Introduction to Network

Planning
Contents
Design goals
Design choices
Design approaches
The design process
Capacity planning
Design goals
Good designs should:
 Deliver services requested by users
 Deliver acceptable throughput and response times
 Be within budget and maximise cost efficiencies
 Be reliable
 Be expandable without major redesign
 Be manageable by maintenance and support staff
 Be well documented
Design Choices
Balance of distribution
Level of transparency
Security
Connectivity technology
Design approaches
Two typical methods
 Traditional analytic design
 Building block approach
Both use a similar iterative approach
The traditional design process
A g re e re q u ire m e n ts

In fo rm a tio n g a th e rin g

D e s ig n p ro c e s s

M e e ts c o n s tra in ts ?

N o Y es
D e p lo y m e n t

C o m m is s io n in g

M o d ify
Design Stages - Agree
requirements
Engage end users
Translate requirements
 Business objectives –> technical
specification
Phasing the requirements
 Right level of detail at each design stage
Designing the requirements
Design Stages - Designing the
requirements
Aim for completeness
Prioritise with a hierarchical system
such as
 [M] - Mandatory
 [H] – Highly desirable
 [D] - Desirable
 [N] - Note
Design Stages - Assessing
requirements
Consider all aspects
 E.g. support & maintenance, depreciation,
commissioning costs, project management fees,
h/w & s/w upgrade costs, b/w costs, consultancy
charges – over the lifetime of the network
Weighted matrix multipliers
 M=100, H=10, D=1, N=0
 Produce scores and rank suppliers
Design Stages - Information
gathering
Need to find details of user behaviour, application
use and location information for example:
 User: location, numbers, services used, typical access
 Sites: number, location, constraints on traffic (security, political or
cost)
 Servers and services: location, level of distribution
 WAN/backbone predicted link traffic
 Protocol support: bridged, routed or switched – Gateways needed?
 Legacy support: equipment, protocols or services
 Specific availability needs, 24-hour/backup links etc
 Five-year plan – changes to population or business requirements
 Budgetary constraints
 Greenfield or existing site
Information is refined and leads to a requirements database
and capacity plan
Design Stages - Site
constraints
Greenfield or
 Greenfield sites have no legacy constraints but…
 It is difficult to determine the real network loads and
stresses
 Needs more detail of application use and underlying
protocols
 Could use simulation to predict performance
Existing site
 Limited access
 Bottlenecks more obvious
 Access to live network could be restricted but…
 Can use traffic/network analysis tools
Design Stages - Planning
Uses information on
 Hosts, users, services, and their internetworking
needs
Iterative process of
 Conceptual design
 Analysis
 Refinement
Involving
 Brainstorming, design reviews, modelling tools
Leading to final draft design
Design Stages - Design
specification
Detailed document of the design
 Acts as a benchmark for design changes
 Final design choices and changes need
justification and documenting
 Should include change history to aid
maintenance
 Used for the implementation
Design Stages -
Implementation
Needs a project plan to include
 Phased introduction of new technology
 Educating the users (what to expect)
 Pilot installation (test for possible
problems)
 Acceptance testing (to prove performance
meets requirements)
 Deployment (provide support on going live
and provide fallback position)
Connectivity options
Technology choices
 LANs (Ethernet, Token ring, ATM)
 MANs (FDDI, SMDS, ATM, SONET/SDH)
 WANS (Frame relay, ATM, ISDN, X.25,
PDCs)
 Wireless (802.11, Bluetooth, GPRS, GSM)
 Dial-up lines
 Serial links
Connectivity option
determinants
Packet, cell or circuit switching
Wired or wireless
Distance
Performance
Bandwidth
Quality of Service
Availability
Media and bandwidth choices
Capacity Planning - Outline
Concerned with
 User response times
 Application behaviour and performance
characteristics
 Network utilisation
Needed to
 Minimise downtime
 Maximise service to customers
 Minimise costs of procurement and maintenance
 Avoid unscheduled maintenance or re-design
 Avoid costly upgrades and bad publicity
Capacity Planning - Stages
Form a discussion group (involve users etc.)
Quantify(determine) user behaviour
Quantify Application behaviour
Baseline existing network
 Traffic profiles
Make traffic projections
Summarize input data for design process
Assess other data (environmental, location
restrictions, deployment constraints etc)
Capacity Planning – Step 1
Form a discussion group (involve users etc.)
 Needs wide representation
 Users, network managers, application groups
To elicit (obtain)
 What users find acceptable and unacceptable
 Map of services and users and details of user behaviour
Quantify (determine) items using
 User and service sizing data
 Snapshots from data capture and network management tools
 Traces of key services using protocol analysers
 Pilot network implementation
Capacity Planning – Step 2
Quantify user behaviour
 Need to know population and location of
users
 Summary of major user groups
 Application use by user group
 Site location data (country, grid ref., town,
postcode, telephone exchange)
 Planned changes
Capacity Planning – Step 3
Quantify Application behaviour
 Need to identify
 Applications that could affect performance
 Location and performance of servers and clients
 Key constraints on performance (response times, buffer sizes
etc
 And define
 Application behaviour under fault conditions (lost data)
 Addressing mechanisms( broad/multi/unicast)
 Packet characteristics (frame sizes and direction)
 Routable and non-routable services (IP, NETBIOS)
Capacity Planning – Step 4
Baseline existing network
 Baselining – a behavioural profile of the network obtained from
 Packet traces, transaction rates, event logs and stats
 Router ACLs (access control list), firewall rulebases
 Inventory of H/W and S/W revisions

