Visio and MapPoint Experience

Has anyone worked with Visio and/or MapPoint? I am just starting to feel out the complexity/feasibility of automating Visio to query a database of network devices to build and maintain network diagrams. Using the network device's naming conventions, I can map the device location to a specific geography, which is where MapPoint comes in. I would like to use the Visio data to build a MapPoint map showing the network devices in their cities and the connections between them.

If you have relevant knowledge or experience, either post here or PM me.

Thanks,
James

James,

I?ve been reading this post from time to time and finally decided to make a post.

MapPoint is OK but the limitation of 8 points is a disappointment to me.

If I understand You correct You would like to automate the creation of a MapPoint-map from Visio and You populate Visio with data from a database.

Why the need to use Visio in the first place?

Which version of theses softwares do You work with and how have You setup the connection between Visio and the database?

Kind regards,
Dennis

Hi Dennis,
I'm not sure of my project's feasibility - it might not work at all. I am not familiar with MapPoint or any of its limitations. We use Visio Pro 2003 and MapPoint 2004.

I am using Visio because it is the standard tool we use to document Network topologies. In my case, Visio will use ADO to query Windows Active Directory for the pertinent information. Using certain AD values, I can determine whether a server is Exchange, SQL, etc. Other standard naming conventions permit me to determine the server's city or site.

Once I obtain AD information, I can use WMI to query each server for configuration information such as OS, Service Pack level, HD size, etc. I will store this configuration information in a Visio object so that an administrator can click on it and drill down to what he needs.

I understand the effort to get to that point. I'd like to take this project one step further and use the geographical information to integrate the Visio server object's with some sort of mapping program. MapPoint is used here, so it was a natural starting point.

The objective of the Visio/MapPoint integration is to provide a worldwide map containing hotspots of our sites and the various connectors between those sites. A user could click on a hotspot to drill down to either a city map that contained hotspots for city sites, or if there is only a single site in a city, drill down to that site's Visio topology diagram.

Hope that makes more sense.

James

James,

Thanks for the info - Sounds both interesting and challening :)

Before doing anything else - please check out the mention limitation as I believe this will be a bottleneck for You. Alternative You may consider another software to use but the price / license may be expensive.

Kind regards,
Dennis