Business Scenario

Network infrastructure is a very critical aspect to any company or institution regardless of the operations that they do. The network ensures that there is smooth and continuous communication and sharing of resources within the organization. Having a stable, reliable, secure, and well-designed network infrastructure facilitates institutions to enhance their productivity and service delivery because of the readily accessible resources for decision making all the time.

Network infrastructure has been defined as an interconnection of networking devices such as switches, routers, servers, workstations, and personal computers to facilitate sharing of resources and reliable communication (Bird and Harwood, 2010). A network is defined by its characteristics such as security, scalability, efficiency, management, and administration. As such, it is important to pay attention to these factors while designing or upgrading the network.

The network design (topology) is another key factor that determines the reliability of the network. As such, it is essential to select a network design or topology that best meets the business requirements. Additionally, the choice of the networking components is crucial in determining the overall network performance and its ability to scale. A good network should be able to allow addition of more networking devices and users without affecting its reliability or performance. This report will focus on recommending a new network infrastructure for ALTEC’ campus located in ST. Kilda Road building. The campus wants to upgrade its network infrastructure so as to meet the new requirements.

Business Scenario

Before designing a network for a client, it is important to have a clear picture of what they expect. More often than not, people have been acquiring and implementing technology without defining their business requirements clearly or the problem that the acquired technology will solve. The aim of having the meeting with the client was to have a deeper understanding of their operations and their current challenges. Additionally, it is necessary to have insights on the current network infrastructure and the limitations associated with it.

ALTEC is a training institution that has been legally registered and offer a wide range of higher education and vocational courses to both international and local students. Currently the campus occupies two floors at St Kilda modern building and is used by 40 staff members and 800 students. Currently, the campus has two dedicated wired networks for students and the administration. Some of the services that are currently shared in the network include email, print, scan, and the internet. In addition, the college has an intranet for the purpose of content repository, sharing of application, and as communication channel. The institution has set up different legacy, data/email, database, print, and file servers.

Business Requirements

Business Requirements

ALTEC also mentioned that the major reason why they are upgrading the network is because they have acquired additional floor so as to expand its higher education services. The college has leased the entire second floor and current renovations are being done so as to meet the requirements for academic operations. Moreover, a part of the second floor will be used as an administration office. The new setup for the institution is as follows: the ground and first floor will be used for vocational course while the second floor will be dedicated to higher education courses.

In the meeting, ALTEC representative also there are several objectives that they wish to achieve with the new network infrastructure. The college seeks to have a reliable network infrastructure that will allow all the staff member and students to do their daily activities efficiently. The objectives that ALTEC seek to achieve include:

Enhance communication: communication is very important to the college since it has to communicate to several parties including international students regarding different aspects, lectures, meetings, examinations, among others. Having a proper communication network will increase the connectivity among the staff and the students and this will improve the overall productivity of the college. Good communication channels also enhance relationships and determines how efficient or quickly an activity is completed. As such, the team emphasized on this objective because it determines on the progress of the institution.

Data security: of key concern to ALTEC is the security of their digital resources such as data and applications. The institution will be holding very sensitive and private information of the students and the staff members. The security of such resource is if importance to the college and thus should be protected at all-time from any unauthorized access or attack that may modify or destroy the data. Data is a very valuable resource because it drives the decision made by the college and it is essential that it is secured at all time.

Improve file organization: the college wants to have a paradigm shift and move to a more digital reporting and filing systems and this can only by having a well-designed network to handle these requirements. This will also allow international or distant learners to have access to important educational resources without having to print them. The network should also facilitate remote access so that students can be able to login and access library resources or lecture resources without having to physically visit the physical library.

Enhance Communication

File sharing: ALTEC being a college, students and lecturers will be sharing a lot of files (including lecture notes and other reference materials) and the new network should be able to support this functionality. A student can request a lecture for a particular learning resource and the lecturer will be able to share it without having to physically meet with the student.

The major objective is to connect the new leased floor to the already existing network infrastructure. The following are the specific requirements as stated by the college:

To have two core backbones to separate traffic and access by the staff and student. One backbone is dedicated solely for the student while the other is for the staff/administration. Secondly, the network should enable different services and access levels across the three floors. Thirdly, to integrate network management, video, routing traffic through VPN, and Voice. Fourthly, the network should support traffic shaping and access control lists for the different users and departments. Fifth, to have an out-of-band access to the network to facilitate management and troubleshooting of the network components and the devices connected to the network. Sixth, the network should have three unique layers of connection, that is, internet, student administration, and remote access. Finally, the network should be flexible to support future expansion (Scalability) to an enterprise WAN.

