Top-Down Network Design

Abstract

The purpose of Top-Down Network Design, Third Edition, is to help you design networks that meet a customer’s business and technical goals. Whether your customer is another department within your own company or an external client, this book provides you with tested processes and tools to help you understand traffic flow, protocol behavior, and internetworking technologies. After completing this book, you will be equipped to design enterprise networks that meet a customer’s requirements for functionality, capacity, performance, availability, scalability, affordability, security, and manageability. This book is for you if you are an internetworking professional responsible for designing and maintaining medium- to large-sized enterprise networks. If you are a network engineer, architect, or technician who has a working knowledge of network protocols and technologies, this book will provide you with practical advice on applying your knowledge to internetwork design. This book also includes useful information for consultants, systems engineers, and sales engineers who design corporate networks for clients. In the fast-paced presales environment of many systems engineers, it often is difficult to slow down and insist on a top-down, structured systems analysis approach. Wherever possible, this book includes shortcuts and assumptions that can be made to speed up the network design process. Finally, this book is useful for undergraduate and graduate students in computer science and information technology disciplines. Students who have taken one or two courses in networking theory will find Top-Down Network Design, Third Edition, an approachable introduction to the engineering and business issues related to developing real-world networks that solve typical business problems.