1. Network Life Cycle Created by Michael Law
CCDA Exam Quick-Study
Network Life Cycle
Created by Michael Law

2. Citations
Teare, Diane, Authorized Self-Study Guide: Designing for Cisco Internetwork Solutions (DESIGN), Second Edition. 800 East 96th Street, Indianapolis, Indiana USA: Cisco Press
Cisco Systems, Inc

3. Network Life Cycle
Prepare
Plan
Design
Implement
Operate
Optimize

4. Prepare Phase Identify customer requirements.
Develop network strategy.
Propose high-level conceptual architecture.
Identify technologies that will be implemented.
Assess the scope of the network design project.
Identifying required information.
Understanding organizational goals/constraints and technical goals/constraints.

5. Plan Phase Identifying network requirements.
Assess locations and existing network information.
Perform gap analysis to determine if existing infrastructure can support proposed system.
This will manage tasks, responsibilities, critical milestones and resources required to implement.
The output of this phase is a set of network requirements.

6. Design Phase
Design will be based on the requirements identified in the plan phase.
Gather information from customer input, network audit, traffic analysis and network health checklist.
A detailed design of the network is creates documentation for infrastructure, services and applications to be used.
Create topological maps

7. Design Phase - Extension
Customer Input
Reviewing existing documentation including hardware, software, configuration and location of devices and cabling.
Obtain verbal input about network to determine impression of network.
Network Audit
Perform audit to judge against customer input of network.
Reveals information about network including hardware, configuration and verification of existing documentation.
Traffic Analysis
Verifies set of applications currently on the network. Also may reveal additional traffic unknown from the first two steps.
Reveal importance of traffic, priority and security.

8. Implement Phase
The network is built according to the design specifications.
Integrate devices without disruption or creating a point of vulnerability.
Sub-phases of the implementation phase are listed in order: description of step, reference to design, implementation guidelines, rollback guidelines, estimated time needed for implementation.
Verification of design is found in the implementation phase.

9. Operate Phase Maintain the network’s health on a day-to-day basis.
Fault detection-and-correction and performance monitoring occurs in the operate phase.
Monitor the network for errors and problems.

10. Optimize Phase
Proactive network management. Identify and resolve problems before they occur.
Reactive fault correction occurs when proactive management cannot predict and mitigate failures.
The optimize phase may lead to network re-design if too many errors occur.