The Perfect Home Network

It doesn’t exist. Asking someone what the perfect network is is like asking them what is the best food, or the best drink, or even the best TV show. It’s purely subjective, and depends on the individuals desires and requirements. I’ve been trying for the last month or so to come up with my perfect home network so that when Rachel and I get a new place, I can save the cash, and put it into action. The problem is, I keep changing my mind.

I have a vague idea of what I want from a network, but the goalposts keep moving slightly every time I sit down to put pen to paper and write a plan or draw a schematic for it. I do know that at the very centre of it, I want a server that acts as a storage receptacle, a media server, a web server and an FTP server; and that I want to have an awesome media centre as the next most important piece that I don’t have, but what form those two devices will take I just don’t know.

In addition to that, there is the matter of the other devices on the network—my MacBook, and my Rachel’s Windows laptop, as well as the Wii, my iPhone, and the inevitable future devices designed to connect to a home network. How are they going to connect to the network, and how will they make use of the network resources? I just don’t know.

I do know that I don’t envy network engineers, or whoever it is that designs and implements networks, at all. It’s a thankless task, as I’ve found out on more than one occasion, and one that tends to create more headaches than it solves. All of that doesn’t faze me however, and I’ll keep plugging away at my plan until one day, I have exactly what I want, and a little bit of future proofing.