Re: [tlug] OSS network visualization software, WAS: [Semi-OT] Network connectivity diagnosis

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2010-01-31 20:37 +0900 (Sun), Patrick Bernier wrote:

> When I'm making network diagrams with Inkscape (or, previously,
> Visio), it's usually at the request of a customer who wants a
> "beautiful", professional-looking, easy to understand network diagram
> that they can then present to a board meeting, publish to their
> customers....

Ah, I'd thought we were talking about this for technical stuff.

If what you need are pretty diagrams, and I'm correct in that you're a
network engineer and not a graphic designer, you might do your customers
a favour by handing a sketch to a full-time graphic designer to do
the work of making it pretty. He'll probably do a better job than you
(possibly at the expense of making the diagram less accurate, but I've
never known a non-technical customer to complain about that) at half of
your billing rate or less.

> Not far from your suggestion, all the relevant information about the
> nodes and their connections is stored in a nice distributed database
> that you can easily access from most computers: the DNS.

Interesting. I'm close: the DNS for me is a projection, but my actual
database is the zone file for one of my main domains. (The network,
routing, security, physical location, emergency contact, and similar
pieces of information neither have a good home in the DNS nor do I care
to put them there.) Then again, I have a relatively simple, through not
entirely trivial, internetwork to deal with.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson         <cjs@example.com>         +81 90 7737 2974
             http://www.starling-software.com
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism
by those who have not got it.    --George Bernard Shaw