Growth is a natural process for many small businesses, and their networks must grow accordingly. A network administrator for a small network will either work reactively or proactively, depending on the leaders of the company, which often include the network administrator. Ideally, the network administrator has enough lead time to make intelligent decisions about growing the network in-line with the growth of the company.
To scale a network, several elements are required:
- Network documentation - physical and logical topology
- Device inventory - list of devices that use or comprise the network
- Budget - itemized IT budget, including fiscal year equipment purchasing budget
- Traffic analysis - protocols, applications, and services and their respective traffic requirements should be documented
These elements are used to inform the decision-making that accompanies the scaling of a small network.