© 2001 by prentice hall9-1 local area networks, 3rd edition david a. stamper part 4: installation...

9-1© 2001 by Prentice Hall

Local Area Networks, 3rd EditionDavid A. Stamper

Part 4: Installation and Management

Chapter 9

LAN Installation


• Administrative details such as contracts, support, and maintenance

• Hardware installation details such as site planning and cabling

• Testing and acceptance procedures

• Training for users, managers, and administrators

Chapter Preview

In this chapter you will study:


Administrative Details

• The LAN administrator should be aware of two key points during the installation process:

– Plans may be incomplete or incorrect, so you must have a mechanism for changing the plans to meet the realities of the installation process.

– People sometimes deviate from plans that you have set up, and these deviations can have unexpected and undesirable consequences.

• If you elect to have one company provides all your LAN needs, you will have one contract; if you choose several vendors, such as separate hardware and software vendors, you probably will have a contract with each; if you decide to be the primary contractor, you may need even more contracts.


Purchase Contract

• A well defined purchase contract clearly states the responsibilities of both parties and eliminates the ambiguities of what is to be done.

• The intangible elements of the LAN installation are more apt to cause disagreements than the tangible (hardware) elements. You may receive software from your vendor that differs from your expectations in any of the following ways:

– It does not provide the functions you expected.– It provides the functions you expected but is difficult to use.– It may be an older or newer version than you expected.– It may be produced by a software company other than the one you expected.– It may not be functional because it does not match your hardware of software

configurations.– It may not be functional because it has too many bugs.– It may not have the license provisions you expected.


Purchase Contract (cont.)

• Still less tangible than software are the conditions under which the vendor has satisfied his or her obligation to your company. A good contract can help make the intangibles more concrete.

• You contract should detail what, where, when, and how items are to be delivered.

– For example, specifying “Vendor X’s ethernet LAN adapter Model 123-456 or equivalent” is not specific enough; you must qualify what constitutes equivalency or specify who determines what is equivalent.

• Your contract should also set up a payment schedule. A payment schedule is usually established that allows the vendor to receive reimbursement at the completion of well-defined stages.


Purchase Contract (cont.)

• You must attempt to protect yourself from losses in the event that the vendor is unable to live up to the conditions of the contract. Here are some things that can happen:

– The vendor fails to meet completion schedules.– The system fails to meet performance objectives.– The vendor fails to complete delivery of all components.– The installation fails to meet building codes, such as wiring codes.– The vendor fails to deliver software custom-tailored to your environment.– The software fails to meet functional requirements (that is, it has too many bugs).

• You can protect yourself from such problems by inserting protection or penalty clauses into your contract.


Support and Maintenance Agreements

• You must decide which components, if any, are so critical that they should be covered by maintenance agreements. Multiple maintenance agreements by be necessary to cover all system components.

• If you are installing a LAN for the first time, you may need quite a bit of support during the first months of year of operation. Many companies just entering the world of LANs hire consultants to make the transition easier.


Installation Tasks

• LAN installation has several well-defined stages. Some of these stages can be worked on in parallel, and some phases require the completion of one or more other phases before they can begin. The major installation phases are:

– Documentation– Site planning– Medium installation– Hardware installation– Software installation– Conversion and data preparation– Creation of the operating environment– Testing and acceptance– Cutover– Training


IEEE 802.3 Fast Ethernet Restrictions

100Base-TX

100Base-T4

100Base-FX

Star-wired

CSMA/CD

1,024

100 Meters for UTP

412 Meters for Fiber Optic Cable

100 Mbps

100Base-TX Category 5 UTP

100Base-T4 Category 3 UTP or better

100Base-FXT Two-Strand Multimode Fiber Optic Cable (one transmit, one receive)

Standards

Topology

MAC Protocol

Maximum Nodes

Maximum Segment Distance

Transmission Speed

Cabling


Installation Tasks (cont.)

• Documentation– Documentation is part of each phase of LAN selection and implementation.

• Site Planning– Site planning defines the layout of the LAN and identifies the building and environment

modifications necessary to house the components.– During this phase you identify and plan the following:

• workstation placement• power requirements• printer locations• building code conformance• power point locations• medium locations• server locations• safety code conformance• telephone line placement

– Site planning essentially produces the blueprints for laying out the network.



• Medium Installation– With a wire-based LAN, you must find a way to string wires or cables

through the areas housing servers, workstations, and printers.– If it is impractical or impossible to install wiring, a company has two options:

• contract with a common carrier for a line

• use a wireless medium such as microwave or infrared light

• Hardware Installation– Hardware installation can begin before premises are wired. However,

completion of hardware installation requires that both computer and medium hardware be installed.



• Software Installation– The software installation process consists of three phases:

• LAN operating system software installation

• application software installation

• utility software installation

• Conversion and Data Preparation– After all application and system software is installed, you must load the data.

Sometimes, data is converted from an existing computer system, and sometimes you must manually enter new data.

• Creation of the Operating Environment– Installing software and user profiles is one aspect of creating the operating

environment. Setting up security, user Ids, groups, and so on is another important aspect.



• Testing and Acceptance– The objective of testing is to determine whether the system works according to

contractual stipulations.– Functional testing determines whether or not the system components work

correctly, both individually and collectively.– Performance testing tests to see if the network can sustain the anticipated load.

• Cutover– Cutover is the process of moving users from the old system or way of doing things

to the new system.– Usually, a new system is run parallel to the old system for some time to confirm that

the new system works the way it should.– The phased approach to cutover adds users to the network in groups. Phased

implementation allows you to build the network slowly, from both the users’ and administrators’ perspectives.



• Training– Three general classes of LAN users must receive training:

• administrators• group managers• users

– The least amount of training is needed for users. However, conducting user training can be difficult because users are usually trained on-the-job and training can be interrupted by work demands, and users tend to have less computer expertise than the other groups of trainees.

– A group manager must know everything that users know, as well as group management tasks.

– The LAN administrator must know everything that users and group managers know, and a lot more. When a LAN is first implemented, the organization ordinarily hires an experienced LAN administrator or sends one of its employees to LAN-administration course oriented specifically toward the LAN chosen.


LAN Administration Responsibilities

Hardware options

System software installation

Group administration

Application installation

Capacity planning

Software options

Diagnostics and troubleshooting

Printer administration

Backup and recovery

System tuning

Hardware installation

User administration

Security

Problem reporting

Systems programming

© 2001 by prentice hall9-1 local area networks, 3rd edition david a. stamper part 4: installation...

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