How Network Design Influences Network Performance
Creating a network for your enterprise requires a lot of planning and logistics beforehand. It isn’t just a matter of installing devices, cables, and connections bit by bit; every area of your network needs to be projected out beforehand. Companies that don’t plan out their network risk building an infrastructure that becomes too complex for them to handle. Intelligent network design is one of the best tools your network team can use in order to create an effective network.
Network design has a big influence over many aspects of your network, including network performance. Planning your network out can help save your team from several headaches down the road. Read on to discover how network design influences the performance of a network and what you can do to build a perfect network.
Network design basics
First, it helps to understand the basic principles of effective network design. Planning a network isn’t as simple as deciding the best placement for each node and cable in the infrastructure. It also comprises a series of fundamental conventions that network teams should implement. Some of the principles of network design that influence network performance include:
Estimating traffic flow
Depending on your enterprise’s needs, your network will need to reach a basic level of performance. Specifically, your network needs to reach a standard level of traffic flow at all parts of the network. As such, your network team needs to know how much data your company uses on a daily basis to understand your network requirements.
Network mapping
If your network team can’t visualize your network, they’ll have a hard time finding and addressing any problems that arise. Creating a visual map of your network, either manually or through a network performance monitor (NPM) with mapping capabilities, is an invaluable step in successful network design.
Network node placement and service coverage
At its least, networks need to serve the entirety of the enterprise’s campus. In order to facilitate this, your network team should place nodes in places that create the biggest area of coverage while keeping your resource usage down.
Multipath and dynamic network routing
Some people might imagine a network path as a straight line from one end of the infrastructure to the other. While this may technically be true, an actual network looks much more complicated than that. Nodes on a network should be connected to multiple other nodes in order to create a more complex network path system. This will ensure that data has multiple paths to travel down in the case of an emergency, such as a frayed connection or malfunctioning device.
Network design and redundancy
One of the most key elements of competent network design is having redundancy systems in place. This includes backup systems for your network, such as gateway redundancy and backup power sources. By putting these redundancy strategies in place, you’ll be able to keep your network operational in case something goes wrong. That means your network performance won’t drop because one area of your network is failing.
Our Network Monitoring Buyer’s Guide contains profiles on the top network performance monitor vendors, as well as questions you should ask providers and yourself before buying.
Check us out on Twitter for the latest in NetMon news and developments!