The 5 Essential Stages of Office Network Design
Photo by Su San Lee on Unsplash
This article was originally written for a client and is published here with their permission to showcase my work.
It’s fallen on you to update or create a new office network design for your boss. Now you have to go away and do lots of research, reading, note-taking, and decision-making about what to present to them as a solution.
It’s a complex task with lots of things to consider. However, like any big project, if you can break it down into manageable chunks, things start to look a lot clearer.
Luckily for you, all the information you need is here in one place, meaning you have more time to spend on your actual job.
How to design an office network
1) What Type Of Network Is Best For You?
2) Plan Your Network Layout
3) Equipment Explained
4) Configure Your Devices
5) Document The Network
1) What Type Of Network Is Best For You?
Things to consider for your network needs
When designing your network you have to balance what your business needs with the budget it has to spend on the network. A faster network with high-end equipment may improve productivity but not be cost-effective.
When a network is designed well, it should offer, fast, reliable connectivity with good coverage and strong security to protect your data.
By following three steps you can gather all the information about the network you want to create.
Step 1: What is my existing network?
Unless you are designing a network from scratch, the likelihood is that you will have to update an existing network.
You should begin by evaluating your current set-up to identify the infrastructure, components, and services that are running on it.
● Types of network devices, including servers and their locations
● Circuit speeds
● Cabling layout on the floor and within the building
● Routing protocols, network management, and security controls
Step 2: What do I want my new network to do?
This can be a mix of business and technical goals you wish your new network to be able to deliver.
Business needs to consider
● Size of organization
● Type of operations
● Improve user experience
● Cut costs
● Comply with new regulations
Technical needs to consider
● Bandwith
● Security requirements
● Specific protocols
Step 3: What are the constraints?
You must consider the limitations of your new network which for your medium size business will most likely be the budget.
However, some other aspects you may need to consider are cabling, wifi use, legacy applications or certain security/compliance requirements.
After following these three steps, you should have a much better idea of where you are, where you want to be, and the resources you need to get there.
2) Plan Your Network Layout
Now you have a better understanding of where you are and where you want to go, the next step is planning your network layout.
For a mid-size business network, you should know the following:
● Size of the network — how many devices will be connected and what will be their use case? Don’t just count how many users, as one user may have multiple devices. By understanding the size, you’ll know roughly your bandwidth demand.
● Office floor plan — if you have access to existing floor plans you should plot the location of all the endpoints (desktops, servers, printers etc.) so you know where you will need to place your switches. Also, if you mark the locations where wifi access will be required, such as meeting rooms, you can plan where you will need to place your access points.
Network topology
Using the information you have gathered so far, you can create a structural arrangement of the network. The most common for a mid-size business would be a star topology as it is most suited to a Local Area Network (see below), is scalable, offers fast data speeds, and is easy to troubleshoot.
Should you wish to go for a more complex option, the mesh topology would offer the benefit of a more robust system. As all the devices are linked together, and not to a central hub as in the star method, a failure in one device would affect the communication of the rest of the system. The problem is that the greater complexity makes this a harder system to
scale should you need it in the future, as all devices need to be connected.
Network type
The type of network you choose is dependent on the physical space you wish for it to cover. In the scenario of an office space, a Local Area Network (LAN) would be the most suitable. It is designed to connect multiple devices in a limited geographical distance, perfect for your
office needs. It offers both secure and high-speed data transfer compared to networks that cover larger areas, and all the devices can be accessed, managed, and controlled from one location.
However, if you need to connect a larger area, for example if you have multiple work locations around the city or perhaps globally, you would opt for a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) or Wide Area Network (WAN) respectively. Set-up and maintenance are much higher for these types of networks and they are more open to cyber-attacks and have higher data congestion and lower speeds.
3) Equipment Explained
Now you know the kind of network you want to create, you just need the hardware to bring the system to life.
Router
When choosing a router you should ensure that it has the features to serve the needs of your office layout and devices you will be using, the most important being speed and security.