Existing Network Components

Currently the campus has the following network components:

• 2 Core and 4 access switches
• 4 Printers
• 2 Wireless access points
• 1 router
• 5 servers (email, print, application, file, and backup server)

Proposed Solution

After carefully reviewing ALTEC requirements and the objectives that the college seeks to achieve, the proposed network solution is a campus model network infrastructure because it can be scaled up to an enterprise network architecture. It has the ability to provide all the required network services such as communication and resources sharing to the end users located in a single building or geographical area. The network will be designed as a part of a bigger enterprise network so as to facilitate future expansion without affecting the overall performance and optimize the network for high speed physical infrastructure (10/100/1000 Gbps) (Wolf, 2010). The campus network architecture follows the architectural and engineering principles: modularity, hierarchy, and resiliency.

The hierarchical network design allows the network designers and engineers to reduce the complexities of the network by breaking down into smaller manageable networks. This is very crucial for ALTEC because it has to lay down two backbones for the administration and students. This will allow the network to be broken down to two subnetworks to allow easy management for the administration and student network and manage traffic across them. Hierarchical enterprise campus network is made up of three layers: the core layer, distribution layer, and access layer.

Data Security

These layers are crucial for the implementation of ALTEC network infrastructure such as the core layer provides of high performance routing and optimal transport between sites. The distribution layer it offers policy-based boundary control and connectivity between core and access layers. The access layers facilitate the different categories of network users to access network resources when they need them.

The most essential factor is to ensure that the solution meet the business requirements and objectives that have been laid out in the requirements specification file. of importance is the reliability, security, backup and disaster recovery strategies, availability, and performance of the network to facilitate smooth flow of college operations. As such, by implementing a campus network infrastructure model all the laid out requirements will be met.

Proposed Physical Network Topology

Proposed Logical Network Topology

How the Proposed Network Design Will Meet the Business Requirements

The proposed network design has put into consideration all the requirements including the number of users and expected growth in the coming years. The network will be able to accommodate all the 840 users and allows for addition of more users and devices without overloading the network. Additionally, the proposed designed will make use of firewall to ensure that network is secure from any threat or attack.

ALTEC has acquired a new floor and it is required that the new floor be connected to the existing network. Therefore, it is required that changes be made to the existing network so as to accommodate the new requirements. Several steps need to be taken in order to achieve this including identifying the site requirements, resources and tools needed, tools for managing the network, security requirements, tools, and strategies, and implementation tasks.

Site Requirements

It is important to assess the network requirements carefully because there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ network solution. By critically analyzing the network requirements, it will be easier to identify other requirements such as site requirements. The site requirements will depend on data transmission and communication, network services, technologies to be used, and the overall network design. Additionally, it is important to consider the business processes, the existing infrastructure and components, number of users, budget, peripherals, security issues, and future network requirements. 

Environmental Requirements

The network components must be well mounted to ensure that tit does not affect the mobility of the users or ventilation. Devices like switches should be mounted on a cabinet or rack. The room should be well-ventilated, clean, dry, and the temperature should be controlled. The site should be free of dust to avoid clogging the air filters which may reduce the performance and efficiency of the cooling system (CertificationKits, 2018). Sufficient air flow should be maintained to protect the hardware components from overheating.

Improve File Organization

The table below gives the minimum environmental conditions for the network site:

Environmental condition	Requirement
Altitude	Maximum 86 degrees Fahrenheit
Relative humidity	Noncondensing, 5% to 90% relative humidity
Temperature	Acceptable range 0 degree to 50 degree Celsius
Seismic	Should comply with the requirements of Zone 4 earthquake.

Power Requirements

All the network components require power supply in order to operate. The power should be stable and regulated to prevent power surges from damaging the components or blackouts causing service unavailability. The should be a backup generator to ensure service delivery and availability is not affected. The power supply unit should be installed in an area that facilitates easy access to thermal circuit breakers (Hohlfeld, Zinner, Benson and Hausheer, 2015). There should be at least two power supply sources and for this case electricity and generator so that incase one fails the other will provide the required power.

