Network Layers

The report is prepared for the development of the e-health network for an organization for meeting the future requirement of the patients and improvement of the healthcare service provided to the patients. There are different emerging models that are researched for the selection of the best technology and apply it for the development of the eHealth network. For the development of the network an analysis is made on the number of user and the framework of the organization. Multiple vendor networking environment should be created for connecting the users from different geographical location and providing real time result of the analysis of the data generated from the E health device.

The eHealth network is aimed to manage the health of the patients and enable the user to reach the physician, nurses and specialist in a minimum time. The network is developed based on the 7 layers OSI communication model and the main function of the network layer is the management of the data from different source and destination address. The interoperability of the different functional modules is the main factor for successfully deploy the e health network framework. The selection of the appropriate protocol for each of the layer is important for the success of the network. Appropriate routes should be selected delivering the data packets and mapping the layers with the TCP/IP model (Walters, Mars & Scott, 2016). The network layer is to allow the other network to connect with the organizational network and choose the best algorithm to determine the best path and improve the reliability of the application used for the healthcare management of the patients. The ICMP protocol is used for handling the error and diagnosis of the error and ensuring the delivery of the data packets to the destination address (Rahmani et al., 2018). It also helps in management of the quality of service and permitting certain type of data traffic and prioritizing the traffic for supporting the connection less and connection oriented network. The servers are connected in the network for allowing the patient to upload their medical history and diagnosis of their physical health condition. The subnet is also controlled by the network layer and translating the logical network address into physical address. The gateway and the router also operates in the network layer and management of the flow of the data packet. It also helps in controlling the errors and controlling the sequence of packet.

There are some design issues with the network layer and it should be identified for routing the data packets to source and destination location. The routes can be static or dynamic and it should be determined based on the type of data packet and the current load on the network. The network layer is responsible for the management of the congestion in the network and eliminate the bottle neck condition such that the quality of service is maintained.

The network architecture is created based on the network layer and the designed architecture should consist of all the details of the network and the resources that are used for the development of the network, The details of the cable used for interconnecting the network device should be added and the network topology selected should be aligned with the requirement of the network. The network engineer and the network administrator is responsible for designing the network architecture. It helps in classification of the network into different steps and it is dependent on the different protocols used for the configuration of the network (Tennina et al., 2016). The network architecture is used for the management of the distributed computing environment and reduce the complexity of the E health network. For the distributed computing environment the network architecture is used for defining the structure and classifying the architecture of the application. A context aware network is created for the management e health framework and development of the logical and physical network topology. For designing the network architecture a modularity approach is followed and the network should be scalable for supporting the growth of the organization (Gonzalez et al., 2015). There are different network tunnelling technology that are followed establishment of the connection between the IPv4 and IPv6 network and enabling transmission of data packets.

Network Architecture

The physical components of the network are identified for the development of a detailed resource plan. The details of the network equipment and the service should be documented for troubleshooting the errors in the configuration of the network. The network architecture is developed following the OSI model and the communication system is sub divided into smaller parts for management of the service (Li et al., 2016). Each of the layer of the OSI model provides an instance of the different service and management of the network service.

Large amount of data is generated from the healthcare device and powerful analytics tool should be applied for the taking clinical decision. The selection of the appropriate protocols is the main criteria for the management of the responsibility and diagnosis of the error in the network and create proper planning of the healthcare system. The connection between the network is manged with the implementation of the protocols and setting different rules and standard for defining the language used for communicating between the device (Simsek et al., 2016). The type of connection should be identified for the configuration of the device with the appropriate protocol and management of the application service. Different protocols are applied on the different layers of the network and they are discussed below:

It is used as a communication protocol and is able to distinguish between the different E health device and increase the security of the network. The MAC address of the hardware device is used for filtering the data packet and maintaining a control on the network (Kashefi et al., 2018). It operates on the link layer of the OSI model and allows the network administrator to track the data flow of the data packet in the network.

