Designing a Local Area Network (LAN)
The challenges facing any corporation wishing to install a LAN are to understand the wide array of technologies currently available and, more importantly, how to choose the right combination. It is important not to get new technology just for technology's sake, it is better to stick with set industry protocols and standards.
When designing a LAN it is best to use a simple approach:
- Start by identifying your requirements
- Obtain a basic understanding of the LAN technologies, including the various hubs, routers and cabling
- Obtain current price information
- Select the best combination of technologies with the best cost/performance to meet your needs
- Choose and standardize your network protocols.
Symtrex, with our years of experience, can guide you through each step of your installation including design.
LANs can be either peer-to-peer or client to server. A peer-to-peer is usually a very small network, whereas larger corporations use client to server.
There are basically two types of LAN topologies, star topology and bus topology. This is not to say that these are your only options, there are various others, however they basically use similar connections.
In a star topology, each individual computer connects to a central hub, whereas in a bus topology, the computers link in a daisy chain configuration. The difference between the two is that should a computer break-down, in the star topology the other computers will function normally, in the bus topology, it will cause all computers to shut down until the chain is restored. Either way is acceptable, unless your system has a requirement for a specific topology .
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