Enterprise network planning and design: methodology and application

Abstract

The paper describes a business-driven enterprise network planning and design methodology that has an iterative structure to periodically assess, update, and extend the network architecture to support new business applications and requirements, account for changes in business direction, and analyze the implications of technology advances on business processes and functions. The paper focuses on the network infrastructure design and analysis task of the proposed methodology and discusses the network design and analysis of a multi-protocol application environment characterized by a client/server architecture, integration of legacy and distributed database structures, frame relay wide area network, and token ring local area networks. Detailed workload characterization and performance modeling of the application environment is presented, and network design issues are addressed. The model is used to study network performance under various load conditions, identify bottlenecks and compare design alternatives.