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What Are Your Network Requirements?
The media you choose when you set up structured cabling is something you have to figure out by measuring many factors. First, and most importantly, you will need to consider; what your current bandwidth needs are, what your network environment is, and what you think your future bandwidth requirements are going to be. You'll also need to construct what your budget is that you have to work with. We'll talk about each of these concerns and help you figure out what cabling solution is best for personal business needs.
Determine Your Current Bandwidth Needs
The most important factor, after you figure out what type of cabling you need to use, is what your network's current bandwidth requirements are. What you need can fluctuate greatly, and it is based upon the size of your network. If you have just 15 workstations, for example, your bandwidth requirements will generally be lower than those of a network that has 100 workstations or more. You should also factor in future growth when you consider your network size. If you are expecting to roughly double the number of employees within the next couple of years, you can also expect that your company bandwidth is going to need to increase about the same. To further smooth the running of your network, you'll also need to factor in the volume and type of data traffic that your network will be supporting. For example, if you are a small graphic design and multimedia firm and you only have 10 workstations, you'll still have much greater bandwidth requirements than a law firm that consists of 25 workstations will. Again, this is largely due to the volume and type of the data you can expect in such a work environment. If you have a single user who is transferring a five-minute high-definition video across a network, that will take up much more bandwidth than if there are 20 users who are only accessing MS Excel and Word files.
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Accurately determining your network's bandwidth requirements
There are several ways that you can analyze network traffic, but perhaps best and most easy to use is a tool called a network analyzer. The simplest and most ubiquitous of tools is probably one built into all Windows servers, called Network Monitor. This utility gives you detailed insight into traffic on a particular network segment and can also analyze broadcast traffic and specific packets transmitted to or from a particular machine. There are also several other third-party products you can use, such as Ethereal, which is free, or commercial analyzers such as Cinco NetXRay, Network General Fast Ethernet Sniffer, Intel LANDesk Traffic Analyst, Novell LANalyzer for Windows, and AG Group EtherPeek; among others. One note of importance is that when you use a network analyzer to monitor your current network's usage of bandwidth, you should sample data over the course of several days or weeks and do so during different times of day. By doing this, you'll get the most accurate picture of the bandwidth your network utilizes and will require.
What Is Your Network Environment?
Your network environment is a major factor when you are thinking about what type of cabling you should use. Optical fiber offers the fastest possible bandwidth and is the best way to "future proof" your network, but certain environments do better with other types of installation. For example, twisted copper mediums such as Cat5e or Cat6 are less prone to transmission problems because of dirt and scratches on the fiber compared to optical fiber with the same scratches. This type of dirt and dust is typical of dusty or dirty mechanical closets, equipment closets, or any rooms not kept clean and amenable to fiber technology. In these cases, twisted copper mediums may be a better way to go. On the other hand it is also true that optical fiber is more beneficial to certain environments than twisted copper mediums are. Although Cat5e and Cat6 are much improved in terms of noise than previous incarnations, they are still susceptible to high radio frequency and electromagnetic interference. Hospitals have very substantial radio frequency interference problems when twisted pair cabling is used. A Cat5e or Cat6 cable running next to a CAT scanner or nuclear magnetic resonance scanner is virtually useless because of radio frequency interference. Therefore, in these types of environments, optical fiber is ideal because it is almost completely immune to these types of interference.
Determining Future Bandwidth Requirements
Rarely do people think to factor in a company's growth, or think that they will be launching new products and services, when they estimate what their future bandwidth requirements will be. However, if you fail to do an accurate assessment of your future bandwidth requirements, it can end up costing you substantial money. It's important to understand that estimating future bandwidth is speculative and can be complex. For example, you might think that if you double the number of employees in your company, this would mean that you'll also have to double your network bandwidth requirements. However, it's not usually that straightforward. For example, it might be that several of your new employees are multimedia authors who will have higher bandwidth requirements as a result. In addition, if you bring in several new salespeople, you'll have increased communications because those salespeople and their customers will be ramping up your traffic. Or, for example, the sales department may decide to host an in-house web-based CRM implementation. This could result in increased bandwidth requirements far out of proportion to what the rest of the network users need. These types of factors make it imperative that a network administrator knows what the future plans of your business are when he or she plans a structured cabling implementation. In general, it's far less costly to "future proof" a structured cabling implementation than it is to have to rework all of the existing cabling once it's clear that what's there cannot meet the demands of the network.
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The Budget
It's true that you need to consider working within a budget, but you'll also have to understand that there's a big difference in cost when you compare Cat5e, Cat6 and optical fiber; the cost may end up seeing insignificant compared to what your actual costs will be if you don't use the correct conveyance media for current and future network requirements. As usually holds true, the adage, "It's better to do it right the first time" also applies here when you plan your network infrastructure. If you don't do it right the first time, you could cost your company far more than you save if you choose older technology or less expensive conveyance media. In addition, if you don't choose the correct media, you could cripple your entire network and bring on the displeasure of its users. Because of this, current and future bandwidth requirements and a detailed understanding of your network environment should be far more important to you than costs should be as you plan your network and determine what type of cabling is best suited to you.
Mark is the Chief Revenue Officer for www.SCTProducts.com.
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