⚠️ Can The Wrong Network Design Really Implode My Business?
You may be tempted to implement the most resilient network design available, to ensure that you can always deliver service to clients…
But this mantra could actually cause your business to implode overnight
Every network design has upsides and downsides.
If the business’ long-term goals are impacted by the design’s downisides, then no-matter how robust the network is on paper it will break apart like tissue paper in water.
🧑🍳 To illustrate this, let me cook up an example…
🚚 Example: Bob’s Trucking Company
Bob owns a trucking company that delivers a variety of goods between countries in Europe. He has a large fleet of over 5,000 trucks.
In order to operate his enterprise, Bob has offices in multiple countries: UK, Estonia, Bulgaria, Spain and Italy. These offices are responsible for the logistics of the entire operation, and are currently connected together over a rudimentary WAN (Wide Area Network) so they can all access shared resources.
Bob wants to bolster security of his WAN, so he hires a CyberSecurity Consultancy.
Bob demands the consultancy implements the most resilient network design, above all else.
So the consultancy followed Bob’s requirements and proposed a full mesh design, where every device is connected to every other device.
🚨 What Happened Next
Bob approved the plan and rolled it out across the organisation.
Within days problems surfaced.
As the trucking company tried to connect all the devices from the UK office to one of it’s foreign offices, network complexity grew exponentially.
- Bob’s company spent their entire yearly profit on hundreds of switches, routers and other networking equipment to ensure every device was connected to each other, across the entire WAN.
- Bob’s team lacked expertise to maintain the infrastructure as the nework grew.
- As the network scaled, the misconfigurations that arose created more risk than the topology mitigated - rendering the security benefits of full mesh worthless.
📉 The Consequences
Bob took his company to the brink of bankruptcy by trying to force a Full Mesh network topology when it was not apropriate for the company’s goals.
Due to nearly hitting bankruptcy, he was forced to:
- Make 80% of his workforce redundant
- Close his office in Estonia
- Cease operations for 2 months in order to implement a more appropriate network topology.
✅ The Lesson
The consultancy’s mistake was failing to advise Bob to use a network topology that supported his business operations, instead of detracting from them.
They should have aligned the proposed network topology with the company’s operational goals, tactical goals, and strategic objectives.
Alternative Topologies
- Partial Mesh allows critical devices and offices to have multiple redundant links, but not every device connects to every other device. This provides resilience where it matters most without introducing unmanageable complexity. It scales more effectively and is financially sustainable compared to full mesh.
- Hub and Spoke a central hub (for example, the UK headquarters) connects to branch offices (spokes). This keeps costs and complexity low while centralising security controls and monitoring. For Bob’s trucking company, this would allow consistent policy enforcement and efficient use of IT staff, while still enabling reliable communication across the network.
The goal is never to implement the “most resilient” topology on paper. The goal is to implement the right topology for the business — one that balances resilience, cost, complexity, and long-term scalability. A well-chosen design ensures the network strengthens the business, rather than undermining it.
Hopefully that has provided some insight on the importance implementing a network topology that aligns with the business’ goals.
As always, for this post please let me know any improvements I could make — whether it’s about the flow, readability, content etc. My goal is to make each post better than the last. 😊