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Need Help Designing Your Network?

Do you have a problem with your network design? If so, let Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine's experts come to your aid.

Our November issue will feature our team of experts redesigning your network to better meet your needs. We'll need the following information from you:

  • A Visio or other graphic representing your network setup. Make sure the graphic includes routers and DMZs, so we get a complete picture.
  • The size of your network. How many desktops? How many servers? We're looking for networks of all sizes, from a few dozen nodes to many thousands. Let us know what types of servers and what they're for: How many DNS Servers? How many DHCP Servers? SQL Servers? Exchange Servers? File servers? Etc.? Are they running Windows 2000? Unix? Linux? FreeBSD?
  • A thorough description of your network trouble. Does it run too slow? Is it failure-prone? Is it hard to find resources? The more you let us know, the better our team can diagnose your problem and design a solution. Remember to include your OSes, protocols, front- and back-end applications and anything else you think would be pertinent for our experts. Tell us exactly what you'd like your redesigned network to do, and prioritize, i.e. "Reliability is the most important factor, then security, then bandwidth."
  • Don't leave out anything you think would be helpful. The more information you can provide, the better. Make sure to let us know how many subnets you have, for instance, and where they are. If it's important to know that your remote users use a VPN, don't omit that information.

WARNING: Don't inadvertently leave secret information in your graphics or descriptions! Don't accidentally leave your root domain name in the drawing, or forget to remove the internal IP addresses.

Remember to let us know how we can contact you, as our team might have some questions about your network. Send your requests to Senior Editor Keith Ward, mailto:[email protected]. Make sure you put "Network design request" in the Subject line. Deadline for submissions is Thursday, Aug. 1.

About the Author

Keith Ward is the editor in chief of Virtualization & Cloud Review. Follow him on Twitter @VirtReviewKeith.

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