A deluge of diagramming add-ons

Most third-party products relate to common activities just as planning network infrastructure, web design, mapping, engineering or general design. They are as well the answer for those looking for all kinds of niche products, from pool design tools to dog trail stencils.

Meanwhile Chris Roth, editor of the Visio Guy blog, has collated a superb collection of mainly free add-ins for creating diagrams of virtualised networks:

The infrastructure front

On the infrastructure front, Altima Technologies' Netzoom is maybe the most extensive library of relevant downloads, offering shapes and stencil downloads for Visio, AutoCAD and Autodesk. The firm as well supplies auto-generation tools, as do Apprentice Systems, Data-Assist and D-Tools. Codima Technologies provides automated tools covering infrastructure and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) networks, during Sandrila focuses on tools for electronics and electrical engineering. UK-based BVisual provides end-user and developer productivity and feature add-ins for Visio.

Not everyone, nevertheless, thinks the third-party approach is always the right one. Dale Vile, managing director of the IT analyst firm FreeForm Dynamics, says: "You should not forget the importance of building your own templates. It is good practice for an organisation to agree on how different aspects of the business and systems landscape will be represented, and having your own library of templates and icons is very useful.

This white paper explains why such protection is necessary for corporate networks and provides a technological overview of the detection methodologies used by BitDefender solutions.