Now that you know more about ConnectSpree's network, you begin drawing a map of its devices and connections, starting with its internal LAN. Suppose the company's LAN consists of six workgroup switches and four routers (and no hubs). The workgroup switches are distributed one to a floor in the ConnectSpree building, but employees belonging to the company's departments-Accounting, Human Resources, Engineering, and Customer Service-are not on the same floor as the rest of the employees in their departments. The company's four internal servers are located with the routers in one data room on the first floor. Make a sketch of how the devices on this network might be physically connected. Include all switches, routers, and servers, plus a few workstations from each department. Next, use dashed lines to indicate the path that data would travel between a workstation in the Accounting Department on one floor to another Accounting Department workstation on a different floor.
Case Project 6-3
Security is always a concern at ConnectSpree, and your manager has told you that the Accounting Department has requested additional security to protect the data its employees exchange among themselves. You suggest grouping all the Accounting Department workstations into their own VLAN. Describe how this would increase the security of the Accounting Department's data. Then, on the same network map you drew in Case Project 6-2, add enough workstations to make eight Accounting Department workstations on different floors and group these workstations in a VLAN. If the Accounting Department workstations belong to a VLAN, how will they exchange data with the Engineering, Human Resources, and Customer Service departments over the LAN? Draw a dashed line to represent the exchange of data between an Accounting Department workstation and a workstation in the Human Resources Department. What has changed, if anything, in the path these two.