Top-Down Network Design

Chapter Three
Characterizing the Existing Internetwork

Copyright 2010 Cisco Press & Priscilla Oppenheimer

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 What’s the Starting Point?
• According to Abraham Lincoln:
– “If we could first know where we are and
whither we are tending, we could better judge
what to do and how to do it.”

2
 Where Are We?
• Characterize the existing internetwork in terms
of:
– Its infrastructure
• Logical structure (modularity, hierarchy, topology)
• Physical structure
– Addressing and naming
– Wiring and media
– Architectural and environmental constraints
– Health

3
 Get a Network Map
Medford Roseburg
Fast Ethernet Fast Ethernet
50 users 30 users
Frame Relay Frame Relay
CIR = 56 Kbps CIR = 56 Kbps
DLCI = 5 DLCI = 4

Gigabit Grants Pass

HQ
Ethernet Gigabit
Grants Pass Ethernet
HQ
Fast Ethernet
75 users
FEP
(Front End
Processor)

IBM
Mainframe
T1

Web/FTP server
Eugene
Ethernet T1 Internet
20 users
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 Characterize Addressing and
Naming
• IP addressing for major devices, client
networks, server networks, and so on
• Any addressing oddities, such as
discontiguous subnets?
• Any strategies for addressing and naming?
– For example, sites may be named using airport
codes
• San Francisco = SFO, Oakland = OAK

5
 Discontiguous Subnets

Area 0
Network
192.168.49.0

Router A Router B

Area 1 Area 2
Subnets 10.108.16.0 - Subnets 10.108.32.0 -
10.108.31.0 10.108.47.0

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 Characterize the Wiring and
• Single-mode fiber
Media
• Multi-mode fiber
• Shielded twisted pair (STP) copper
• Unshielded-twisted-pair (UTP) copper
• Coaxial cable
• Microwave
• Laser
• Radio
• Infra-red

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 Campus Network Wiring
Horizontal Work-Area
Wiring Wiring

Wallplate
Telecommunications
Wiring Closet

Vertical
Wiring
(Building
Backbone)

Main Cross-Connect Room Intermediate Cross-Connect Room

(or Main Distribution Frame) (or Intermediate Distribution Frame)

Campus 8
Building A - Headquarters Backbone Building B
 Architectural Constraints
• Make sure the following are sufficient
– Air conditioning
– Heating
– Ventilation
– Power
– Protection from electromagnetic interference
– Doors that can lock

9
 Architectural Constraints

• Make sure there’s space for:

– Cabling conduits
– Patch panels
– Equipment racks
– Work areas for technicians installing and
troubleshooting equipment

10
 Issues for Wireless Installations

• Reflection
• Absorption
• Refraction
• Diffraction

11
Check the Health of the Existing
Internetwork
• Performance
• Availability
• Bandwidth utilization
• Accuracy
• Efficiency
• Response time
• Status of major routers, switches, and firewalls

12
 Characterize Availability

Date and Duration Cause of Last Fix for Last

MTBF MTTR of Last Major Major Major
Downtime Downtime Downtime

Enterprise

Segment 1

Segment 2

Segment n

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 Network Utilization in Minute
Intervals
Network Utilization

16:40:00

16:43:00

16:46:00

16:49:00

16:52:00
Time

16:55:00 Series1

16:58:00

17:01:00

17:04:00

17:07:00

17:10:00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Utilization

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 Network Utilization in Hour
Intervals
Network Utilization

13:00:00

14:00:00
Time

15:00:00 Series1

16:00:00

17:00:00

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

Utilization

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 Bandwidth Utilization by
Protocol
Relative Absolute Multicast
Broadcast
Network Network Rate
Rate
Utilization Utilization

Protocol 1

Protocol 2

Protocol 3

Protocol n

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Characterize Packet Sizes

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 Characterize Response Time

Node A Node B Node C Node D

X
Node A

X
Node B

Node C X

Node D X

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 Check the Status of Major
Routers, Switches, and Firewalls
• show buffers
• show environment
• show interfaces
• show memory
• show processes
• show running-config
• show version
19
 Tools
• Protocol analyzers
• Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG)
• Remote monitoring (RMON) probes
• Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP)
• Cisco IOS NetFlow technology
• CiscoWorks

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 Summary
• Characterize the existing internetwork before
designing enhancements
• Helps you verify that a customer’s design goals
are realistic
• Helps you locate where new equipment will go
• Helps you cover yourself if the new network has
problems due to unresolved problems in the old
network

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 Review Questions
• What factors will help you decide if the existing
internetwork is in good enough shape to support new
enhancements?
• When considering protocol behavior, what is the difference
between relative network utilization and absolute network
utilization?
• Why should you characterize the logical structure of an
internetwork and not just the physical structure?
• What architectural and environmental factors should you
consider for a new wireless installation?

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