THE BASIC GUIDE TO
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Chapter Six |
In this chapter, we will discuss the steps you need to take and the questions you should consider if you're planning a new frame relay network or planning to deploy new applications over an existing frame relay network.
Basic Trail: Go!
The basic trail will discuss four steps and several considerations to help you plan your frame relay network.
Advanced Trail: Go!
The advanced trail presents more detailed information to consider in planning a frame relay network.
Shortcut: Go!
It doesn't matter where in the world you're located or how large your telecommunications network is — you're probably trying to do more with less and leverage your telecommunications devices and services to extend your reach.
Frame relay offers compelling advantages over today's leased line networks, including flexibility, reduced WAN costs and scalability. Migrating your leased-line network, however, requires careful planning to assess network requirements because WAN savings at the cost of network performance and reliability is not a savings at all.
Let's look at four steps and several considerations to help you plan your frame relay network.
Assess Your Network Requirements
Before you migrate your leased-line applications to a frame relay network or add new applications to your existing frame relay network, consider these questions:
1. What is the average and peak bandwidth required by your target applications?
2. What is the maximum network latency your applications can tolerate before having an impact on users?
3. What are your objectives for application and network availability?
Addressing these questions can help you assess the proper access trunk speed, Committed Information Rate (CIR), Excess Information Rate (EIR) or burst capabilities, and the optimal Service Level Agreement (SLA) from your carrier or service provider.
There are many service level management products available to enable your network to gather this type of information. These systems help you to establish your current network baselines, and they also report on ongoing network performance which can be compared against your SLAs.
Assess the Impact on Your Management Procedures
Because you are "outsourcing" a large part of your network, your network management procedures will change. Understanding these changes and how they affect application availability is critical to the success of your frame relay network. Consider these questions:
1. How will problem identification, tracking and resolution procedures change?
2. What are the responsibilities of your organization and your carrier or service provider?
3. Do you or your service provider have tools to isolate and diagnose frame relay related problems?
Examine Your Service Level Agreement
The Service Level Agreement (SLA) between you and your service provider states network performance and availability commitments. These are some guidelines:
1. Maximum network transit latency (delay): influences application response times.
2. Network availability: defining measurement of service reliability.
3. Mean time to restoral: how fast service is restored after an outage.
4. Measurement intervals: how often the service provider measures these metrics.
5. Reporting: in what form the SLA metrics are reported and how often.
6. Data delivery rate (throughput): what percentage of your data actually is delivered at the destination side.
Conduct Ongoing Capacity and Performance Planning (Service Level Management)
Launching your frame relay network is only the beginning. Changes in the organization, applications and user population necessitate a continual assessment of your networking needs. Plan ahead for network changes. Consider how these factors can impact your network:
1. Enhancements to existing applications
2. Deployment of new applications
3. Increase in user populations
4. Acquisitions or reorganization
5. Service provider and switch loading factors
Designing a Frame Relay Network
When designing a frame relay network, you should ask yourself:
Is Frame Relay Service Right for this Network?
Here are some general rules that help identify applications that are and are not well suited for frame relay service.
If the network passes the preliminary qualification audit, the next step is to diagram the proposed frame relay network. This diagram should include your current configuration, labeling the locations, listing the CPE, and noting the WAN connections. This will give you a better sense of the benefits of frame relay.
Specific Network Design
Frame relay network design consists of two steps:
When you have completed a first draft frame relay network design, consult with your technical support team to ensure that the diagram and applications are well matched. Keep in mind that frame relay is an interface, not an architecture, and the applications to be run on interconnected LANs or via legacy protocols must conform to a distributable architecture.
The major challenge in migrating your leased-line network to a frame relay service is achieving the reliability, performance and network availability your users and applications require while maximizing your WAN networking budget. With careful planning, you can achieve these goals. Four steps are helpful in planning a frame relay network:
To help identify applications that are and are not well suited for frame relay service are, examine your network for these characteristics:
END CHAPTER SIX.
