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Learning Bytes - CPE Write-Up #2

 

Webinar Title:  Visio Tips and Tricks - Part 1 Network Diagramming

Presenter(s): David Cuthbertson, Callum Cuthbertson

Platform:  Brighttalk

Length:  48:08 Minutes

Date of Creation: January 18, 2024.

 

A Brief Description Provided About the Webinar

"How Visio can be used efficiently and flexibly to create and maintain different types of network diagrams for physical, logical and cloud infrastructures."

 

Key Takeaways

The company, Square Mile Systems, is a UK-based company that has been around for almost 20 years. To view their website, click here. 

 

The objective of mapping out the network, including physical and virtual servers, cabling, and other components, is to save time by knowing what you have and where it is and not having to reverse engineer it constantly. 

 

A network diagram is "a partial view of an enterprise network". While it will not contain every single component of the organization's network, it will contain those items that are in scope. One best practice is to use standardized icons to keep things simple and straightforward, but the best symbol may not always be consistent from one mapping to another; it depends on what type of mapping you are creating. Keeping a layout that works for your particular situation will keep things organized as well. The inclusion of comments can provide further clarity, especially if you group components in a specific manner. 

 

The mapping that you create will entirely depend on what you are trying to accomplish. Are you mapping out a rack? A network topology? Logical or physical? High or low level?

 

Sometimes, self-learning will not be enough. Asking someone else who is more knowledgeable or more familiar might be the best option. But reusing someone else's diagram may not always be the best route. They may have made a mistake or inserted their view of something into their diagram, and in turn, this could affect your efforts. 

 

Network Diagramming Models

A - Manual

B - Data Linked

C - Data Driven

 

The manual method is 100% user-created. All of the relevant information about what you are diagramming needs to be collected before you start. You also need to have an idea of the icons or shapes that you are going to use. You must also have the names of the devices beforehand. In the very simple example diagram, creating the various shapes, labels, and connections takes some time to create. If the diagram had included quite a few more components, this would have taken a much longer amount of time, effort, and energy. Additionally, the chance of missing pertinent information would be much higher. Adding, changing, or deleting anything will add additional work.

 

In the data-linked method, it appears to be very easy to link to an already-created spreadsheet that contains all of the data that is needed. It appears to be easier to create the shapes, as you are utilizing the spreadsheet, but there is still a fair amount of manual work that is involved. Labels are generated from the contents of the spreadsheet. The creation of the connections is manual, but the labels are generated from the attached spreadsheet. So again, this is saving some amount of time. Overall, this method saves some time, but manual manipulation of the components is still needed. One interesting point they make is that if you edit any of the information in the spreadsheet, say the IP address of something, in Visio, all you need to do is refresh the data, and Visio will display the new information in place of the old. But this is still a manual step that one must take.

 

In the last method, data-driven, the presenters highlight using a database that will contain all of the information. They highlight a particular instance where a bank asked them to map out all of the devices, connections, and the like across 600 sites. They found using a database was the best method to accomplish this. They have a spend some time entering the data, and then, using filtering, they can automatically create the diagrams. The example they use is creating a rack diagram. Once the data entry is done, everything else is done for you. The next example is the creation of a network diagram, and it shows how you can select only the things that you need to visualize. Moving the various components automatically changes and adjusts the connections between the components, which is a huge time-saver. The third example shows an already-completed diagram from a different database, and it shows you how a person can toggle the labels that appear in the diagram. The amount of data that is contained within the database is only limited to the details that you would want to track. However, one point they highlight is that while the diagram generation took mere minutes, adjusting the layout still took some amount of time. However, the time spent adjusting the layout was still much less than if they were to try and create the diagram from scratch.

 

Automation can also be applied. Once you create a layout you like, save it, and then update the data source to that template.

 

After, they discuss the number of diagrams that can be created and the associated costs. Wow! The cost savings are astounding. They then follow this up with some Q&As. 

 

My Reflections

 

Creating a network diagram can be a tremendous drain on time and resources if you don't have automation involved. But even so, the data contained within the database needs to contain good data for automation to work correctly.