Network architecture usually refers to the different
toppos, hardware software and protocols that we're using in our environment.
Where topology is literally how the network is
laid out the different hardware that we're using
the different software that we may be using in unison with that hardware.
And of course the protocols and which we're using to
communicate and the different ports associated with those protocols.
Network architecture is usually defined into
three distinct and separate formats.
We have a client server architecture,
a cloud architecture in a peer to peer network architecture,
a client server architecture is exactly like it sounds I have a client
talking to a server and if I want to talk to another client,
I'm going through that server.
In order to get
this is closely related to most video games, you may see this
warcraft where everybody's jumping on
server in order to communicate with one another.
You may also see this in something like a community forum or
something of that nature where everybody is connecting to the server.
And then interoperability comes from the server itself
in a peer to peer network. We're talking from client to client.
There is no server that's in the middle of that communication, right?
So if I have a client and I want to talk to my wife's computer,
I have a direct connection to her and we are literally talking 1 to 1 over that
sensation.
If I have more than two clients, then I need more than two cables.
I need one cable line for me to my wife and maybe another cable
going from myself to my son and then again myself to my daughter,
maybe myself to whoever.
So I need to have different connections for every person that
I'm talking to to have that 1 to 1 connection.
It's not a very efficient matter for peer to peer network,
but sometimes it does provide us a little bit more reliability and security.
And then finally we have a cloud architecture,
cloud architecture sounds exactly like it is.
We hook up into a cloud atmosphere
and I use atmosphere kind of a joke. I hope you got the
point.
But we hold up to that cloud atmosphere
where we are literally talking over the internet,
we're connected to a centralized server.
And then within that server,
we have different confines or different elements within our network.
So unlike a client server architecture where I may have a
client talking to a specific server, I'm going through switches, I'm going
points. I have different IP S SI DS is involved in that within a cloud environment.
I'm looking up into the cloud and the cloud provides that entire architecture
to me.
So a little bit different to response.
A lot of times in a cloud network architecture,
we're seeing different virtualized servers.
We're seeing
standardization. We talked about
uh we really see that endpoint where the network itself is all virtual as in,
we can't physically touch it and maintain it.
This is what in stipulates a cloud infrastructure
within an on premise network. This is something that you can physically touch.
This provides additional security, meaning that I'm usually behind a locked door.
We've got security guards in place.
A lot of times this on premise would be much like what you may see in your house.
You've got the network architecture going from your adhoc
router or
switch connected to your modem or your cable modem and
then that provides us a gateway into the internet.
We have more security.
If somebody breaks into your house, you're going to know about it.
However, if we took that same functionality and put it into a virtual environment,
you really have no idea what's going on.
You just know that you logged into it
with an on premise network architecture,
we literally have more control over what's
going on within our our enterprise network.
We can dictate, hey, this port is open on this switch.
This uh this firewall is looking for these specific items and I'm going
to turn off this port or I'm going to physically maintain it.
I can physically
translate it or,
or transfer that firewall into a different make or a different model.
I'm responsible for all the physical devices that are part of my network.
It provides us a little bit more customization.
If I want to do some weird things with my network architecture,
maybe provide some access to the legacy systems, I can do that.
I can arrange my network architecture any way I feel fit just like
I can also configure those devices in such a way that makes
it more or less secure depending on how I see fit.
However,
there also an inhouse maintenance requirement
fit unlike a virtual system where they're
taking care of all the maintenance and they're doing everything for you.
You physically have to have technicians on staff that not only have the expertise
but the know how and how to interface with all those different devices.
This often leads to somebody having a wide array
of knowledge because if you think about it,
you've got firewall, you got IP SI DS servers client,
there's just a wide range of different equipment
out of an enterprise environment and you have to
provide the expertise to work on all those devices.
However, mas is usually faster as well.
If I have an employee that is doing something and work for me,
then 8 a.m. in the morning, I can say, hey, listen,
I want you to go do X on the firewall and they will go do it because they work for me.
This also leads to more costly, obviously, by having the equipment in the house.
I'm not renting it. I'm not
buying space on a virtual format.
I have to have the actual physical device which could
run into the tens hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It's also the manpower aspect of it.
Hiring somebody that actually has the expertise
and the knowledge and the know how to
interact with these physical devices can be
costly when it comes to actually fixing,
repairing, installing and maintaining those different devices on
network.
There's also the matter of maintaining the onpremises capability,
meaning the building has rent, I pay for electricity, I pay for internet access.
There's a lot of different on
cost benefits to having
an onpremise.
Uh But it's definitely going to be costlier in the long
run with all the different added costs associated with it,
unlike a cloud architecture where we go in and we have remote access to it.
A lot of those different aspects of our network are actually virtualized,
meaning that I log into the system.
And if I need to spin up a new switch, I literally tell the cloud architecture, hey,
I'd like a new switch with an on prem network.
If I need a new switch, I have to physically purchase it.
That's an added cost with the virtualized switch.
It's maybe, you know,
a little bit of an additional cost not near where
I want to pay for a physical device which could
go in again to the tens of hundreds of thousands
of dollars depending on what type of switch you want.
This. Like it highly scalable.