Hardware Requirements

The performance of the network is greatly dependent on the choice of the network components used. Acquiring reliable and high performance components will increase the overall business performance and productivity. The following hardware components will be used in the new network infrastructure for ALTEC:

Router: Cisco 4000 series router will be used for setting up the new network because it is intelligent enough to identify and block any unwanted traffic from getting into the network. Additionally, this router supports virtualization to facilitate resource availability from anywhere.

This router supports intelligent caching, unified communication, WAN connection, application optimization, and advanced security features to protect the network.

Switch: Cisco Meraki MS225 will be used to configure ALTEC network. It supports 10/100/1000 BASE T Ethernet connection and has 48 ports.

The router employs 802.3af security standards and all the ports supports power-over-Ethernet. Other unique features about this switch include fault detection, remote diagnostics, fingerprinting f hostnames, notification alerts, flexible stacking, 2-factor authentication, and Ethernet switching capabilities. This switch will best suite all the need of ALTEC college.

Wireless Access Point: Cisco business 100 series is the best choice for ALTEC wireless needs. This is because it is affordable, powerful, and covers wider distance. Several devices can be connected to one WAP without getting overloaded.

It is easy to set up and install because of the intuitive and integrated graphical user interface. Additionally, it provides reliable high-speed wireless connection to the users and is easy to expand and scale.

Firewall: Juniper SRX220 is the firewall that will be used in providing network security to ALTEC college. This is because it comes fully integrated with security, WAN connectivity, switching, and routing in one package (LI, 2018).

Moreover, this particular firewall is designed for small to medium organization such as ALTEC college thus will provide high level of security required. This firewall provides up to 100mbps IPsec VPN, 950 Mbps firewall, and 80Mbps intrusion prevention system. Additionally, it has more features such as flexible configuration scaling, security and routing, consolidated, switching, and secure applications.

File sharing

Network Cable: cat6 Ethernet cable because it has peculiar and superior properties to handle the high bandwidth and traffic that will be transmitted within the network. It is a high-speed, high-level performance cable and is less prone to cross talk and noise compared to the previous cables. This cable is very efficient, effective, and reliable and requires no testing after installation.

It is a highly flexible and trustworthy cable and has a more extended bandwidth compared to the previous versions.

Other resources and tools required include rack cabinets for mounting the network components, uninterruptible power supply (UPS), cable labelling machine, and FO patch cords.

Network Management Tool

The recommended network management tool is PRTG Network Monitor which is a product form Paessler. This tool has advanced capabilities for managing network infrastructure. All the network services and resources such as traffic, systems, applications, devices, and users can be easily shown in a hierarchical manner displaying performance, usage, and alerts. This tools utilizes WMI, HTTP requests, Pings, SNMP, SSH, REST APIs, SQL, Packet/ flows sniffing, among other technologies (Kuipers, 2012).

This is the best tool because of its simple, easy to use, and powerful user interface. One of the unique features of this tool is its ability to allow network administrators to monitor network devices and components from a mobile application. Additionally, its pricing plan is very flexible.

Network Implementation Tasks

Step	Task
1.	Confirmation of ESD processes
2.	Preparation of installation site.
3.	Building and setting up cabinets and racks
4.	Installing rails, power supply, and protective earthing on the cabinets.
5.	Unpacking the components
6.	Actual installation of network components in the cabinet including laying of cables.
7.	Confirming and recording component and device serial numbers
8.	Verifying that the network components have been install correctly.
9.	Installation of backup power supply
10.	Installing inter- and intra-cabinet cables for communication.
11.	Verifying that the termination of the circuit in ALTEC patch panel had been done correctly.
12.	Powering up the network components.
13.	Loading and verifying system firmware and software
14.	Setting up and configuring the equipment to meet the ALTEC requirements.
15.	Carrying out comprehensive installation testing.
16.	Adding user devices to ALTEC network
17.	Performing commissioning tests.
18.	Provide comprehensive and supportive manual document.

Security Requirements

The network should be able to meet the following security requirements:

Integrity: the network should ensure that consistency of the data is maintained.

Confidentiality: the data and other private information should not be disclosed to unauthorized persons or third parties.

Authentication: the source of the data or user identity should be assured and verified.

