Chapter 5: Designing Modular Network Topologies

CCDA Exam Topics Covered in this Chapter:

• Design solutions to meet network owner needs applying the Enterprise Composite Network Model.

When designing networks, completing the network topology is generally among the first tasks performed. However, a brief moment of inattention at this phase can cause hours or days of delay later in the process. What begin as small oversights can later become major design obstacles. A clear understanding of the final design objectives and careful attention to detail at this point will support and even ease later design tasks. It seems obvious that it is easier to provision a network with security devices if the network topology has originally been designed with security in mind. Unfortunately, all too often this realization comes at the time of actually provisioning the security devices rather than at the time of designing the network topology!

This chapter will discuss network topology designs that help you optimize these network features, including scalability, efficiency, and dependability. Given this, we will discuss designing a network structure that meets customer requirements for performance, security, capacity, and scalability, given a specified topology and internetworking constraints. I’ll cover the elements of a hierarchical network as specified by the ISO. And, finally, this chapter will cover the advantages, disadvantages, scalability issues, and applicability of standard internetwork topologies.