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Networking

Contents
1. Planning a Logical Network Design
2. Planning and Design Components
3. The Physical Network
4. Planning Resources
Article Description
Scott Mueller and Terry Ogletree talk about your network's logical and physical design, including planning and components of a logical network design, the physical network, and planning resources.
From the Book

Upgrading and Repairing Networks, 4th Edition
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Some of the Main Topics in this Chapter Are
• Planning a Logical Network Design
• Planning and Design Components
• The Physical Network
• Planning Resources
Many types of networks were discussed in Chapter 1, "A Short History of Computer Networking," from ARCnet to TCP/IP. And in Chapter 2, "Overview of Network Topologies," you learned about the various topologies you can employ when designing and creating a local area network (LAN), and we also looked at some scenarios in which several networks were connected to form a wide area network (WAN). In this chapter, we will look at another aspect of creating a network: the network's logical and physical design. The physical aspects of your LAN will depend on the underlying physical transport technology—Ethernet or Token-Ring, for example, or possibly ATM, which is now supported in products such as Windows 2000/XP and Server 2003 as a LAN protocol. Depending on which technology you use, there will be one or more LAN topologies from which to choose.
NOTE
Although there are other LAN technologies, such as ARCnet and Novell's IPX/SPX, these are basically legacy products that are no longer being deployed in newer networks. For example, ARCnet is now used mostly in vertical-market applications (such as on the factory floor, or for point-of-sale cash registers). If you don't need the features that TCP/IP provides, and don't need an Internet connection, then these older protocols may be a good solution for your network. Novell's NetWare products, while allowing for backward compatibility...