Best Network Documentation Tool netViz vs. Visio a Comparative Review Know Your Network We discovered Concord’s netViz network design and documentation tool handily beats Visio in every category of testing. by Barry Nance, Network Testing Labs You can do anything you want with a well-designed, well-documented network. With relative ease, you can expand it, enhance it and troubleshoot it. You can plan its future and even reduce its costs. In contrast, the only thing you can easily do with a poorly- designed, poorly-documented network is spend money on it. We asked ourselves, “Is there a practical, worthwhile tool that can truly help a medium- to large-scale company design and document its network?” To answer this question, we decided to pit a lesser-known but well-spoken-of Concord Communications tool, netViz, against Microsoft’s popular Visio diagramming product in a series of stringent tests. Concord acquired the netViz company mid-way through 2003. The ideal, perfect network design and documentation tool has a highly visual, intuitive and responsive user interface. It comes with every conceivable symbol you might possibly need to depict the devices and connections in your network. Every make and model of networking product must be represented in the symbol set. Instead of being a mere drawing element, each symbol must be an intelligent object containing embedded information that describes how the device or link behaves and how it connects to other devices. The perfect network design and documentation tool imports knowledge about the network from virtually any documentation source in which you’ve stored some information about your network. You can use the tool to zoom in or out at will to see the entire network or some small part of the network. Finally, the perfect network design and documentation tool integrates with a network monitoring product to graphically pinpoint devices and connections that are experiencing problems. We put netViz 6.5 and Visio Professional 2003 through their paces to see which product more closely matched our ideal tool. We concluded that netViz is light years ahead of Visio in every category. While Visio is a general-purpose diagramming tool suitable for employee organizational charts, office furniture floorspace analysis and simple database decomposition, Visio fell far short of our network design and documentation tool requirements. Perhaps the best way to give you an overall perspective on the differences between the two tools is this: We found that netViz is to Visio as Visio is to Microsoft Paint. netViz earned high marks for its strong focus on the specific task of network design, its intuitive and responsive interface and its ability to import network information and specifications from nearly any source. Moreover, netViz’s comprehensive and voluminous symbol set covers virtually every networking product and networking situation you could possibly imagine. netViz wins Network Testing Labs’ World Class award for best network design and documentation tool. In fact, we found netViz to be so compellingly and indispensably useful that we decided to make it a permanent part of Network Testing Labs’ computing environment. We’ll use netViz, for instance, to document each of the testbeds for all the evaluations we perform. Designing and Documenting a Network netViz is a network designer’s dream - it understands large networks and complex networking. In contrast, Visio is a general-purpose, multi-discipline, one-dimensional diagramming and drawing tool. Clicking on a diagrammed node in Visio merely lets you change the node’s label text, and Visio’s pop-up menus focus mostly on drawing functions - viewing, formatting and editing actions. With netViz, every diagrammatic symbol is intelligent. When we created a link, netViz appropriately asked us to enter link-related information - cable type, link speed and other relevant data. Similarly, when we added a router to our design, netViz appropriately asked us for router-related information - the router’s manufacturer, model, number of slots, revision number and other router-specific data. If that weren’t enough, we discovered that the next netViz version will have a spreadsheet-like ability to embed formulas and behaviors inside an instance of the symbol. The next version will also be much more data-driven. For example, for the entire network or just a named group of subnets, you’ll be able to globally change from one router manufacturer to another in a single operation and see the result ripple across your entire design. To its credit, Visio’s property sheets for node objects do let you enter asset inventory and other node details, but Visio focuses primarily on drawing your network, not representing it. In particular, Visio’s Custom Properties Sheet can record information about each network element on the diagram, but the custom properties vary little from one type of device to another. Another network-specific aspect of the latest version of Visio is its Rack Diagram. Once you select a rack or cabinet shape and size, the rack components you select snap into place in the rack or cabinet. Visio is also intelligent with respect to Microsoft Active Directory structures and has three directory services templates that can be helpful when you’re designing Active Directory objects. netViz takes a