Network visualization with ConceptDraw PRO

Network directors, system administrators, automatic control system-specialists, specialists on electronic document exchange... People of these professions, by the nature of their occupation, need information on the enterprise network in various representations. As in many other cases, it is visualization of information that helps a specialist to simplify the process of decision-making. And that's where such a tool as ConceptDraw comes to aid.

Why ConceptDraw, and what possibilities does the program provide?

ConceptDraw makes the entire process of network visualization easier thanks to the numerous ready-to-use objects included in the package for presentation of network equipment, LDAP directory symbols and many other objects that symbolize resources in most various representations.

Smart connectors simplify displaying of interconnections among the diagram elements: once you have interconnected the symbols of the devices, they will remain connected even if you shift any of them.

To display different network levels you can draw diagrams on several layers and show/hide layers according to your needs. Another variant of layer division that can be realized in ConceptDraw is creation of a multi-page document connected by hyperlinks.

ConceptDraw objects allow to save arbitrary detailed information on the equipment in the user's properties of the object (Custom Properties).

Rich possibilities for setting text properties, and ready-to-use background objects allow to beautifully design diagrams; the set of supported export formats (various vector and raster graphic formats: PDF, Power Point, Flash, HTML (with hyperlinks)) simplify the process of information exchange with your colleagues and business partners.

A great step in (the degree of utility) of ConceptDraw was made after the appearance of ConceptDraw Basic - the in-built scripting language of ConceptDraw. The typical task for ConceptDraw Basic is to automate visualization of some data. This data can be obtained in the result of work of an arbitrary application (including ConceptDraw-script) and it can be saved in a text file, ODBC- compatible base or in one of the open formats supported by ConceptDraw. In the first two cases further on data will be read and outlined with the help of ConceptDraw Basic. In case you use a ConceptDraw open format (XML for ConceptDraw or XML for Visio) can open the obtained document in ConceptDraw, add design details and get a presentable diagram. Possibilities of ConceptDraw Basic greatly increase at using the script functions, which are exported by the shared libraries.

Here are several examples on the ideas of automation that may attract specialists who plan and track functioning of computer networks.

Planning a network for tracking information traffic with the aim of traffic localization you need information on the company structure visually displayed. It can be presented, for example, as an organizational chart. In ConceptDraw PRO, Organization Chart Wizard has been added, which allows to automatically build an organization chart of the company on the information saved in a text file or in ODBC-compatible database. In this case, any properties necessary for you can be saved by the wizard in the object custom properties. Collecting and outlining of data is done by the basic script. Besides, the function exported by the external library is applied to dialog-communicate with the user.

Having created the network diagram on the level of the devices used and having assigned the cost of the devices in the object custom properties you can, with the help of simple CDBasic-script evaluate the cost of the solution obtained. Such a script can accelerate planning of the equipment for the future network or upgrading the existing one. For users' convenience ConceptDraw library objects, representing the network equipment are already supplied with many typical characteristics (producer, serial number, premises...), but you can always add new ones, needed for a specific task. Note that in such a case there is no need in interaction between ConceptDraw Basic with the external libraries, as well as in temporary storing of information in some file or DB.

Another variant is a solution which analyzes the status of the already existing network for the moment and displays shared resources available at this moment. For analysis of information an external function is used. The result of its work is XML-file with the data on the network structure. Further this file is read and outlined by own means of ConceptDraw Basic. (Such an instance is displayed. See it).

In the package there is also an example (it can be found in the file ...Samples\Solutions\Diagraming\JointGraph), which builds statistic graphs of Internet traffic per month (for each day and from the beginning of the month). The data is read from the text file.

Support of a number of open formats, the possibility of interaction with files and with ODBC-compatible databases and the ability of ConceptDraw Basic to call the functions exported by the external shared libraries opens wide opportunities for building most various solutions in the field of data visualization. Moreover, such subject field as planning and management of networks are capable of presenting a large number of tasks, awaiting to be solved within the given technology.

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