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Enterprise Messaging: Linking Minds Together Across The Enterpriseby David Matthiesen and Stacy HuntIs Your Network Ready?You must address the following questions about your network infrastructure and capacity before looking at network-intensive applications such as e-mail/groupware. Some of these suggestions are costly, but they can cause problems if attention is not paid to the details. 1. Is your network routed, bridged and segmented properly on local networks to allow for good performance, growth of the company and the future influx of client/server applications? Is there latency in your routers now? If so, spend your money here first. 2. Are your firewalls in place and secure? They should be. 3. Do you have baseline network utilization statistics? You would be amazed at how many organizations do not. 4. Are Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol/Windows Internet Name Service (DHCP/WINS) and/or Domain Na ming Services (DNS) set up properly? Are your bootp servers reliable? Ensuring that these systems are configured properly will save you countless hours of troubleshooting. 5. Are your network interface cards (NICs) reliable and performing well? Can you track down bad NICs on the network in a reasonable time frame? 6. If using Microsoft Windows NT, are your browse masters and proxies in place on local segments if necessary? 7. Is your remote-access solution acceptable for dealing with e-mail and multiple megabyte attachments? Spend some money here if you have any field sales people and/or tele-commuters. 8. Have you moved to Category 5 wire and eliminated BNC/AUI/DIX connections where possible? Twisted-pair to the NIC is the way to go-and that does not mean with twisted-pair access units (TPAUs). Move to this gradually if money is tight, but do it. September 15, 1996 
 
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