Network Design PART B : Assignment

Network Design (part B)

PART B
1 (a) Business goal for the given scenario
The NTN nursing school has its main campus located in Sydney. The major business goal
of institute is to operate in different locations so that students from various sections can access
the school. For the same purpose NTN has two additional satellite campuses as well. To enhance
number of students enrolled in school and to provide more practical exposure to the candidates
NTN also aims at establishing its collaboration with private hospitals. This collaboration will not
only allow its students to work under expertise authorities but will also increase brand value of
nursing school.
The long term business goal of institute is to establish effective networking channel
between its students, private hospitals and patients so that its home care vehicles can provide
services to greater extent. At present they are operating in nearby localities only but in future
NTN has goal to provide services at a wider scale. These objectives will help institute to give
more practical knowledge to the students and to accomplish their mission of delivering health
care services. The NTN also aims to double number of its students by next year. For achieving
this goal, it is required for the nursing school to establish superior position among other
institutes. These goals can be achieved by implementing proper networking between main and
satellite campuses of NTN as well as with its collaboration with the private hospitals. It will
require efficient networking in mobile home care vehicles.
1 (b) Constraints affecting business goals of NTN nursing school
The institute has to deal with several constraints which can act as barrier to achieve its
business goals. The following constraints need to be addressed at priority to enhance goal
achievement process.
 NTN must establish effective networking between its satellite and main campus. The
lectures are provided by virtual classrooms thus entire working of satellite campuses is
completely dependent on technology. The technical failure due to weather related
conditions, external disturbances and system errors can completely abolish working
(Chang, 2016). It can directly affect the brand value of school among visitors and
students.

 The virtual classrooms are restricted with size of classrooms. Sydney campus cannot
support more than 200 students at the same time. During instances of medical emergency,
it may require coordinating with faculties but technology limitation may not support
requirement (Berendsohn and Geoffroy, 2016). This can create an adverse impression in
the minds of private hospitals and they may not provide efficient support to nursing
school considering its technologically backward.
 The home care vehicles at present do not have facility to exchange photographs and
reports. It can enhance the possibilities of error. Such errors in health care services are
not advisable and thus can lead to performance related errors for students as well as for
the NTN school.
 The private hospitals have Wi-Fi access points for communication. The higher network
traffic and less security measurements can make it difficult for these hospitals to interact
with nursing students of NTN who are involved in telemedicine and home care vehicles.
Thus, these hospitals can consider the institute as inappropriate for integration. It will
affect the long term goal of NTN to provide practical exposure to its students.
1 (c) Technical goals of NTN
The technical proficiency in networking is essential for nursing school to achieve its
business goals. For smooth functioning of the activities NTN must achieve following technical
goals:
 The institute must implement secure data stores which can accomplish effective data
management with secured features. The foremost technical goal for college is to ensure
that security level of its networking is maintained and data is protected from unauthorised
access.
 With the integration of private hospitals NTN may require information processing faster
in case of dealing with medical emergency. Thus, its communication system must be
effective in managing network traffic and quality of services. The data transfer speed
must be maintained and high enough so that networking errors do not affect operational
activities (Sahingoz, 2014).

 Another technical goal of nursing school is to meet increasing demands of future by
enhancing and updating network capabilities. Network must be designed in a way that
growing number of users does not degrade quality, security, affordability and speed of
network rather it maintains its integrity and quality.
1 (d) Trade-offs in achieving technical goals
NTN may experience the following trade-offs in achieving its technical goals.
 The strict standards of performance such as redundancy, data accuracy and integrity as
well as security characteristic can make it difficult to achieve affordability technical goal.
 In order to meet future demands scalability must be in alignment with security and cost
aspects. The availability of resources is also another considerable factor.
 NTN must have clear guidelines regarding trade-offs between authorised accessing and
transparent and quick management functions.
 The trade-offs between security and cost is challenging. With rapid advancements it can
be hard for the nursing school to make a balance between it. The number of users also
affect this balancing.
 The increasing number of users also affects risk factors and network compliances
(Seppänen and Kloetzer, 2015). To ensure minimum vulnerabilities of cyber and
networking threats access permissions must be reviewed and controlled.
2. (a) User communities
The required network design will have following user communities.
Students of NTN nursing school: The students can require network services for attending virtual
classes and to interact with their lecturers and corresponding authorities of private hospitals.
Staff members of private hospitals: The collaborated Private hospitals may require coordinating
senior authorities of nursing school and participants of mobile health vehicles. They may also
require networking services to share the details of patients.
Management of all campuses of the institute: NTN has its satellite campuses which may require
interaction for managerial decisions and activities. For resolving sensitive issues, they may
require more secure and broad networking space.

Public who require access to medical services at home: For accessing medical facilities at home
patients may contact NTN. In cases of urgency school also require establishing the quick
communication path via networking between patient and hospital.
2. (B) Data stores and their user community
Data stores are tools for management and storage of data. They can range from simple
emails and spreadsheets to complex versions of database. The networking system which is to be
designed for NTN must have following data stores.
User community Data store Location Application
Students Payment database,
student portal
At every campus of
NTN, mobile
applications of
students
Students can use
payment database to
pay their fees. For
accessing any
information related to
course, lectures or
their role in assigned
hospital they can use
student database. This
database is regularly
updated by school
management.
Management of NTN Relational database,
emails, spreadsheets
and data processors
NTN campus which
have connectivity with
the hospitals as well.
NTN requires database
for managing its
various records and
exchanging data with
the concern
authorities. For
internal conversations
emails and other tools
are also used.

