Campus Area Network Complete Guide

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The campus network is mostly owned by an enterprise, university, government, etc. Introducing what a campus network is and how to design the network system with professional diagramming tools.

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1. What is a Campus Area Network

A campus network is a building or group of buildings all connected into one enterprise network that consists of many local area networks (LANs). A campus is generally a portion of a company (or the whole company) that is constrained to a fixed geographic area.

The distinct characteristic of a campus environment is that the company that owns the campus network also has the physical wires deployed on the campus. The campus network topology is primarily LAN technology connecting all the end systems within the building. Campus networks generally use LAN technologies, such as Ethernet, Token Ring, Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). You can use the powerful Edraw campus network design software to create network system drawings.

2. Enterprise Composite Network Model

A large campus with groups of buildings can also use WAN technology to connect the buildings. Although the wiring and protocols of a campus might be based on WAN technology, they do not share the WAN constraint of the high cost of bandwidth. After the wire is installed, bandwidth is inexpensive because the company owns the wires, and there is no recurring cost to a service provider. However, upgrading physical wiring can be expensive.

Consequently, network designers generally deploy a campus design optimized for the fastest functional architecture that runs on the existing physical wire. They might also upgrade wiring to meet the requirements of emerging applications. For example, higher-speed technologies-such as Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, and ATM as a backbone architecture-and Layer 2 switching provide dedicated bandwidth to the desktop.

The Enterprise Composite Network Model is a blueprint that network designers can use to simplify the complexity of a large internetwork. The blueprint lets you apply a modular, hierarchical approach to network design. With the Enterprise Composite Network Model, you can analyze the functional, logical, and physical components of a network, and thus simplify the process of designing an overall enterprise network.

The Enterprise Composite Network Model comprises three major areas, which can each be made up of smaller modules:

Enterprise campus - The enterprise campus includes the modules required to build a robust campus network that provides high availability, scalability and flexibility. This area contains all the network elements for independent operation within one campus location. An enterprise can have more than one campus.

Enterprise edge - The enterprise edge aggregates the connectivity from the various elements at the edge of an enterprise network. The enterprise edge functional area filters traffic from the edge modules and routes it into the enterprise campus. The enterprise edge contains all the network elements for efficient and secure communication between the enterprise campus and remote locations, business partners, mobile users and the Internet.

3. How to Design a Campus Network Design Topology

Campus network design topologies should meet a customer's goals for availability and performance by featuring small bandwidth domains, small broadcast domains, redundancy, mirrored servers, and multiple ways for a workstation to reach a router for off-net communications. Campus networks should be designed using a hierarchical, modular approach so that the network offers good performance, maintainability, and scalability.

Most campus networks feature a high-performance, switched backbone, called the campus backbone, that connects buildings and different parts of the campus. A high-capacity, centralized server farm connects to the backbone and provides internal server resources to users, for example, application, file, print, e-mail, and Domain Name System (DNS) services. Network management is an important component in a campus network design. A campus backbone must provide access to management devices that support monitoring, logging, troubleshooting, security, and other common management functions.

According to the Enterprise Composite Network Model, a campus consists of the campus infrastructure module, a server farm, a network management module, and an edge distribution module that provides connectivity between the campus and the rest of the internetwork. It shows these modules and illustrates that the campus infrastructure module has three submodules:

Building access submodule: Located within a campus building, this submodule contains end-user workstations and IP phones connected to switches or wireless access points. Higher-end switches provide uplinks to the building distribution module. Services offered by this module include network access, broadcast control, protocol filtering, and the marking of packets for QoS features.
Building distribution submodule: The job of this submodule is to aggregate wiring closets within a building and provide connectivity to the campus backbone via routers (or switches with routing modules). This submodule provides routing, QoS, and access control methods for meeting security and performance requirements. Redundancy and load sharing are recommended for this submodule. For example, each building distribution submodule should have two equal-cost paths to the campus backbone.
Campus backbone: The campus backbone is the core layer of the campus infrastructure. The backbone interconnects the building access and distribute submodules with the server farm, network management, and edge distribution modules. The campus backbone provides redundant and fast-converging connectivity. It routes and switches traffic as quickly as possible from one module to another. This module usually uses high-speed routers (or switches with routing capability) and provides QoS and security features.

4. How to Draw a Campus Area Network Diagram in EdrawMax

In the end, the best way to build a campus area network diagram relies on what you need and how much money you have. Many factors go into the creation of a Campus Area Network diagram, and each person's or property's preferences will play a role in the process. You can use EdrawMax, a free online network diagram software, and its template to get a jumpstart on your campus area network diagramming career. You do not have to be an expert to do this. With a Campus Area Network example , you are good to go.

Step1 Open EdrawMax and Login

The very first step that you need to follow is to install EdrawMax in your system. Go to EdrawMax Download and download the campus area network diagram software depending upon your operating system. If you need remote collaboration with your office team, head to EdrawMax Online and log in using your registered email address.