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Balancing Network Performance with Key Non-Performance Characteristics
We all know that performance is very
important to any network. However, anyone putting together a network
must also be concerned with many different non-performance characteristics
as well. Depending on the network, these can be just as essential to
the users of the network as performance, and possibly even more critical.
More than this, non-performance issues often trade off
against performance, and in fact, often more than not one has to be
reduced to get performance to increase.
So, if you want to create a very-high-performance
network, you need to understand the key non-performance network characteristics
where you may need to compromise. Here are a few of these issues, and
specifically how they relate to performance concerns:
- Design and Implementation Cost: Unless
you have bottomless pockets, you need to be concerned with the networks
costs. As mentioned in the
prior topic, cost is the main trade-off
with performance. Going faster costs more moneynot always, but
usually.
- Quality: The quality of the network is
a function of the quality of the components used and how they are installed.
Quality is important because of its impact on all of the factors described
here, such as reliability and ease of administration, as well as performance.
Quality doesn't trade off directly with performanceyou
can design high-quality, high-performance networksbut it does
compete with performance for resources such as budget.
All else being equal, it costs a great deal more to implement a high-quality,
high-performance network than a high-quality, low-speed one.
- Standardization: Network protocols and
hardware can either be designed to meet universally-accepted standards,
or non-standard, proprietary ones. Standard designs are almost always
preferable, as they make interoperability, upgrading, support and training
easier. Proprietary standards may include enhancements that improve
performance, but may increase cost and/or make management more difficult.
- Reliability: This is related to several
other issues, especially quality and performance. Faster networks aren't
necessarily less reliable, but it's more difficult and expensive to
run them as reliably as slower ones.
- Expandability and Upgradability: It's
very important to always plan for the future when creating a network.
Higher-performance networks can be more difficult to expand; they are
certainly more expensive to expand. Once again, the matter of implementing
a network with capacity for future needs now, as opposed to upgrading
later if it becomes necessary, is an important network design decision.
- Ease of Administration and Maintenance: Higher-performance
networks require more work and resources to administer and maintain,
and are more likely to require troubleshooting, than slower ones.
- Premises and Utility Issues: Implementation
of high-speed networks may be limited by the physical premises, or may
have an impact on how they are laid out. Choosing a higher-speed option
may require more infrastructure to be put in place, increasing cost.
The classic example of this is seen in choosing between wired and wireless
options for a home or small office network: with wires you can go much
faster, but do you really want to run the wires?
Anyway, now you have a flavor of
how performance balances against some of the other key issues in networking.
The idea of this topic wasn't to convince you not to build a high-performance
network, just to let you know part of the price you will pay.
Key Concept: While performance is one of the most important characteristics of any network, there are others that are equally important. In many cases, the cost, quality, reliability, expandability, maintainability and other attributes of a network may in fact trade off against overall performance. The faster you want your network to go, the more difficult it is to ensure these other attributes are kept at sufficiently high levels. |
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Version 3.0 - Version Date: September 20, 2005
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