 Traffic profiles -Capture data for a stable working network with

details of
 B/w utilization by packet type and protocol
 Packet/frame size distribution
 Background error rates
 Collision rates
Capacity Planning – Step4
….cntd
Baseline existing network

 Various tools can be used

 Network and protocol analysers, SNMP (Simple n/w management
protocol) data, RMON (Remote monitoring of network) probes,
OS tools, traceroute, ping etc
Capacity Planning – Step 5
Make traffic projections using some, or
all of:
 Hand calculation
 Commercial analytical tools to project
network utilisation
 Simulation tools (most detail)
Capacity Planning – Step 6
Summarize input data for design process
 Budget
 Database of sites, user populations,
 List of key applications and their behaviour
 Traffic matrix
Need to consider
 Static or dynamic bandwidth allocation
 Max. Delay and Max. hops between sites
 Resilience, Availability, degree of meshing
 Design constraints and trade-off
 (e.g. delay v cost)
The building-block design
process
(an alternative)

Needs Technology
Analysis design

Cost
Assessment
Good design
 Is an iterative process of continuous
refinement
 Is logical and consistent
 Should deliver acceptable performance and
cost metrics (trade-off)
 Is more than choosing the technology!
Wireless Planning
Commission/Coordination
Wireless Planning & Coordination Wing (WPC) is a
Wing of Department of Telecommunications  under
the Ministry of Communications of the Government of
India.
The department is responsible for issuing amateur
radio licenses, allotting the frequency spectrum and
monitoring the frequency spectrum.
The WPC is headquartered in New Delhi and has
regional branches
in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Guwahati
Wireless Planning Commission/Coordination
Wing of the Ministry of Communications, created in
1952, is the National Radio Regulatory Authority
responsible for Frequency Spectrum Management,
including licensing and caters for the needs of all
wireless users (Government and Private) in the
country.
It exercises the statutory functions of the Central
Government and issues licenses to establish, maintain
and operate wireless stations.
WPC is divided into major sections like Licensing and
Regulation (LR), New Technology Group (NTG) and
Standing Advisory Committee on Radio Frequency
Allocation (SACFA).
Wireless Planning
Commission/Coordination

SACFA makes the recommendations on

major frequency allocation issues,
formulation of the frequency allocation plan,
making recommendations on the various issues
related to International Telecom Union (ITU),
to sort out problems referred to the committee by
various wireless users,
Siting clearance of all wireless installations in the
country etc.
Wireless Planning
Commission/Coordination

Technical Group 'A' officers manning this

organisation comes under cadre of Indian
Radio Regulatory Service. Wireless Adviser of
India is highest officer in the hierarchy, who
report to Member (Technology) of Telecom
Commission of India under Department of
Telecommunications.
Wireless Planning
Commission/Coordination
Permission from WPC is required for importing any
radio equipments in India, including walkie-talkie, RC
cars/boats, drones/UAV, ZigBee, Bluetooth devices,
etc. Imports of radio equipments into India, without
prior permission from WPC, will be confiscated by
Customs at point of entry.
Individual WPC permission is not required for phones,
computers, and routers.
The certification process includes the application,
evaluation and testing of the product before the WPC
certificate and ETA (Equipment Type Approval)
certification number is issued. 
WPC
The radio frequency (RF) spectrum is vital for wireless
communications infrastructure.
Most operations on the RF spectrum require a licence
provided by a national regulatory body or the
government.
Many countries have allocated some spectrum for
unlicensed use. Unlicensed spectrum bands can be
general purpose or application specific.
Unlicensed spectrum, by not requiring operators to
obtain a costly license and special permission for its use,
is an inexpensive and barrier-free option for meeting
communication requirements.
Unlicensed bands

The FCC is authorized to allow flexible utilization of

spectrum under the Communications Act of 1996 where the
use is in compliance with international agreements to which
the U.S. is a signatory:

the use must be in the public interest;

the use should not hamper investments in the

communications sector; and cannot cause harmful
interference to other users
Unlicensed bands

In 2002, the FCC recommended licences to be as flexible as

possible, and only restricted by interference prevention.

However, operators can use unlicensed or “licence-exempt”

devices in the United States only if they use certified radio
equipment and comply with the technical requirements of
part 15 of the Federal Communications Commission Rules
Unlicensed bands in US
Band Frequencies (MHz)
ISM/ Spread Spectrum 902-928, 2400-2483.5
& 5725-5850
Unlicensed PCS 1910-1930 & 2390-
2400
Millimeter Wave 59,000-64,000
U-NII 5150-5350 & 5725-
5825
Millimeter Wave (Expansion) 57,000-59,000
Unlicensed bands

There are many diversified bands of radio spectrum

allowed in the UK for unlicensed use which contain a
variety of applications:
bands below 1 GHz are mainly occupied by telemetry
services;
frequencies between 2 GHz and 6 GHz are used by
broadband wireless communications;
and bands at 10 GHz and over are used for short-
range radar and relays.
Unlicensed bands in UK

Band Frequencies
2.4 GHz 2400.0 to 2483.5 MHz
5.1 GHz 5150 to 5350 MHz
5.5 GHz 5470 to 5725 MHz
60 GHz 57.1 to 58.9 GHz