Network Assessment Documentation

It has been said that the first network management tool is a discovery tool. Indeed it is hard to find a network management software that doesn’t include discovery functionality, but the reality is still far from ideal. We still count on manual methods such as “show-commands” to figure out what you have.  Network discovery, especially for large networks, has remained an unsolved problem.

NetBrain offers new technology that is now available to discover large and complex networks.  It uses our unique neighbor-walking discovery logic, which emulates a human engineer.  This algorithm utilizes known network devices as agents to efficiently walk through the entire network hop-by-hop.  The results are:

• Improved discovery accuracy – nearly 99% for very large networks (success includes discovery of 20,000+ device network, excluding end systems).
• High speed – up to 3,000 network devices/hour.
• Versatile Deployment – discovery can be launched from anywhere in the network and it will discover across MPLS clouds, DMZs, etc.

Most of us are still using the original 1^st generation network diagramming tool – Microsoft Visio.  While it is easy to use, the process is painstakingly slow and manual.

The 2^nd generation tools such as Opnet NetMapper and SolarWinds LANsurveyor have introduced a network discovery component to enable automated creation of diagrams.  However, these tools require can only support the diagramming of manually-defined areas and become static once created.

Recent advancements have resulted in the introduction of a 3^rd generation tool from NetBrain based on Dynamic Network Diagrams.  A dynamic network diagram is driven by an underlying data model, and can self-update when network changes occur.  Diagram creation is automated based on simple inputs by users in real-time.  What’s special is that the tool has the most powerful discovery application, its unique Dynamic Diagrams, and is still as easy, if not easier to use than Visio.

NetBrain offers two solutions in support of dynamic network diagrams: stand-alone Consultant Edition (for network consultants) and server-based Enterprise Suite (for enterprises).

Has technology advanced to the point that you don’t need to write an assessment document? Absolutely not. But new advancements now allow you to edit on top of automatically created documents, and save you countless hours.

The technology is again based on dynamic network diagrams.  Each dynamic network diagram is an instance of a network assessment topic.  The built-in documentation engine will extract network design data out of one or more diagrams and create a Word formatted assessment document.  Consultants can choose to use the default content template, or create their own.  The power lies in the Dynamic Diagram’s data-driven network model.  For example, you can include serial number, routing configuration, and QoS configuration information in the automatically created assessment document.  View an example by clicking the icon on the right.

NetBrain’s technology advancements have made this task much easier.  Simply drag and drop configuration files into NetBrain to produce a network diagram instantly.  Because this is a dynamic network diagram, you can execute many network assessment tasks right from the diagram, including generating inventory reports and design assessment documents.

With NetBrain, “show-command” results collected by other means can also be imported to perform deeper network analysis such as assessment of L2 network topology.

• Hostname & IP
• Interface or Port
• Serial Number
• IOS version
• Port-to-port connectivity
• VLAN configuration per port
• Routing configuration per interface