Assessment
DTS IS Network Fundamentals Assessment
- Section A presents you with a business scenario from which you are required to create a computer network diagram capturing the client specifications, work out a suitable IP addressing scheme, and develop the VLAN segmentation and assignment for the network.
? You must provide the network diagram, IP addressing scheme and VLAN assignments as required Section A
- In Section B, you will use the diagram, IP addresses and VLAN assignments created in Section A to create a working lab in a virtual environment.
? You must provide a screenshot and the Packet Tracer lab export file of your final network configuration as required Section B
- Section C details how you should submit your work.
- Section D contains an overall marking guide.
Section A: Case Study / Brief
For this assignment, you are to assume you are a Network Systems and Design consultant. Your brief is to design a campus network for the client, taking into account your client's networking needs and requirements. This first section of the assignment requires you to create a computer network diagram capturing the client specifications, and to work out the IP addressing and VLAN segmentation for the network. The idea is to develop two documents; the network topology diagram and the IP and VLAN addressing scheme from which the campus network can be built.
Business Case and Network Scenario
- The business has one main building with employees of three different departments as well as apprentices, spread across two floors.
- The number of members for each department is around 150, and is unlikely to exceed 200 members.
- All on-site employees, except the apprentices, have only wired access to the corporate LAN
- The apprentices, who are also found on any floor of the building, have wireless access only to the network from their wireless tablets.
- The three departments are the Admin, Sales and the IT departments. Members of each can be found on either floor of the main building.
The network should support the following services:
- One file server for each department (Sales, Admin, IT)
o The apprentices have no dedicated file server
- A single DNS server for all users on the entire business campus
- Departmental segmentation via VLANs
- Inter-VLAN routing via a single router
- Campus-wide access to the internet
Part 1: Network Architecture and Design: Physical Topology Diagram
This section requires you to create the business' network diagram. The main aim is to capture, in accurate detail, all the network requirements from the business, and represent these in a network topology diagram that can be used to build the network.
The Campus network requirements:
- Campus main building with two floors that houses personnel from three different departments, and apprentices
- Each floor has a wiring closet that has a switch to which employees have wired access to the corporate network via patch panels on their workstations
- The switches in the wiring closet also have a wired connection to a wireless access point mounted on the wall of the office hall on each floor
- The basement houses the campus router with the connection to ISP equipment that leads to the Internet
- The basement also houses a switch leading to the "server farm" with all the business
departmental servers and single DNS server.
The detailed network diagram should show the following:
- 1.1 Equipment Representation
o Any switches, routers, PCs, wireless tablets, servers, and wireless access points:
? You can represent the Sales, Admin and IT PCs with just two PCs each, with one on each floor
? You can represent the Apprentices' wireless devices with just one tablet on
each floor
? Include wireless access point device(s)
- 1.2 Labelling
o Clearly name and label all devices
o Please use names/labels that are brief, but clearly indicate the nature of the device (eg Sales_PC1, Admin_Server, Floor1_Switch, etc)
o Make sure you have labels for all the following:
? Switches and router
? Servers
? PCs
? Access Points and Wireless tablets
- 1.3 Cabling:
o Connections and cabling using industry-standard conventions (dotted line for crossed, and solid line for straight-through cabling)
o Any wireless connections can be marked using any representation of your choice for as long as it is labelled using a legend on the diagram.
o Make sure you have connections for all the following:
? Switch inter-floor uplinks and trunk to basement router
? Basement "server farm"
? PCs to floor switches
? Access Points to floor switch and to Wireless tablets
Network Diagram Requirements:
- Use PowerPoint, Visio or similar design tool to develop the diagram
- Use industry-recognised network equipment icons
- The diagram must be accurate, unambiguous and easy to read/decipher by a technical team tasked with building the network.
- The diagram must be on a single page only (should not over-run to two pages), of no larger than A4 size.
- The diagram should be (direct copy&paste, saved as picture and inserted into document or clear screenshot) onto a MS Word document ready for submission along with the Assignment Cover Sheet, as detailed in Section C.
Part 2: Network Architecture and Design: Logical Topology:
In less than 200 words, explain why the logical topology diagram of the above network might differ from the physical topology network diagram you have created.
Part 3: Network Segmentation: IP Address and VLAN ID assignment
You've been supplied with the Class B 172.16.0.0/16 address space to use on the LAN. Segment this address space into /24 subnets as you see fit and list the subnets you'll use for all these network segments.
Part 4.1: Network Segmentation and Operations
In 400 words or less, justify how the different segmentation strategies in your network (VLANs, WLANs and network services) facilitate an efficient environment for the business network services. Include an explanation as to why Bluetooth is not included as a suitable wireless application in this business scenario.
Part 4.2: Further segmentation bonus section
In addition to the equipment listed earlier, each department has multiple devices that also require access to the network:
- 10 Video conference units
- 4 Printers
- 4 Scanners
Outline how you would further segment the network address space to efficiently accommodate the devices.
Part 5: Troubleshooting checklist
Create a troubleshooting checklist that will help you to isolate and resolve any problems on your network at the lower layers of the TCP/IP protocol stack: Explain how the checks isolate the problems at each of the following layers of the protocol stack:
- Network Access Layer: Physical Layer
- Network Access Layer: Data Link Layer
- Network Layer
- Transport Layer
Section B: Create the above network on the network simulator
6.1 Network Design
Equipment Selection:
Click and drag the various network elements to create the network you designed in Section A on the simulator. To work within the restrictions of the simulator, please follow these guidelines when selecting your equipment:
- Use the 2911 router for all routing requirements
- Use the 2650 switches for all switching requirements
- For the other devices, select:
o Generic PCs
o Wireless Tablets
o Generic Servers
o Generic Wireless Access Point(s)
6. 1.2: Cabling :
- Use the cabling tools to make the correct connections between devices as detailed in your network diagram.
Labelling:
- Clearly label all devices on the network with the names and/or numbers you assigned them in Section A (eg Sales_PC1, Admin_Server, Floor1_Switch, etc)
6.2 Switching Configuration
Basic switch configuration:
- Configure each switch to have a hostname that matches its given name or label
VLAN configuration:
- Configure each of the switches to recognise all the VLANs you created Section A
VLAN assignment
- Correctly assign the ports attached to the PCs and serves to their correct VLAN IDs
Trunk configuration :
- Correctly configure all switch uplink ports as trunks
6.3 Router Configuration
Inter-VLAN routing (router-on-a-stick) :
- Configure the router trunk interface for inter-VLAN routing for the five VLANs you created in Section A. Use the allocated address spaces you outlined in Section A for this exercise.
DHCP pools configuration
NOTE: All PC, tablet and server IP addresses will be configured via DHCP, except for the DNS server, which will be static.
- Configure four DHCP pools on the router to lease IP addresses, masks, a default gateway and DNS server address to the departmental and Apprentice subnets
(Sales, Admin, IT and Apprentices)
6.4 End Device IP Addressing:
Dynamic addressing:
Configure all PCs, tablets and servers (except the mail and network monitoring servers) for IP address allocation via DHCP Static Addressing:
- Configure the DNS server with the static IP address, mask and default gateway you assigned to the device in Section A.
6.5 Wireless Segment:
6.5.1 SSID
- Configure each Wireless Access Point for correct access to the network's wireless segment, with a separate SSID for each floor
6.5.2 Wireless Security
- Configure the wireless security for all wireless access points to be set to WPA-PSK (TKIP) with password "prenticepass"
6.5.3 Wireless tablet configuration
- Configure each wireless tablet for correct wireless connection to the wireless access point