Network Design
5-6 The Role of the Workgroup
Common Function
Segmentation by common function is often used to provide further division of the
network within larger overall departments, or to facilitate the use of certain
network applications by speciļ¬c end users common throughout much of the
department. An example of this might be the creation of a Documentation
workgroup in a corporation within which each department had a dedicated
Documentation person handling recording and reporting. This would create
workgroups of the members of each department (R&D, Sales, Receiving, etc.) and
one workgroup which encompassed only the Documentation personnel of each
department, who, although working in different departments, all require access to
the same functions through the network.
Figure 5-3. Common Function Workgroups
The creation of workgroups based on common function enhances the
performance of those dedicated functions at a cost to the performance of the
network as a whole. In addition, the management demands placed on a network
by common function networks distributed across an entire facility or corporation
are much the same as those of a corporate organization workgroup scheme, but
even more intense.
: Sales Workstations
: Research Workstations
: Receiving Workstations : Workgroup A
: Workgroup B
: Workgroup C
: Documentation Personnel
: Workgroup D