Top-Down Network Design

Chapter Three
1
Characterizing the Existing Internetwork

Copyright 2010 Cisco Press & Priscilla Oppenheimer

2 What’s the Starting Point?
 According to Abraham Lincoln:
 “If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we
could better judge what to do and how to do it.”
3 Where Are We?
 Characterize the existing internetwork in terms of:
 Its infrastructure
 Logical structure (modularity, hierarchy, topology)
 Physical structure

 Addressing and naming

 Wiring and media
 Architectural and environmental constraints
 Health
4 Developing a Network Map

 location of major hosts, interconnection devices, and network segments is

a good way to start developing an understanding of traffic flow
 goal is to obtain a map (or set of maps) of the existing network
 To develop a network drawing, you should invest in a good network-
diagramming tool.
 Tools include IBM’s Tivoli products, WhatsUp Gold from Ipswitch,
LANsurveyor from SolarWinds and Microsoft Visio Professional product
5 Characterizing Large Internetworks

 Developing a single network map might not be possible for large

internetworks
 Start with a map or set of maps that shows the following high-level
information:
 Geographical information, such as countries, states or provinces, cities, and
campuses
 WAN connections between countries, states, and cities
 WAN and LAN connections between buildings and between campuses
6 Campus Network Map
 For each campus network, you can develop more precise maps that show the
following more detailed information:
 Buildings and floors, and possibly rooms or cubicles
 The location of major servers or server farms
 The location of routers and switches
 The location of firewalls, Network Address Translation (NAT) devices, intrusion detection
systems (IDS), and intrusion prevention systems (IPS)
 The location of mainframes
 The location of major network-management stations
 The location and reach of virtual LANs (VLAN)
 Some indication of where workstations reside, although not necessarily the explicit location
of each workstation
 7 Characterizing the Logical Architecture

 The logical topology illustrates the architecture of the network, which can be hierarchical or
flat, structured or unstructured, layered or not, and other possibilities.
 The logical topology also describes methods for connecting devices in a geometric shape
(for example, a star, ring, bus, hub and spoke, or mesh).
 When characterizing the logical topology, look for “ticking time bombs” or implementations
that might hinder scalability.
 redundant network equipment and cabling but the servers are all single-homed
 The logical topology can affect your ability to upgrade a network. For example, a flat
topology does not scale as well as a hierarchical topology.
Get a Network Map
8
Medford Roseburg
Fast Ethernet Fast Ethernet
50 users 30 users
Frame Relay Frame Relay
CIR = 56 Kbps CIR = 56 Kbps
DLCI = 5 DLCI = 4

Gigabit Grants Pass

HQ
Ethernet Gigabit
Grants Pass Ethernet
HQ
Fast Ethernet
75 users
FEP
(Front End
Processor)

IBM
Mainframe
T1

Web/FTP server
Eugene
Ethernet T1 Internet
20 users
 Developing a Modular Block Diagram
9 based on Cisco Enterprise Composite
Network Model
10 Characterize Addressing and Naming
 IP addressing for major devices, client networks, server networks,
and so on
 Any addressing oddities, such as discontiguous subnets?
 Any strategies for addressing and naming?
 For example, sites may be named using airport codes
 San Francisco = SFO, Oakland = OAK
11 Discontiguous Subnets

Area 0
Network
192.168.49.0

Router A Router B

Area 1 Area 2
Subnets 10.108.16.0 - Subnets 10.108.32.0 -
10.108.31.0 10.108.47.0
 Characterize the Wiring and Media
12

 Single-mode fiber
 Multi-mode fiber
 Shielded twisted pair (STP) copper
 Unshielded-twisted-pair (UTP) copper
 Coaxial cable
 Microwave
 Laser
 Radio
 Infra-red
13 Campus Network Wiring
Horizontal Work-Area
Wiring Wiring

Wallplate
Telecommunications
Wiring Closet

Vertical
Wiring
(Building
Backbone)

Main Cross-Connect Room Intermediate Cross-Connect Room

(or Main Distribution Frame) (or Intermediate Distribution Frame)

Campus
Building A - Headquarters Backbone Building B
14 Architectural Constraints
 Make sure the following are sufficient
 Air conditioning
 Heating
 Ventilation
 Power
 Protection from electromagnetic interference
 Doors that can lock
15 Architectural Constraints

 Make sure there’s space for:

 Cabling conduits
 Patch panels
 Equipment racks
 Work areas for technicians installing and troubleshooting equipment
16 Checking a Site for a Wireless
Installation
 wireless LAN (WLAN) based on IEEE 802.11 standards
 Wireless site survey
 RF expert
 network designer can decide where to place access points for initial testing
 based on some knowledge of where the users will be located,
characteristics of the access points’ antennas, and the location of major
obstructions.
 free space path loss
17 Issues for Wireless Installations

 Reflection: Reflection causes the signal to bounce back on itself.

 Absorption
 Refraction
 Diffraction
 The additional power added to a transmission is called the fade margin
18

 Signal strength can also be determined with a protocol analyzer. The

WildPackets AiroPeek analyzer, for example, presents the signal strength for
each frame received.
 To measure frame corruption and not just signal strength with CRC
 An ACK frame is one of six special frames called control frames Ethernet retr
 Relative usage specifies how much
 bandwidth is used by the protocol in comparison to the total bandwidth
currently in use
 on the segment. Absolute usage specifies how much
 A good rule of thumb is that fewer than 0.1 percent of frames should
encounter collisions. There should be no late collisions
19 Check the Health of the Existing
Internetwork
 Performance
 Availability
 Bandwidth utilization
 Accuracy
 Efficiency
 Response time
 Status of major routers, switches, and firewalls
20 Characterize Availability

Date and Duration Cause of Last Fix for Last

MTBF MTTR of Last Major Major Major
Downtime Downtime Downtime

Enterprise
Segment 1
Segment 2
Segment n
21 Network Utilization in Minute Intervals
Network Utilization

16:40:00

16:43:00

16:46:00

16:49:00

16:52:00
Time

16:55:00 Series1

16:58:00

17:01:00

17:04:00

17:07:00

17:10:00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Utilization
22 Network Utilization in Hour Intervals
Network Utilization

13:00:00

14:00:00
Time

15:00:00 Series1

16:00:00

17:00:00

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

Utilization
23 Bandwidth Utilization by Protocol

Relative Absolute Multicast

Broadcast
Network Network Rate
Rate
Utilization Utilization

Protocol 1
Protocol 2
Protocol 3
Protocol n
24 Characterize Packet Sizes
25 Characterize Response Time

Node A Node B Node C Node D

X
Node A
Node B
X
Node C
Node D X

X
26 Check the Status of Major Routers,
Switches, and Firewalls
 show buffers
 show environment
 show interfaces
 show memory
 show processes
 show running-config
 show version
27 Tools
 Protocol analyzers
 Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG)
 Remote monitoring (RMON) probes
 Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP)
 Cisco IOS NetFlow technology
 CiscoWorks
28 Summary
 Characterize the existing internetwork before designing
enhancements
 Helps you verify that a customer’s design goals are realistic
 Helps you locate where new equipment will go
 Helps you cover yourself if the new network has problems due to
unresolved problems in the old network
29 Review Questions
 What factors will help you decide if the existing
internetwork is in good enough shape to support
new enhancements?
 When considering protocol behavior, what is the
difference between relative network utilization and
absolute network utilization?
 Why should you characterize the logical structure
of an internetwork and not just the physical
structure?
 What architectural and environmental factors
should you consider for a new wireless installation?