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Contents Introduction Key Planning Considerations Design Objectives Getting Started General Design Connectivity Issues for Ethernet Servers and Services Conclusion Appendix A: Standards Bodies Appendix B: Tools and Equipment Appendix C: Network Monitoring Tools References/Credits Illustrations Figure 1: Network Layers Figure 2: Network Topologies Figure 3: Hierarchical Star Network Tables Table 1: UTP Wires and Colors Printer Friendly Version Best Practices in Network Design (PDF file, 238 KB) Get Acrobat Reader

Best Practices in Network Design

Key Planning Considerations

• Take a "standards" approach to computing. Adopt the computer industry standards that will be used for all local area network (LAN) and wide area network (WAN) designs.
• Be prepared for rapid change. Recognize that multimedia will become increasingly important and pervasive in education.
• Build the internal infrastructure with the entire organization in mind. Develop a network that is both functional and scalable. "Functional" refers to the acceptable latency for the task. "Scalable" refers to the ease of increasing bandwidth on the WAN or LAN.
• Adopt an "end-to-end" point of view. Examine the network from the user's point of view. Performance is achieved by the system acting as a whole, from the local computer through the local network to the wide area network.
• Make use of tools to monitor the network. There are many tools available to help monitor and analyze networks. These tools vary in cost (free to over $100,000) and complexity (simple, with limited features, to complex, with many features).
• Recognize that the network will become more essential and more complex. Try walking into an office after the mail server goes down or someone has been entering data over a slow WAN link. Think about how silently (and quickly) networking services have changed from being "neat" or "nice" to mission-critical.
• Help other educators understand that network environments are susceptible to illegal copying, viruses and other misuse. Appropriate measures must be taken to protect everyone. "Appropriate measures," however, does not imply that a police state must or should exist.
• Policy vs. Technology. Remember that technology often becomes a tool of policymakers (either for application or enforcement). Be sure you understand how technology is being implemented and why.