We help our clients translate business and IT requirements into robust, scalable network designs — complete with detailed documentation, topology diagrams, and a full Bill of Materials. A good design is the difference between a network that just works and one that constantly needs fixing.
Why Design Matters
Too many networks grow organically. A switch gets added here, a VLAN gets created there, a firewall rule gets patched in because something broke. Over time, what you end up with is a network that nobody fully understands, that’s fragile under failure, and that’s expensive to change.
A proper network design gives you a clear, documented blueprint for your infrastructure. It captures the intent behind every decision — why the network is built the way it is, not just how. This makes the network easier to operate, easier to troubleshoot, and far easier to evolve as your business grows.
Designing for Automation from Day One
We don’t just design networks that work — we design networks that are automatable. This is a fundamental part of how we approach design at Network Droids.
Traditional network designs often produce a set of documents and diagrams that then get manually translated into device configurations. That translation step is where errors creep in, where inconsistencies appear across sites, and where operational overhead starts to build up.
Our designs consider automation from the outset. We think about how configurations will be templated, how devices will be provisioned, how changes will be validated, and how the network will be monitored. The result is a design that’s not just technically sound — it’s operationally efficient and ready for a NetDevOps workflow.
This means designing with:
- Consistent naming conventions and standards — So automation tooling can reliably discover and interact with devices
- Templatable configurations — Designs that lend themselves to Jinja2 templates and parameterised deployment rather than one-off snowflake configs
- Structured data models — Capturing network intent in a format (YAML, JSON) that can serve as a source of truth for automation
- Testable outcomes — Defining clear acceptance criteria that can be validated automatically, not just checked by eye
- Scalable patterns — Repeatable design patterns that allow you to roll out new sites, services, or capacity without redesigning from scratch
Our Design Process
Discovery and requirements gathering
Every design starts with understanding what the network needs to do. We work with your technical and business stakeholders to capture requirements — capacity, performance, availability, security, compliance, and growth projections. We don’t make assumptions; we ask questions.
High-level design
The high-level design establishes the overall architecture — topology, segmentation strategy, routing approach, redundancy model, and technology choices. This is where the big decisions are made and documented, including the rationale behind each one. We present this for review and sign-off before moving to detailed design.
Low-level design
The low-level design takes the agreed architecture and turns it into implementation-ready documentation. This includes IP addressing schemes, VLAN assignments, interface configurations, routing and switching protocols, firewall rules, QoS policies, and detailed diagrams. Everything an engineer — or an automation pipeline — needs to build the network.
Bill of Materials
We provide a complete Bill of Materials covering all hardware, software licensing, cabling, and any other components required. We are vendor-agnostic and will recommend the right technology for your requirements and budget, not push a particular vendor.
Design validation
Where possible, we validate designs in a lab environment before they go into production. This is especially valuable for complex designs involving new technologies, multi-vendor interoperability, or significant changes to existing infrastructure. We can use physical lab equipment or virtualised environments to prove the design works before committing to production.
What We Design
- Campus and enterprise networks — Switching, routing, wireless, and access layer designs for offices of all sizes
- Data centre networks — Spine-leaf, fabric, and overlay architectures for modern data centre requirements
- WAN and SD-WAN — Branch connectivity designs, MPLS to SD-WAN migrations, and hybrid WAN architectures
- Network security — Segmentation strategies, firewall architectures, zero-trust models, and NAC designs
- Wireless networks — Enterprise Wi-Fi designs including coverage planning, capacity modelling, and controller architecture
- Cloud and hybrid connectivity — Designs for connecting on-premises infrastructure to public cloud providers
- Automation-ready infrastructure — Designs built from the ground up with NetDevOps, IaC, and CI/CD pipelines in mind
Technologies We Work With
We design across all major networking platforms including Cisco, Juniper, Arista, Palo Alto, Fortinet, HPE/Aruba, and others. Our recommendations are driven by your requirements, existing investment, and operational capabilities — not by vendor partnerships.
Get Started
Whether you need a greenfield design, a refresh of existing infrastructure, or help bringing automation into your network architecture, we can help. Contact us to discuss your network design requirements.