Aim and Objective

Networking in computing is the act of interconnecting various computing devices for the purpose of sharing resources such as data, printers, servers among others (Mitchell, 2017). Computer networks come with various designs depending on the organization in which the network is to be implemented. This report therefore, provides a proposal of a networking design that should be adapted both using dedicated server and cloud hosting techniques for iTech organization.

Aim and Objective

This project is aimed at achieving various objectives in helping the company conduct its services more efficiently and effectively (Coleman, 2012). The operational and business objectives to be achieved using this network design are:

Scalability – The new network design should accommodate addition of more network equipment if need be, without having to redo the whole network installation. This means that in the event where iTech wishes to add more workstations to its network, the space will be available and the process made easy.

Easy troubleshooting and management – The iTech network design should be easy to troubleshoot in case of any problems and also it should enable the organization to be able to manage the network more effectively.

Secured iTech services – This network should enhance a more secure environment for the operations of iTech administrative functionalities in rendering services to its clients and between its adjacent offices between the three buildings adjacent to each other.

Effective information processing – The network design is aimed at ensuring that users are able to retrieve. Process and store information related to iTech operational services more effectively and in a transparent manner.

This report provides a thorough analysis of the IT infrastructure components required, three-layered hierarchical network model, dedicated server network design, cloud based network design and DCB network simulation of the proposed network design for iTech Company. The report also provides various recommendations to ITech Company on the proposed design and finally the conclusion of the whole report.

Background of iTech Company

iTech is a software development company located between three adjacent five-story buildings in an office park. It has 900-computer network with each building having about 300 computers. The three buildings of ITech Company have similar LAN. It also has a Data Center Buildng (DCB) which is located on one of the iTech buildings and the data center is located on its second floor. This data center provides emailing and web services as well as dynamic IP addresses, file sharing and DNS services to iTech employees. This organization’s domain name is www.iTech.org.au. The current network design is poor and does not meet the needs of the company effectively hence need for replacement.

There are various components of IT infrastructure that facilitates the design of a good network design for different organizations. In the case of iTech Company, the following are components of IT infrastructure that will be needed for designing the new network.

Computer Hardware Components

These are more important IT infrastructure of network designs. They consist of various hardware components such as:

1. Switches

This is a hardware device that connects various computer devices within a single local area network (Mitchell, 2017). There are various types of networking switches that can be used by iTech Company but based on the scalability factor modular switches are more preferred in this project. Modular switches enhance flexibility during configuration. These switches come with different size chassis which allows for the installations of various numbers of modular line cards. This means that the number of ports on such switch can be increased in case of any addition of networking device hence facilitating scalability. The switch is as shown below.

Background of iTech Company

1. Router

The routers are devices that will connect the network to the internet. The router will provide embedded device encryption acceleration, slots for digital signal processing (DSP) slots, firewall, prevent intrusion, processing call, application services and voice calls.

1. Wireless Access Point (WAP)

This is a networking device that creates wireless LAN referred to WLAN. This device broadcast Wi-Fi signal within the buildings thus allowing more end user devices to be connected to the network.

1. Fiber cable

This serves as a transmission media that connects various networking devices to the network.  Fiber cable will be used to connect network backbones from the core layer to distribution layer and finally to the access layer of the iTech network design.

1. Server/Storage Components

These are components that manage access to shared resources and services in a network. This include the mail server, DNS server, DHCP server, Web server, file server, Database server and print server.

1. Cat 6 Ethernet cable

This shall provide connection of data access to network wireless access points devices due to its  higher speed.

1. Cat 5 Ethernet cable

This cable shall provide connection of access layer devices to the iTech network (LAN).

1. Workstations devices

This includes employee’s computers as well as office IP  phones that will be connected to the network of iTech Company.

Operating System Components

These include workstations operating systems, operating system to be used by servers in the network and Network Operating System (NOS) which manages computer network resources shared across the iTech Networking Platform.