Availability: all the authorized and legitimate network users should be able to access the network resources at any time.

Security strategy

The following network strategies should be adopted by ALTEC college:

Access control: the institution should implement this security mechanism to control access to network resources such as data and other sensitive files. This is to reduce the chances of unauthorized access to such resources. Both physical and logical access control mechanisms should be implemented. Physical access control involves burglar proofing the data centers and any other computer rooms by installing strong door and window grills to prevent unauthorized physical access to the computer rooms and data centers.

Logical access control involves setting up different policies such as password policy to regulate access to the resources over the network. In essence, users need to be provided with login credentials and if you don’t have one then you will not be able to access the network resources and services. Other logical access controls mechanisms include biometric scans, personal identification numbers, and security tokens.

Specific Requirements

Digital signature: this security approach should be adopted because it is used to validate the integrity of the information, files, documents, programs, and other digital files sent over the network. This security approach employs mathematical algorithms to authenticate the digital content before being sent to the target user (Kuipers, 2012). This is a very useful mechanism especially when sensitive information is being sent over the network.

Encryption: the staff and students will be sharing some sensitive information such as passwords over the network and this makes the network vulnerable to attackers who would want to access such information. Therefore, this information should be encrypted/ encoded while transmitting it over the network so that the attackers cannot interpret the information.

Security tools and methods for ongoing monitoring

The following security method and tools can be employed in monitoring the network:

The network should have the ability to detect threats in real-time for rapid remediation. The network monitoring tool (PRTG Network Monitor) should be able to scan for any security threats, record and analyze the log then compare it against threat intelligence sources. It should also be able to store and process logs from the network system and examine them against emerging threat intelligence feeds. PRTG should also automate fully intelligent response to help in address the security incidents quickly.

Regulatory compliance and event log management simplification should be focused on. This will help in centralizing log collections, event correlation for intelligent detection, and minimized confusion for regulatory compliance data to be used (Weng, Yang and Lai, 2014). Additionally, software updates to workstations and servers should be automated. This will ensure that all the security fixes are regularly updated to ensure that system security is kept at a high level.

IP Addressing

Zone	Network	Subnet Mask	Hosts
Management	10.10.10.0	255.255.255.224/27	30
Student	10.10.20.0	255.255.255.0/24	254
Staff	10.10.30.0	255.255.255.0/24	254
Servers	10.10.40.0	255.255.255.0/27	30
Wifi	10.10.50.0	255.255.255.0/24	254

Access Layer Tuning

ALTEC-switch#show vlan

ALTEC-switch#show vlan

VLAN Name                             Status    Ports

—- ——————————– ——— ——————————-

1    default                          active    Fa0/1, Fa0/2, Fa0/3, Fa0/4,

                                                Fa0/5, Fa0/6, Fa0/7, Fa0/8,

                                                Fa0/9, Fa0/10, Fa0/11, Fa0/12,

                                                Gi0/1, Gi0/2

100  Student                         active

1002 Staff                            active

1003 Servers                         active

1004 Wifi                             active

1005 trnet-default                    active

VLAN Type  SAID       MTU   Parent RingNo BridgeNo Stp  BrdgMode Trans1 Trans2

—- —– ———- —– —— —— ——– —- ——– —— ——

1    enet  100001     1500  –      –      –        –    –        1002   1003

100  enet  100100     1500  –      –      –        –    –        0      0

1002 fddi  101002     1500  –      –      –        –    –        1      1003

1003 tr    101003     1500  1005   0      –        –    srb      1      1002

Network Layers

1004 fdnet 101004     1500  –      –      1        ibm  –        0      0

1005 trnet 101005     1500  –      –      1        ibm  –        0      0

ALTEC-switch#

ALTEC-switch1 Configuration

ALTEC-switch1#vlan database

ALTEC-switch1(vlan)#vtp transparent

Setting device to VTP TRANSPARENT mode.

ALTEC-switch1(vlan)#vlan 10 name Host-Vlan-1

VLAN 10 added:

    Name: Host-Vlan-1

ALTEC-switch1(vlan)#vlan 20 name Host-Vlan-2

VLAN 20 added:

    Name: Host-Vlan-2

ALTEC-switch1(vlan)#exit

APPLY completed.

Exiting….

