After drawing a diagram with netViz, we knew we were dealing with a product designed as a network engineer's tool. When we created a link between two devices, we weren't just drawing a line but also specifying the type of cable, link type and data rate. Fiber optic cables are by default orange; faster links are fatter than slower ones.
Even better, every object, including the links between stations, hubs and routers, has associated data either right in the netViz project or in a linked ODBC database. Unlike those of other programs, netViz's data connections aren't unidirectional, and we could even build diagrams from data. If, for example, you have a spreadsheet of the cross-connect cables in a wiring closet, you could create the patch panel and hub devices and then enter the database data to create all the connections.
If you build your documentation following the excellent Dr. Diagram's Guide to Documenting Networks, which netViz provides, you'll create a hierarchy of diagrams drilling down from sites to floors and wiring closets. We could even set netViz to poll the database periodically and update the diagram automatically.
The product is packed with all sorts of tools for making diagrams look good. For example, multiple connections between objects can be displayed as parallel lines, fanned out or curves. Objects can be automatically arranged in half a dozen different ways. When we used one of netViz's map backgrounds, we could even place locations accurately on the map by latitude and longitude.
Autodiscovery in netViz is designed to collect PC workstation and server information, in contrast to Netformx's and Network Inspector's more infrastructure-oriented approaches. Frankly, netViz's autodiscovery capabilities are limited to NetBIOS and IP workstation identification, so if autodiscover is important to you, you'd do better elsewhere. But netViz's real strength is how it let us view our data accurately and from multiple perspectives. Once we built a diagram, we could view its underlying data in tables, view connection data or, of course, view the diagram.
But what if you want to see the links connecting objects on multiple diagrams together? With other tools, you get a placeholder for the next diagram. With netViz, however, you can create a composite view and trace the link all the way from Mary's desk in accounting to the server across the wiring closet, floor and server-room diagrams.
netViz 3D, $1,345 per seat. Available: Now. netViz Corp., (800) 827-1856, (301)258-5087; fax (301) 258-5088. www.netviz.com
Howard Marks is founder and chief scientist of Networks Are Our Lives, a network design and consulting firm in Hoboken, N.J. Send your comments on this article to him at hmarks@naol.com.
REPORTS
ANALYTICS
Follow 
