Ethernet
The small office location is an ideal place to examine the suitability of stackable networking devices. As these locations fall into a space between tiny workgroups and
The sections below describe the important criteria that need to be examined when selecting a networking solution for a small office location. In many cases, these criteria are exactly the same as those treated in the home office section discussed previously. The presentation of these network design criteria is followed by an example design, which supplies a small office situation and one solution to the needs of that proposed network.
Abstracting the Design Process
When designing a small office implementation, the Network Designer follows a decision making process that is essentially identical to that used for the design of a home office. The differentiation between the two procedures is found more in the responses to the issues raised by these criteria than by the actual criteria themselves.
Management
Management, again, adds control and monitoring functions to the networking devices. The benefits of management come at a cost of higher final product prices, and may not be fully recognized by extremely small or simplistic networks. The small office level is truly the middle ground between situations where management is essential and those where it is often not necessary.
Media
The type of media to be used in a small office network is an important consideration, as most of the network installations of comparable size involve facilities with existing cable or where an installation of new cabling is planned. This cabling is typically pulled through wall spaces and conduits, and is therefore more difficult to change in the event that the networking devices selected by the Network Designer do not match that cabling. Again, transceivers and media converters are available to make the change from one media to another, but are
Interconnection
The small office, while often standing alone, may need a path of expansion or interconnection to later networks and workgroups. It is at these times that the interconnection options available in any networking device become important. Typically the interconnection devices that are most important from a network design point of view are those which provide connections to either different media of the same technology (PIMs) or to different networking technologies altogether (BRIMs).
Ethernet Workgroup Design |
