ABSTRACT
Experienced network designers often describe their craft as being equal parts art and science. Where network structures exist and nodal statistics have been collected for traffic flow analysis, scientific conclusions can be drawn by designers concerning the flow of communications. Routers are used in a network to perform a variety of functions. Their main function is to choose a route from a set of alternatives based on a Layer 3 Internet Protocol (IP) address included in each packet and a routing protocol used to build and maintain the tables used to determine the routing. The most important decision for the designer of a campus network is whether to deploy a routed or a switched network. A network architecture that has been consistently deployed is the standard, router-based, IP network. Each node in the network should be equipped with a Simple Network Management Protocol agent and a set of registers generally referred to as management information bases (MIBs).
