Network Diagrams: VLANs and IP Subnets

One of the most com­mon items that we need to draw are VLANs and Layer 3 seg­ment and there is many ways to cre­ate a use­ful shape. In this post, I want to look at cre­at­ing a simple, but use­ful shape that is a single ele­ment, and thus easy to use.

Draw a simple line

The first step is to draw a simple line from left to right using the draw­ing tools.

Now right click on the line, and select the Format, Line (as shown)

What we really want is for this shape to look con­tained, so it needs some ends. So click on the Line Ends, Begin :

and repeat the same thing, select­ing the same design ele­ments for both ends. I use a open square box to leave lots of white space on the page (which makes your draw­ing more pleas­ant) and to save ink when print­ing. Now make the Line Ends a bit larger.

And now your will have the fol­low­ing shape:

Wrap up

Because this shape is a single ele­ment, and not a col­lec­tion of other ele­ments, it is easier to use and will be more flex­ible in most dia­grams. Your con­nect­ors will stick to it, and it will bond to the Visio grid in a con­sist­ent manner.

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