/sigh no one liked my network map.

dlots · January 19, 2017, 10:13:52 AM

I have been busy at the new job and haven't been by in a while, but I wanted to whine about stuff today :-P

Where I work now we have a LARGE (probably ~7k routers/switches) network... with no documentation, I say probably ~7k because there is no complete list anywhere of all the gear, much less where what is plugged in at, we don't even have a map of what the DMZ looks like. So I wrote a program that crawls the network with CDP, and saves the CDP info, then another program to turn that CDP info into a network map. ~12K Cisco devices (and we do mostly non-Cisco phones) with ~15K connections between them. You can search for a device and immeditly see every connection it has and what is plugged in where. I showed it to the rest of my team and no one was impressed, excited, or even wanted a copy... WTF?!?

deanwebb · January 19, 2017, 10:31:10 AM

Warning sign... *I'm* interested in looking at it, and I don't even work there. If these guys can't be bothered, then you have to ask are they just showing up to collect a check and go home? If so, they may get pissed at you if it looks like you'll upset their easy street with something like this. They may *like* the slow pace it takes to fiiiiiiiind the swiiiiiiiitch, dooooo a shooooooow ruuuuuuunnnn...

icecream-guy · January 19, 2017, 11:09:52 AM

don't fall into their trap. your job as a network engineer to to provide network engineer services to your customer/employer. keep doing what you are doing, you will stand out and get noticed. the others will not and it will show, soon customer/employer will be asking them, why they are not providing such an effort, and you will end up leading the new team with their replacements.

People here have an "why do anything, since the data center is closing next year" sure they will troubleshoot problems and resolve immediate issues, but nothing to improve the network for the long term, not even short term.. just cause this data center is closing, there are still others that are not.

I learned from a wise team lead at my last engagement. one can work himself out of a job by being lazy and lethargic. the wise ones keep coming up with new task that need to be done to make billable hours, the more stuff you can come up with, the longer your job will be around.

EOS · January 19, 2017, 01:05:46 PM

DAMN! If my co-worker did that, I'd be all over it asking to see what he did to get that.

Otanx · January 19, 2017, 03:14:53 PM

I would love to see that. Throw it up on github. My network is nowhere that large, but if I could automate network diagrams it would be awesome.

-Otanx

wintermute000 · January 20, 2017, 03:21:36 AM

I'm particularly interested in your drawing module

deanwebb · January 20, 2017, 07:54:43 AM

Looks really cool, I got a private email with the images in them.

dlots · January 20, 2017, 08:03:58 AM

I'll see about polishing it up to the point where other people can use it (it's currently a 4-5 stage with fiddling between each stage) set of programs.

The drawing model I actually cheated on quite abit, it used the program yEd, I just make the nodes and the links by filling in an XML form. Then when the map is open in yEd I just tell it to do arrange the network drawing for me (Just go to the layout, hit tree, then balloon). From there in theory you can export to a .svg and open that in visio.

Nerm · January 20, 2017, 08:43:38 AM

Quote from: Otanx on January 19, 2017, 03:14:53 PM
I would love to see that. Throw it up on github. My network is nowhere that large, but if I could automate network diagrams it would be awesome.

-Otanx

I second that as this sounds awesome. How can your team not be excited by something like that?

dlots · January 20, 2017, 12:27:48 PM

I thought the issue might have been that the map was to large to be useful, and they didn't like using something other than Visio. So I made a little program to make a map only of what is connected to specified hosts (Cisco devices), these small maps can be opened (not edited) in Visio. Still no one cares :-P

icecream-guy · January 22, 2017, 10:05:17 AM

so how do you deal with firewalls? since they don't run CDP. I would think throwing a firewall or two in there would muck things up.
unless its a very big network without layers of defense, that'd be a whole other issue.

wintermute000 · January 22, 2017, 07:26:20 PM

FYR APIC EM has a great drawing module. Multi layered too e.g. Per vlan, per VRF, etc. It also discovers firewalls and non cdp somehow but just comes up as a hop.

dlots · January 24, 2017, 08:07:12 AM

The map is made from a CSV that goes
device1,device2,interface1,interface2

If there were a list of FWs and what they were connected to I could just manually make the connections and devices, but from what I can tell there isn't such a list, so I just leave the FWs out. I would love to put them in, but I don't know where they are, or even how many of them there are. I started writing this because there was no network documentation.

that1guy15 · January 24, 2017, 08:14:29 AM

There was nothing documented before you got there why would they care if there is now? If it really was a big deal to them they would have done it before. Kudos to you for taking the initiative.

Ristau5741 hit the nail on the head here.

Quote from: ristau5741 on January 19, 2017, 11:09:52 AM
don't fall into their trap. your job as a network engineer to to provide network engineer services to your customer/employer. keep doing what you are doing, you will stand out and get noticed. the others will not and it will show, soon customer/employer will be asking them, why they are not providing such an effort, and you will end up leading the new team with their replacements.

People here have an "why do anything, since the data center is closing next year" sure they will troubleshoot problems and resolve immediate issues, but nothing to improve the network for the long term, not even short term.. just cause this data center is closing, there are still others that are not.

I learned from a wise team lead at my last engagement. one can work himself out of a job by being lazy and lethargic. the wise ones keep coming up with new task that need to be done to make billable hours, the more stuff you can come up with, the longer your job will be around.

dlots · January 24, 2017, 09:05:39 AM

Mainly because everyone complains that there is no documentation. I can totally see why you wouldn't start one on your own with thousands of devices the idea of making a map is very daunting. The same people who said they would love me forever if I could make a map don't even want a copy now that I made a map

It will look good on a resume though, so yay!