Network Documentation

Well guys ive been give the task to document the network for our routers and switches etc. This is so we can get an idea of what we have and how its setup to allow us to gain a greater understanding and be able to make easier upgrade recommendations instead of the guess work that goes on now.

Although i have a few idea's i have never done this before and i was hoping a few of the pro's could give me a few idea's or links for some idea's on this. Or if there's any good examples people could point me in the direction of?

Bear in mind we have very little documentation - shocking i know - so i can shape it to how i like.

Thanks

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Comments

Daniel333

I love Microsoft sharepoint for this.

Place your visio document in, and hyperlink to the config files, server notes etc.

rbutturini

If you've got a bit of a budget for the product, this is great:
http://www.solarwinds.com/products/lansurveyor/

Been using it for many years and quite happy with it. Our consulting company has been tasked with this many times, and I think the key to doing good network reports is to be detailed, but not waste a lot of time documenting the most minor details if it's something that can be easily found later. I've always found it helpful to think of it from the perspective of "what if we are upgradinginx x?" What things do we need to know? and writing that kind of thing down.

pwjohnston

rbutturini wrote:

If you've got a bit of a budget for the product, this is great:
http://www.solarwinds.com/products/lansurveyor/

Been using it for many years and quite happy with it. Our consulting company has been tasked with this many times, and I think the key to doing good network reports is to be detailed, but not waste a lot of time documenting the most minor details if it's something that can be easily found later. I've always found it helpful to think of it from the perspective of "what if we are upgradinginx x?" What things do we need to know? and writing that kind of thing down.

Ya, Solarwinds is the bomb, but it's crazy expensive. Have a look here:

http://search.techrepublic.com.com/search/asset+management+and+network.html

nel

Thanks for the replies guys.

Yeah i was thinking of lansurveyor or something like cisco works but with the prices ive seen for lansurveyor i dont think they'll spend that in the current econmic climate

Anyone know how much ciscoworks is? i assume probably the same cost as lan surveyor or somewhere around there?

As for the content in the network documentation, considering its on a per site basis, do most people just diagram the LAN / of the comms cab, configs etc, no of users, type of traffic, what type of comms do they have in there? where all the hardware is located, its IP ranges, etc

Are there any other types of things i should be thinking of?

paintb4707

I'm assuming you're aiming to document the individual port destinations on your routers and switches.

This is very easy to do manually. Most switches and routers should give you a MAC address table for all the ports. I exported these into a spreadsheet then merged it with another spreadsheet I had of inventory.

So basically I had one spreadsheet that listed every one of our networked devices with it's make/model/sn/type/mac/port# then imported that spreadsheet into Visio.

I used this to also identify single points of failure, as we have a few 4 port hubs in some of our offices.

Only problem with this is since its manual, you have to manually update it whenever you do a M/A/C. It's great for a one time deal however.

Here's an example of what I did.