Networks
by cg it
Well a lot depends upon what you want to document and what the network is comprised of.
Need more detail.
by ni70
Try NetworkView from http://www.networkview.com with this software you'll be able to map your network. It will identify nodes on your network, but the only downside is it does not recognize a router from a switch. So it would be wise to know your router and switch IP address, which I assume you know already. It's relatively inexpensie at $79 and the download is barely over 1MB. There's also Network Scanner from http://www.softperfect.com/.
As CG IT stated "Need more detail".
by ( las )
I have been using a free package that can recognize a lot of different devices during discovery and mapping, further it can monitor device status and specific services or ports. Includes nice admin tools.
It is called The_Dude from the kind developers at Mikrotik:
by david.skues
Start with the OSI model. Begin at layer 1, the physical layer. You will need test equipment to identify/ test data cables and ports. Use labels to mark each end of every data drop. Once you have all of your drops identified with their physical location and which switch/ router they are connected to, you can begin to identify and document layer 2, 3, etc characteristics of your netowrk. This will also help you find faults that show up as problems such as slow network connections, intermittent connectivity losses, etc.
User a scanner such as angry IP or my favorite, Spiceworks (Both free downloads) to scan your network. Spiceworks (available from spiceworks.com) will give you plenty of information and customizable reports that you can use to document your IP addressing scheme, software installations, hardware configurations, and more. It will also help you with sorting out your network once you have the initial documentation done.
Develop IP addressing and host naming schemes that make sense. Using asset tag numbers and a descriptor for the type of equipment is a simple way to consistently name your devices (PC-1234, SW-3456 or IDF SW1, SVR-1234 for servers). some human friendly naming scheme for servers works well for end users (Garfield, Jim, Odie or Picard, Kirk, Sulu, etc.).
For your IP and host name addressing schemes, be sure to test them out first and make sure that everyone's links, mapped drives and shortcuts will work after the change. You may want to create the links or write scripts to implement them when users log on so that the changes are transparent to end users. Nothing like making a simple change that causes everything to stop working. You'll get non stop calls and have to explain to everyone things they don't even want to understand.
Use a test lab of 2-8 computers if you can and get it right before you do anything on production systems.
Best of luck!
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