Network diagram inhertitance

[jodiever]

Hi -

I have been asked to use Visio 2010 to create a network diagram - Fine, except I have been asked to use inheritance! I.e if one server for example,  is marked as  "down" and its linked to another one that should also then show as "down". I can't work out how to do this is it even possible?

[Moderator]: moved to Network Diagramming.

[aledlund]

not without some custom code. It's a special case of a path diagram that assumes the dependencies of the pathing for an application are understood and documented. The research up front is often the hardest part of the issue, building the data schema.
al

[jodiever]

How would be best to do this can you give me some advice?

[aledlund]

do you have a list of which applications require access to which servers? (Just because a server cannot pass traffic for a single application, does not mean that all applications are unable to get traffic through it). There is also the question of serilalization (what is the logical path that the data takes through the network), physical connectivity does not mean the same as logical connections (alternate pathing provided by load sharing and diverse routing mechanisms). This thread talks to some of the issues.
http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=4445.msg17329#msg17329

al

[jodiever]

I am not actually doing the network diagram I am just tasked with creating the structure of the diagram. I will try the link, thank you! Basically they want to  have a diagram with lots of servers on it and say I set one as being down then rest will then have something like a red cross beside them...

[aledlund]

That often is not a server question, but an application access question. As an example if we lose a dns server, the other servers are not down you just lose the ability to create new sessions. The research is much like the Y2K studies that had to be done over a decade ago. What applications are on which servers and how do they interact. You'd be better off creating a drawing that shows application interactions (who needs dns, who needs sql, who needs sharepoint (and what does it require) as your starting point.
I think 'asset gen' has a services component to show application availability.

al