[89486] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Network graphics tools
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Kinsella)
Tue Mar 21 23:27:00 2006
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:44:42 -0800
From: John Kinsella <jlk@thrashyour.com>
To: nanog@merit.edu
Reply-To: John Kinsella <jlk@thrashyour.com>
In-Reply-To: <p06230900c04641f5bd3f@[192.168.0.2]>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
On Tue, Mar 21, 2006 at 09:17:44PM -0500, Howard C. Berkowitz wrote:
> Much of the enterprise market seems wedded to Visio as their network
> graphics tool, which locks them into Windows. Personally, I hate both
> little pictures of equipment and Cisco hockey-puck icons; I much
> prefer things like rectangles saying "7507 STL-1" or "M160 NYC-3".
Not sure how preferring things like rectangles stops you from using Visio,
but *shrug*
> Assuming you use *NIX platforms (including BSD under Mac OS X), what
> are your preferred tools for network drawings, both for internal and
> external use? I'd hate to be driven to Windows only because I need
> Visio.
If you're doing diagrams for internal use and know the chances of them
being used with external parties is slim-to-none, go ahead, play with
toys like dia. Omnigraffle looks hopeful, but haven't personally used.
On the other hand, if you are doing professional business communications
I'd seriously condsider getting vmware and Visio. I might be a little
backward to many here, as I work for a consulting company and 95% of what
we do is client-facing. Maybe, more accurately, if you never expect
anybody other than you to edit your work, Visio's not a necessity.
PDFs are almost 100% acceptable, with a few losers left who won't
install a reader.
Not trying to start a Visio religious war, just saying there's a reason
enterprises use it.
Random thought - think Visio's capabilities are about as underused as
Excel's...
John
