NETWORK DESIGN Chapter 1

CHAPTER -ONE
APPLYING A METHODOLOGY TO NETWORK DESIGN
1.0. Introduction
Computers and information networks are critical to the success of businesses, both large and small. They
connect people, support applications and services, and provide access to the resources that keep the
businesses running. To meet the daily requirements of businesses, networks themselves are becoming quite
complex.

1.1. Network Requirements

Today, the Internet-based economy often demands around-the-clock customer service. This means that
business networks must be available nearly 100 percent of the time. They must be smart enough to
automatically protect against unexpected security incidents. These business networks must also be able to
adjust to changing traffic loads to maintain consistent application response times. It is no longer practical to
construct networks by connecting many standalone components without careful planning and design.
Most businesses actually have only a few requirements for their network:
 The network should stay up all the time, even in the event of failed links, equipment failure, and
overloaded conditions.
 The network should reliably deliver applications and provide reasonable response times from any
host to any host.
 The network should be secure. It should protect the data that is transmitted over it, as well as data
stored on the devices that connect to it.
 The network should be easy to modify to adapt to network growth and general business changes.
 Because failures occasionally occur, troubleshooting should be easy. Finding and fixing a problem
should not be too time-consuming.
1.2. Building a Good Network
Good networks do not happen by accident. They are the result of hard work by network designers and
technicians, who identify network requirements and select the best solutions to meet the needs of a business.
Network users generally do not think in terms of the complexity of the underlying network. They think of the
network as a way to access the applications they need, when they need them. After the network requirements
have been identified, the steps to designing a good network are followed as the project implementation
moves forward.

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1.3. Fundamental Design Goals

When examined carefully, these requirements translate into four fundamental network design goals:
 Scalability: Scalable network designs can grow to include new user groups and remote sites and can
support new applications without impacting the level of service delivered to existing users.
 Availability: A network designed for availability is one that delivers consistent, reliable
performance,24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In addition, the failure of a single link or piece of
equipment should not significantly impact network performance.
 Security: Security is a feature that must be designed into the network, not added on after the network
is complete. Planning the location of security devices, filters, and firewall features is critical to
safeguarding network resources.
 Manageability: No matter how good the initial network design is, the available network staff must be
able to manage and support the network. A network that is too complex or difficult to maintain
cannot function effectively and efficiently.
1.4. Network Design Methodologies
To design networks network designers use different design methodologies such as SONA framework or
hierarchical network design. In this chapter SONA frameworks is discussed we will discuss about
hierarchical network design in the next chapter.
1.4.1. Cisco service oriented network Architecture (SONA) Framework
The Cisco SONA is an architectural framework that illustrates how to build integrated systems and guides
the evolution of enterprises toward more intelligent networks. Using the SONA framework, enterprises can
improve flexibility and increase efficiency by optimizing applications, business processes, and resources to
enable IT to have a greater effect on business.

The SONA framework leverages the extensive product-line services, proven architectures, and experience of
Cisco and its partners to help enterprises achieve their business goals.
The SONA framework, shown in Figure 1, shows how integrated systems can allow a dynamic, flexible
architecture and provide for operational efficiency through standardization and virtualization.

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Figure :Cisco SONA Framework

Key Point: In the SONA framework, the network is the common element that connects and enables all
components of the IT infrastructure.

The SONA framework defines the following three layers:

 Networked Infrastructure layer: Where all the IT resources are interconnected across a converged
network foundation. The IT resources include servers, storage, and clients. The Networked
Infrastructure layer represents how these resources exist in different places in the network, including
the campus, branch, data center, enterprise edge, WAN, metropolitan-area network (MAN), and with
the teleworker. The objective of this layer is to provide connectivity, anywhere and anytime. This
layer includes the network devices and links to connect servers, storage, and clients in different places
in the network.

 Interactive Services layer:Includes both application networking services and infrastructure services.
This layer enables efficient allocation of resources to applications and business processes delivered
through the networked infrastructure.
 Application layer: This layer includes business applications and collaboration applications. The
objective of this layer is to meet business requirements and achieve efficiencies by leveraging the
interactive services layer.

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The benefits of SONA include the following:

 Functionality: Supports the organizational requirements.

 Scalability: Supports growth and expansion of organizational tasks by separating functions and
products into layers; this separation makes it easier to grow the network.
 Availability: Provides the necessary services, reliably, anywhere, anytime.
 Performance: Provides the desired responsiveness, throughput, and utilization on a per-application
basis through the network infrastructure and services.
 Manageability: Provides control, performance monitoring, and fault detection.
 Efficiency: Provides the required network services and infrastructure with reasonable operational
costs and appropriate capital investment on a migration path to a more intelligent network, through
step-by-step network services growth.
 Security: Provides for an effective balance between usability and security while protecting
information assets and infrastructure from inside and outside threats.

