[AusNOG] Network Visualisation Tools, favourites?

[Paul Gear]

On 19/09/11 13:20, Sean K. Finn wrote:
>
> Hi All,
>
>  
>
> I was wondering what people are using these days for network
> diagramming tools for design / scribbling network maps for possible
> layouts instead of using a pen and napkin?
>
> I want to be able to quickly mud-map diagrams up without having to
> heavily invest my time with Visio or something like that.
>
>  
>
> Can some of you please volunteer your favourite network-scribbling
> tools (Preferable Open Source/Free but paid ones are appropriate, too,
> if they cut the mustard).
>

Call me old-fashioned, but i find that using a pencil and a piece of A3
paper nicked from the bottom of the photocopier works well for me. (Pen
makes too much of a mess when i try to rub it off the napkin.) ;-)   
You can waste hours on doing designs in diagramming tools, and sometimes
they don't actually help.  I only transfer my design to a diagramming
tool (dia, since i'm a Linux bigot) when i've done 5 or 6 iterations of
the paper version.

> I'll volunteer a tool that I was discussing with several people at
> AusNOG on Thursday/Friday since several people thought it was pretty
> cool and hadn't heard of it yet.
>
>  
>
> For Live Updates from CACTI/MRTG Graphing We're currently using
> NETWORK WEATHERMAP
>
> http://www.network-weathermap.com/gallery
>
> This is great to have on a heads-up display to give a quick overview
> of immediate health / congestion for the wall of your NOC.
>
> Certainly not the be-all and end-all but definitely good to have when
> you need it.
>

Everyone i know agrees that map tools like this are desirable, yet every
one that i've ever seen leaves so much to be desired that it's hardly
worth implementing.  The major problem i see is that any non-trivial
network becomes so large and messy that it has to be split up (and will
be until we have affordable, wall-sized, 32K x 18K resolution screens),
and usually none of the split-ups works at a practical level.

I work for a medium-sized private school for a significant portion of my
week, and even the most complex examples in the above gallery (say,
http://www.network-weathermap.com/node/8 or
http://www.network-weathermap.com/node/119) are vastly simpler than our
network (despite my continual efforts to simplify).  I shudder to think
what a service provider network looks like.

The solution i use for monitoring is Observium (see demo at
http://demo.observium.org/), and i like its approach to mapping: map the
links on one device, then make it easy to jump from device map to device
map by clicking the links.  It could probably use a "top utilised ports"
bandwidth screen, if your network utilisation is something you have to
track closely.  (I don't - my 10G switch stack sometimes hits 300 Mbps
total traffic across 48 ports...)

Paul

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