A network must align with the existing requirements of an organization, but it must also be flexible enough to easily integrate new technologies, which is where hierarchical network design comes in.

You’ve probably happened across this little conundrum at least once or twice—troubleshooting a network issue where users are connecting to the network, but they aren’t able to access any resources or the internet. You start going through your troubleshooting workflow: check physical layer, data link layer, network layer… and there’s the problem. The device has an IP address, but it’s not an IP address you’d expect to see on your network.