Network Design for Cosmos: A Scalable and Secure Infrastructure

This report outlines a comprehensive network design for Cosmos, a global news organization, to support its projected growth and enhance its online services. The design addresses the need for a scalable and secure infrastructure, including hardware and software requirements, network diagrams, IP addressing, and security technologies. The report also discusses the implementation of routing and switching protocols to ensure efficient data flow and connectivity. The proposed solution aims to provide a robust and reliable network infrastructure that can accommodate the company's expanding user base and future requirements.

Network Design
COIT20264

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Project..............................................................................................................................................2
Scope................................................................................................................................................3
Assumptions....................................................................................................................................3
Requirements...................................................................................................................................4
Software Requirement..................................................................................................................4
Hardware Requirement................................................................................................................4
Network Diagram............................................................................................................................5
IP Addressing...................................................................................................................................6
Network Technologies.....................................................................................................................7
Routing.........................................................................................................................................7
Switching.....................................................................................................................................8
Security Technologies.....................................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................................10
1

Introduction
IT Network infrastructure is the success key of the 21st century. As more and more user is
connecting to the internet the infrastructure is transforming according to them. Now the world
trying to save the natural resources by transforming the traditional way of work to digital way.
So the most of the services which are provided by various governmental and private companies
are in the process of this transformation.
The digital world has changed the way we work in the past decades. Now every business run by
the network infrastructure from food production to fighter plane manufacturing. Cosmos is one
of the global Australia based company which operate a larger number of reporters all around the
world to provide online news reporting. It provides both newspaper and video streaming services
to the online customers. Most of the revenue is generated through the advertisements of the
various brand. But it also charges a small fee for the customers who are interested in reading and
watching online content
Project
Right now the cosmos has almost 1,00,000 customer who accesses the content of the website on
daily basis. The company has projected a growth of the 5,00,00 customer in next three years. But
the current network and security infrastructure of the company doesn’t have support for this type
of enormous growth. So they decided to upgrade their infrastructure to support the growth and
transform their IT infrastructure to support this type of growth and want to ready for the future
requirements.
The company plans to provide the following resources in order to support their business and
manage the quality of their content.
- 40-50 freelance reporters with suitable telecommunication devices for live reporting from
all types of the area where internet connectivity is very poor or unavailable.
- Want to provide support for the management of the permanent staff and its service. It
includes following positions
o CEO
o Finance Manager
2

o HR Manager
o Publishing Manager
o Technical Manager
- Network and security support for the office two-story building. The ground floor contains
all the important positions of the company.
- Better network connectivity with all the department of the office including the remote
office
Scope
Network infrastructure is the key requirement of the today’s business. So in order to provide a
better network infrastructure, we need to define the limits in order to keep control over the cost
of ownership of the companies environment. We need to define the scope of the project so that
we can focus on the key requirement for the companies network infrastructure.
The main purpose of this report is the provide the better network infrastructure which can allow
the management to flexibly operate the business anywhere around the world. In order to provide
this we need to the following things Von Schomberg, R. 2011).
- Network and Data Security
- Data Backup
- Scalable network
Assumptions
Since there is not much information are given about the current network infrastructure
environment. We need to focus on the proposing plan and recommendations. Currently, the
company is providing services to the 1,00,000 subscribed users. For this, we need to take some
assumption so that the overall cost of the project can be reduced and the reliable result must be
produced (Green, M. W. 2005).
So we need to take some assumption in order to build proposal plan which can be customized at
the time of the implementation. So some of the assumptions are given below which can
accelerate the analysis process of the project.
3

Some of the assumptions are as follows.
- The companies network have the internal core switch
- The server must be configured as the HA mode to reduce the downtime
- All the department may have the router switch connectivity
- Security of the infrastructure is not up to the mark which can deal with the modern type
of security attacks over the internet
Requirements
Since the network infrastructure design takes a lot of time to study and proposing a minimum
required hardware in order to support the future scalability. So the requirement is derived from
the type of the project which is going to be implemented. Since this project requires a lot of
network devices to provide connectivity and reliability to the branch office.
All the decisions are taken centrally so the focus must be important for business. So the
requirement of the project can be categorized into two parts one is the hardware and another one
is software. Since it is the type of online services for the reader on the internet.
All the requirement of the project are given below
Software Requirement
The main business of the company is to provide web services. For this, they require a lot of the
software implementation to support their online application. This can be done using various
software which provides the web services on the internet. So some of the requirement for the
project is as follows
- Windows Server for the IIS service inside the server
- Anti-virus solution to prevent any types of the attack which are usually done by the
malicious codes in the software
- Linux OS Server can provide various services and
- Workstation report and
4