All these IT Infrastructure components are very essential in enhancing quality network design for iTech Company in order to achieve the set objectives and bring a new networking look to the entire organization. The network to be designed will therefore rely on these components in order to be successful (Mbaocha, 2012).

This is a networking design where the network is broken down into three layers. Each layer in this model performs specific functions which lead to simplifying of the network design thus making it easy to scale and manage the network (CISCO, 2014). The three layers of this model are;

Access layer – This layer provides direct end user connection to the network.

Distribution layer – This layer connects access layer components and also enables connectivity of access layer to services

Core layers – This layer connects distribution layers to large LAN in the organization.

The three layers can be represented diagrammatically as seen below.

Therefore, the proposed network design for iTech Company should adapt this model considering that the organization is big having being located on the three adjacent buildings that host about 300 workstations and a Data Center on one of the building. Isolating this network into layers will make it easy for iTech Company to manage the whole network as well as enhance scalability in future.

Analysis of the current and future iTech IT Infrastructure requirements

Current iTech IT Infrastructure

The current network design at iTech Company is poorly designed. The IT infrastructure in this network is not well organized and the current networking model in use is Flat network model where all the networking components are treated to be on the same level. This makes it hard to manage the network design as well as conduct the operations effectively considering the large size of iTech Company. Also the current IT infrastructure at iTech Company is not easily scalable. This is because with flat network model an addition of a new component to the network might affect the operation of the other existing networking components. Considering that the LAN in each building is similar in both design and operations, this explains the difficulties that the company may be facing especially in carrying out activities such as troubleshooting in case of any problem since there is no defined structure that clearly shows how each networking component operates. Also the current IT infrastructure is poorly secured and in the case where there is a problem the whole network at iTech might be paralyzed. An example of the flat model is as shown below

IT Infrastructure Components

Future iTech IT Infrastructure

The proposed future design of iTech Company will be based on three-layer hierarchical design. These designs will highlight each component in each layer in the design. The three-layer will simplify the whole iTech Company network design, make it more flexible, scalable, and easy to manage and troubleshoot and improved processing speed. The three buildings where ITech Company operates from will have a clear and visible network design since each network block is well defined and structured (Cisco, 2013). This structure can be represented diagrammatically in the block below.

iTech Company has three five-story buildings where its offices are located. The offices being adjacent to each other with a data center located on one of the building on the second floor, it therefore means that the geographical scope requirement for the proposed network would be many-to-many. The many-to-many geographical scope would be as a result of having different networking devices defined on different layers of the three- layer hierarchical model. The many-to-many geographical requirement will enable interconnectivity between the three LANs in the three buildings as well as all the network components represented in each layer. This geographical requirement for iTech Company network design can be represented with respect to each layer of the model as discussed below.

Access Layer

This layer provides an interface with end user devices such as the computers, IP phones, printers, to enable access to the whole of the iTech Network. The main purpose of this layer is to ensure that it connects networking devices to the network and control the mode of communication located to each network (CISCO, 2014). Here many access ayer devices may be connected to a number of switches on each of the iTech buildings considering the number of offices available on each building. The access layer in each building with about 300 computers interconnects and converges to the distribution layer of the network design. The access layer for each floor of the a given iTech Company Building will resemble the diagram below.

Distribution Layer

The main function of this layer is to provide an interface between both the access layer components and the core components in the network.it is in this layer that network access functionalities, intelligent routing and switching occurs in the whole network of iTech Company. Here also differentiation of services is done where various services are grouped into classes at the edge of the whole network design. Thus, ensuring high availability of the core to the access layer end user devices.

Core Layer

This layer consist of devices such as routers which acts like a central hubs that enables network functions to be able to access both the external and internal network. This layer of the model brings together all the distribution layer switches from the three iTech buildings. It is in this layer that scalable, reliable and high speed connectivity is provided.

