Network
ICT703 Assessment Task 2 P a g e 1 ICT703 Network Technology and Management Assessment Task 2 Assessment and Submission Details Marks 35% of the total assessment for the course Due Date – 5pm Monday 15 June 2020, Week 12 (ATMC) Submission details Please submit this assignment as a single MS Word document (.docx) via SafeAssign on Blackboard. All assignments will be checked for plagiarism and/or collusion between individuals. Refer to your course outline or the course Blackboard website for a copy of the “Student Misconduct, Plagiarism and Collusion” guidelines. Refer to the assignment rubric on Blackboard for the marking criteria and standards. The assignment will be marked out of a total of 100 marks. Note: Each student MUST retain a copy of the assignment and this copy MUST be produced within 24 hours of it being requested by the Course Coordinator. Failure to produce the second copy of the assignment when requested may result in loss of marks or a fail grade for the assignment. Requests for an extension to an assignment MUST be made to the Course Coordinator prior to the due date. Requests made on or after the due date will only be considered in exceptional circumstances. ICT703 Assessment Task 2 P a g e 2 Background You have obtained a contract position at a large organisation. Your contract responsibilities include preparing a proposal for a data communications network to serve the organisation’s requirements. Network Scope The proposed network needs to serve the organisation’s Central Office and two of its remote offices. The Central Office, located in Brisbane, contains five departments to be served by this network. Each remote office contains four departments to be served. The North Office is located in North Lakes, about 30 Km from the Central Office. The South Office is located in Helensvale, about 65 Km from the Central Office. This network is mainly intended for administrative purposes. Objectives of the Network The network to be designed to achieve several specific operational objectives: 1. Secure Service: The main objective of this network is to provide secure administrative computing service to the Central Office and two adjoint offices. It is to be designed to be functionally and physically isolated from access by people not employed by the organisation so as to minimize the risk of unauthorized use. 2. Integration and Update: Presently there are many LANs in the organisation, but much of the equipment is out of date, many of the LANs are incompatible with each other, and not connected in a system-wide network. Your proposal should describe a WAN that integrates and updates these LANs to support productive collaboration across the system. 3. Versatile Information Processing: The network should enable users to retrieve, process, and store ASCII and non-ASCII text, still graphics, audio, and video from any connected computer. 4. Collaboration: The network should combine the power and capabilities of diverse equipment across the three offices to provide a collaborative medium that helps users combine their skills regardless of their physical location. A well-designed network for this organisation will enable people to share information and ideas easily so they can work more efficiently and productively. 5. Scalability: The design should be scalable so that more remote offices can be added as funding becomes available without having to redo the installed network. Intended Users The primary users of the network at the Central Office are three administrators, three secretaries, ten members of the Technical Department, eight members of the Human Resource Department, six members of the Finance/Accounting Department, and three members of the Computer Services Department. At the remote offices the primary users are four administrators, four secretaries, four members of the Computer Services Department, sixteen members of the Human Resource Department, and two members of the Finance/Accounting Department. Clients and the public are secondary users of the network in that they may receive information produced on the network, but they will not directly use the network. ICT703 Assessment Task 2 P a g e 3 Data Types The types of data served by the network will be reports, bulletins, accounting information, personnel profiles, and web pages. The majority of the data will be text (ASCII and non-ASCII), but there will be some still graphics and possibly a small amount of voice and video (primarily for PC- based teleconferencing). Data Sources Data will be created and used at all end stations on the network. The data will be produced by software applications in Windows 10, primarily Dream Weaver and Office 2016 Professional (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, and Outlook). Other data sources to be supported on at least a limited basis will Windows 10 Accessories (Paint, Notepad, etc.), NetMeeting, Media Player, and Photoshop. Note that the network will be not accessible from outside. Network Needs Analysis Numbers of Users and Priority Levels At the Central Office, the users will be administrators, secretaries, and members of four departments. At the adjoint offices, the users will be administrators, secretaries, and members of three departments. The maximum estimated number of users on the network at any given time is 100, including 33 regular users in the Central Office, 30 regular users in the North Office, 30 regular users in the South Office, and seven otherwise unanticipated users. Three priority levels to be supported: management (top priority), user (medium priority), and background (low priority). Note that these designations do not correspond to administrative levels in the organisation; rather, they are network service levels. Network management processes will receive top-priority service; most network processes will receive medium-priority service; a few processes (e.g., e-mail transfers, backup, etc.) will be given low-priority service. It should be noted that network management will usually consume a small amount of the available bandwidth; this means that management and user processes will usually enjoy identical support. Background processes will also usually receive more than adequate service, but they will be delayed as needed to maintain support for management and user services. Transmission Speed Requirements The network is to be transparent to the users. Thus, remotely executed applications, file transfers, and so forth should ideally appear to operate as quickly as processes executed within an end- station. Interviews with users to ascertain their needs and expectations indicate that an average throughput of 20 mbps per user within each LAN and 10 mbps per user between LANs will more than support the needed performance in most cases (teleconferencing being the possible exception). Load Variation Estimates Interviews with users and observation of LAN use at the three locations yielded data on hourly average and peak loads from January to March, 2020. The data indicate that the highest average traffic volume will occur from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The peak network ICT703 Assessment Task 2 P a g e 4 traffic volume is expected at two times during the day: 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. At night and on weekends the network traffic is minimal except for the daily backups of the PCs to the LAN servers in the remote offices and several batch data transfers anticipated from the remote offices to the Central Office. The data indicate the following network design parameters: • The average required throughput on any LAN during work hours (7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.) will be only about 0.2 mbps. • The average required throughput on the WAN during work hours (7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.) will be only 0.04 mbps. • The peak expected traffic load on any LAN will be about 10.4 mbps. • The peak expected traffic load on the WAN will be about 6.4 mbps. Note: to avoid user complaints, the network should be designed for the peak traffic loads, not the average throughput. Storage Requirements Storage requirements need to be large enough to store all data. Interviews and observations of users’ present and anticipated storage requirements indicate that each user will need an average of 100 MB of server space (in addition to secondary storage on local PCs); the maximum estimated server-side storage requirement per user is about 1 GB. Additionally, the network operating system will occupy about 500 MB on each LAN server. Taking price-performance issues into account, each PC will have a minimum storage capacity of 10 GB, each LAN server will have a minimum storage capacity of 20 GB. A main data server in the Central Office will have a 36 GB capacity. Reliability Requirements In keeping with user expectations and industry standards, both the LANs and the WAN are expected to operate at 99.9% uptime and an undiscovered error rate of .001%. Security Requirements Firewalls to be used so unauthorized users will be restricted. Part of the security will be Users accounts and passwords that will give limited access. There should be different access capabilities for network managers and users. Design Assumptions • Wireless internet access should be made available in all departments. • In response to the organisation’s enquiries regarding their IPv4 needs, their ISP has advised that they can use this block of public IPv4 addresses: 186.132.192.192/27 • Each department at each location should maintain an individual network, while all the departments should be able to communicate with each other, and any necessary internal server(s), and access the Internet. Network management protocols must be deployed to make identification and management of network devices easy and convenient. ICT703 Assessment Task 2 P a g e 5 Assignment Requirements and Deliverables You are to prepare a formal proposal report for the above organisation, which should include the following details (Activities 1-5) in the main body of the report. The proposal should cover the details asked in Activities 1-5 for the above case study and justify suitable technologies to enhance the organisation’s communications and networking within and outside the organisation. Be sure to include all necessary information and network diagrams. After you have gathered all the appropriate information, it is time to do some research. You must now use your knowledge and