Top-Down Network Design

by Priscilla Oppenheimer

Network Design Templates

Part I (Identifying Your Customer's Needs and Goals) of Top-Down Network Design presents many tables that you can use while gathering information to help you develop a network design. You can fill out the following tables as you gather design information. See the book for more detail on each table.

Chapter One: Analyzing Business Goals and Constraints

Table 1-1 Network Applications

Name of Application Type of Application New Application? (Yes or No) Criticality Comments
         
         
         

Chapter Two: Analyzing Technical Goals and Tradeoffs

Table 2-2 Network Applications Technical Requirements

Name of Application Type of Application New Application? (Yes or No) Criticality Cost of Downtime Acceptable MTBF Acceptable MTTR Throughput Goal Delay must be less than: Delay variation must be less than: Comments
                     
                     
                     

Chapter Three: Characterizing the Existing Internetwork

Table 3-1 Building Wiring

Building Name  
Location of telecommunications closets:  
Location of cross-connect rooms and demarcations to external networks:  
Logical wiring topology (structured, star, bus, ring, centralized, distributed, mesh, tree, or whatever fits):  
Vertical Wiring:
  Coaxial Fiber STP Category 3 UTP Category 5 or 6 UTP Other
Vertical Shaft 1            
Vertical Shaft 2            
Vertical Shaft n            
Horizontal Wiring:
  Coaxial Fiber STP Category 3 UTP Category 5 or 6 UTP Other
Floor 1            
Floor 2            
Floor 3            
Floor n            
Work-Area Wiring:
  Coaxial Fiber STP Category 3 UTP Category 5 or 6 UTP Other
Floor 1            
Floor 2            
Floor 3            
Floor n            
Table 3-2 Availability Characteristics of the Current Network

  MTBF MTTR Date and Duration of Last Major Downtime Cause of Last Major Downtime Fix for Last Major Downtime
Enterprise (as a whole)          
Segment 1          
Segment 2          
Segment 3          
Segment n          
Table 3-3 Bandwidth Utilization by Protocol

  Relative Network Utilization Absolute Network Utilization Broadcast/Multicast Rate
Protocol 1      
Protocol 2      
Protocol 3      
Protocol n      
Table 3-4 Response-Time Measurements

  Node A Node B Node C Node D
Node A  X      
Node B    X    
Node C      X  
Node D        X

Chapter Four: Characterizing Network Traffic

Table 4-1 User Communities

User Community Name Size of Community (Number of Users) Location(s) of Community Application(s) Used by Community
       
       
       
Table 4-2 Data Stores

Data Store Location Application(s) Used by User Community (or Communities)
       
       
       

Table 4-3 Network Traffic Flow

  Destination 1 Destination 2 Destination 3 Destination n
  Mbytes per Second Path Mbytes per Second Path Mbytes per Second Path Mbytes per Second Path
Source 1                
Source 2                
Source 3                
Source n                
Table 4-4 Network Applications Traffic Characteristics

Name of Application Type of Traffic Flow Protocol(s) Used by Application User Communities That Use the Application Data Stores (Servers, Hosts, and so on) Approximate Bandwidth Requirement for the Application QoS Requirements
             
             
             


Copyright Priscilla Oppenheimer.