If you have a large office space you should ensure that your router has a wide range.
If you choose a single-band router, you may have issues with data traffic becoming congested with too many devices. A dual or even tri-band router would mean you could separate the traffic and enjoy better speeds.
For a mid-size business, a router that is Wi-Fi 6 enabled as it offers better security and faster speeds.
Switches
The first thing to consider is how many ports you are going to need which will be dictated by the number of devices you want to connect. There are switches with up to 48 ports although for a mid-size business, 24 should be good. Remember to plan for the future and have more ports than you currently need, or you can just buy another switch to add to the network.
Secondly, you need to decide if you want Power of Ethernet (PoE) capabilities. If you have devices such as IP phones and wireless access points these can be connected through PoE and don’t consume much power. If you have more complex devices like security cameras
then you may need a switch that can deliver enough wattage per port to cover the power needs.
Thirdly, the speed of the switch needs to be considered. Most can offer a data speed of 1 Gigabit which should suffice for a mid-size business. However, there are options to run different speeds from different ports meaning you can ensure higher data speeds for the more essential functions of your network. If you will be video streaming or transferring large files there are switches with 10 Gigabit speeds.
Cabling
Ethernet cables need to be able to handle the amount of data transfer in the network and are categorised on this basis. For your office network, it is recommended to use Cat 6A cables as this will futureproof the system with data transfer speeds of up to 10 Gbps.
For a less expensive option, Cat 6 cables can offer the same speed but over a shorter distance (approximately 180 feet).
Access points
When choosing access points, it’s important to understand what features you need and buying an access point to match. The units should have the same capabilities as the router, Wi-Fi 6 should be more than enough.
Speed is the most crucial aspect and you need to ensure that your internet service provider’s speed matches with that of the access point so you’ll be paying exactly for what you are using.
Security is also important and should offer features like guest networks to keep your data private and enable WPA 3 encryption.
4) Configure Your Devices
With the physical aspects in their correct place, it’s time to deal with the logical part of the network.
Assign IP addresses
Using a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to give each device in your network its unique IP address is the quickest and easiest method. Using IPv4 should be good enough although be aware that we are moving towards IPv6 due to reasons of reaching capacity limits.
To aid network management and security, you should divide your network into subnets based on their location, department, function or any criteria you like.
Security and access controls
You can now set up and test your security protocols and ensure that your data is secure. Enable firewalls and malware detection on your router and access points.
Consider creating virtual LANs (VLANs) to segment devices and users by department for example.
Set up a secure password policy by changing default passwords and ensuring each user only has access to parts of the network that are necessary.
Testing and troubleshooting
Keeping a network functioning at its best is a constant practice and you should always be optimizing, testing, and troubleshooting along the way. Monitor and upgrade security regularly and ensure that good coverage exists across the whole office space by moving access points or routers if needed.
5) Document The Network
Unless you’re a bonafide genius, there’s no way you can remember all the moving parts of a complex network like the one you have just created. It’s good practice to keep a document of the network so that when it comes to maintenance, troubleshooting or upgrading the system, you have all the information to hand.
Your document should include:
● The project’s goals
● Design requirements and constraints
● Details of the existing infrastructure (network topology, routing protocols, equipment list and configurations)
● Network design details (physical and logical), IP addressing
● A plan for implementing setups, configurations, and settings
Conclusion
Well done for reading this far. Network design is a huge subject to dive into that is constantly changing as technology evolves.
You should now have a better grasp of how to approach your strategy and the needs that are specific to your scenario.
Remember that a good design will:
● Plan for the future — ensuring that increasing data and business needs can be met
● Implement strong security from the very start of your design
● Have backup and failsafes — to guard against inevitable failures in the system or from service providers
● Remain an unfinished project — after setup is complete you should be vigilant to monitor, maintain, update and optimize the network
Keep the information in this article to hand as you follow the steps towards designing an office network that not only does a great job now but can adapt for future needs as well.