Private hospital
authorities
Networking tools for
sharing information,
Separate database for
its integration with the
NTN training purpose,
healthcare database
Private hospital This community need
data stores so that it
can maintain a
separate record for the
consumers of home
care vehicle. It also
maintains the records
of trainee who have
joined hospital.
Public which require
health care
Mobile application,
emails
Variable according to
the location of
customers
For making
communication with
the hospital and
nursing school.
2. (C) Characteristics of network traffic
For achieving the optimized output of networking it is essential for NTN to monitor and
control the data flowing through the network at any instant of time. For this purpose network
traffic generation and simulation models can be used by the nursing school. Network traffic
analysis helps in ensuring the network security and increased efficiency. This traffic is also
measured by monitoring the network bandwidth. The designed network of NTN must be able to
provide quality of service (QOS). It includes the prioritization of the services to be served,
bandwidth management, minimizing data loss over traffic and required controlling of latency and
jitters. Resource availability and management is also key feature of QOS. Network behaviour
analysis regularly keeps an eye on behaviour of networking activities (What is QoS and why is it
important in networking?. 2018). It helps institute to maintain the security standards and avoid
suspicious and undesired activities to take place on network. Networking attacks like malware,
denial of services can be monitored by network traffic control and monitoring.

2. (D)Logical network topology (Top down approach)
The top down networking approach is the best suitable for NTN because its requirements
are predefined. With this approach network will be designed at various levels from top to bottom
(Comer, 2018). The main server of NTN is at top level while its satellite campuses and hospital
server lies at lower level. Routers and other devices are selected as per the detailed analysis of
technical goals.

3. (A) IP addresses and devices on network
NTN requires both private and public IP addresses to accomplish its networking goals.
Private IP address cannot be accessed over internet. Thus, the management functions of the
nursing school and its internal records are stored on private addresses. On the other hand to
coordinate with the patient institute require that users can access each others network. For this
purpose public IP address are used which are not limited to personal networking space of NTN.
The designed network consist of following network devices:
Hubs and switches: These devices connect multiple hosts and transfer data after filtering.
Routers and repeaters: It routes the traffic from one network to another. For amplifying the
information repeaters can also be used (Mahapatra and et.al., 2017).
Ethernet, modem or other connecting medium: For internal communication Wi-Fi or Ethernet
can be used. For connecting various campuses severs can be interconnected with each other.
Firewalls: It monitors the network traffic to enhance the security aspects.
3. (B) Routing protocols in network design
Routing protocols provides guidelines about the interaction of routers and to specify the
routing path. Designed network of NTN uses following routing protocols: Routing information protocol (RIP): It is used in wide area networks and uses
algorithms for distant vector. Gateway protocols: These protocols are used to exchange information in an independent
system and to maintain the latency, authenticity of the network and bandwidth.
 Intermediate system to system protocol (IS-IS): This protocol is used by various
networking levels of NTN for differentiating between them. It can be easily modified for
enhancing functionalities (Top 5 Network Routing Protocols Explained. 2018).

3. (C) Networking aspects and security mechanisms
The important assets of the designed network which must be provide protection are its
hardware as well as software components. The networking components must be installed with
the latest security mechanisms such as encryption and anti-viruses. Data transfer must be
encrypted and need strong protection mechanisms. The routing protocols must be followed in
network designing so that they can deal with the advanced networking threats (Pooch, 2018).
Traffic monitoring must be accomplished with appropriate methods so that networking risks can
be avoided prior their influence on performance. The networking affordability and integrity must
be regulated with continuous analysis of data which is flowing through the network.
3. (D) Security risks
With the ease of management and communication the networking also involves certain
security risks. The major and severe security risks are as follows:
 Malicious attacks are very critical for the NTN school. These attacks in the form of
hacking, viruses and ransomwares can not only cause financial losses but can completely
disrupt the activities.
 The security breaches in personal information of students or patients can cause breaching
of data protection acts and privacy of the users. The sensitive data can be misused and
cause harm (Sood, Yu and Xiang, 2016).
 The technical errors can cause complete damage to systems as well as valuable
information which may be difficult to retrieve. Thus, information can be lost permanently
removing all records.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Berendsohn, W.G. and Geoffroy, M., 2016. Networking. Taxonomic. Concepts.—. Uniting.
without.‘Unitary-ism’. InBiodiversity Databases (pp. 25-34). CRC Press.
Chang, J.F., 2016. Business process management systems: strategy and implementation.
Auerbach Publications.
Comer, D.E., 2018. The Internet book: everything you need to know about computer networking
and how the Internet works. Chapman and Hall/CRC.
Mahapatra, N. and et.al., 2017. Unit-3 Networking Concepts.
Pooch, U.W., 2018. Telecommunications and Networking: 0. CRC Press.
Sahingoz, O.K., 2014. Networking models in flying ad-hoc networks (FANETs): Concepts and
challenges. Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems. 74(1-2). pp.513-527.
Seppänen, L. and Kloetzer, L., 2015. Micro-Analysis of Concepts for Developing Networking in
Social Work. InContemporary Approaches to Activity Theory: Interdisciplinary
Perspectives on Human Behavior (pp. 162-180). IGI Global.
Sood, K., Yu, S. and Xiang, Y., 2016. Software-defined wireless networking opportunities and
challenges for Internet-of-Things: A review. IEEE Internet of Things Journal.3(4).
pp.453-463.
Online
Top 5 Network Routing Protocols Explained. 2018 [Online] Accessed through
<https://www.lifewire.com/top-network-routing-protocols-explained-817965>
What is QoS and why is it important in networking?. 2018 [Online] Accessed through
<https://www.comparitech.com/net-admin/what-is-qos/>