[AusNOG] Network Visualisation Tools, favourites?

[Ivan Jukic]

I agree with you Paul, to some degree.
I find that If I sketch a design out it in front of me I can spot mistakes
and improvements much easier. Where as on a monitor that I have to
constantly zoom in and out.
However, diagramming tools most definitely have their place. It is much
quicker to map the design once you are happy with it  than compared to a
pencil and pad.

My 2 cents
Ivan Jukic



On 20 September 2011 08:10, Paul Gear <ausnog at libertysys.com.au> wrote:

> **
> 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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