CANE 2.0

Network design and testing

When choosing a network design tool, I have two requirements: The tool mustbe as easy to use as any mass market diagramming tool, and it must have enoughjuice to accurately represent my real network. Most network design tools do oneor the other very well, but when I combine both criteria, the tools fall short.That's why I was pleasantly surprised with ImageNet's Computer Aided NetworkEngineering (CANE) 2.0.

CANE is a Windows NT or Windows 95 application that helps networkadministrators design, test, and maintain networks. It ships on one CD-ROM andrequires roughly 100MB of disk space, but you can run some components directlyoff the CD-ROM. Installation is straightforward, using the InstallShieldinterface, but it requires Administrator-level privileges to run (CANE installsobject-oriented database components, which is the reason for this requirement).

CANE's user interface (UI) closely resembles Visio (for my review of Visio,see "Visio Professional 4.5," August 1997) right down to theease-of-use. Pop-up menus are context-sensitive, so the menu options changedepending on which object you are clicking on. As you can see in Screen 1, theUI consists of two main portions: the drawing window and the device library.

CANE includes support for nearly every NIC, router, hub, chassis, andsoftware package on the market. Although most of these templates seem likecardboard cutouts of a generic device or software package, it's still nice tohave an accurate representation of your network environment. You can manuallyadd more exotic devices if necessary.

To test CANE's analysis capabilities, I built a three-floor model withmultiple PCs, hubs, and servers, and a T3 connection to a server in anothercity. Creating the diagram was simply a matter of dragging the appropriatedevices from the library bar. For this fictional network, I used industrystandard 3Com hardware and a mix of Novell and NT software on the computers.

While building the diagram, I intentionally severed a link between twocomputers. CANE caught the error immediately, and also notified me that Ihad forgotten to put a NIC in one of the client computers. This identificationlet me fix the problems before I deployed the network.

Setting up Internet connectivity for the network was easy. I plugged in theclass B IP address and assigned it to a router. After assigning the standardsubnet mask of 255.255.255.0, CANE broke down the class B address and assignedindividual IP addresses to each client on the network. CANE also generated ahost table for the servers. If you have ever tried to connect an entire networkto the Internet, you can appreciate the time that this type of automation savesyou.

One of CANE's interesting features is its network activity simulator, whichlets you gauge performance based on your network design. Take a WAN withmultiple frame relay and T1 connections, for example. Once you have thediagramming laid out, you can feed the expected traffic for each line into theprogram and run the simulator. The simulator then interprets the data anddisplays each line's congestion level in a bar graph, letting you know whichconnections require upgrading and which require downgrading or elimination.

Similarly, you can use the simulation feature to test latency betweenmachines. CANE can send simulated Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)packets to other computers on the test network, reporting the amount of timeused to return a response. Although this simulation eliminates all networktraffic and other factors from the equation, giving you a best-case scenario, itis an accurate representation of your network performance.

Finally, CANE includes several bonuses. The LAN Times Encyclopedia ofNetworking and a network buyer's guide that incorporates data from NetworkWorld's Buyer's Guide and lab reports, are included in a PDF file, whichsimplifies cross-referencing information for potential hardware purchases. CANEalso ships with an excellent manual with a tutorial section, which helps you getup to speed with the program.

With these powerful features, CANE has earned a prime spot on my utilitybelt. Its performance is swift and its hardware requirements are less dauntingthan those of most full-blown CAD applications, which makes the software a goodfit for any system that can run NT.