Chapter 14. Creating Network Diagrams

If the monster in your closet is a jumble of network cables and blinking equipment, perhaps it’s time to cut the beast down to size in a Microsoft Office Visio 2007 diagram. Among the earliest adopters of the Visio application were IT professionals and network administrators who discovered how easy it could be to create a picture of their network. Shapes that represent network devices snap together to show you what you have or to demonstrate the system you would like. With Office Visio 2007, you can create network diagrams that provide necessary documentation for training, proposals, troubleshooting, planning, and more. Network diagrams easily integrate with documents that you create in other programs, such as budget and asset worksheets you develop in Microsoft Office Excel 2007 or presentations you deliver in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007.

Use the basic network diagram to make sharp diagrams that show how different pieces of equipment connect and interact. These shapes are more than pretty faces; you can choose from 22 predefined definitions to generate reports of your shapes. The detailed network diagram template includes shapes for documenting the physical and local topology of a network. Not only do these specialized shapes perform better than a standard flowchart, but they are better looking, too.

Keep in mind that Visio Standard 2007 includes basic network equipment shapes. Visio Professional 2007 expands the equipment collection and provides additional shapes for diagramming local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs) as well as additional templates for detailing a directory services schema. Shapes from either version of Office Visio 2007 can be data-driven—that is, linked to your spreadsheet or database of asset information—so that your diagram provides an accurate and up-to-date picture of your network. This chapter describes how to use Visio 2007 to create logical and physical network diagrams and directory services diagrams.