Designing: Access Layer – Distribution Layer & Campus Backbone

While preparing for my CCDA and CCDP, I came across with these information. I hope it will help you :)

Access Layer

1. Current & future needs for users or node ports
2. Can your company or client afford modular Cisco units
3. Is the existing cabling UTP adequate?
4. Can you afford to move to MM fiber?
5. Performance and Bandwidth requirement
6. Redundancy? & up to which level it is needed &/or Required
7. VLAN, VTP, STP or RSTP support requirement?
8. Layer-2 traffic pattern, Multicasting & QoS?

Distribution Layer

1. Layer-2 switch adequate? A Layer-3 switch?
2. Total user do you support? Or have to?
3. Do you need high availability?
4. Do you need distribution switches, modular & scalable?
5. What type of intelligence service like QoS, Security, IP Multicasting etc
6. Are you prepare for manageability and configurability
7. Are advance features need to be implemented like RSTP, MSTP, Backbone fast or Uplink fast.

Campus Backbone

1. Do you have three or more building connected through enterprise campus infrastructure?
2. Is your solution L2, L2/L3 or L3 throughout the network?
3. Are you read for high performance, multilayer switching?
4. Does your customer want to simplify and lower the number of links between distribution layer switches and server farm/edge distribution modules?
5. What are the performance needs?
6. How many high capacity links/ports do you need?
7. What are the high availability/redundancy needs?

I Hope this will be informative for you :)