[111746] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Network diagram software
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Howard C. Berkowitz)
Wed Feb 11 14:37:53 2009
From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@netcases.net>
To: <nanog@nanog.org>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:37:28 -0500
In-Reply-To: <36DF8B50-AA66-47F2-A902-82232DDA1278@dragondata.com>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kevin Day [mailto:toasty@dragondata.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 2:16 PM
> To: Mathias Wolkert
> Cc: nanog@nanog.org
> Subject: Re: Network diagram software
>
>
> On Feb 11, 2009, at 7:06 AM, Mathias Wolkert wrote:
>
> > I'd like to know what software people are using to document networks.
> > Visio is obvious but feels like a straight jacket to me.
> > I liked netviz but it seems owned by CA and unsupported nowadays.
> >
> > What do you use?
> >
> > /Tias
>
> Two packages that I'm looking at right now for a project.
>
>
> RackMonkey http://flux.org.uk/projects/rackmonkey/
>
> Simple, AJAX-ified, looks very easy to use for non-nerds. Keeps track
> of rack space allocations, devices, even does some neat tricks using
> Dell service tags to let you see warranty/config info.
>
You remind me of a design discussion, well-lubricated with beer, in which
my team was trying, in spite of top management, to design great carrier
routers. At one point, partially for RFC4098 benchmarking, we wanted to put
a GPS card into some prototypes, originally as a time reference.
We started thinking what else we could do with it, assuming we could get an
enhanced-accuracy GPS (DGPS/WAAS) signal into the machine room. Physical
inventory became a possibility. Somewhere, however, it started moving into
the silly, including oscillation indicating earthquakes, and then graceful
arcs as the rack fell over.
