Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
ldentify Network
Applications and
Services
Define
Organizational
Goals
Define Technical
Constraints
Document the
Collected Information
Define
Organizational
Constraints
Define Technical
Goals
Figure 1-5
Identifying Customer Requirements
After you complete these steps, you then analyze the data and develop a network design.
Yo u n e e d t o i d e n t i f y c u r r e n t a n d p l a n n e d a p p l i c a t i o n s a n d d e t e r m i n e t h e i m p o r t a n c e o f
each application. Is email as important as customer support? Is IP telephony being de-
ployed? High-availability and high-bandwidth applications need to be identified for the
design to accommodate their network requirements. A table identifying applications
should list the following:
Planned application types:
Such as email, collaboration, voice, web browsing, file
sharing, database
■
Concrete applications:
Such as Outlook, MeetingPlace
■
Business importance:
Labeled as critical, important, or unimportant
■
Comment:
Any additional information critical to the design of the network
■
Planned infrastructure services should also be gathered. Network services include secu-
rity, quality of service (QoS), network management, high availability, unified communica-
tions, mobility, and virtualization.
For organiz ational goals, you should identify whether the company's goal is to improve
customer support, add new customer services, increase competitiveness, or reduce
costs. It might be a combination of these goals, with some of them being more impor-
tant than others. Some organizational goals are as follows:
Increase competitiveness
■
Reduce costs
■
