Network Design Report and Presentation of XYZ Company Assessment 3 Answer

Assessment 3

Problem based scenario

Topic – Network design report and presentation

1. Introduction

In this assessment task, we are designing a local area network topology for the company XYZ. Company’s main head quarter is situated at Sydney and another departmental office at Melbourne. Sydney office is located at a building which is having five floors with five department each floor. The five departments are, namely sales, HR, administration, customer support and hardware. A complete list of departments with corresponding details is here – 

Every department is working on their own application and some applications are used for inter department data transfer and to and from the departments at Melbourne site. All the departments are connected with internet service and also with company’s internal network (intranet) to connect with another department. The intranet connection facilitates them to access remote and local servers, access to web and email server of the company. The web and email servers are residing at Sydney location at the ground floor and email and backup file server at Melbourne location. The Melbourne location has a number of computers, listed on the above table, with back up servers and three printers. This is the complete architecture of the XYZ company. Based on the provided details or requirements, we design a local area network for the XYZ company. 

2. Local area network (LAN)

3. Network topology – 

the network topology for XYZ company is presented here.

The above local area network topology is based on cisco’s hierarchical architecture. Where network is divided in to three layers, as core, distribution and access layer (Academy, C., 2020). The network is started from the core router that is connected with the internet. This work as an edge device that connect internal company network (intranet) to outside network (internet). Further this device is connected with distributed router that belongs to the second layer of this hierarchy. This router connects all the access layer switches that are belong to different departments at each floor. Servers, computers and printers are connected to these access switches with ethernet connectivity.

• LAN design connections

The complete local area network design is built on wired ethernet connectivity. We use CAT6a type cables for connectivity between devices within departments. Two servers namely email and web servers are placed at the ground floor at the Sydney site. That are connected with the access switch of that floor or department via ethernet cables. File back up and email back up servers are placed at Melbourne location that are also connected with the access layer switch via ethernet cables. Users from the both sites are configured to access the email and web server via the intranet connection of the company, to access their emails and web services. Every department is provided an IP subnet that is further use to control their access within department.

• IP addresses

The IP address planning, used in this local area network topology, is presented in the below table. 

Hardware

Here is the list of used hardware in this topology – 

• Router – we use cisco’s 4221 integrated circuit router (ISR) in this configuration. This series of router is best suited for our small network requirements. It supports gigabit wired connectivity, support of SNMP and can be remotely managed using RMON tool. This router series is mostly used over WAN connection, that is why we use it as a core router for WAN connectivity between sites. It has new built-in intelligent capabilities with faster convergence and application aware networking that benefit us in application access between department
• Switch – we use cisco’s 3550 intelligent switches in this configuration that preferably work with ethernet connection. This switch series belongs to enterprise class, multi-layer switches that provide better security, high availability and better quality of server support. It supports the network bandwidth of up to 10 Gbps with support of many cables like 10/ 100/ 1000-BASE-T with RJ-45 connectors. The other benefits of using this in our topology are its redundant power system, gigabit fast connectivity, advance VLAN features, faster uplink and high level of resiliency in the network (Services, P., 2020).
• Cables – we use category 6a (augmented) (CAT 6a) twisted pair cables in this network topology. These are high speed ethernet cables that support a high-speed link of up to 10 Gbps at the max bandwidth of up to 500 MHz with this faster speed it is also a cost-effective approach in term of other cable types that support increased performance with PoE (power over ethernet) (Taylored Systems | Indianapolis. 2020).   

4. Conclusion

In this assessment of network designing, we design a robust network of XYZ company for its two sites situated at Sydney and Melbourne location. The local area design is based on cisco’s hierarchical model, containing three layers, in our network configuration. The designed LAN network fulfil all the networking requirements of XYZ company in terms of application access, server placement, access control and access of devices such as computers, servers and printers. A detailed list of IP addressing of the whole network is provided in the IP addressing section. All the used hardware in this topology are also describe at the end section, hardware. We recommend to use the described networking devices and IP addressing scheme that benefit their current and future networking need.