To plan for a successful implementation of networking communications, you must determine how you want to configure your server to connect servers and other systems through local area networks, wide area networks, and to the Internet.
Servers exist to communicate with clients through networks. Therefore, network planning is an important part of overall solution planning. Many solutions contain several different types of networks, including local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), and various networks across the Internet, such as virtual private networks (VPNs). When you consider all of the elements in a successful networking strategy, you need to plan your networking and communications setup.
Network planning contains two primary components: planning the logical connections and planning the physical connections between network hosts, or nodes. For the purpose of convenience, this topic uses software to comprise the logical network planning and hardware to comprise the physical network planning.
This topic is not a comprehensive resource for planning
your network but a series of checklists that provide a starting place for
your network planning. It condenses several existing resources on network
planning and makes the resulting information task oriented. If you want to
read more detailed and extensive background information related to network
planning and design, see the Redbook: IP Network Design Guide.