<html><head></head><body><div><div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class="">Jason.<br/></div><div class=""><br/></div><div class=""><i class="">Prefix: I'm making a total assumption on why your diagramming your infra. If I've missed the point then please accept my apology and I hope this may help someone else.</i><br/></div><div class=""><br/></div><div class="">If the reason for diagramming is to document configuration have you thought about implementing an online configuration tool like <a href="https://github.com/netbox-community/netbox" target="_blank" class="">Netbox</a>? <br/></div><div class=""><br/></div><blockquote class=""><div class=""><span style="text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;font-weight:400;color:rgb(36, 41, 47);" class="">NetBox is the leading solution for modeling and documenting modern networks. By combining the traditional disciplines of IP address management (IPAM) and datacenter infrastructure management (DCIM) with powerful APIs and extensions, NetBox provides the ideal "source of truth" to power network automation. Available as open source software under the Apache 2.0 license, NetBox is employed by thousands of organizations around the world.</span><br/></div></blockquote><div class=""><br/></div><div class="">This tool has heaps of plugins including one for <a href="https://github.com/mattieserver/netbox-topology-views" target="_blank" class="">topology rendering</a> (example below).<br/></div><div class=""><br/></div><div class=""><img alt="preview image" src="https://github.com/mattieserver/netbox-topology-views/raw/master/doc/img/preview_3.1.jpeg?raw=true" style="max-width: 100%; height: auto;" class="sh-im-maintain-aspect-ratio"/><br/></div><div class=""><br/></div><div class="">The benefit I see for a tool like Netbox is that it's 'always live' and also contains audit logs for configuration changes which helps as well.<br/></div><div class=""><br/></div><div class="">The fact that its got so many plugins allows for automatic deployment and detection of config drift if documentation isn't up to scratch.<br/></div><div class=""><br/></div><div class="">I understand that moving to an online tool may introduce the '<i class="">can't access the online tool due to network being down</i>' issue however I'm sure these documents could be exported via cron on a schedule to a s3 bucket or something similar.<br/></div><div class=""><br/></div><div class="">Again if I've missed the need for the diagrams vs a config tool I'd love to understand the use of the diagrams to have another shot!<br/></div><div class=""><br/></div><div class="">Cheers<br/></div><div class=""><br/></div><div class="">Shaun<br/></div><div class=""><br/></div></div></div><br/><div class="sh-quoted-content"><div class=""><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Oct 09, 2022 at 11:29:54, Jason Leschnik <span dir="ltr" class=""><<a href="mailto:jason@leschnik.me" target="_blank" class="">jason@leschnik.me</a>></span> wrote:<br/><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class=""><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">Hi everyone,<br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">Frustration has gotten the better of me, hence the post. Sorry if this isn't 100% relevant, I thought about posting on Reddit but find sometimes the replies are a bit of a dumpster fire. <br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">We're using Visio and some very basic templating practices (common symbols, guidelines for link color/type & styles). But every time I jump into our diagrams, I'm always frustrated with how tedious it is to use Visio (possible lack of skill?) and how rigid the tool is. Moving a device/adding a new site, effectively means getting out the scissors and glue and spending an afternoon like an artisan redrawing and reflowing links. I understand there are other tools out there, <a href="http://draw.io/lucid" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="">draw.<wbr/>io/<wbr/>lucid</a> which are better but still all take time and some artistic flare. <br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">Possibly this is due to a mix of how we're using connectors (some in our team are just reverting to using simple lines now to avoid the connector reflow madness). But things like labels on links, having to chase them around the page manually, and diagrams that are difficult to read because of lack of room. Surely we're doing it the hard way? <br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">Does anyone have examples of their "real world" diagrams (redacted of course!) to show how they do this better? All the Google-Fu I do on the subject just brings me to those "edgy" isometric Network diagrams that are used in marketing slideware.<br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><b class="">tl;dr</b> looking for practical Network diagram styles so I can use some of the themes in our diagrams.<br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">Attached sample, moving anything around in this small area requires a few hours to rework everything. It shouldn't be this hard right?<br/><br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default"><img height="242" width="497" alt="" src="cid:ii_l90lwbt80" src-cid="ii_l90lwbt80" class="sh-im-maintain-aspect-ratio"/><br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">Regards,<br/></div><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif" class="gmail_default">Jason.<br/></div></div>
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