Network diagram software

Wed Feb 11 19:37:28 UTC 2009

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kevin Day [mailto:toasty at dragondata.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 2:16 PM
> To: Mathias Wolkert
> Cc: nanog at nanog.org
> Subject: Re: Network diagram software
> 
> 
> On Feb 11, 2009, at 7:06 AM, Mathias Wolkert wrote:
> 
> > I'd like to know what software people are using to document networks.
> > Visio is obvious but feels like a straight jacket to me.
> > I liked netviz but it seems owned by CA and unsupported nowadays.
> >
> > What do you use?
> >
> > /Tias
> 
> Two packages that I'm looking at right now for a project.
> 
> 
> RackMonkey http://flux.org.uk/projects/rackmonkey/
> 
> Simple, AJAX-ified, looks very easy to use for non-nerds. Keeps track
> of rack space allocations, devices, even does some neat tricks using
> Dell service tags to let you see warranty/config info.
> 

You remind me of  a design discussion, well-lubricated with beer, in which
my team was trying, in spite of top management, to design great carrier
routers. At one point, partially for RFC4098 benchmarking, we wanted to put
a GPS card into some prototypes, originally as a time reference.

We started thinking what else we could do with it, assuming we could get an
enhanced-accuracy GPS (DGPS/WAAS) signal into the machine room. Physical
inventory became a possibility. Somewhere, however, it started moving into
the silly, including oscillation indicating earthquakes, and then graceful
arcs as the rack fell over.