Workshop

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Hour 2
You Can’t Have Too Much Documentation, Money,
or Love!
Would you start out on a car trip in a strange country without a map? Of course you wouldn’t, but this is
what people do every day when they fail to document their ever-expanding networks. When it comes
time to troubleshoot, those who don’t have a map to go by will just shrug and shake their heads.
Undocumented networks are mostly incomprehensible. You need some method of getting your bearings,
and network documentation can be an compass in what can be a sea of confusion.
Navigating a Bad Network Neighborhood
There will be those who tell you that complete documentation is too much trouble, or that it takes too
much time and doesn’t buy you all that much. This is utter hogwash. (Although many gray areas exist in
network troubleshooting, this is one issue that is utterly black and white.) Folks without documented
networks are the ones running around with their hair on fire while others with documented networks have
fixed the problem, gone to lunch, done something productive, and gone home to spend time with their
kids. This may sound rather judgmental, but there’s just too much evidence that suggests that you either
document once and have a reference during times of trouble or you fail to document at all and end up
having to figure out something multiple times during each crisis.
Not only does insufficient documentation waste time when your network is having problems, but it also
causes unnecessary fear and confusion during the crisis. You owe it to yourself to have as clear a
situation as possible when you start to troubleshoot—believe me, there’s enough uncertainty and doubt
when you’re trying to find your way out of a bad network neighborhood without adding to it due to a
lack of a good map.
Documentation Dividends
Enough with the dire warnings and horror stories! Let’s set aside all the negatives due to a lack of
documentation. On the positive side, you can see tangible benefits to having an acceptable level of
documentation. Perhaps the one benefit you’ll appreciate most is that a documented network is a network
from which you can walk away. You can take a vacation from a documented network without worrying
about whether you’re going to be called if something goes wrong. Because you’re not the only person
with access to information about how your network is set up, others can deal with it while you watch the