# Network Design, Wireless and SD-WAN > Switching, wireless, wide area networking and segmentation. Trybus Solutions surveys, designs, builds and hands over enterprise networks, nationwide. *Source: https://trybussolutions.com/networking-connectivity/ · Trybus Solutions · Chattanooga, TN · 423-633-1817 · info@trybussolutions.com* ## What We Do Trybus Solutions designs, builds and supports the network a business runs on: the switching and wireless inside the building, the wide area network between sites, and the route out to the internet. Most of our work starts for one of a few reasons. A wide area network contract is up for renewal, switching or wireless is coming up on end of support, a building is being fitted out, or a communications project has run into a network that cannot carry voice and video. Our clients usually have their own IT team. We are there for the parts that need people who have done this before, and for the work that has to happen out of hours. We work nationwide from Chattanooga, Tennessee. ## Why Clients Bring Us In - **We are not tied to one manufacturer.** We carry a range of technology partners, so what ends up in the design is not decided by what we happen to sell. If the equipment you have has life in it, we will say so. - **We look at the building before we design for it.** Riser capacity, closet space, power and cooling, and how much of the cable plant is worth keeping get established before a design is drawn. We specify the physical work and coordinate the cabling partners who install it, so the survey, the pathways and the switching run against one plan rather than three. - **We have done the cutovers.** Our engineers have replaced core switching and moved sites onto new circuits in live environments. Much of what we bring is knowing which questions to ask in week one, before they become a problem on a change weekend. - **We look at the parts that usually get missed.** Rack space, power and cooling in the closets, grounding and bonding, riser capacity, circuit lead times, and how much of the cable plant is usable. These hold a build up more often than the design does. - **Design and procurement in one place.** We can design the network and supply the hardware and licensing for it, and our procurement can work with your purchasing system. - **We are still there after go-live.** Support is available as a separate agreement if you want it. Plenty of clients keep their own team and use us for the project alone. ## What You Get Scope varies. One wiring closet does not need the documentation twenty sites do. Below is what we produce on a typical mid-size project, and we agree what you need during scoping. Everything we produce is yours. If you take the design elsewhere to be built, it will be complete enough for somebody else to build it. - **Assessment of the current network:** What is running today, taken from the live equipment and the cable plant as well as from whatever documentation exists. - **Requirements document:** What the network has to carry, how many people and devices sit at each site, and the budget and timeline it has to fit. - **Recommendation and options:** What we suggest, what else was considered, and the reasoning, written so it can be taken to a board without an engineer to translate it. - **Design documentation:** A high-level design on most projects, and a low-level design carrying addressing, routing and port allocation where the build warrants one. - **Wireless design and survey results:** A predictive design before the build and a validation survey after it, with access point placement and a channel and power plan. Our guide on [what a predictive wireless design misses](https://trybussolutions.com/wireless-site-survey-predictive-design/) covers where the two diverge. - **Cabling specification and test results:** Floor plans, closet layouts, pathway routes and the labeling scheme, written as a specification the cabling partner installs against, plus the certification results handed back when the links are in. - **Bill of materials:** Hardware, licensing, cable and services itemized, so procurement works from real numbers. - **Project plan and acceptance criteria:** Stages, dependencies and change windows, and what has to work before each one is signed off, agreed at the start so sign-off is a check rather than a negotiation. - **As-built documentation and handover pack:** Diagrams, configurations, addressing and labeling, and what your team needs to run the network without calling us. ## The Layers We Work In Six layers. Most projects touch more than one, and the ones underneath decide what is possible above them. ### The Physical Layer Copper and fiber, risers and pathways, containment, racks and closets. We survey what is there and specify what the design needs; the cable itself is installed by the cabling partners we bring in. This is where the easy assumptions live: room left in a riser, power and cooling in a closet, and labeling that still makes sense in five years. ### Campus and Access Layer Core, distribution and access switching, stacking and redundancy, uplink capacity, and the power budget for everything drawing power over the cable. A refresh here is usually driven by end of support, or by a power budget that ran out when cameras, door controllers and wireless landed on the same switches. ### Wireless Predictive design, access point placement, channel and power planning, and a validation survey once the installation is done. Capacity in rooms where everybody arrives at once, roaming that holds a call together across a building, and devices that will never meet current security standards are the harder half. ### Wide Area Network and Internet Edge Links between sites, connections out to the internet and to cloud services, path selection and failover, and the traffic policy that decides what gives way when a link fills up. The difficulty is commercial before it is technical: circuit lead times, contract dates, and what can be delivered to an address. ### Segmentation and Network Security Separating voice, video, guests, building systems and general data, and controlling what is allowed to reach what. Cameras, sensors and access control share the infrastructure with staff laptops, and most of them cannot defend themselves. We design to the policy that is set, and where none exists that is a conversation with your security people. ### Monitoring and Visibility Topology mapping, configuration backup, alerting, and visibility into paths outside your own equipment. Your team should hear about a problem from a dashboard before a user calls, and a bad call should leave evidence instead of an argument. Running the tooling is a separate agreement. ## How a Project Runs Broadly the same shape whether it is one closet