1.4.2. Lifecycle Approach to Network Design

The network design methodology presented in this section is derived from the Cisco Prepare, Plan, Design,
Implement, Operate, and Optimize (PPDIOO) methodology, which reflects a network’s lifecycle. The
following sections describe the PPDIOO phases and their relation to the network design methodology, and
the benefits of the lifecycle approach to network design

Figure:PPDIOO Network Lifecycle Influences Design

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The following describes each PPDIOO phase:

 Prepare phase: The Prepare phase involves establishing the organizational (business) requirements,

developing a network strategy, and proposing a high-level conceptual architecture, identifying

technologies that can best support the architecture. Financial justification for the network strategy is
established by assessing the business case for the proposed architecture.
 Plan phase: This phase involves identifying the network requirements, which are based on the goals
for the network, where the network will be installed, who will require which network services, and so
forth. The Plan phase also involves assessing the sites where the network will be installed and any
existing networks, and performing a gap analysis to determine if the existing system infrastructure,
sites, and operational environment can support the proposed system. A project plan helps manage the
tasks, responsibilities, critical milestones, and resources required to implement the changes to the
network. The project plan should align with the scope, cost, and resource parameters established in
the original business requirements. The output of this phase is a set of network requirements.
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 Design phase: The initial requirements determined in the Plan phase drive the network design
specialists’ activities. These specialists design the network according to those initial requirements,
incorporating any additional data gathered during network analysis and network audit (when
upgrading an existing network) and through discussion with managers and network users. The
network design specification that is produced is a comprehensive detailed design that meets current
business and technical requirements and incorporates specifications to support availability, reliability,
security, scalability, and performance. This design specification provides the basis for the
implementation activities.
 Implement phase: Implementation and verification begins after the design has been approved. The
network and any additional components are built according to the design specifications, with the goal
of integrating devices without disrupting the existing network or creating points of vulnerability.
 Operate phase: Operation is the final test of the design’s appropriateness. The Operate phase
involves maintaining network health through day-to-day operations, which might include maintaining
high availability and reducing expenses. The fault detection and correction and performance
monitoring that occur in daily operations provide initial data for the network lifecycle’s Optimize
phase.
 Optimize phase: The Optimize phase is based on proactive network management, the goal of which
is to identify and resolve issues before real problems arise and the organization is affected. Reactive
fault detection and correction (troubleshooting) are necessary when proactive management cannot
predict and mitigate the failures. In the PPDIOO process, the Optimize phase might lead to network
redesign if too many network problems or errors arise, if performance does not meet expectations, or
if new applications are identified to support organizational and technical requirements.

1.4.3. Benefits of the Lifecycle Approach to Network Design

The network lifecycle approach provides many benefits, including the following:
 Lowering the total cost of network ownership:
 Identifying and validating technology requirements
 Planning for infrastructure changes and resource requirements
 Developing a sound network design aligned with technical requirements and business goals
 Accelerating successful implementation

 Improving the efficiency of the network and of the staff supporting it

 Reducing operating expenses by improving the efficiency of operation processes and tools

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 Increasing network availability:

 Assessing the state of the network’s security and its ability to support the proposed design
 Specifying the correct set of hardware and software releases and keeping them operational and
current
 Producing a sound operational design and validating network operation
 Staging and testing the proposed system before deployment
 Improving staff skills
 Proactively monitoring the system and assessing availability trends and alerts
 Proactively identifying security breaches and defining remediation plans
 Improving business agility:
 Establishing business requirements and technology strategies
 Readying sites to support the system to be implemented

 Integrating technical requirements and business goals into a detailed design and demonstrating that
the network is functioning as specified

 Expertly installing, configuring, and integrating system components

 Continually enhancing performance

 Accelerating access to applications and services:
 Assessing and improving operational preparedness to support current and planned network
technologies and services
 Improving service-delivery efficiency and effectiveness by increasing availability, resource
capacity, and performance
 Improving the availability, reliability, and stability of the network and the applications running on
it

 Managing and resolving problems affecting the system and keeping software applications current

1.4.4. Steps to design networks

The design methodology presented here includes three basic steps; some of the design methodology steps are
intrinsic to the PPDIOO Design phase, whereas other steps are related to other PPDIOO phases:
Large network design projects are normally divided into three distinct steps:

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Step 1: Identify the network requirements.

Step 2: Characterize the existing network.
Step 3: Design the network topology and solutions.
Identifying Network Requirements
The network designer works closely with the customer to document the goals of the project. Goals are
usually separated into two categories:
 Business goals - Focus on how the network can make the business more successful
 Technical requirements - Focus on how the technology is implemented within the network.
While gathering requirements, the designer identifies the issues that affect the entire network and those that
affect only specific portions. Failure to understand the impact of a particular requirement often causes a
project scope to expand beyond the original estimate. This oversight can greatly increase the cost and time
required to implement the new design.
Examples of design that would Impacting the Entire Network
Network requirements that impact the entire network include:
 Adding new network applications and making major changes to existing applications, such as
database or DNS structure changes
 Improving the efficiency of network addressing or routing protocol changes
 Integrating new security measures
 Adding new network services, such as voice traffic, content networking, and storage networking
 Relocating servers to a data center server farm
Examples of Design that Impacting a Portion of the Network
Requirements that may only affect a portion of the network include:
 Improving Internet connectivity and adding bandwidth
 Updating Access Layer LAN cabling
 Providing redundancy for key services
 Supporting wireless access in defined areas
 Upgrading WAN bandwidth
These requirements may not affect many users or require many changes to the installed equipment. It is
sometimes possible to integrate design changes into the existing network without disrupting the normal
network operations for the majority of network users. This method reduces the costs associated with
downtime and speeds the implementation of the network upgrade.
Characterizing the Existing Network

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Information about the current network and services is gathered and analyzed. It is necessary to compare the
functionality of the existing network with the defined goals of the new project. The designer determines
whether any existing equipment, infrastructure, and protocols can be re-used, and what new equipment and
protocols are needed to complete the design.
Designing the Network Topology
A common strategy for network design is to take a top-down approach. In this approach, the network
applications and service requirements are identified, and then the network is designed to support them.
When the design is complete, a prototype or proof-of-concept test is performed. This approach ensures that
the new design functions as expected before it is implemented.

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