SQL Server Magazine

It's Wednesday afternoon, and you've just had a meeting with your company's upper managers. They want you to document your entire network and present your findings at a meeting Friday morning. You calculate the time you'll spend recording the specifications of each system and peripheral attached to the network—you could spend 6 months completing the project. You wonder how you'll complete this project and continue to support your network users.

In earlier-generation drawing programs, you could spend as much time drawing a diagram on the computer as you would creating one with a pencil and symbol stencils. Now, with Visio Enterprise 5.0, you can quickly create document models of your networks, databases, and software projects.

In addition to the extensive online Help on the program CD-ROM, Visio Enterprise includes three sizable manuals that cover using, modeling, and developing solutions. A tutorial guide is also available to lead you through a variety of simulations that let you understand the concepts and processes you encounter when you work with the software.

I installed Visio Enterprise on a 333MHz Pentium II system with 1GB of RAM and a 4.3GB hard disk running Windows NT Server 4.0 and Service Pack 3 (SP3). I inserted the Visio Enterprise CD-ROM, clicked Install Visio Enterprise, and followed the wizard, which led me through a series of easy-to-follow instructions. I installed the program's sample drawings and vendor-specific replica shapes, which impressed me with their level of detail. A subscription option is available that lets you download shapes from Visio as the company creates or updates them. Installation was quick and easy, and I restarted my system when prompted.

Network Discovery
From the Start menu, I opened Visio Enterprise, which prompted me to select a template from more than 40 choices in the Choose a Drawing Template dialog box. I selected the Network Diagram folder, AutoDiscovery and Layout, and then OK. Next, I clicked the magnifying glass icon on the toolbar, which starts the Basic Discovery wizard. The wizard stepped me through a series of screens that let me select the type of network (Routed or Switched/Bridged) I wanted the software to document. The Routed choice finds multiple routers and IP subnets on your network. The Switched/Bridged choice uses pings to find a network composed of switches, bridges, or hubs on one subnet. I selected Switched/Bridged, selected the default gateway check box, then selected the SNMP communities I wanted to use in the discovery process. I clicked Discover to start the search, and the program pinged all IP addresses on my network from 206.247.73.1 through 206.247.73.254. In about 8 minutes, I received the message AutoDiscovery is Finished, which signaled that the software had created the device database and was ready to add it to a network drawing.

Before you create a network diagram, you need to consider the type of diagram you want and how you plan to use it. Visio Enterprise lets you create one-page hyperlinked diagrams that you can publish on the Web; the drawings can be simple or complex. I selected File, New, and then AutoDiscovery and Layout from the Network Diagram menu. Visio Enterprise includes a variety of prebuilt diagram sizes, including Standard, Metric, ANSI Engineering, and ANS Architectural. You can also customize your page size. I clicked Page Setup from the File menu and selected ANSI Engineering and the default size of 8.5" * 11". Next, I clicked Add A Network from the AutoDiscovery and Layout toolbar, and I selected the network database that the software had created. An icon that represented the network backbone appeared with the IP address 206.247.73.0, which was the beginning of my network diagram. I right-clicked the network backbone icon (listing the IP address of the main router) and selected Connect Devices from the menu. I selected the switch that the software had located, and it connected to the main network icon. You can easily add devices using the List item from the AutoDiscovery menu individually, or you can let Visio Enterprise drop all the devices on the drawing pane, then move them into their respective locations. The interface was fairly intuitive, and I quickly learned the process. I spent 15 minutes creating a simple diagram of my test network, as Figure 1, page 172, shows.

Manage Your Database
Visio Enterprise isn't only for designing networks; the software also includes a robust set of tools for creating and managing logical models for relational and object-relational databases. Well-designed logical database models visually format the relationships between various tables of information and help you verify that created information systems are accurate, complete, and streamlined. I found Visio Enterprise to be flexible—I could create database models, generate database schemas for a variety of databases (e.g., Microsoft SQL Server), and reverse-engineer legacy databases to view their overall structure.

Visio Enterprise lets you create database models from scratch or reverse-engineer an existing database and display its overall structure. Creating a database model was easy: I selected File, New and selected Database Model from the Database menu. Next, I set the default database driver to SQL Server by choosing Drivers from the Database menu. From the menu, I clicked Microsoft SQL Server, Set As Default, and OK. I wanted to display the data types of the items inside each table, so I clicked Document Options from the Database menu and clicked Show Physical under Data Types on the Table tab.

   Prev. page   [1] 2     next page