netTerrain DCIM

"Knowledge is Power"

Overall: Exceptional from the support team, to ease of use, to the reporting availability. It checkmarks everything I need, to see what is happening at the physical layer in our data center.

Pros: I have been a data center professional since 2011 and inherited an in house Access database of all our connections. Steep learning curve to know how to search and find what you are looking for. Our company did an RFP for a DCIM and picked Graphical Networks, for ease of use, meeting our requirements and cost. Our needs follow with an explanation of what NetTerrain provides. NetTerrain provides a graphical representation of your IT gear, where it is located, and how it is connected both data and power wise. NetTerrain’s search function allows you to search for any 3 character or longer string. It searches everything, device, device name, any object property field. The returned values gives you a link to go directly to that instance and causes a flashing notification on that device. NetTerrain works from a browser, not a specific application that you need to install on every users computer. There is a wide range of user access levels and the ability to create custom access levels to restrict access for particular nodes. Right now I am using it to map out a new data center build and figuring out the fiber infrastructure needed. When I have the fiber trunks documented, I will be able, with a few mouse clicks, to export all the trunks I am going to need, have the lengths and ID numbers to be able to order from the vendor and give to our installers to make their jobs easier. If there is a new device that is not in the catalog, I can design it myself or I can submit a support ticket and within 3 days typically I have the device to add to my catalog. There are many built in reports to the system. With SQL knowledge, I can create my own reports, or again create a support ticket and within a few days Graphical Networks has sent me the report to be added to my server. As our group uses NetTerrain, we come up with things that would be nice to have the ability to do in NetTerrain. Graphical Networks listens and looks to see if it can happen. We have some specialty items in our cabinets that we want to interact with and Graphical Networks has created custom actions so we can do those functions directly in NetTerrain instead of having to log directly into the device. Having this at our fingertips and being able to respond to other departments with the information on their devices in minutes, has made our jobs easier and amazed the other departments on what we can provide.

Cons: No 'UNDELETE' function, as of yet in the application.

"netTerrain Review"

Overall: NetTerrain has been beneficial but with all DCIMs it can be daunting to constantly keep up with updating physical links and replacing old equipment with new equipment. One of the best things is the search function. Once you get your network devices imported in and added to the correct geographical locations, rack, room, etc, you are able to search every instance of whatever device you are searching. This beats manually checking each rack to verify if a device is there or traveling to remote sites, especially if the remote site is an hour round trip away. Managing physical links is a beast of a task and will constantly be an ongoing task. This is not a one all solutions, it will take time to implement. I recommend starting off with discovering your network. Next, assigning your devices to the correct geographic location, building, rooms, rack, however you want to organize your structure. Then worry about physical or logical connections last, as it will be an ongoing task depending on how large your network is, and how detailed you want to get with managing physical links.

Pros: Affordable Easy to use after learning shortcuts. Customizable racks, ports, and equipment facials. Network discovery tool. Ability to manage physical links. Great tool for locating devices and rack space management.

Cons: Can be buggy when importing discovered nodes and using background templates. Can be a learning curve. It may be easier if you have a background in database administration. Reporting not the easiest to work with. Goes back to having a db admin background will help with creating reports. Can be tedious creating multiple physical links to different nodes. SNMP monitoring and email alerting still needs improvement.

"MAA PDS Admin"

Pros: Ease of entries and quick views. Click and drag feature is a plus along with the support

Cons: I can’t think of one thing, this software does exactly what I need it to do in order for me to make entries and changes