Designing Your Security System

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Network Design Refresher
• Security System Concepts
• Impact of Network Security on the Entire Design
• Ten Steps to Designing Your Security System

The Park [Central Park, New York City] throughout is a single work of art, and as such subject to the primary law of every work of art, namely, that it shall be framed upon a single, noble motive, to which the design of all its parts, in some more or less subtle way, shall be confluent and helpful.

Calvert Vaux, report submitted with Greensward Plan, awarded first prize by the Board of Commissioners of the Central Park, 1858

Good Design keeps the user happy.

Raymond Loewy, industrial designer, recalled on his death July 14, 1986

Now it is time to take all of the information you've learned so far and apply it to your own organization. This chapter outlines the overall process of designing your security system, from the initial network all the way through evaluating the result. This chapter draws heavily on everything you have read thus far and acts as a bridge to the remaining portion of the book, which focuses on sample designs for different-sized networks. The beginning of the chapter provides a brief summary of basic network design conventions and then maps them into the security world. The middle of the chapter provides the 10 major steps in designing your security system. The last part of the chapter outlines methods of evaluating the success of your security system, relating back to portions of the security life cycle from Figure 2-1.