So we have a web app for managing devices/software on numerous customer devices. We were recently proposed an idea for a visual representation of those customer networks. Here's an idea of what the hierarchy would look like:
customer
location1
router1
10 devices
router2
15 devices
location2
router3
200 devices
router4
200 devices
router5
50 devices
The proposed idea is to have a visualization of this hierarchy, where a customer could click on location1 to zoom in on it, and see their two routing devices, etc. They could then turn on "layers", which would show things such as codec connections between devices using arrows. This would be used first for looking at how their network is laid out, setting-up parts of a network, and debugging routing/etc within a network.
My first idea was to make a treemap similar to the one displayed here: http://bost.ocks.org/mike/treemap. It shows a distribution of the network and allows zooming to a specific part.
My question to you guys is what paths do you suggest I go down for this. Is a treemap the right base to use, or should I start with something simpler? Are there any other examples of similar layouts you could point me to?