sophisticated, multidimensional approach to categorizing and rendering your network. Using its easy-to-navigate hierarchical structure, we used netViz in our tests to design and display the many layers and levels of an entire global network, consisting of regional subnetworks, local subnets within regions, local networks, devices, servers, routers - every logical and physical part of the overall network. We found we could easily describe and instantiate a variety of test networks with netViz, from the simplest to the most intricate. Starting at the level of the entire enterprise, we quickly and painlessly established network centers in several countries, then created a second layer beneath the first to provide information on the numbers and kinds of networking equipment at those network centers. Delving yet another layer deeper, we then entered just the kinds of detail we wanted to show for each of the devices at each of the network centers. Visio lacks netViz’s hierarchical approach to viewing a network as a complex, layered structure. Dealing with any but the smallest of networks through Visio’s simplistic diagrammatic display requires several orders of magnitude more effort than through netViz. Out of the box, netViz let us track just about every aspect of a device or link we wished, including manufacturer, model, version, revision date, location and other pertinent data. Moreover, because every network and every company is different, netViz provides a well-integrated, easy-to-access customization feature that makes tailoring netViz to your specific network a snap. Rather flexibly, we quickly set up our own data fields in netViz to characterize the network exactly the way we wanted. For example, it took us less than a minute to tell netViz to track Virtual Private Network (VPN) and firewall configuration data for each of our routers. In contrast, Visio has only a limited ability to customize and specify the data items you want to track for each node or link in a network. When you tell netViz to obtain network specifications from a database repository in your company, it doesn’t just import the data on a one-time basis. It instead creates an ongoing link to the database and thus stays constantly current and up-to-date. With only a little more effort, we were also able to use netViz’s database connectivity feature to link its display of devices and connections to a relational database of device status information maintained by a separate network monitoring product. We thus caused netViz to highlight network problems and outages by coloring the device red (or make it blink) when the network monitoring tool detected the problem. While Visio can export its diagram data to a database or other ODBC-accessible data repository, netViz, we found to our delight, can import or export data from or to nearly anywhere. If you have network documentation embedded in a spreadsheet, text file or database, netViz can import the data and use it to know more about your network. When you decide to use netViz to design and document your network, you don’t have to enter all the data about the network from scratch - a huge plus for both netViz and you. One of our favorite netViz features - and one that sets it far apart from Visio - is the flexible way we could define the double-click behavior of any diagrammed object or object type. We could instruct netViz to drill down to the next layer, link to another diagram, run a basic script, run an external program, open a documentation file, open a URL or run a command field. We used this option to, among other things, cause netViz to ping a specific device when we double-clicked its icon. Visio’s ability to run Visual Basic Script (VBS) macros can help manipulate diagrams and diagrammatic elements, but Visio simply doesn’t offer the kind of sophisticated flexibility that netViz does. The only options Visio presents for modifying double-click behavior include editing the shape’s text label, opening a drawing group in a new window, opening a shape’s ShapeSheet, displaying help, switching to a different drawing page or running a VBS macro. Usability The netViz user interface is intuitive and responsive. It organizes its many device and connection symbols in catalogs, rather than toolbars, to help save its user’s time and effort. A compressible-expandable tree view window displays a network’s hierarchical structure and aids in organizing your design and documentation endeavors. In addition to its diagrammatic display of the network, netViz can also depict a network purely as a set of connections or in a data-intensive table view of node and connection characteristics. Visio’s design environment displays multiple diagrams in Microsoft Multiple Document Interface (MDI) windows. Although it clearly distinguishes between different kinds of network nodes (it has separate toolbar icons, for example, for Juniper and Cisco routers), the distinction is primarily a visual one. Both netViz and Visio integrate well with Microsoft Office components, such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. Both can also publish results as Web pages, and netViz and Visio offer collaboration modes in which multiple users can concurrently design and document a network. Visio treats the collaborative effort as a business meeting or brainstorming session, while netViz