Net Design Made Easier

NetSuite unveils software suite

By Monua Janah

etSuite Development LP will announce this week the next release of its network design product suite. It's aimed at making enterprise networks more comprehensible and easier to manage.

The product set includes NetSuite Professional Audit 3.0, for detecting the network topology; NetSuite Advanced Professional Design 3.0, which provides a design schematic to hold the data discovered by the auditing engine; NetSuite Toolkit 3.0, a set of tools to customize network design; and an expanded version of the NetSuite Library that can be used to model networks.

NetSuite Professional Audit 3.0 includes probes for vendor-specific Management Information Bases in devices from Bay, Cabletron, Cisco, Fore, and 3Com. The probes can provide detailed information about the device's operating system, as well as installed cards and attached PCs.

NetSuite Advanced Professional Design 3.0 recognizes network protocols, assigns properties associated with them, and validates network addresses. For example, a network planner can assign IP addresses to certain ports of a switch so that the network can be segmented and managed more easily.

Beta user Michael Taylor, telecom facilities manager at Temple University in Philadelphia, says he's most impressed with the Device MIB SoftProbe. Typically, he says, most network-discovery programs don't know what they're discovering. With the new feature, Taylor says, "you should be able to completely document what's connected to what port of what device."

NetSuite will ship the design suite in September. Elements can be purchased separately, or in a bundle for $6,075.

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