Network Design
Priority organization of this manner in a
While keeping the users separate from the devices that they need to access on a regular basis does enhance the Network Manager’s control over its use and operation, it does reduce network performance in networks using segmentation. By connecting stations to the network based on their relative importance, the priority organization method makes little or no accommodation for the localization of network traffic, which is the purpose of segmentation. If a file server is located in a server farm workgroup, segmented from the rest of the network, every user needing access to any file server must cross a segmenting device such as a bridge or switch, introducing access delays as the device reads in the packet, examines the packet, determines whether to send it on or discard it, checks the packet for errors, and acts on its forward or discard decision. The necessity of crossing the segmenting device on a regular basis destroys the network availability that is gained by bridging, as local traffic is no longer kept local.
The use of priority organization also introduces additional troubleshooting complications. If a station in the Sales department cannot access their file server, is it because the server has failed, the bridge connecting the server to that department is in error, the connection from the Sales department to the bridge is down, or the connection from the employee’s workstation to the rest of the Sales workgroup is faulty?
The Role of the Workgroup |
