Creating an Information Systems Map

Question

I am in the process of documenting the high level view of the information systems that we have. They aren't all 'silo' applications and components, and I the goal here is to highlight which components rely on which other components.

My end goal is to have a 'map' or schema of the components in the company (apps, utility assemblies, datastores, etc.).

This would then be a living document which would need to be modified.

Question: are there any tools out there that you know of that might make this process easy? (I was considering Visio up until now)

I am in the .NET/SQL Server world, if that helps qualify any automated tools.

Answer 1

I have always just used Visio for this type of diagramming.

There are templates for physical network, database and architecture diagrams, I usually mix shapes from several depending on whether the diagram is physical (servers and DB instances) or logical, or both.

Answer 2

I find Enterprise Architect from Sparx Systems to be a great tool for developing these kinds of things. EA is really a UML tool. UML has elements for showing systems and component dependencies, and well as the composition of an entity.

EA is a rasonably priced application. It runs about $200 for the corporate edition which includes version control (so models can be dumped straight into and your SCM) as well as access control.