Knowing who will be using your maps is important. I get the same amount of requests for high-level diagrams as I do technical ones. If your goal is to sell a network proposal to the Finance department, it may not do you much good to saturate it with technical details. It’s more important to make it easy to understand, so you can secure the funds to complete the project. Creating a map for certification like PCI is when you knock it out with as much detail as you can. The person analyzing this will be technical and will certainly appreciate a well made document.

Example 10-1

High-level example. This was created for a syslog infrastructure proposal. The audience is upper management and the project office, so technical detail is not necessary.

Example 10-2

Technical Example. This example was for a LAN upgrade proposal and required details in regards to VLANs, IPs, spanning-tree states, and IP interface descriptions. This diagram was reviewed by Cisco Advanced Services, so it needed as much detail as possible.

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