Local Area Network Standards

Building a networking infrastructure with a consistent high speed LAN (Local Area Network) environment, a number of LAN Standards need to be developed. These standards should be measured against IETF, IEEE, and EIA/TIA standards groups, as well as against OSI reference model where applicable.

A LAN consists of high speed network infrastructure at a single location used to deliver network applications and services. With the evolution of Ethernet networking, Ethernet LANs have been widely adopted due to their lower cost, ease of use and the ability to scale up to and past multi-gigabit speeds. Today’s modern LANs require consistent high speed and reliable services to the users desktop to provide rich network services. Therefore the use of high speed Switch LAN has become increasingly important and is considered mandatory to modern business needs. An enterprise network with multiple sites needs to develop LAN standards that should be deployed across the sites to comply with.

LAN Cabling

LAN Standards in Network cabling should deal with high speed network cabling. High speed LANs are required in order to provide the scalable bandwidth necessary to support current and future network applications and services. Structured cabling provides LAN connectivity at Ethernet (10 Mbps), Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) and potentially higher speeds using current standards based Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) wiring. Fiber optic cabling allows transmission across LAN backbone connections at Gigabit Ethernet (GE) and future 10GE/100GE speeds. CAT5e is the current cabling standard that defines LAN connectivity at 10/100 Mbps and provides support for future gigabit to the desktop speeds.

LAN Topology

LAN Standards in A LAN topology should be developed, the topology that will deliver high speed access to the user desktop and allows for the natural evolution of bandwidth increases in the network. The need for more bandwidth at the desktop will require the eventual migration from 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps speed fully switched connections. The need for speed increases in the LAN backbone may require the future deployment of gigabit and higher services using fiber optic. If LAN high availability is a requirement then a redundant switched topology should be implemented to eliminate any single points of failure.

LAN switches

LAN Standards in LAN Switches must be developed replacing Ethernet Hubs. The use of Hubs should be avoided because even intelligent ones are considered to be legacy networking devices that do not utilize the LAN bandwidth efficiently.

LAN switches greatly improve the throughput of Ethernet networks. They allow the migration to mixed 10/100 Mbps and higher speeds, and greatly reduce the impact of data collisions on the LAN. Intelligent switches offer numerous performance and management advantages, including the definition of virtual LANs (VLANs) and the ability to perform multicast control (necessary for video conferencing applications). Many switches also support the ability to perform special link aggregation which can provide additional bandwidth to the LAN when required.

Virtual LANs (VLANs)

LAN Standards in Virtual LANs (VLANs) provide a flexible method of managing network segments using Ethernet LAN switches. VLANs give management flexibility by creating separate virtual LAN segments or subnets which can be used to define different location or departmental networks or security requirements. The use of VLANs within the LAN is optional and is normally influenced by specific local network requirements. For high speed performance and reduce latency, the use of high-speed layer 3 Switches is a must for inter-VLANs communications.

Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)

In a large organization with multi-switch environment, LAN Standards in STP should be developed. The Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is a service that allows LAN switches and bridges to be redundantly interconnected by providing a mechanism to prevent broadcast storm or bridging loops. In a medium to large-sized network with complex multi-switch networks or environments that required high convergence, STP must be manually tuned.

NICs and LAN Switches

LAN standards in NICs and LAN Switches are also essential. Optimal performance of the network throughput is required for Shared resources such as file and data servers. File and data servers need high-speed network connection at Gigabit speeds for optimal performance accessed by authorized users while minimizing the effect of any network segment bottlenecks.

LAN switch configurations are generally very simple, however many configurations can be complex due to very high port densities and rich feature sets that many modern switches provide. This standard should provide a basic guideline for LAN switch configuration.

Desktop Protocols

LAN Standards should manage about Desktop Protocols. TCP/IP protocol suite is the protocol that is widely deployed around the world due to its low cost and easy to deploy. TCP/IP is the only protocol that is to be used throughout the organizations or enterprise network. The strategy of any network should be to adopt a single scalable robust protocol. The IP protocol is the protocol of choice for almost all network vendors today and is the only protocol supported on the Internet.

IP Multicast Services

In a multi-sites environment the need of video conference becomes a trend. LAN standards in IP Multicast should also be developed too. IP multicast services can provide new feature rich applications which include video conferencing and interactive message collaboration. IP multicast traffic can generate very high bandwidth data-streams which are normally destined for a number of concurrent registered receivers. Without IP multicast switching enabled all multicast traffic is unnecessarily flooded to all devices in the LAN.

Wireless LANs (WLANs)

Since Wireless LAN’s broadcasts data over the air using radio waves, the main concern about deploying the WLAN is security. There are many wireless technology standards at the market place today, and the recent standards is draft 2.0 802.11n. It’s not finalized yet actually but mostly all the manufacturers ships their products with this draft standards.

Layer 3 Switching

In multi-segments LAN, the need of layer 3 Switching to improve the high-speed performance is a must. The use of Gigabit backbone links, High performance switches and Layer 3 Switching should be deployed. LAN Standards in Layer 3 Switching should be developed to produce a network that functions at or near wire speeds with minimal latency.

Network Security Standards

The last but not the least, a Network security standards should be developed. The standard is an implementation of security policies and following a defense in depth procedure. This policy as a minimum should encompass physical access, switch and router access controls, VLAN support, encryption, as well as router connections and packet filtering.