If I want to go through a cloud architecture
and I need to add an additional 50,000 users,
I can easily spin up those access to 50,000 users.
It's very quickly scalable.
I can very quickly go through the process and say, hey, I need access to these
users.
I need to go forward in this perspective.
If I was on priv, I'd have to order the devices for that.
I have to wait for it to actually come in. I have to pay for it.
Then I have to pay somebody
actually
architecture.
I had to pay somebody to configure it and I had to bring it online,
test it and make sure it works.
You get the point.
There's that added cost to associate it with the new
equipment that I'm bringing into my on prem network,
making it incredibly cost effective in a virtual cloud environment.
There's different cloud service models that you need to
be aware of software as a service or sa a
platform as a service or PaaS
and infrastructure as a service or IAAS.
Now, I know there's a lot more service models that have recently come out.
The CYS A only requires us to identify these three and the differences between them.
The first one is software as a service software as a service is
all about providing you the user with the data that you need.
We're going to provide the applications,
whether it's Microsoft Word or a new
enterprise or whatever you need that application,
that software is going to be preloaded for you.
All you have to do is go in and actually write the data.
The data is the only thing that you're managing.
This could be different aspects of it.
But I want you to think of an Excel
spreadsheet where you don't actually own the Microsoft program,
but you own the data on that Microsoft program.
This is software as a service
with platform as a service, you own not only the data,
but you also own the application.
So they provide you maybe a Windows Box that has no software embedded on it.
You want to provide Excel to yourself on this platform as a service. So you download
Microsoft office 365 which then gives you Excel and
then you put the data on the Excel format,
you own not only the application and you are responsible for the application,
you also own the data.
If you go to the platform
provider and say, hey, my Microsoft office isn't working,
they're not going to care, that's not their problem.
They provided you the core operating system,
you're responsible for the application that you put on it.
Now this is great.
If you are developing a new program or you're
developing a new application that you want to showcase on
our
system, then it's fantastic.
However, if you're just going to use it for something like Microsoft
office, I would recommend
uh the
software as a service model as opposed to the platform as a service.
Finally, there's infrastructure as a service.
This infrastructure as a service provides us not only
the operating system, the databases, the runtime of the application user data,
you're responsible for all of that,
which means they provide you a bare metal machine.
This means that you need to download Microsoft Windows 11 or
Microsoft server or if you want to do a Linux box,
whatever you wanna do, that's fine.
But I want you to imagine that you get a laptop
and that laptop has no operating system on it whatsoever.
That's infrastructure service.
Now,
this is great if you're developing new programs or if
you're developing a specific software for a specific device.
For instance,
let's say you're developing a firewall software that
you want to test on a firewall system
infrastructure as a service would be the way to go because you're overwriting
and getting this bare metal firewall that has no software on it.
Just the bios you can go on there and then
put your new software that you develop to test out.
This is great for different aspects like that. Again,
I wouldn't use this if I was to develop a new Windows architect, right?
Unless I'm actually going through and modifying windows to the
point that I need access to those operating system files.
Finally, we come to a hybrid architecture and we talked about the on prem
we talked about the cloud and we literally talked
about the hybrid architecture in the last lecture.
But let's kind of go through this process.
Again, hybrid architectures are highly flexible,
meaning I can spin up different servers.
I can expand my network, I can increase my network all within the cost,
a retail store online and Black Friday is coming up.
You know that your average traffic is only 10,000 users.
But you're promoting all this massive sale for Black Friday.
You need to quickly expand your capabilities within that architecture.
So you want to be able to handle that increased customer base that you were seeing.
So let's say that you're going up to 30,000 new customers is
what you predict for Black Friday and for Christmas holiday season.
So you expand out your high uh infrastructure to
uh and cast that 30,000 user base.
However, as soon as the first of the year comes around,
you no longer need that additional capacity because your
user ability goes back down to that 10,000 users.
So you scale back.
This is where a hybrid architecture really has a cost effectiveness to it.
I can quickly scale up or scale back needed on my
individual needs. As an enterprise environment,
we can see improved security in the cloud infrastructure
as well as in the on prem network.
What I mean by that is within the cloud infrastructure.
If I'm just spinning up different web servers
to handle my clients and my improved performance,
then those clients are seeing improved security because
they're having to go through what the virtualized
system or the cloud environment already takes for
granted with its uh its configurations for security.
On the on prem side,
we're seeing improved security because my hr department or my finances
need aspects of security to ensure that only our employees,
only our direct people in that operational environment.
Ie that department are capable of seeing those financial outputs
as though we have improved security on both sides.
We also see an improved performance for much the same,
our improved performance within the cloud environment, meaning our customers,
they will see increased or decreased Latency as they are interacting
with our website to buy different items that we're selling.
But we also see improved performance on the on the on prem
side because my hr department is literally in the same building,
meaning they can interact with the financials or the capabilities.
They need access to this interoperability between the cloud and
the on prem environment is very cost effective because we're able
to scale up very quickly in the virtual environment while
keeping our on prem environment very secure and only needed.
What we need it for
this a Harvard architecture is where we're seeing a lot of movement,
especially in modern technology.