Logical And Physical Network Design

The Difference Between

Logical and Physical Network Design

Name

University of Phoenix - Online

NTC410

Network and Telecommunications Concepts II

Instructor Name

May 11, 2005

Abstract

Connecting computers together to create a network greatly increases the communication capabilities and can even save a company substantial amounts of time and money. A well thought out network design from a small home network to a large corporate intranet can be a deciding factor in the success of a network. Two important steps in the designing of a successful network are the logical designing phase and physical designing phase. The difference between the two and the importance of each are explained in the following pages. To help in the explanation of the difference between logical and physical network design I will be using a fictitious textile company and work through the two design steps.

The Difference Between

Logical and Physical Network Design

The company that will be getting the network designed for them is a textile manufacturing company. They have a small office occupying one floor of an adjacent office building to process all the information concerning the business such as inventory, sales, and payroll.

The first part of the designing process consists of collecting as much information about the company as possible. Everyone in the company is important for this part to gain an insight from every viewpoint and as many different departments as possible. Surveys will be sent out to the manufacturing employees in the plant and meetings will be scheduled to get information from the upper management.

The information gained from the employees on the manufacturing floor provided a starting point for how many computers would be needed there. They would only need a few in an employee break area for employee access to the company information they need such as emails and company updates. The maintenance department would also need a few computers to help track part inventory and to speed up the order and purchasing process. During the meetings with management, their needs will be gathered and the requirements for the system will be discussed. The meetings with management will continue until on and off as information is gathered and as problems or changes arise.

This entire information gathering is the beginning of the Logical design of the network. It will determine many different aspects of the network and form a basic starting point to make other major decisions. From this information the IP structure of the network will be decided. The IP structure is decided by the size of the network needed and is assigned a Class A, B or C address scheme. From the size of this network a Class C address scheme will be assigned and will be similar to 192.98.1.30. The three groups of numbers will be the network number and the last group will be the number of host the company assigns.

The company decided they would need 10 hosts in the manufacturing side and 30 in the office itself. With the amount of stations or host needed decided on, The management have completed the Logical Design and could start the Physical Design by finalizing the location of all the stations.

Once the locations of all the stations are finalized they need to decide on what specific type of system they will be using. This will involve deciding on the actual system specifics such as what type of physical cabling will be used and the topology of the system. "Topology in this case is just a fancy way of saying pattern. It's what a network looks like in a diagram on a sheet of paper, i.e., "from the top." "(Walters 2000)

There are several different types of network topologies including Star, Point-to-Point, Bus or Token-Ring. The most common