Many enterprise company did not have a comprehensive network blueprint that lasted many years as planned. Mostly because there were always a lot of business changes during the journey that were not predicted before.
And the network will end up like spaghetti... (or instant noodle without meat balls)
Actually there is a good way to build a comprehensive blueprint using a framework called SONA (Service Oriented Network Architecture), introduced by Cisco Systems. Building SONA based network does not require you to use all Cisco gears, but end-to-end solution from Cisco will help a lot, since network integration will be much easier, and no finger pointing when a problem occurred.
Ideal Network for Enterprise
According to Cisco SONA (Service Oriented Network Architecture), an Ideal Enterprise Network should contains the following services :
- Security - network stay alive and operated normally under known or unknown attack
- Mobility - network user able to connect anytime, anywhere
- Storage - storage area network support for synchronous/asynch data replication
- Unified Communications - integration of any communication means
- Computing - support of computer clustering and grid computing
- Identity - capability to identify anyone and anything when connecting to network
- Application Delivery - optimize congested WAN network to support more applications
- Application Oriented Network - recognize up to application message for more optimal routing
- Virtualization - maximum flexibility and lower cost to accomodate business changes
- Modular and Scalable Design - allow easy network grow to support growing business
One thousand kilometer trip start with single step....
An ideal network does not have to be built all at once :
- Start defining our business and priority
- Draw timeline and define milestones
- Brainstorming to get detailed things that are required to achieve each milestone, and how are we going to support the network services mentioned above
SONA could be implemented easily in any Enterprise type network such as : Financial, Banking, Government, Oil/Mining, IT department of Service Provider/Network Operators, Drug Research, etc.