The geographical scope of the iTech Company network design can be represented in the diagram below as per the three-layer hierarchical model discussed.

Operating System Components

Scalability of iTech Network

With such a design in place for iTech network, each module of the network design will enable iTech to replicate various network components or elements as the network expands. Thus, making the iTech Network possible to conduct expansion planning and implementation more easily than their current situation.  This can be done by adding more distribution layer switches to accommodate more access layer end users. Also with this design more core layer switches can as well be added to accommodate additional workstations operations in the network (Guide, 2011) .

A dedicated server is a centralized computer device that stores information and allows sharing and accessibility of that information by various workstations in a network (Hope, 2017). There is various numbers of servers that iTech Company will need in their network. These servers will perform various functions within the network and across the entire organization at large. Some of these servers include;

File Server

This server will manage the storage and transfer of data files across the entire network of iTech company (Rouse, 2009).  

Mail Server

This is an application that manages incoming emails from all the workstations within www.iTech.org.au domain. This server also forwards the emails upon delivery to their intended destinations. Thus mail server will manage all the emails communication within the iTech network.

Web Server

The purpose of this server is to use the http to provide services to the users whose request result to calling of a web page file. For instance, the web server is where iTech domain name www.iTech.org.au will be hosted and any request from the employees or iTech clients will be processed by this server.

DNS Server

This server matches the domain names with their associated IP addresses within the iTech network and they are provided by Internet Service Providers (ISP). It processes requests from the workstations and locate the response using the IP address.

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Server

This is a network server that generates and automatically assigns IP addresses and default gateways to end users devices connected to the network.

The logical design for the dedicated server design for iTech network can be represented in the diagram below.

From the diagram above it is seen that iTech Data Center hosts all the dedicated servers on this proposed network design for iTech Company. All the requests from the workstations in each building are being processed at the data center where all the servers are located.  The dedicated server design above depicts the three-layer hierarchical design proposed for iTech Company.

IP addresses and Network Mask

There are 900 computers in the entire iTech Network distributed between three five-story buildings adjacent to each other. Each building has about 300 computers in its network. With this information at hand, then the appropriate IP addressing class that caters for more than 1500 workstations should be put into place in order to give allowances for future scalability or addition of any networking device within the iTech Network. Thus, each building will be assumed to have about 500 workstations. Therefore, Class B of IP address would be appropriate for the proposed network design at iTech Company (Subnetting, 2010). The table below shows the IP addressing details.

Logical and Physical Network Design

Table a: IP addressing details

IP Address Block	IP Class	Network Address	Subnet Mask	Subnet Bits	Host Bits	Number of Subnets	Host per subnet
130.30.0.0	B	130.30.0.0	255.255.248.0	21	11	32	2046

Table b: IP Addressing for iTech Buildings

Building	Subnet	Subnet Mask	Subnet Size	Host Range	Broadcast
A	130.30.0.0	255.255.248.0	2046	130.30.8.1 to 130.30.7.254	130.30.15.25
B	130.30.8.0	255.255.248.0	2046	130.30.8.1 to 130.30.15.254	130.30.15.255
C	130.30.16.0	255.255.248.0	2046	130.30.23.254	130.30.23.255

The IP addressing shown above will accommodate any new person or device connected to the iTech Network thus facilitating scalability.

There is various cloud based organization that offers networking services to business organizations such as iTech Company. Instead of designing its own dedicated server network, iTech Company could seek services from cloud computing organizations such as;

1. Microsoft Azure

This organization provides services such storage services, Data Management, Messaging, and Content Delivery Network (CDN). Based on the needs of iTech Company to have various servers in their network, the data center for the company can be located at the cloud. Here file servers, mail servers, Data Management and storage databases could be hosted using Microsoft Azure. This cloud service provider is more scalable and reliable as this is controlled by Microsoft Azure Fabric to ensure that services and the infrastructure laid do not crash thus making it more reliable (Macken, 2016).