or forty sites. Timescales depend on circuit lead times, hardware availability, and how much of the work has to happen outside business hours. - **Scoping and kickoff:** Agree what is in scope, what the deliverables are, who is involved and how decisions get made. This is also where we set the change process, so a surprise later has a route through it. - **Discovery and site survey:** We walk the closets and risers, pull configuration off the live equipment, and check what the documentation claims against what is plugged in. The two rarely agree, and where that changes the scope we price it and you decide. - **Design and review:** Design documented, then walked through with your team. Better to argue about it on paper than in a wiring closet at midnight. Sign-off is what the build gets measured against. - **Procurement and staging:** Hardware, licensing and cable ordered, configured and staged before anyone travels to site. Lead times are the usual reason a date moves, so we order as early as the design allows. There is a longer note on [what a network refresh actually involves](https://trybussolutions.com/what-a-network-refresh-involves/), including the power and heat questions that decide a closet. - **Cabling and physical works:** Pathways, containment, cable, terminations and racks, installed by the cabling partner against our specification and witnessed by us. It keeps its own schedule, needs building access, and in occupied buildings it happens in the evenings. - **Cutover:** Site by site, or closet by closet, inside agreed change windows and with a way back. On larger projects one site goes first so the rest can learn from it. On a single site that stage often is not worth the time, and we will say so. - **Punch list and handover:** A period of closer support while the snags come out, then as-built documentation, a labeling check, training for your team, and a decision about the old equipment. ## What Is Quoted Separately Most of what is below is work we do. It is not part of a network project by default, because each piece carries its own scope, its own schedule and its own cost. If you want any of it included, say so at scoping and we will quote it in. The last one is different: it is work we do not do at all. - **Structured cabling and pathways.** We do not pull cable ourselves. We survey what is there, specify the pathways, containment and links the design needs, and bring in the cabling partners we work with to install it against that specification. It is quoted on its own because it runs to a different schedule from the platform work, and in occupied buildings it usually happens in the evenings. - [Ongoing operation and support. Monitoring, day-to-day administration and support are a separate agreement with their own service levels. Some clients run the network themselves after handover and some hand it to us.](https://trybussolutions.com/managed-services-and-support/) - [Security policy and compliance evidence. Firewall and identity policy, control mapping and audit evidence are engagements our security and compliance teams run in their own right. On a network project we build to the requirements already set.](https://trybussolutions.com/cybersecurity/) - [Data center and cloud infrastructure. Compute, storage, virtualization and the cloud side of the estate. Network design touches all of it, and the work itself carries its own scope and schedule.](https://trybussolutions.com/cloud-and-infrastructure/) - [Communications platforms and meeting rooms. Calling, contact center and room technology run over the network described here, and they are their own projects with their own budgets.](https://trybussolutions.com/collaboration-unified-communications/) - **Internet and wide area circuits.** We specify what each site needs and design around whatever you buy. We do not become your carrier, and circuits stay with whoever bills them. [Start a conversation](https://trybussolutions.com/contact-us/?service_solution=networking-connectivity) ## Industries We Work In The technology does not change much between sectors. The order of priorities does, and so does what the building will let you do. ### [Healthcare →](https://trybussolutions.com/healthcare/) Wireless that holds up in stairwells and elevators, equipment that cannot be patched, and segmentation between clinical systems, staff and guests. ### [Public Sector →](https://trybussolutions.com/public-sector/) Procurement rules, buildings much older than the cable in them, and continuity for services the public has no alternative to. ### [Tribal Government and Enterprises →](https://trybussolutions.com/tribal-organization/) Sovereignty over data and systems, funding cycles that do not follow a commercial year, and one network carrying government, health, education and gaming operations. ### [Financial Services →](https://trybussolutions.com/financial-services/) Branch connectivity with a failover story somebody has tested, segmentation around payment systems, and evidence a regulator will accept. ### [Education →](https://trybussolutions.com/education/) Density in lecture halls and classrooms, a device count per person that keeps climbing, and construction windows in the summer. ### [Retail →](https://trybussolutions.com/retail/) A lot of small sites, little or no local IT, and a build repeatable enough to follow without an engineer on site. ### [Enterprise →](https://trybussolutions.com/enterprise/) Multi-site estates at different stages of refresh, often carrying the results of an acquisition on one network. ## Technology We Work With We hold partner relationships across the networking industry, and our engineers also work in platforms we do not sell. A refresh starts on whatever is in the racks now, whoever supplied it. We do not publish comparisons between manufacturers. Which platform suits an organization is something an assessment works out, not something a website should decide. [See all technology partners →](https://trybussolutions.com/partners/) ## Talk to Us About a Project Tell us how many sites are involved, what is driving the date, and whether the buildings are occupied. We will tell you what we think needs doing, and put a scope and a number against it. [Start a conversation](https://trybussolutions.com/contact-us/?service_solution=networking-connectivity) [Insights and guides](https://trybussolutions.com/resources/) ## Related guides - [Wireless site surveys and what predictive design misses](https://trybussolutions.com/wireless-site-survey-predictive-design/) - [What a network refresh actually involves](https://trybussolutions.com/what-a-network-refresh-involves/) - [Network segmentation without stopping the business](https://trybussolutions.com/network-segmentation-without-stopping-the-business/)