Hardware Requirement
The backbone of the network infrastructure is always the hardware part. Since all the network
traffic processing is done on the actual hardware to provide support and performance. So in order
to provide the services for the company, we need the hardware resources. So some of them are as
follows.
Network Devices
- 10-12 switches for the backbone connectivity inside the network
- 2 Routers for redundancy
- Internet connectivity with the optic fibre technology.
Server Equipment
- Web Server
- Application Server
- Linux OS
Network Diagram
Before the implementation of any type of project, the blueprint is very necessary part of the
project. So in order to proceed with the implementation of the project we need to create and
analyze the network connectivity diagram to support the proposing model for the companies
network infrastructure.
Given below is the basic network connectivity diagram to start the operations.
5

Figure 1: Network Connectivity Diagram
IP Addressing
The network address is the part which provides the actual internetworking connectivity within or
outside of the network infrastructure. Because all the communication of the devices is happening
at the network layer at each device which process the network.
Because the addressing solution task is very hard so most of the time the companies go with the
larger IP address pools in order to keep a reserve for the future requirement of the network
devices. Because the solution uses the private network. Since the scalability needs to be
maintained in this project. So we have chosen the class-A private network IP addressing solution
for internal part of the company (Baccelli, E., & Townsley, M. 2010).
Right now the network is divided among the three subnet.
First Floor Subnet: 10.0.1.0/24
Second floor Subnet: 10.0.2.0/24
And the data centre:10.0.3.0/24
6

Server Requirement
The requirement of the server hardware for the server is given below.
- Processor: Intel or AMD Quad core processor
- RAM: 4GB or More
- HDD: 500GB or More
- NIC Card with at least 2 ports
Server Protocols
The server protocols play an important part in the infrastructure of business to provide various
basic and necessary services to the various system. Their various protocol is needed by the IT
administrator to manage server and various another aspect of the computer system inside the
premises (Hinden, R. M., & Deering, S. E. 2006).
It also helps in managing all the computer and servers in the domain in any infrastructure. So the
protocol which is most necessary is given below.
- DHCP: Providing IP address dynamically to the host machine inside the IT infrastructure.
- DNS Service: provide the Name resolution of local and internet websites.
- FTP: To provide the file sharing centrally for all host machine.
- TCP/ IP: Provide the basic IP protocol technology for the communication in the network.
- AD: The Active Directory provide the user management centrally and ease the
administrator for the hectic task.
Network Technologies
The networking technologies provide the actual processing of the data at the heart of the network
layer. Since there are various services are also be running in order to preserve the network
resources of the company. So that they can implement it on the higher level.
So the network protocols will be divided into two parts
Routing
The network routing provides the actual connectivity in the network. Because it provides the
capability to communicate between two different networks. And it is the devices on which the
7

internet services are running in the today’s world. So some of the routing protocols which will be
used if the project got implemented in the network according to the proposed plan.
- External Routing: BGP (Border Gateway Protocol
- Internal Routing: IS-IS
- Natting: Providing internet connectivity without wasting the money on the new types of
the security device.
The above-mentioned network protocols are used on daily basis by every personal around the
world. So the routing needs to be optimized to filter in order to
Switching
The switch is the technology which processes a larger amount of the data. It only provides the
connectivity within the same network. So the switching protocol which will be implemented in
the proposed network infrastructure diagram.
So some of the switching protocol which will be used in the given scenario is as follows.
- VLAN: segregating the network addressing
- MAC Filtering: To restrict the unauthorized user access if the attacker wants to access the
resources of the company.
- STP: Controlling the Spanning Tree Protocol traffic for smart network maintenance of
the company.
- VTP: VLAN management to support highly scalable network.
Security Technologies
The security technologies provide the way through which filtering and monitoring of the whole
network infrastructure. IF anything wrong happen with the data inside the organization than it
can cause huge losses for the companies (Aradau, C., Lobo-Guerrero, L., & Van Munster, R.
2008).
So in order to provide secure and reliable network infrastructure, we need to implement the
technologies which can be future proof. So some of the proposed network security technologies
are as follows.
8

- Firewall
The firewall is the oldest security devices which are still used to filter the network traffic.
- IPS/IDS
The IPS/IDS are specially designed to prevent the attack from happening. But we need
the license version.
- Security Policies Implementation on the AD/LDAP to restrict the user activity inside the
office.
- Anti-Virus
The Anti-Virus mostly stored on the windows machine. Because it is susceptible to the
various threat which is already present in outside of the network.
9

References
 Aradau, C., Lobo-Guerrero, L., & Van Munster, R. (2008). Security, technologies of risk,
and the political: Guest editors' introduction.
 Baccelli, E., & Townsley, M. (2010). IP addressing model in ad hoc networks (No. RFC
5889).
 Green, M. W. (2005). The appropriate and effective use of security technologies in US
schools: a guide for schools and law enforcement agencies (No. SAND2005-4056). Sandia
National Laboratories.
 Hinden, R. M., & Deering, S. E. (2006). IP version 6 addressing architecture.
 Von Schomberg, R. (2011). Towards responsible research and innovation in the information
and communication technologies and security technologies fields.
10