ALTEC-switch1#

ALTEC-switch2 Configuration

ALTEC-switch2#vlan database

ALTEC-switch2(vlan)#vtp transparent

Setting device to VTP TRANSPARENT mode.

ALTEC-switch2(vlan)#vlan 30 name Host-Vlan-3

VLAN 30 added:

    Name: Host-Vlan-3

ALTEC-switch2(vlan)#exit

APPLY completed.

Exiting….

ALTEC-switch2#

ALTEC-switch3 Configuration

ALTEC-switch3#configure terminal

Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.

ALTEC-switch3(config)#interface port-channel 1

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch3(config)#interface gig 49

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#no shutdown

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#no negotiation auto

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#channel-group 1

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch3(config)#interface gig 50

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#no shutdown

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#no negotiation auto

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#channel-group 1

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch3(config)#interface port-channel 2

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch3(config)#interface fast 45

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#no shutdown

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#channel-group 2

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch3(config)#interface fast 46

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#no shutdown

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#channel-group 2

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch3(config)#interface fast 47

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#no shutdown

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#channel-group 2

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch3(config)#interface fast 48

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#no shutdown

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#channel-group 2

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#^Z

ALTEC-switch3#

ALTEC-switch Configuration

ALTEC-switch#configure terminal

Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.

ALTEC-switch(config)#interface gig 0/1

ALTEC-switch(config-if)#no negotiation auto

ALTEC-switch(config-if)#port group 1

ALTEC-switch(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch(config)#interface gig 0/2

ALTEC-switch(config-if)#no negotiation auto

ALTEC-switch(config-if)#port group 1

ALTEC-switch(config-if)#^Z

ALTEC-switch#

ALTEC-switch1

ALTEC-switch1#configure terminal

Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.

ALTEC-switch1(config)#interface fast 0/45

ALTEC-switch1(config-if)#port group 1

ALTEC-switch1(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch1(config)#interface fast 0/46

ALTEC-switch1(config-if)#port group 1

ALTEC-switch1(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch1(config)#interface fast 0/47

ALTEC-switch1(config-if)#port group 1

ALTEC-switch1(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch1(config)#interface fast 0/48

ALTEC-switch1(config-if)#port group 1

ALTEC-switch1(config-if)#^Z

ALTEC-switch1#

Distribution Layer Tuning

ALTEC-switch2#

ALTEC-switch2#configure terminal

Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.

ALTEC-switch2(config)#interface port-channel 1.1

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#encapsulation isl 1

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#bridge-group 1

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#exit

ALTEC-switch2(config)#interface port-channel 1.10

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#encapsulation isl 10

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#ip address 10.10.10.1 255.255.255.0

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#exit

ALTEC-switch2(config)#interface port-channel 2.1

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#encapsulation isl 1

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#bridge-group 1

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#exit

ALTEC-switch2(config)#interface port-channel 2.10

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#encapsulation isl 10

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#ip address 10.10.10.1 255.255.255.0

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#exit

ALTEC-switch2(config)#interface port-channel 2.20

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#encapsulation isl 20

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#ip address 10.20.20.1 255.255.255.0

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#exit

ALTEC-switch2(config)#interface fast 44 

ALTEC-switch2(config-if)#no shutdown

ALTEC-switch2(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch2(config)#interface fast 44.1

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#encapsulation isl 1

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#bridge-group 1

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#exit

ALTEC-switch2(config)#interface fast 44.30

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#encapsulation isl 30

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#ip address 10.30.30.1 255.255.255.0

ALTEC-switch2(config-subif)#^Z

ALTEC-switch2#

ALTEC-switch #show run

Building configuration…

Current configuration: 1619 bytes

version 13.0

hostname ALTEC-switch

spanning-tree mode pvst

!interface FastEthernet0/1

switchport access vlan 20

interface FastEthernet0/1

switchport access vlan 20

interface FastEthernet0/2

switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q

switchport mode trunk

interface FastEthernet0/1

switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q

switchport mode trunk

interface Vlan1

no ip address

shutdown

ip classless

ip flow-export version 11

!line con 0

line aux 0

line vty 0 4

login

VPN and Traffic Shaping

end

Core Layer Tuning

ALTEC-switch2#configure terminal

Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.

