Network Design Fundamentals

What are the Network Design Fundamentals?

When I talk about Network Design Fundamentals, I am specifically talking about your Network Design Mindset, Network Design Use Cases, The Business, Design Constraints, and Customer Requirements.

Network Design Mindset

Your network design mindset is critical to any real successful network design. I didn’t learn this until later in my career. My CCDE journey is where I learned all about my network design mindset, you can read through my article on this journey here. I hope within this page and the content, you can learn this earlier in your career than I did, so you can make sure your network designs are successful.

Network Design Use Cases

There are a number of Design Use Cases that we all should know about. Here is a “guide” I created to highlight the top 7 design use cases. A good network designer should be able to identify which design use case they are in, and leverage their experiences to guide them into the design process within these situations. What most network designers find out is that most design situations have overlapping design use cases that you have to address. Sometimes these overlapping design use cases create constraints that we have to solve for.

The Business!

Why do we design? Why do we make design decisions? Understanding why is such a critical step when we are designing networks and it’s why I always call it a Network Design Fundamental! If you don’t know why you are making these decisions, then in essence you are making decisions for no reason at all. The other option is that you are making these decisions for incorrect purposes. The simple answer to these questions above is “The Business”.

Requirements and Constraints

The specific requirements and constraints a customer has are the items that are going to box you into a specific design situation. Being able to identify these requirements and constraints with ‘Why?’ is a Network Design Fundamental task for any Network Designer. Once you have these identified, now you can properly design a solution that meets the customer’s needs. Keep in mind, every Network Design Decision should be tied directly back to the business.

Within this page, you will find content created specifically to cover these Network Design Fundamentals and much more. This content is in the form of guides, online courses, podcast episodes, articles, and videos.

Within this page you will find:

• Articles that highlight Real-world examples of these Network Design Fundamentals
• Guides showing the different Network Design Use Cases that every Designer should know.
• Popular podcast interviews that dive deep into example use of the Network Design Fundamentals
• An in-depth course on Designing Impactful Networks, Ensuring Business Success!

My free guides are up first. Check them out and let me know what you think about them. I look forward to hearing your feedback!