Server Documentation Template

Not many system administrators purr like a cat when tasked with network documentation. Starting off from scratch doesn’t make things much better. It’s perfectly natural to consult a guide if you’re about to do something you don’t do often. Part of the network documentation project is deciding what you need to include in the final documents. Instead of starting with a blank sheet of paper you can speed up the process by looking at a server documentation template. I see two camps when it comes to network documentation. In the first camp we have people who do network documentation because they have to. Finishing the network or server documentation means they can tick of a task in their todo list. If you are in this camp any server documentation template or checklist will do. If there’s no intended use for the network documentation it doesn’t really matter how it is structured and what kind of information is missing.

In the other camp I see people who would use the network documentation as a tool. This could be to help them and their colleagues to better understand their network, maintain network continuity, help with project planning or a number of other reasons. If you’re in this camp you probably can’t just pick a documentation template and use it as is for your purposes. The key word here is template, you can use the server documentation template as a starting point to build from.

A generic template simply won’t be tailored to your needs, it might contain too much information and details or it could be missing in areas which are critical to you.

I won’t be redundant by writing out everything I think should appear in a server documentation template. Instead I would urge you to run SYDI Server and use the word document it creates as a template. It will probably be too much information in some areas and you will want to add more information to the document. For example it is impossible for SYDI to find information such as system owner and how important a specific server is to the organization.

In the network documentation newsletter I talk more about what you should think about when planning your network documentation.

Which group are you in? How to you use network documentation in your organization?

Dialogue & Discussion