netTerrain

Need to document the network — and your outside plant, as well? Or maybe you need to manage rack capacity and weight? Not sure which netTerrain product you need? 

Whether it’s for DCIM, network mapping and documentation, or outside plant dashboards offer a powerful visual way of aggregating and displaying data to aid in the decision making process.

In total, more than 200 user tickets are associated with the release of netTerrain 8.0 -- and the changes here are, as always, streamlined to make netTerrain that much more useful and usable for IT documentation/visualization. 

netTerrain's ‘cable mapper’ is an informal name we use for a utility launched from a context menu, which already existed in the Integration Toolkit (ITK) in an unofficial capacity to speed up the process of creating cables. We ported this utility to our web-based interface, improved it, and made it official. It can be used for any kind of link connection — but we refer to it as the ‘cable mapper’ because the endpoints are always ports (and the way you create the cables is by mapping these port endpoints, as you can see in the blog).

netTerrain's 'Circuit Layout Record' shows you all the information you need to know for the circuit, in one printable page and without the need to navigate an array of different diagrams.

In netTerrain, links are not just black lines connecting two nodes: they can have styles, colors, thicknesses, can include bend points, and can also be arranged nicely when you have several links connecting the same endpoints.

netTerrain picks the optimal paths for you, selects default cables and strands, and even patches up the circuit along the way.

The last thing you want to end up doing is to resize 100 nodes on a network diagram one by one — especially when a simple operation can do it for all 100. Enter the resize feature: a bulk operation feature that lets you resize any type of object in netTerrain!

What do DCIM analysts do? They analyze the DCIM vendors’ ability to execute in the marketplace over the tools themselves. 

When creating a new circuit in netTerrain, who decides which path it should take and how is that accomplished? There are basically three ways to define a path for a circuit — with decreasing levels of automation. 

netTerrain offers an array of features, aka a bag of tricks, that while still being done by a human, can dramatically speed up the process of improving the aesthetics or enhance your diagrams beyond what any automated process can do.

Learn about “dual view” racks (showing front and back) in netTerrain DCIM: specifically racks where mounting devices on one side reserves (or blocks) usage on the other side.

With DCIM software, cable and circuit outages can be traced and resolved, new equipment can be placed, old equipment can be maximized, power capacity can be optimized, and last but not least: you can clearly see which assets you have and where they are.

You’re spending dollars on cooling and powering your data center. You’re spending dollars on IT equipment and power that you don’t need. You’re utilizing your racks based on manufacturer recommendations, not actual power usage.

DCIM, when implemented correctly and the right software is chosen for an organization’s needs, results in significant savings. DCIM helps data center managers reduce IT clutter and waste, prevent expensive and prolonged downtime, fully use existing assets, and lower energy consumption.

"If you’re a network engineer trying to manage the network — without automated network diagramming software — let me tip my hat to you: you’re probably better qualified than I am to write the introduction to this blog. Network engineers everywhere know, all too well, the pain of troubleshooting, fixing network outages and issues when you just don’t have up-to-date information about the network via network diagrams and documentation."