Top-Down Network Design

By Priscilla Oppenheimer

Book Overview

Objectives

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.

Audience

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.

Changes for the Third Edition

Networks have changed in many ways since the second edition was published. Many legacy technologies have disappeared and are no longer covered in the book. In addition, modern networks have become multifaceted, providing support for numerous bandwidth-hungry applications and a variety of devices, ranging from smart phones to tablet PCs to high-end servers. Modern users expect the network to be available all the time, from any device, and to let them securely collaborate with coworkers, friends, and family. Networks today support voice, video, high-definition TV, desktop sharing, virtual meetings, online training, virtual reality, and applications that we can't even imagine that brilliant college students are busily creating in their dorm rooms.

As applications rapidly change and put more demand on networks, the need to teach a systematic approach to network design is even more important than ever. With that need in mind, the third edition has been retooled to make it an ideal textbook for college students. The third edition features review questions and design scenarios at the end of each chapter to help students learn top-down network design.

To address new demands on modern networks, the third edition of Top-Down Network Design also has updated material on the following topics:

Network redundancy

Modularity in network designs

The Cisco SAFE security reference architecture

The Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP)

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)

Ethernet scalability options, including 10-Gbps Ethernet and Metro Ethernet

Network design and management tools

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1587202832
• ISBN13: 9781587202834
• Release Date: August 2010
• Publisher: Cisco Press
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 2.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

For Cisco Design you need to read this first.

I passed the extremely difficult CCDA exam about a month ago, I used several books and practice exams to help in the study process, my wish is that I could have had this book before it all began than I sure I would have had an easier time with the exam.In just over 560 pages, this book will help with the CCDA and CCDP exams. Broken down into 4 parts, each part building the previous section, Part 1 is the Identifying needs and goals by showing you how to set business goals, policies, politics, staffing and budgeting. Also you get information on creating networks maps, analyzing traffic and QOS.Part 2 then moves to the logical network design talking about the Cisco hierarchical model, redundancy, load balancing, VLANs, IP addressing schemes and planning. Discussion of when to use classful vs. classless routing, bridging, switching and routing protocol choices as well as security finish out the section.Part 3 is the actual physical network design which includes cabling, LAN and WAN technologies like Ethernet and token ring, PPP, ISDN and authentication techniques. Finally part 4 the very important testing, optimizing and documentation of the network, with tool, setting baselines, measuring bandwidth and creating and implementing a Cisco Network Design Document.Overall if you are planning to take the CCDA exam, currently studying the for the exam or are in the job of designing the networks you might want to get a hold of this book and make life a little easier.

Do a proper analysis of the customer's requirements!

This is an excellent book that provides checklists, and things to ask from both the business as well as technical side of the network. The focus is on how to meet customer needs. This title combined with books such as 'Advanced IP Network Design' and 'Designing Addressing Architectures' should really prepare the networking designer to ask all the right questions.

Great book for CCDA Certification & for Network Design

This book is excellently written and accurately prepares you for the DCN - Designing Cisco Networks Exam 640-441 which is the requirement for the Cisco Certified Design Associate (CCDA) certification. What is more important is that if you learn and apply these techniques you will have a solid blueprint to designing networks for your customers. This book is well worth reading whether or not you are preparing for your CCDA certification.

Etiquette for first dates as a network designer

As a teenager, one's first date is always rather special -- and also frightening. You will have ideas about what to do, but it's just not the same as having the experience. This book prepares a new network designer, as well as anything short of real experience, for that all-important first date with network requirements and architecture. The ideal reader is one who has operational experience with networking devices, and understands the general principles of protocols, but who has not yet broken out of the mold of reacting to crises and installing equipment in a way someone else has thought up. When the book deals with practical issues such as cabling, its focus remains with capabilities and choices, not the hands-on installation practices covered elsewhere. Again walking a delicate line of targeting the new user, it avoids the detailed protocol characteristics and mathematical techniques that are needed for large service provider and enterprise networks. The focus remains on the more common small to medium enterprise networks that new designers are most likely to work on.

If you ever have to design or update a network, read this!

Wow, I have not even finished this book and I have been very impressed with it. If you have ever had to design, redesign, update or otherwise come up with a plan to change a network this book is for you. The biggest question of "Where do I start?" is answered in easy to understand terms that a reader of any technical level can understand. The presentation of the process and considerations is excellent. Where was this book several years ago? A definite must read for every person interested in network design regardless of the products you will be using.