How do you prioritize network architecture requirements?

We can prioritize network architecture requirements based on: 1. Performance: Ensure efficient data transfer. 2. Security: Implement robust measures for data protection. 3. Scalability: Accommodate future growth seamlessly. 4. Reliability: Minimize downtime and ensure consistent connectivity. 5. Flexibility: Adapt to evolving technology and business needs. 6. Cost-effectiveness: Optimize expenses while meeting performance goals. 7. Ease of Management: Simplify network administration for efficiency. 8. Compliance: Adhere to industry regulations and standards. 9. User Experience: Prioritize a seamless and responsive experience. 10. Redundancy: Implement backup systems to ensure continuous operation.

Prioritizing network architecture requirements involves understanding the specific goals and constraints of the system you're designingPrioritizing network architecture requirements involves understanding the specific goals and constraints of the system you're designing.

To prioritize network architecture requirements, start by thoroughly assessing the business goals and objectives of the project. Understand expected outcomes, benefits, and risks, and identify stakeholders, users, and customers. Consider how the network will support business processes, operations, and strategy. This approach ensures alignment between technical decisions and the overarching business vision, allowing identification of high-level requirements and expectations. By addressing these foundational aspects, you lay the groundwork for a network architecture that not only meets technical specifications but also adds tangible value to the overall business objectives.

Die Bewertung der Gesch?ftsziele führt zu einer Ja/Nein-Entscheidung, noch nicht zu einer Priorisierung. Es werden lediglich die technische Machbarkeit und die wirtschaftlichen Erwartungen bewertet. Priorisierung zu diesem Zeitpunkt w?re im Falle eines Nein verschwendete Ressource.

Building a new network architecture is quite similar to build a new road to interconnect 2 cities: if you don't know the destination, the main flow, interconnections with another roads and so on, you will turn on the machines but without a high accuracy. You must to start the blueprint writing down the business objetives (short and long term) to start putting the models, devices and ranges to model and interconnect.

The main observation is to have the best cost-benefit for the long-term business objectives. If your business is planned to scale-up 50%/year, for 5 years in a row, you must to consider a high possibility to scale your environment, to have high availability and to manage all of this over a high SLA with related vendors. Otherwise, you may be affected when your business more need to be aided.

Analyzing the network environment involves defining objectives, mapping topology, and conducting various assessments. It includes traffic analysis, performance monitoring, and packet analysis to identify issues and optimize resources. Bandwidth utilization and security audits ensure efficient and secure operations. Maintaining a device inventory, evaluating network protocols, and wireless analysis contribute to overall reliability. User feedback helps address specific needs, while documentation and benchmarking against standards aid in continuous improvement. Network monitoring tools like Nagios and Wireshark provide real-time insights, ensuring ongoing health and adaptability to evolving requirements.

Business requirements, ROI and those another projections will help you to predict and consider the best requisites needed on this journey. MoSCoW is my favorite to balance the MUSTs on the timeline.

Prioritizing network requirements is crucial, considering factors such as security, reliability, and performance. Key priorities include high-level security measures, ensuring a reliable and available network with redundancy, and optimizing bandwidth and performance through Quality of Service (QoS) policies. Scalability planning is of medium to high importance, anticipating future growth. Balancing costs is crucial, aiming for cost-effectiveness without compromising security or reliability. User experience, manageability, compliance, and documentation are medium priorities. Exploring innovation and future technologies is of low to medium priority, and considering the environmental impact aligns with sustainability goals.Regular reassessment

As the business changes everytime, the infrastructure use to be fluid as well. Is necessary to check in a PDCA-like process the effectiveness and security controls ever to understand gaps and how available the network is predictable to be.

Create HLD and LLD diagrams as per client requirements. Check with vendor sales persons to know the material availability in the market. Plan the orders as per availability of the devices.

Big star to be considered: security. Is a kind of thing that is a "MUST" from the day-0 to avoid 0-days exploitations. Jokes aside, it's impossible to create or refresh the network architecture without considering the project to be secure by design.