What Is Hierarchical Design?
Hierarchical designs consist of three network layers: the core, the distribution, and the access, with narrowly defined purposes within each layer and along each layer edge.
Right? Wrong.
Essentially, this definition takes one specific hierarchical design as the definition for all hierarchical design—we should never mistake one specific pattern for the whole design idea. What’s a better definition?
A hub-and-spoke design pattern combined with an architecture methodology used to guide the placement and organizations of modular boundaries in a network.
There are two specific components to this definition we need to discuss—the idea of a hub and spoke design pattern and this concept of an architecture methodology. What do these two mean?