Slashdot Mirror
Complex Network Design Tools?
I'm-Not-A-BOFH asks: "How do you do your large scale network design? I am currently designing a large enterprise network - and there is a ton of information to track and think about. I use AutoCAD, Visio and Cisco Configmaker (which sucks) and many other applications. I am looking for software specifically designed to help you design a network.
What tools do you use - and what tools are out there that maybe are little known? How do you begin to manage network documentation when your hosts get into the thousands and your routers and routes into the hundreds? I am really just interested in the tools used to accomplish this - as all the tools I have been finding are just not adequate or well thought out. Please let me know what you think is invaluable to you when you design your systems."
Yes... because a hardcore network engineer can visualize hundreds of routers/switches, all their varioius routing protocols and associated foibles, all the redundancies etc ...
... its good for planning, config backup, management, etc.
Thats assinine. Have you ever worked on a network with THOUSANDS of devices before? He didn't say 'Small Business' he said 'enterprise'.
stupid arrogant people assuming the people who need diagrams aren't good enough. Glad you can sit and boost your ego that way, but when that stops working for you, join the real world.
To keep this slighly on topic, try using Ciscoworks
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
For something that complex, no single tool will do it for you. That said, consider doing your documents in layers. Having a single document that includes all of the gory details of such a large network will be useless. Instead, do a document that describes the high level architecture, then open up each cloud into another document and describe the network topology there, then open up those clouds into documents that get into individual host level information. It is the only reliable way to grow the diagram as necessary and make it possible for others to understand what is going on at a glance.
I generally use Visio for this sort of thing, but planning out a large network using an automated software tool is impossible, at least in my experience. If you can logically group your network at some level, you will find that it will make planning, and/or diagramming your network much easier. Even the largest networks are broken down into several groups at some level, and you have to keep those groups in mind. You should know the usage patterns of these groups, how much bandwidth each group needs, and where they connect to, etc. Logically map out the best performance scenario for these groups. Then start with your smallest groups, and find similarities to form larger groups, until you have encompassed the entire network. I'm assuming that there are probably departmental connections needed, as well as outside connections, but the key is how much each group of people use each resource available.
Many "well-planned" networks fail because they aimed to provide all resources evenly, but in the real-world, this is not the case. Most of the time, a certain group of people use specific resources, and use very little of other resources. Also keep in mind that you must be able to adapt if the resource requirements for a group change, because it will happen. It's the same thing as trying to use a database wizard to optimize your database. A computer just can't do that for you. The software doesn't have all the necessary input parameters to the problem, and even if it did, the problem is NP Hard. So, in reality, it doesn't matter what tool you use to diagram the network, but actual design still has to be done by human insight, or at least a well-trained monkey...
--That's the point of being root, you can do anything you want, even if it's stupid.