Network diagram
Definition
A network diagram is any diagram that represents entities as nodes and their connections as edges. The term covers project scheduling networks (PERT), IT infrastructure topology, logical network maps, and social or knowledge graphs.
Network diagram is a broad term that means different things in different fields. Understanding which type you're dealing with matters.
Project management network diagrams show task dependencies (see PERT chart). Nodes are tasks or milestones; directed edges show prerequisite relationships. The critical path runs through this network.
IT network diagrams show physical or logical infrastructure: servers, routers, switches, firewalls, and the connections between them. Physical diagrams reflect cable layout; logical diagrams reflect IP addressing and traffic flow. Network engineers draw these to plan deployments and troubleshoot outages.
Logical network diagrams are abstractions — they show how data or control flows between systems without caring about physical location. These overlap heavily with system architecture diagrams and data flow diagrams.
All of these get sketched on whiteboards. BoardSnap AI reads the node shapes, labels, and connection lines to produce a summary that captures the topology or dependency structure, regardless of which flavor of network diagram the team drew.
Examples
- IT topology: Load balancer → two web servers → Redis cache → PostgreSQL primary and replica
- Cloud architecture: Route 53 → CloudFront → ALB → ECS cluster → RDS, with VPC boundary drawn around the cluster
- Project network: nodes for each sprint milestone connected by dependency arrows
- Microservices map: API gateway connected to Auth, Product, Cart, and Payment services with labeled protocols
Snap a network diagram. Ship its actions.
BoardSnap turns any whiteboard — including this one — into a summary and action plan.