Overview of network design and

management
 0utline

• system methodology
• System description
• Service description
• Performance Characteristics
• Network supportability

2
 system methodology
• Identify customer requirements
• Characterize the existing network
• Design topology
• Plan the implementation
• Build a pilot network
• Document the design
• Implement the design, and monitor its use

3
 system methodology
• Two Main Principles
For a network design to work well, there is need to
balance between
• Hierarchy – how much network traffic flows connect in
tiers of organization
• Like tiers on an org chart, hierarchy provides separation and
structure for the network

• Interconnectivity – offsets hierarchy by allowing

connections between levels of the design, often to improve
performance between them

4
system methodology
• Two Main Principles

5
 system methodology
Requirements
Determining the requirements for a network probably isn’t as much fun as shopping
for really expensive hardware

• And that may be why many networks are poorly designed – no one bothered to
think through their requirements

• Many people will jump to a specific technology or hardware solution, without fully
considering other options – the obvious solution may not be the best one

6
 system methodology
Requirements
• We need to develop the low level design and the
higher level architecture, and understand the
environment in which they operate
• We also need to prove that the design we’ve chosen
is ‘just right’
• Is that N1 million network backbone really enough to
meet our needs?
• How do we know N500,000 wouldn’t have been good
enough?

7
 system methodology
Requirements
• Part of this process is managing the customer’s
expectations
• They may expect a much simpler or more expensive
solution than is really needed

• Showing analysis of different design options, technologies,

or architectures can help prove you have the best solution

8
 system methodology
Plan Ahead
• The 80/20 rule applies here
• 80% of the cost of a network is its operation
and support
• Only 20% is the cost of designing and implementing it

So plan for easy operation, maintenance, and

upgrade of the network

9
 System description
• A system is a set of components that work together
to provide connectivity, services and
communications to users.
Components of system includes:
• Users, hosts (PCs, laptops, handhelds).
• Devices : routers & switches.
• Links (wired, wireless).
• Protocols (IP, TCP,FTP,SNMP).
• Applications (E-mail, Remote login (Telnet) ,P2P file
sharing,

10
System description

11
 Service description
The organization has been developing service descriptions for IP networks.

• IP networks : communication protocol.

• Encapsulated packet structures.(sends packet)
• Responsible for addressing hosts(source to destination).
• Version: (IPv4) – decimal (192.168.2.253)
• subnet mask: 255 255 255 0(class D)
• IP ranges: Class A, Class B, Class C, Class D.

12
 Service description
We can look at this from two perspectives:
• Levels of performance and Functions in the network.
Levels of performance are described as RMA (, Reliability,
Maintainability, and Availability)
system design attributes.
o Reliability: to perform its required functions under stated conditions
for a specified period of time.(work simultaneously)
o Maintainability: is used to maintenance the system such as, repair
or replace faulty, prevent unexpected breakdowns.
o Availability : to describe the amount of period that the system
resources is available

13
 Service description
Functions are described as
o Accounting: to provide information about users and
their network resource usage(user accounts login
details).
o Billing: Creating an invoice related to the use of
infrastructure and services(inbound/ outbound).
o Scheduling: processes or data flows are given access
to system resources (processor time,
communications)
o Management: coordinates the efforts of system to
accomplish goals and objectives.
o Security: give protection.
14
 Service description
o Network services in most of today’s networks are
based on best- effort (unpredictable) delivery.
o Network services are (hierarchical service
characteristics, and individual service characteristics)
can be grouped together to form higher-level
descriptions of a service.

15
Service description

16
 Service characteristics
o One of the goals of network analysis is to be able to
characterize(give better) services so that they can be
designed into the network and purchased from vendors and
service providers.
o Service characteristics are individual network performance
and functional parameters that are used to describe services.

17
 Service characteristics
Service characteristics contains:
o Service levels
o System Components and Network Services
o Service Requests & Requirements
o Performance Characteristics
Service levels
o System Components and Network Services.
o Service Requests & Requirements.(user requirements, application
requirements, device requirements, and network requirements.)
o Service offerings(Service offerings map to service requests and thus
can also be categorized as best effort, predictable, or guaranteed.)
o Service metrics/activities.

18
 Service characteristics
Service levels
Service characteristics can be grouped together to form one or
more service levels for the network.
There are many ways to describe service levels, including:
o committed information rates (CIRs);
o levels of capacity;
o classes of service (CoSs);
o delay and capacity characteristics;
o types of service (ToSs);
o qualities of service (QoSs);

19
Service characteristics

20
 Service Requests & Requirements
Are in part, distinguished by the degree of predictability needed
from the service by the user, application, or device making the
request.

Based on their predictability, service requests are categorized as

best effort, predictable, or guaranteed.

o Best-effort service: means that there is no control over how

the network will satisfy the service request—that there are no
guarantees associated with this service.
o Guaranteed service: provides an assured level of bandwidth,
with a firm end-to-end delay bound and no queuing loss for
conforming packets of a data flow.
o predictable services: can provide services of predictable
communication to applications 21
 Service Requests & Requirements
For service performance requirements and characteristics to be
useful, they must be configurable, measurable, and verifiable within
the system.

Therefore, performance requirements and characteristics were

described in terms of service metrics(measurements), which are
intended to be:

• Configurable, set a value for threshold/doorstep and limit

• Measurable, by monitoring current state value.

22
 Performance Characteristics
Services may include one or more of the performance characteristics:
o Capacity: is used as a label for the class of characteristics that involves
moving information from place to place, including bandwidth,
throughput, and so forth.

o Delay: is a label for the class of characteristics that includes end-to-end

delay, round-trip delay, and delay variation.

o RMA: is a label for the class of characteristics that includes reliability,

maintainability, and availability

23
 Performance Characteristics
o Performance requirements can be combined to describe a performance
range for the system.
o Performance envelope is a combination of two or more performance
requirements, with thresholds and upper and/or lower limits for each.
o Availability: Deals with the duration of up-time for operations and is a
measure of how often the system is alive and well.
o Throughput:
• the amount of work that a computer can do in a given time period
• the amount of processed data in communication networks.
• throughput is the rate at which a system achieves its goal.
o Utilization: Network utilization is the ratio of current network traffic to
the maximum traffic that the port can handle.
o Delay: the period or amount of time during which something is delayed

24
Performance Characteristics

25
 Network Supportability
o Good network architects/designers take into account the major
factors that affect operability and supportability as they make
their decisions.

o The post-implementation phases of a network’s life cycle can be

broken into three elements:

• operations
• maintenance
• human knowledge.

26
 Network Supportability
o Key characteristics of a network architecture and design that affect
the post-implementation costs include:

• Network and system reliability

• Network and system maintainability
• Training of the operators to stay within operational
• constraints
• Quality of the staff required to perform maintenance actions

27