efficiency, you’ll eventually end up at the pricing part of your decision-making process…and you may find yourself scratching your head, thinking, “whaaaat”…pricing for enterprise solutions like DCIM can be far more complex than, say, a pricing for a standard desktop…
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Outdated Network Documentation Solution? How to Replace It
By Fred Koh - May 2, 2022You know what they say about the best laid plans…they don’t always go according to plan! “I’d like to get home by 5PM and catch up on my tv shows, play more with my kids…or maybe I’m so backlogged with my work tickets and need to make progress”…and then boom: a network outage happens just…
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Fiber Mapping Software: 4 Biggest Benefits to Your Organization
By Fred Koh - April 28, 2022If you’re managing a large network of fiber, you already know that finding where it all goes and getting that documented can be a major pain in the neck. When connections don’t indicate your end points, you can find yourself tracking fiber over many miles just to find the endpoint! Documenting your fiber plant is…
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What is Automated Network Mapping?
By Fred Koh - April 20, 2022Automated network mapping is often discussed in forums like Spiceworks and Reddit. Folks ask questions like, “should I get it…?” or “which mapping tool do you recommend?”. If you’re reading this, you may be wondering, before you dive in further as to whether you need it or not: what is automated network mapping, anyways? What…
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The 4-Minute Guide to DCIM’s History
By Fred Koh - April 5, 2022When we worked at netViz back in the early 2000’s, I remember several companies getting started in IT documentation, mainly Aperture and Rackwise, that then started to focus on DCIM. Anyone still remember them? Our team does: afterall, the other founding members and I at Graphical Networks all came from netViz, and we’ve been selling…
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How Do I Switch from Visio Diagrams to Automated Network Documentation?
By Fred Koh - March 28, 2022If your network is documented in Visio network diagrams, or spreadsheets – or a combination of both – you, or a colleague, have probably invested a great deal of time into that documentation…or, you haven’t and it’s more of an afterthought than documentation that’s truly usable and gives you insights you can act on. Regardless…
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Introduction: Data Center Capacity Explained
By Fred Koh - March 23, 2022It’s no secret: the demand for more and more data storage is increasing at record speeds today! More storage and higher costs go hand in hand: look at some of the recent headlines in data center news and it’s apparent that data center capacity is both expensive and that the need for it is constantly…
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Fiber Documentation is Critical: Here’s Why
By Fred Koh - March 21, 2022In IT, documentation has the power to save you time, money, and space…plus, it allows you to troubleshoot far more quickly (which saves a whole lot of hassle, annoyance, and even loss of reputation). As we’ve discussed in this blog over the years, far too many organizations and managers still skip documentation — even as…
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4 Ways DCIM Helps Data Center Managers Gain Control
By Fred Koh - March 15, 2022Data centers today are constantly growing and evolving — without the right tools (and team), it can be all but impossible to gain control over an ecosystem that’s in a constant state of flux. Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solutions help data center managers regain control over issues that may be causing you, and/or your…
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The #1 Problem with Visio Network Diagrams
By Fred Koh - March 1, 2022Many organizations today are still using a combination of Visio and spreadsheets for their network documentation. I get it: these are good applications to use, they’re included with Office 365, and they’re easy-to-use and store. I have seen some really detailed spreadsheets and Visio network diagrams and they are most impressive! The big question that…
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Transform Your Data Center Cabling Mess
By Fred Koh - February 25, 2022Tracking all of the cabling inside your data center…that sounds like fun, right? Yeah, right, you’re thinking. I get it. The truth is: IT documentation always seems to take a back seat until something happens (like an outage, or data center planning, and/or capacity planning). Why is it important to see how many ports are…
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