Today’s networking technologies are complex and costly if not implemented correctly. But they are essential to improving network efficiency and overall business performance.
Vesque Partners can help you select from this array of new technologies and deploy them to your greatest advantage. Our technical expertise extends from complex IP data networks to advanced infrastructures incorporating wireless technologies, LAN technologies, and storage and content networks. Everything you need to seamlessly connect employees, partners, customers, increase productivity, improve network management and reduce expenses.
Network planning consists of the following steps:
Computer networking may require diverse environments such as Enterprise Resource Management (ERM), Internet telephony, Instant Messaging (IM), e-mail and others. It is important to discuss the applications that you intend to use such as the above. These in turn are used for estimating the software, hardware, and traffic requirements.
2. Traffic Requirements:
Computing traffic requirements include several factors. A few points to consider include, but not limited to :
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Identification and documentation of major traffic sources. |
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Categorization of traffic as local, distributed, client/server, peer-to-peer, terminal/host or server/server. |
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Estimation of bandwidth requirements for each application. |
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Quality of Service (QoS) requirements for each application |
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Reliability requirements. |
3. Scalability Requirements:
Scalability refers to the extent of network growth that should be supported. For corporations, scalability is a major consideration. Provisions must be made to add users, applications, additional sites, and external network connections.
4. Geographical considerations:
Consider the LAN and WAN links that may be required. Offices that are separated by large distance (for example, one in New York and one in Boston) can be linked together by a WAN (Wide Area Network) link. Similarly, building complexes within a compound can be linked by a LAN (Local Area Network) link. Typically, the LAN links are high band width (100Mbps) and WAN links are of lower bandwidth (64 Kbps - 2Mbps). Further, the LANs fall within the premises of a company whereas WANs are typically leased and maintained by the telecom provider. Hence, WANs are costly in bandwidth terms and need to be planned and designed with utmost care to minimize resource consumption. In some instances, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) meets these goals and leverages existing internet connections allowing the client to benefit from a huge cost savings that makes the VPN a more attractive solution than some other alternatives. Vesque Partners can help you determine what would be best for your needs and whether a VPN is best suited for you.
5. High Availability:
The availability of a network is the amount of time a network is available to users over a given period of time and is a critical design parameter. Network availability needs to be given careful consideration during the design phase. It has a direct relation with amount of redundancy necessary for "high availability" in any network. It must be budgeted appropriately. Another important factor that needs to be considered when the computing availability requirements are being assessed is the productivity loss to the Company due to unavailability. The right balance of network redundancy and employee productivity needs to be arrived at so that the corporate profitability is maintained.
6. Security and Accessibility:
Security and accessibility are among the important design phase steps. A security plan needs to be devised that meets the required security specifications of your industry, and in many cases, the requirements of your clients. For example, it may specify:
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A list of network services that will be provided such as FTP, Web, e-mail, etc. |
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Identification of the personnel who will be administering the security of these services. |
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Identification of the people who will be trained regarding security policies and procedures |
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Identifying the recovery plan in case a security breach does take place, or the servers are unavailable due to external factors. |
7. Cost considerations:
When discussing LANs, the tendency of some managers is to minimize the equipment cost. They may underestimate the cable cost, the cost per port, and the labor cost of initiation and maintenance. For WANs the primary concern is the maximization of the bandwidth usage, due to the fact that the recurring costs for bandwidth are normally much higher than the equipment or labor costs, causing many designers to fail to recognize and point out the over all annual costs. Attention must be given to the acquisition of reliable equipment and the efficient utilization of bandwidth in proper balance. Some factors that influence cost are:
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Improve efficiency on WAN circuits by using features such as compression. |
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Use of technologies that dynamically allocate WAN bandwidth. |
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Integration of both voice and data circuits |
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Optimize or eliminate underutilized circuits where appropriate and cost effective. |
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