Network Design and Implementation

Objectives

Become familiar with the overall processs of design and implementing a network,

Understand the 10 steps in network design and implementation.

1. Conduct a Feasibility Study The purpose of the feasibility study is to determine the probability of either improving the current network or developing a totally new network.

2. Prepare a Network Design Plan The design plan should discuss the technical, operational, and economic feasibility of the data communication network.

3. Understand the Current Network This provides a bench mark against which future design requirement can gauged.

4. Define the New Network Requirements The designer formulates the details related to the required circuit capacity for handling average peak message volumes, the various acceptable processing times for application and transactions, ways of increasing productivity for both manager and daily users, methods of improving reliability by increasing network uptime, and designing adequate security controls.

5. Identify the Geographic Scope All the physical locations that must be interconnected by the planed network are identified. The preliminary map developed during the feasibility study should be examined at this point, and a more detailed and accurate version should be prepared.

6. Calculate Circuit Requirements This produces a more detailed estimate of the message capacity needed on the network circuit. Capacity depends on the amount of message traffic on the circuit and on the response time nneded. This report adds the traffic analysis to the document.

7. Identify Network Security and Control Security ensures information is protected from all types of threat such as errors and omissions, message loss or change, disaters and disruptions, breach of privacy, theft, unreliabity, incorrect recovery and restart, poor errors handling, and viruses.

8. Design Network Configurations Network design includes evaluating software and hardware, and deciding on the type and placement of network circuits. It is an iterative process. The deliverable is a choice set of all available alternative.Each alternative is a different network or a slightly modified version of another alternative.

9. Determine Network Costs For most large network purchases, organizations develop request for proposals (RFP), which specify what equipment, software, and services are desired and ask vendors to provide their best prices.

10. Implement the Network This includes selling the network to management and users, physically implementing the network, and evaluating it.