questions, questions, questions.
How dynamic is the environment?
Is it stable, or is it a data center move with "rack-and-stack" happening daily? Even in stable environments the change rate turns out to be about 2% per month, so at the end of the year a quarter of the drawings will have changed...
How many racks am I working with?
A half dozen racks at each of a thousand locations (major retail environment), or a single data center with several hundred racks (and scenarios in between).
Do I require simultaneous front and rear views on the same page (netzoom does a nice job of this, but has some issues and with there lack of x64 support???)? The multiple simultaneous views of a single component means that you have to build a set of shape naming conventions that links to the component identification but is not identical to it.
Do I require detail vendor drawings, or can I get away with the generic stuff that MS uses?
I need the vendor specific (different sizes, different slot counts (some count from the bottom, some from the top), orientation of slots (vertical vs. horizontal))
Is the data they are based on in the drawing or external?
Where datarecordsets and linking are neat, performance is poor-refresh is problematic-data security is
?
Late in build cycle data attributes for the rack components can get really ugly as platform teams start to move system loads around to meet 'unidentified requirements'
If you start with the approach that all of the drawings are disposable the data management process becomes a lot easier, but then you're into drawing performance.
How many shape properties do I really need?
Goes to which attributes must I track (config, asset, network, environmentals, software, etc. etc.) and can we ease the process of applying them.
Would I like to take advantage of DataGraphics?
Another set of issues on demoware vs real world in a detail environment. I am in favor of the dgHost option where a datagraphic master is applied to a surrogate shape, rather than the target shape, for the reasons I sent to you offline.
Managing connection points in the shapesheet...
Recognizing that not all shape developers have the same thoughts and requirements almost always forces me to have to manually go in and name the connection points manually so they are consistent across providers. This get's into the discussion of naming requirements "slots (a tuple definition), ports(technology issues), and connectors (a special case of ports)".
al
