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Anyone know of any OSS Tools to assist in creating infra/ops/net Diagrams?

  1. #1
    Sophie Pedophile Tech Support
    There are a couple of online once that are pretty good. But i'd like to have something on my box with which i can visualize, a certain type of network infrastructure, either for when i am building a complicated network and i need a concise representation of what i intend to build. Laying out an interaction tree between various components, or as simple as a flow chart to show which actions should be seen if the system that it pertains to is working.

    Any of us here familiar with a good open source solution for drawing technical diagrams as it pertains to the stuff i just mention? Currently Running a heavily modified Debian distro. And i' love there to be a program to help me on that OS. However, i have access to most OS's so it is not essential

    Anything you like to use in this regard?
  2. #2
    aldra JIDF Controlled Opposition
    see if https://app.diagrams.net/ does what you want it to


    pretty sure CISCO still offers lunix packages for it's network diagram software too
  3. #3
    Lanny Bird of Courage
    I usually just wing it with impress/powerpoint, which I don't feel too bad about because diagraming is something where 9 times out of 10 I'd rather just have a written description of in a readme or something, and is only occasionally helpful on top of that written description whereas lot of people I interact with seem to think diagrams are _the_ central output of a design process.

    The logic there is that the main things I'm looking for in a design are 1. what are the pieces I'm working with 2. how do they interact with each other (as in the mechanism of communication, _when_ does communication occur, and _what_ data is communicated vs. inferred/retrieved from elsewhere) and most importantly 3. why is it like this. A diagram does a good job of 1. and partially answers 2. but gives no info about why a design is the way that it is, which is kind of the whole point of designing in advance, and doesn't tell you anything about the actual content of intra-component communication which is probably the single most useful piece of information when you're trying to use a design to reason about how to extend an existing implementation. Plain old text and maybe snippets from some schema format communicate all of this info trivially.
  4. #4
    Sophie Pedophile Tech Support
    Originally posted by Lanny I usually just wing it with impress/powerpoint, which I don't feel too bad about because diagraming is something where 9 times out of 10 I'd rather just have a written description of in a readme or something, and is only occasionally helpful on top of that written description whereas lot of people I interact with seem to think diagrams are _the_ central output of a design process.

    The logic there is that the main things I'm looking for in a design are 1. what are the pieces I'm working with 2. how do they interact with each other (as in the mechanism of communication, _when_ does communication occur, and _what_ data is communicated vs. inferred/retrieved from elsewhere) and most importantly 3. why is it like this. A diagram does a good job of 1. and partially answers 2. but gives no info about why a design is the way that it is, which is kind of the whole point of designing in advance, and doesn't tell you anything about the actual content of intra-component communication which is probably the single most useful piece of information when you're trying to use a design to reason about how to extend an existing implementation. Plain old text and maybe snippets from some schema format communicate all of this info trivially.

    Thanks, i am kind of looking for a solution that allows me to visualize/express stuff in a way that you are describing for myself, so i get template or blueprint if you will, for myself. What you are talking about would be good for my personal use. However i'd also like to be able to visualize a design for any client that may be less technically inclined than i am. Basically i'd design a network, and keep a version of the schematics/diagram for myself for internal use and i would like to be able to express that design more visually for external use, in order for any potential client to get a clear picture of what it is exactly that i'd propose building for them. Know what i mean?

    Any advice in that regard?
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