Tag Archives: Network documentation
Songs To Listen To When You’re Documenting the Network
By Jason Sherman - February 1, 2018What’s the hands-down most important part of documenting the network? What you listen to. Sorry, you can’t document the network while watching Youtube cat videos….that’s a big no-no. You’ll end up with a fur ball network diagram (oh, I’m too funny — someone get me a job as a comedian). Seriously, though: what to listen…
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Intro: netTerrain’s API for DCIM, Network Documentation, and Outside Plant
By Jan Durnhofer - January 26, 2018Despite all the recent hoopla, API’s have been around for a long time. Without realizing it, we use API’s all the time: we use them when we make an airline reservation…we use them when we check the weather on our phones. API’s bridge together several moving parts to serve up a desired result to the…
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U.S. Army Awards netTerrain Certificate of Networthiness (CoN)
By Fred Koh - January 19, 2018Press Release: The U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM) has awarded the netTerrain IT visualization software suite from Graphical Networks with a Certificate of Networthiness (CoN). The CoN certification confirms that netTerrain meets — or exceeds — the criteria set forth by the Army and Department of Defense (DoD) standards for security, compatibility, and…
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Dear Prospect: If You Want Everything, You Need Nothing
By Jan Durnhofer - January 17, 2018“The demo with Jan was incredibly unprofessional. It seemed like he refused to go into any detail about the product. He wanted me to narrow down the focus of what he demo’ed to only what I immediately was interested in.” — Feedback from a Recent Prospect Ouch…that was a first. Apparently, I am unprofessional. Ok,…
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How to Start Documenting the Network
By Jason Sherman - December 19, 2017Considering some network documentation to make managing the network less of a headache? Whether you’re troubleshooting or planning, it’s nice to quickly get answers to your questions. If you are considering implementing documentation, one of the first questions you may have is: “do I need to start from scratch?” The short answer is: no. Chances…
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Wiki for Network Documentation?
By Jason Sherman - December 5, 2017Fed up with not having the network properly documented? Are you considering using Wiki to document everything? Organizations come to us for an automated network documentation solution — and some have used a wiki for their documentation needs. Nothing wrong with that…up to a point. I get it. At first glance, maybe Wiki for documenting…
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Best Practices for Network Documentation (They’re Not What You Think)
By Jason Sherman - November 29, 2017I’ve been reading up on what the Internet says about ‘best practices for network documentation’. There’s a decent of material out there and, honestly, many of the articles I’ve read raise good points. That being said, I bring a slightly different perspective to what I consider ‘best practices’ for good network documentation. There are hundreds…
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Self-Help for Network Engineers Stuck in ‘Groundhog Day’ Mode
By Jason Sherman - November 21, 2017Ever seen the movie Groundhog Day? It stars Bill Murray as a journalist trapped having to repeat the same boring day of his life — Groundhog Day, to be exact — every single day indefinitely. If you manage a network, maybe you can relate. Maybe you deal with your fair share of unnecessary tasks and…
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How to Trace an IT Outage (Even When Your Cabling is Spaghetti)
By Jason Sherman - October 30, 2017Knowing what’s connected to what: it’s one of the primary reasons we document the network. But this knowledge can’t just exist in a vacuum…so what’s the point of knowing what and where your connections are? Let’s not beat around the bush: cabling has a tendency to become ‘spaghetti’ fast, especially as your infrastructure grows. Even…
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Documenting with Visio or Excel Driving You Crazy?
By Jason Sherman - October 24, 2017Do you use Visio or Excel to document the network? If you do, you’re not alone: they are the number one and number two top tools for network documentation. If You’re Documenting with Visio… Truth be told, Visio isn’t meant for network documentation. Visio network diagrams cause three major headaches: no easy way to keep…
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If You Can’t Answer These Questions, Your Network Isn’t Secure
By Jason Sherman - October 6, 2017Coming soon to a movie theatre near you: NETWORK SECURITY….THE MOVIE. It’s going to be a real blockbuster: full of action, thrills, daredevil maneuvers by network engineers who try to save everything at the last minute, and, of course, hackers. Ok. Maybe we’ll have to wait a bit on the movie, but who needs the…
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Lifehack: Get Your Network Reporting Done (Like a Boss)
By Jason Sherman - October 3, 2017“Ummm…yeah….if you could go ahead and give me this information in that format…that’d be great.” So, about those TPS reports. You know the drill: you’re in your CRM, or network documentation system, or and you need to see certain information in a certain format, “I need to see how many widgets we have to pull…
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