Exam Objectives Fast Track | MCSE Planning and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure: Exam 70-293 Study Guide and DVD Training System

Proper planning of a new or upgraded network infrastructure must provide high performance, availability, and fault tolerance, as well as security and user satisfaction in as economically efficient a manner as possible.
Creating a workable network design requires an understanding of both the business requirements of your organization and the new and existing technologies that can help to fulfill those goals.
An effective network plan balances overall network concerns such as security and fault tolerance with the ability to provide specific applications and services that will improve the efficiency of your users’ daily lives.

Identifying management priorities such as security, fault tolerance, and capacity for growth will help you in addressing high-level network considerations to adhere to management priorities that apply to an entire enterprise.
Information flow involves an understanding of where your users are located in relation to the data that they need in order to perform their job functions and designing your network to ease their access to that information.
Total cost of ownership (TCO) is a useful but elusive figure that includes the actual cost of purchasing new equipment, combined with less tangible items such as money saved by increasing user efficiency, improving customer accessibility, and reducing downtime.

Your test network should mimic as closely as possible your existing or proposed production environment. This includes client and server hardware configurations, network services, and network connectivity hardware such as routers, hubs, and cabling.
When performing testing, you should try to isolate the test environment from your production equipment so that nothing that occurs during the testing process will create downtime or unexpected results for the users and computers on your working network.
Create well-defined procedures for each test you wish to perform, including detailed instructions for how to perform each test, the expected results of each test, and what steps you should take to recover the test network if the testing fails.

Comprehensive documentation of the network design and testing process, while it involves an upfront time commitment, can save an administrator or help desk countless hours of frustration during later upgrades or troubleshooting.
Document the initial configuration of all hardware and software that is implemented in a new network, and keep detailed records of all configuration changes, patches, and updates that are performed throughout the lifetime of the equipment.
Network documentation should include a diagram and inventory of all network equipment, along with procedural instructions for backup and recovery procedures, security policies, any internal or external Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and any other legal or regulatory documentation.