[AusNOG] Network Visualisation Tools, favourites?

[Andrew Fort]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 8:43 PM, Simon Knight <simon.knight at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Andrew Fort <afort at choqolat.org> wrote:
>
>> In my view, this sounds like a solution to the wrong problem.
>>
>> Have the network database provision your network resources, build the
>> config, and the diagrams.  Doing it the other way around seems to
>> encourage divergence from your standards.
>
> I agree. To me the research area is what this database should look
> like and how it is setup.
>
> We'd like to reduce the steps to go from a network diagram (eg Visio)
> to the network database - a network diagram seems a natural starting
> point in network design.
>
> What does this database look like?

It is a combination of metadata about the nodes and the data required
to build the graph.  These are the same things that provide the inputs
to an SPF algorithm so you can solve for the other goals you listed
below.

Keeping it generalised is fairly easy if one doesn't place too many
constraints on themselves in the data model.  I've used both SQL and
NoSQL approaches for this and I like the latter because adding new
fields to "documents" is easy to do.

> Resources stored in an SQL style database can automatically generate
> configurations and diagrams. We'd like to capture the network in a
> more abstract form, as this allows verification: actively measuring
> the network to check it meets the database.
> We can do host reachability, but we'd also like to be able measure
> network-level goals, such as redundancy and throughput requirements,
> and play around with "what-if" scenarios in a test/emulated lab,
> before changes are rolled out.
>
> Any input is welcomed.
>
> Cheers
> Simon
>