It is used for allowing the medical devices to communication between themselves in the network. It operates in the internet layer and linking the network for routing the data traffic to the destination address (Nelson & Staggers, 2016). IP address used for the configuration of the host are unique and this protocol is used for assuming the unreliability and the paths for reaching the destination address.

  The ICMP protocol is used for sending and receiving messages in between the medical devices and the identification of the errors in the network. The ICMP protocol is widely used in the network diagnostic tool for testing the connectivity between the devices and establishment of a feedback mechanism for maintaining the communication of network.

It is used for transmission of the medical information of the patients  between the servers and the medical device such that proper diagnosis result is obtained. It breaks the stream of bytes into segments and the source and the destination ports are identified for delivering the data packets to the appropriate address. The sequence and acknowledgement number is used for specifying the bytes and differentiation for retransmitting and reordering the lost segments. The TCP header length is used for indicating the byte contained in the header file. The field window is used for indicating the number of bytes that is transmitted before receiving the acknowledgement (Samdanis, Costa-Perez & Sciancalepore, 2016). The filed “Checksum” is used for providing reliability and security for the TCP segments.

Devices and Protocols

It has less fields and is thus less reliable than the TCP protocols and it can be applied for faster transmission of data. The UDP protocol can be applied for media files where reliability is not required.

The HTTP protocol is used for the establishment of connection between the host and the web server. It is used defining a number of function and interacting with the requested data.

It is used for transferring of files and information generated from the medical devices available with the patients and works in the application layer of the OSI model. It is considered as an insecure protocol and thus not recommended for the development of the network.

It is used for creating a naming mechanism and allowing the user to access the sites with a human friendly name (Khoi et al., 2015). It works in the application layer and the IP address is bonded with the domain name for establishment of reverse mapping.

It is a encryption protocol that works in the application layer and used for establishing a secure communication between the server and medical health devices. There are different technologies that are combined to establish a end to end encryption and enabling secure transmission of data.

Network Diagram

The network architecture is designed by assuming the requirement of the E health network and the network is divided into different layers such as application service layer, service support layer, data transmission layer and object control layer. The network architecture is designed for supporting different service and application such as remote access, data and voice exchange, accessing multimedia and services and ensuring successful delivery of the medical information to the destination address. The servers are used for the management of the information generated from the object control layer. The information are securely transmitted to the application service layer for the proper diagnosis of the health problem of the patient. The network is designed for supporting virtualization and providing seamless integration of the data for reduction of the cost of the management of the common gateways.

A single MAC address must be allowed for each of the members connected in the E health network for limiting the looping risk in a network.

For the ethernet connectivity mainly three types of ethernet should be allowed such as:

• IPv4
• ARP, and
• IPv6

The ARP and the ICMPv6 are used for unknown unicast and rate limited that are broadcasted by the network platform.

For increasing the security of the E health network the size of MTU is kept 1500 bytes and the packets that are non-unicasted should be dropped (Alshamsi, Barka & Serhani, 2016).

Sniffer server should be installed and connected with the core network such that the network traffic is analysed for the traffic is broadcasted and testing the traffic forwarded to the appropriate network location.

Network monitoring tool should be installed for the detection of the Arp entry and the proxy configuration of the network such that the unknown data packets are blocked to reach different location in the network.

Conclusion

From the above report it can be concluded that for the development of the E health network solution a feasibility analysis should be done on the requirement of the E health network. A research should be done on the different layers of the network for the development of the architecture of the E health network. The network architecture is developed with all the details of the device and the IP address used for the configuration of the network. An investigation should be done on the appropriate protocol that can be applied for the configuration of the network and reducing congestion of data traffic in the network. The number of routers, switches and servers needed to be installed in the network should be identified such that a proper estimation can be created. The technical details of the network should be documented such that it can be used for troubleshooting the errors in the network and increase the efficiency of the network. A study should be performed on the group of users and their requirement for configuring the network following their requirement and increase the efficiency of the network solution.

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