allows you to publish a project and delegate to others the tasks of reviewing, annotating and extending the netViz data. Concord ships over 23,000 distinct device and connection symbols with netViz - far more than Visio - and netViz can use Visio symbols, if you have both products. netViz can also import and export network documents from and to Visio. Visio required that we undergo Microsoft’s new over-the-Internet product activation process. netViz installation is simpler, requiring only that you insert the CD-ROM disks and specify the directory in which you want netViz installed. Visio comes with printed manuals, but they don’t cover the network design details of the tool. They only explain how to use Visio’s diagramming and drawing operations. In contrast, the netViz printed manuals and online help provide exactly the guidance you’ll need to document a network. The netViz documentation focuses clearly and comprehensively on networking as well as the best ways to use netViz to document a network. Conclusion Designing networks by hand, with pencil and paper, is prohibitively expensive in terms of both time and effort. Using a simplistic drawing tool isn’t much better. Fortunately, netViz completely changes the value proposition. It’s obviously the right tool for the job. Our testing clearly showed netViz to be a superior network design and documentation tool, and we now understand why Concord Communications acquired the netViz company. Whether you have a medium-sized network or something a bit larger - say, 50,000 or 100,000 nodes of enterprise connectivity - we’re confident netViz can help you tame the beast by giving you a graphic view of the devices on your network and showing you how they’re connected. Network Testing Labs’ Testbed and Methodology Our test environment for this review consisted of multiple Cisco- and Perle-routed Fast Ethernet subnet domains and a T1 Internet connection. Our client and server platforms included Windows NT/XP/98/2000, Unix (AIX), Red Hat Linux, Novell NetWare and Macintosh System 8. Relational databases on the network were Oracle 8i, Sybase Adaptive Server and Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Windows and NetWare both shared files, while Internet Information Server (IIS), Netscape and Apache software served up Web pages. The network’s protocols were TCP/IP, IPX, AppleTalk and SNA. We ran both tools on an IBM ThinkPad A21m with 850 Mhz Pentium III processor, 512M bytes of RAM and a 32G byte hard disk. The operating system was Windows XP Professional. We evaluated each product's ability to help a network administrator plan, design, document and map a network. Report Card Grade scale is A through F, with F = Failing and A = Perfect Category and weight (%) Microsoft Corporation Visio Professional 2003 Concord Communications, Inc. netViz 6.5 Helps design good networks (40%) C A Ease of use (30%) B A Scalability (20%) B A Documentation and Installation (10%) C A Overall score C + A Product Details netViz 6.5 Price: starts at $2,480 netViz Corporation, a Concord Communications, Inc. company 12 South Summit Ave. Gaithersburg, MD 20877 800 827-1856 301 258-5087 www.netviz.com Visio Professional 2003 Price: starts at $499 Microsoft Corporation One Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052 800 426-9400 425 882-8080 www.microsoft.com About the Author Barry Nance is a networking expert, magazine columnist, book author and application architect. He has 29 years experience with IT technologies, methodologies and products. Over the past dozen years, working on behalf of Network Testing Labs, he has evaluated thousands of hardware and software products for ComputerWorld, BYTE Magazine, Government Computer News, PC Magazine, Network Computing, Network World and many other publications. He's authored thousands of magazine articles and three popular books, Introduction to Networking (4th Edition), Network Programming in C and Client/Server LAN Programming. He's also designed successful e-commerce Web-based applications, created database and network benchmark tools, written a variety of network diagnostic software utilities and developed a number of special-purpose networking protocols. You can e-mail him at barryn@erols.com. About Network Testing Labs Network Testing Labs performs independent technology research and product evaluations. Its network laboratory connects myriads of types of computers and virtually every kind of network device in an ever-changing variety of ways. Its authors are networking experts who write clearly and plainly about complex technologies and products. Network Testing Labs' experts have written hardware and software product reviews, state-of-the-art analyses, feature articles, in-depth technology workshops, cover stories, buyer’s guides and in-depth technology outlooks. Our experts have spoken on a number of topics at PC Expo and other venues. In addition, they've created industry standard network benchmark software, database benchmark software and network diagnostic utilities. . Best Network Documentation Tool netViz vs. Visio a Comparative Review Know Your Network We discovered Concord’s netViz network design and documentation. to document a network. The netViz documentation focuses clearly and comprehensively on networking as well as the best ways to use netViz to document a network.