Network Physical and Logical Design
...e. Will you be using a star or linear design? This deals with the physical cabling, switches, and routers that you will need for implementing your logical design. STAR NETWORK LOGICAL DESIGN The Logical Design could be something like the IP structure of your network. Will you be using a Class A, B or C address scheme? Will you be sub-netting your environment? You would need to figure out how many computers you need and the locations. Then you can design your IP structure based upon the needs of that design. If it is a simple design such as 10 users you can keep it simple. (Tech Target) Another question to ask might be why is it useful to use both a physical and a logical network design? Before we take a look at why physical and logical network designs are important, let's clarify exactly what they are. As stated earlier, a physical layout of the network shows the physical location of and the connections between devices participating on the network. In such diagrams, workstations are usually represented with small computer icons, servers with full tower cases, and switches and other similar devices are displayed as small rectangular boxes with their RJ-45 ports in the front (sometimes, switches are displayed without ports, depending on the angle at which we are viewing the network on the page). A logical layout shows all logical aspects of the network. This includes logical networks, assigned IP addresses to various hosts and devices, routing tables and a lot more. In logical diagrams, there is very little interest in the actual interfaces and physical cables, so these details are usually omitted. So why do we need to consider all the above designs? Simply put, for security, troubleshooting and ease of management reasons. When a problem arises like a link is down, by simply looking at the physical layout, you can quickly identify where the problem is located, allowing you hopefully to quickly resolve the issue. (Searchnet) Having a visual view of a logical and physical network also helps identify possible security problems. Wh...