Software for documenting hardware topology ?

[Thomas Ritter]

I'm curious. What are people using to document their systems ?

[Martin Hughes]

I assume you mean like RCM?. I use RCM to collate configuration information.

[Thomas Ritter]

I'm talking about pictures and diagrams.

[Heinz W Genhart · Accepted solution]

Hi Thomas

we are using MS Visio

Regards

Heinz

[Keith Cayemberg]

At the Visio Cafe HP provides updated stencils for Visio. The DEC and Compag systems are in the HP or older Visio collections.

http://www.visiocafe.com/hp.htm

You may also find the Golden Eggs a useful aid in configuring/documenting your hardware topology.

http://www.openvms.org/pages.php?page=GoldenEggs
There are also some older ones still at HP:
http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/gs1280/gs1280_tech.html

Cheers!

[Andy Bustamante]

Visio for network diagrams, digital photos, text file captured from a console session, HP service contract info all available on an in-house WASD web server to the right group.

For us, it's not the documenation as much as making it readily available, especially after hours and from remote sites. VPN plus WASD solves that issue.

Andy

[Peter Zeiszler]

I use Visio with block diagrams for most of my presentations that I show people.

I used to use the detailed stencils to keep devices information also in visio. They were very handy in the test/dev environment for tracking which disks were which systems etc. Now with all our storage on the SAN environment its easier to share excel spreadsheets with the storage teams instead.

I also use Turbo Cad for keeping a layout of the computer room floor, power, air handlers, etc. This allows the facilities group that uses auto cad to share changes with me. I track my own power input numbers. Layout of cabling, cabinets, storage, etc.

[Hoff]

Largely OmniGraffle. Works quite well. Salient problem: importing the proprietary files from Microsoft Visio is non-trivial.

[Paul Beaudoin]

Thomas,

we also use RCM where we can and Propatch for the older vaxes. Each server VMSmails its results to a central VMS box who then extracts them and puts them up on the internal web site via Apache. It is little more than a bunch of simple DCL but if you want a copy anyway , let me know.

Regards

Paul

[Craig A Berry]

I've just started dabbling with Dia:

http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dia-installer/

It looks pretty good so far, especially for something that is free. I find the interface less cluttered than Visio, but Visio experts may well notice things missing. It is based on an open XML format, which is conducive to automatically generating diagrams from data.