What You Need to Know about Enterprise Networking

Local Area Network (LAN)

LANs are internal networks that connect computers and other devices within a small, confined area such as an office building or campus. They facilitate high-speed local data exchange, resource sharing, and communication among network devices, including servers, printers, and computers. As they are deployed within a confined geographical area, LANs are typically used for personal and non-commercial use cases.

Wide Area Network (WAN)

WANs refer to any computer network that extends a wider range than LANs. Rather than being limited to a specific internal location, WANs connect geographical locations over long distances, which can be cities, countries, or even continents. Instead of using cables as LANs for connectivity, WANs leverage radio waves or telephone lines to communicate between nodes. Businesses can deploy this type of enterprise networking as a private or public network for efficient inter-site communication and data sharing.

Cloud Networks

Cloud networks are the networking infrastructure that allows network communication and data exchange within modern hybrid cloud environments. By facilitating the seamless cloud integration of virtualized resources and services, cloud networking provides companies with server space on a pay-as-you-go basis, helping users access essential data from anywhere and at any time using any device with an Internet connection.

Step 1: Assess Business Requirements

You can’t begin the process of building your own enterprise network without identifying your business needs. To ensure that the network stays on track and meets all of your technical requirements, create a list of your networking needs, including the number of devices, users, applications, locations, and bandwidth requirements. Consider the future growth of your network to easily scale up and down and adapt to evolving demands.

Step 2: Design Network Architecture

Each enterprise has unique scale and connectivity requirements, resulting in different network architectures. However, there are several mandatory network architectures that are universally required, such as TCP/IP protocol suites (Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), Internet Protocol (IP)), wired LAN connections, OSI model (Open Systems Interconnection), firewalls, and VLANs (Virtual Local Area Networks). Add-on elements, including WANs or IoT integration, are customizable options based on your individual business needs.

Step 3: Select Appropriate Hardware and Software

Once you have designed your enterprise network infrastructure, it is time to choose suitable firewalls, routers, and access points. Stick to your network design and budget to make the best decisions. Choosing the wrong hardware and software can potentially lead to incompatibility between the chosen components and the existing network environment.

Step 4: Implement Security Measures

The risk of data breaches and unauthorized access is unavoidable, no matter how large or small your internal network is. That’s why you can’t build a robust enterprise network without implementing security measures.

Instead of publicizing the enterprise network, businesses should limit access by establishing access control mechanisms that regulate and manage every user’s permission. In addition, implementing additional security measures such as updating firmware regularly, conducting security audits, or monitoring network traffic for anomalies can also help add an extra security layer to the network.

Step 5: Enable Remote Access and Mobility

Remote work is on the rise with technological advancement and a strong emphasis on flexibility. Going to a physical office is no longer the only way to get the job done, especially for positions like content writers and software developers.

If your business has a work-from-home policy, setting up secure remote access solutions, including VPNs, secure sockets layer (SSL), and multi-factor authentication, is a must. Such tools help your employees access the resources they need as easily as if they were in the office, optimizing the work experience and facilitating remote work.

Step 6: Establish Network Monitoring and Management

The process of setting up an enterprise network ends with deploying network monitoring tools to continuously check and monitor the health of the network components. The business networks may run smoothly at the beginning. However, as user data and the number of connected devices increase over time, any network will need help maintaining the same level of stability as before.

Setting up tools is an ideal way to automate management tasks such as tracking performance metrics and monitoring device status. The results and metrics generated from such tools provide a solid foundation for businesses to develop strategies to optimize network performance and connectivity.