ALTEC-switch2(config)#bridge irb

ALTEC-switch2(config)#bridge 20 protocol ieee

ALTEC-switch2(config)#bridge 20 route ip

ALTEC-switch2(config)#interface bvi 200

ALTEC-switch2(config-if)#ip add 10.10.20.1 255.255.255.0

ALTEC-switch2(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch2(config)#interface fast 1

ALTEC-switch2(config-if)#no shutdown

ALTEC-switch2(config-if)#bridge-group 20

ALTEC-switch2(config-if)#bridge-group 20 spanning-disabled

ALTEC-switch2(config)#interface fast 43

ALTEC-switch2(config-if)#no shutdown

ALTEC-switch2(config-if)#bridge-group 20

ALTEC-switch2(config-if)#bridge-group 20 spanning-disabled

ALTEC-switch2(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch2(config)#bridge 1 protocol ieee

ALTEC-switch2(config)#bridge 1 route ip

ALTEC-switch2(config)#interface bvi 1

ALTEC-switch2(config-if)#ip add 10.10.10.1 255.255.255.0

ALTEC-switch2(config-if)#^Z

ALTEC-switch1

ALTEC-switch1#configure terminal

Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.

ALTEC-switch1(config)#interface gig 0/1

ALTEC-switch1(config-if)#switchport mode trunk

ALTEC-switch1(config-if)#^Z

ALTEC-switch1#

ALTEC-switch3#configure terminal

Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.

ALTEC-switch3(config)#interface fast 0/45

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#port group 1

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch3(config)#interface fast 0/46

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#port group 1

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch3(config)#interface fast 0/47

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#port group 1

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#exit

ALTEC-switch3(config)#interface fast 0/48

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#port group 1

ALTEC-switch3(config-if)#^Z

ALTEC-switch3#

Conclusion

The firm recommends that ALTEC accept this proposal because all the business requirements have been considered and factored in. More focus had been put network performance and security to ensure that users are able to enjoy the network services and resources fast and securely. The proposed network components are also reliable, affordable, supports scalability, and offer high performance. This is to ensure high availability of network resources and services. The objectives that ALTEC seek to achieve include enhance communication, data security, improve file organization, and file sharing. The major objective is to connect the new leased floor to the already existing network infrastructure.

After carefully reviewing ALTEC requirements and the objectives that the college seeks to achieve, the proposed network solution is a campus model network infrastructure because it can be scaled up to an enterprise network architecture. It has the ability to provide all the required network services such as communication and resources sharing to the end users located in a single building or geographical area. By critically analyzing the network requirements, it will be easier to identify other requirements such as site requirements.

The site requirements will depend on data transmission and communication, network services, technologies to be used, and the overall network design. The recommended network management tool is PRTG Network Monitor because of its advanced capabilities for managing network infrastructure. All the network services and resources such as traffic, systems, applications, devices, and users can be easily shown in a hierarchical manner displaying performance, usage, and alerts.

Reference List

Bird, D. and Harwood, M. (2010). Networking Components and Devices | Introduction | Pearson IT Certification. 

CertificationKits, C. (2018). What is the best Cisco CCNA Lab Switch? – 

Cisco (2018). Best Small Business Routers – Cisco. [online] 

Cisco (2018). Cisco IT Best Practices. Cisco IP addressing Policy. [ebook] Cisco, pp.5-10. 

Cisco (2018). Cisco Small Business 100 Series Wireless Access Points. [online] Cisco

Hohlfeld, O., Zinner, T., Benson, T. and Hausheer, D. (2015). Special issue on Software-Defined Networking and Network Functions Virtualization for flexible network management. International Journal of Network Management, 26(1), pp.4-5.

Kuipers, F. (2012). An Overview of Algorithms for Network Survivability. ISRN Communications and Networking, 2012, pp.1-19.

Kuipers, F. (2012). An Overview of Algorithms for Network Survivability. ISRN Communications and Networking, 2012, pp.1-19

LI, Q. (2018). Design and implementation of network firewall system based on Godson CPU. Journal of Computer Applications, 28(6), pp.1372-1375.

Oppenheimer, P. (2016). Top-down network design. Indianapolis, Ind.: Cisco Press

Weng, C., Yang, W. and Lai, K. (2014). Technological position in alliances network. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 26(6), pp.669-685.

Wolf, T. (2010). In-network services for customization in next-generation networks. IEEE Network, 24(4), pp.6-12.