Description: Networks are fundamental to every aspect of our society. Designing a network that is both adequate to current and future needs is important. In this assignment, you are asked to design a network according to a business specification.
Business Structure:
The business in this scenario is concerned with online retailing. It is composed of the following divisions.
a) Online content developers (25 staff)
b) Marketing Department (10 staff)
c) Transport and Distribution Department (120 staff)
d) Management (55 staff)
e) IT staff (10 staff)
f) Admin (5 staff)
The premises are located in the CBD across three floors of a rented office tower. The IT staff and online content developers are located in adjacent offices on the top floor. Management and Marketing are on the second floor, whilst Transport and Distribution are located on the ground floor, along with the admin staff.
Separately, the warehouse for the business contains 100 of the 120 Transport and Distribution staff and is located in the outer suburbs.
The requirement is to build an efficient network to meet the needs of the business and for its future growth.
The IT specifications for each department are these:
a) Online content developers - 20 workstations + access to company product databases
b) Marketing Department - 7 workstations + access to company marketing databases
c) Transport and Distribution Department - 100 workstations (20 in CBD & 80 in warehouse) + access to company warehouse databases + 10 wireless
d) Management - 45 workstations + access to company business intelligence databases
e) IT staff - 7 workstations + access to all company IT assets including web servers
f) Admin - 3 workstations + access to all company databases via software to generate reports
As each department has fewer office workstations compared with staff, a requirement for offsite access is mandatory. For the warehouse, wireless network connectivity for mobile tracking is required.
Your task: Using the information provided about the business, design a network layout to maximise efficiency and to allow both offsite access to the business resources by employees and the general public for e-commerce. You will generate a network layout using a tool such
as ‘Packet Tracer'. It is important to give labels to your interfaces, both name and IP, one such example of labelling is displayed in the following diagram. Use the knowledge you havegained in lectures to implement the task, also a proper subnetting scheme avoiding unused space will score highly.
Grading Criteria:
To achieve highly in this assignment you will need to incorporate the following aspects in your solution.
a) An effective use of addressing that is suitable to the size and organisation of the business
b) Correct choice of equipment and design principles for the network layout
c) Planning documentation and justification report