ed up" is often replaced with something more satisfying when used in moments of frustration and anger. The situation is a common one. A company has grown to the point where it needs a reliable network. Management decides, for whatever reason, that the in-house staff is not able to get the network where it needs to be, SO they call in consultants. That's when I usually arrive and am greeted by the aforementioned question. Sometimes it comes from employees at the company, and sometimes it's posed by the junior con- sultants working with me. The answer to the question is usually based in a set of simple truths. Truth #1: Companies that start small and experience intense growth often end up with complicated networks that cannot scale to the new demands placed upon them. Small companies that grow to be large companies often do SO at a fast pace. Companies that are quick to solve problems are often the ones that do well in today's economy. When these companies are small, they hire computer professionals with server experience. Networking professionals are not usually required at smaller companies, and the server people do a great job of keeping the place running. As the small companies grow, the networks grow with them. The skilled server engi- neers, who are experts at server scalability and design, may not be experts at network scalability and design. This often leads to networks being pieced together to solve im- mediate problems, rather than being planned carefully and built with an end-state de- sign in mind. This in no way should be held against the server engineers. They have risen to the occasion and performed miracles above and beyond the call of duty. The problem usually lies in the fact that they are server engineers, not network engineers. Remember that small companies don't tend to require network engineers at first. Many find it hard to accept that they need them as they grow larger. Truth #2: Networks are often pieced together instead of designed. Networks are often viewed as nothing more than a means to