Network Documentation Is Your Smoking Gun

When an emergency occurs or network maintenance is needed, hours can be wasted by vendors who have no guidance or roadmap to navigate your network architecture. The onboarding of new employees or execution of new initiatives can also be delayed. Accurate and complete network documentation can be a smoking gun in these pinnacle occurrences.

What is network documentation?

At its most basic level, network documentation is a map of your network as a whole. It can be as general or as detailed as you like, but the overall goal is to create a blueprint of how the various hosts and components work together so that a stranger could get an accurate bird’s-eye view of your setup.

Why is network documentation necessary?

Well, like everything else, it comes down to time and cost savings, and, in this case, the results are significant. Hours of time can be wasted bringing a new person up to speed with your layout, and millions of dollars of business can be lost in the event of a network crash. Having this blueprint available at all times results in greater work efficiency for new employees, unfamiliar vendors, or even long-standing personnel who are working to recuperate from a crash.

Network documentation best practices

Our friends over at PacketPushers have come up with a great series of best practices that can help you build or clean up your network documentation. Take a look at the components they believe ought to have a place, or view the full article here:

• L1 and L2 drawings
• L3 drawings
• Circuit inventory
• IP addresses
• Inventory
• Firewall rules
• Rack layout
• Configuration template

How to get started

Atrion offers Network Documentation Services to aid you in packing and storing your smoking gun so you can offer the best guidance and solution map for network errors and maintenance. Our services include:

• A complete understanding of the local area network (LAN) and wide area network (WAN) topology
• Detailed vision diagrams showing both the physical and virtual network layout
• Virtual LAN (VLAN) segmentation diagrams
• Data center rack layout
• Device inventories
• Wiring diagrams
• Remote access (virtual private network [VPN]) infrastructure
• Server topology
• Flow analysis

To learn more about how Network Documentation Services can help your business, contact us at info@atrioncomm.com or call us at 908-231-7777.

For all other inquiries, visit http://atrioncomm.com/contact-us.