1. VMware

This is a cloud service provider which provides services such as storage, advanced networking integration of enterprise environment and data recovery services. VMware has advanced security measures for its services which include secure private network and compliance certificates. It also provides enterprise IT platforms for modernization of data centers which enables organizations to address their needs without having to change the processes. Extensibility is another feature of this cloud organization. This platform handles large workload, and also makes it easy for an organization to extend to cloud from their own network.

The above named organization would be suitable for iTech Company in the case the organization chooses to have its servers hosted on the clouds. The two organizations are scalable, accessible and secured. Thus, iTech operations cannot be interfered with since both the organizations provide reliable services (cloud-services, 2017).

iTech Network design can be simulated using cisco packet tracer software as below. This screenshot represent devices of access layer of iTech network with DHCP, DNS and web servers which play important roles in the network. The IP address for this access layer simulation is 130.30.1.0/24 which is a class B IP Address. The network can be simulated below.

The simulation uses personal computers (PC) as the access layer end user devices and cisco generic switches for interfacing. The DHCP server is configured to assign IP addresses to all the devices in the network automatically. The DNS server matches the iTech web files hosted on the web server while the web server hosts iTech Company website and web applications. From this simulation the PCs in the network are able to view the web files hosted on the web server in this access network (Meena, 2017).

DHCP Configuration

To configure the DHCP server you first click on it in order to open it as shown below.

Then select the desktop option and open IP configuration window below.

Here assign the DHCP server an IP Address manually (130.30.0.2) and fill in the DNS server IP Address on the DNS Server field. Once this is done, open the service tab on the left side of the window and select DHCP service. Then fill all the details required which are Pool Name, Default Gateway, DNS Server, Starting IP Address, Subnet Mask and Maximum number of users.

Network Simulation

Once the details are filled select ON option and the DHCP Server is successfully configured to provide IP Addresses to all the other devices in the network.

iTech DNS and iTech Web Servers Configuration

First click on the iTech DNS server to open it then select desktop option, IP Configuration and the chose the DHCP option and the server will be automatically assigned the IP Address by the DHCP Server. This can be seen below.

From the above diagram the IP Address assigned to the iTech DNS Server in the simulation is 130.30.0.9.

Once this is done open the iTech Web server and the do the same by selecting the desktop option, IP Configuration and select DHCP option for dynamic IP Address assignment as shown below.

The iTech Web server is assigned 130.30.0.7 IP Address by the DHCP Server. Once this is done click the services tab and select HTTP service and create a web page www.itech,org,au as seen below.

Once the web page is set, click on the iTech DNS server again and select DNS on the service panel. This is shown below.

In this window provides the www.itech.org.au Web Server name and its IP address and click Add Button. The Web server will be added to the list of web servers available in the network. Finally select ON to complete the configuration process of iTech DNS Server set up.

Dynamic Network Configuration

Any client connected is dynamically assigned IP Address by the DHCP Server. To simulate this on clicking the iTech Workstation 3, open the desktop window and choose IP Configuration Tab. Then on opening the IP configuration Window select DHCP for automatic assignment of the IP Address. This can be demonstrated below.

The DHCP assigns iTech Workstation 3 connected to iTech network IP Address 130.30.0.1 as shown above.

iTech Web Server Access (www.iTech.org.au)

To access the web server in the network click on any iTech workstation. Open the Desktop Tab and select Web Browser. Then on the opened window on the url section type www.iTech.org.au and click go to access te web server. This is demonstrated below.

Here the client will be able to access iTech Web Server from their machines as long as there are connected into the network.

Conclusions

It is therefore clear that the proposed iTech network design would be easier to manage and more scalable than the current structure. Thus, I would recommend iTech Company to adapt the new proposed network design for its company which is structured in three-layer hierachical model that defines clearly various levels of iTech network and makes it easier to know which part of the network perform which operations.

Reference

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