Introduction
Companies are experiencing rapid and uncontrollable expansion from
standalone PC's and departmental Local Area Networks to Wide Area
Networks that encompass multiple plants, and satellite offices
around the world. Business users need to expand their current
desktop environment to remote locations either at or home or in
the office. In addition satellite offices that were previously
isolated are demanding information services which are currently
available in the corporate headquarters. This growing demand
represents a difficult challenge for computer professionals since
they must now also manage remote users inaddition to there current
demands on local support.
Analyze Requirements
Many factors must be considered when defining requirements for the
enterprise network. Most important are the costs associated with
such enterprise networking and the benefit derived from developing
each level of functionality. Cost include and are not limited to
hardware, software, transmission media and management expenses.
Netmation can prepare a detailed analysis of benefits and costs
associated with implementing such a network and help analyze your
business in defining the functionality which will derive the most
benefit.
Technologies
Can your employees fill out their expense forms on PC's, get them
approved and filed electronically? Does information flow freely
throughout your corporation? Can customers access order status?
Does your inventory system hook up to suppliers? These are just
some examples of common goals which technology has been available
for some time to turn them into a reality. The technology is here
today with things like WAN's, LAN's, routers, brouters, ISDN,
frame relay, PBX's and T1. Once the requirements are defined there
are many technologies which need to be considered in developing an
enterprise network which will meet the requirements. Putting
together the proper pieces of technology is not easy and doing it
wrong could take several decades to correct the problems. Please
contact Netmation to discuss these technologies in more detail.