Recommendations on IT-infrastructure visualizer tool
Hello everyone!
I'm currently looking for a tool to plan or visualize IT-infrastructure (so if possible with Router, Switches, Server, VMs, Notebooks / PCs...) without it being super tedious like drawing each single line as if you are making it in PowerPoint. I do have two use cases in which I would apply this tool to:
1. In the near future I want to get myself a homelab (maybe even a rack) and also setup my networking at home. Also going to use VLANs to separate guest stuff, my private stuff, households private stuff and work-related stuff (working from homeoffice) from each other. Plans to expand being brainstormed but not included in here. For that it would be nice to use the tool, to plan my home-IT-infrastructure accordingly and afterwards use this as a visual documentation of it (ofc works only if I update it lol).
2. I started working at a small IT company and haven't been with them for long yet. While my senior colleagues answer almost instantly with locations, hostnames and IP-Addresses, I'm not that familiar yet with our own whole infrastructure as well as the customers IT-infrastructure we manage. Meanwhile the documentation is sadly....rough and unstructured. This in turn makes it every time kind of a research adventure for myself if I have to work with new systems and don't nail down my seniors immediately. It's time consuming to sift through the "documentation" or just connect to multiple Hypervisors just to find the e.g. VM I need for my current task. I would use the tool to replicate the infrastructure to get myself more familiar with by having that type of visual overview which could also help the new intern with the same problem right now. Maybe even pitch it internally to keep it updated for future usage.
So yeah, thats my current two use cases I would like to use the tool for. Planning IT-infrastructure and replicating existing ones, to get myself familiar with the visual overview.
I know some tools already which I'm not too happy with:
- Diagrams.net (former draw.io) = too tedious to "draw each line"
- Filius (i think only german based) = too limited
- Planner thingy from unify = sadly only for unify products (from what i have seen)
- Cisco Packet Tracer = same as unify, just with cisco
Any recommendations on good tools that can execute what I want to do? If possible please stick to free tools or if it's a really good one, don't let it be in the highest of enterprise prices for me to sell my kidney to be able to pay the €... 😅
Thanks for the help in advance! (and sorry for the wall of text...I tend to be detailed if I want someone to grasp the whole thing)
5 Replies
cisco packet tracer is pretty good in my experience
it's not perfect of course but it doesn't need to be, it has unique diagrams for routers and switches so you can just use one of those to substitute for your own switch or router or firewall
like here's my home network, done in about 2 minutes
for work it's probably easier or just use pencil and paper for simple stuff
then once you've more or less got it it's a lot easier to move to draw.io or packet tracer
and trust me, when you're working with a network like that, it really helps to take a bit more time rather than less
Sorry for getting back to you so late. I got buried by IRL. Thanks for your Feedback and I will take your points into consideration!
yea don't worry life gets in the way
it is how it is, hope this helps nonetheless!