Report on Network Design for the Arr Company

Networking Fundamentals: Proposed
Networking Design for Arr
Name
Date
Introduction
This report is a recommended network
design for the Arr company, a business entity
with six geographical dispersed branches within
the larger Melbourne area, with the farthest
branches being seventy kilometers apart. The
head office occupies three floors and has three
main departments that include general support
where there are 32 workstations, a marketing
department with 32 work stations, and a sales
department with 38 workstations. Arr is seeking
a networking solution to connect the staff at their
main offices and also link all the other branches
together. The objectives of the networking
solution are to enable the exchange of files
between branches and within departments as
well as sharing of certain resources and e-mail
communication. Most of the resources required
by different work groups and departments are
found within their physical (geographical
locations). The networking solution should both
be cost effective as to minimize costs, even
though Arr is ready to finance the project fully.
Further, the solution should be simple and
futuristic and fulfill the firm’s requirements. In
this report, the author, as the network
administrator, proposes a network design for
both the head office that will also link all the
other branches. In this report, a WAN design is
proposed, followed by a LAN design, a suitable
cabling solution for the LAN, along with a
suitable network topology. Finally, the report
will develop a diagrammatic illustration of the
head office LAN network design
Question 1: The Wide Area Network (WAN)
Design
A WAN is a network solution that
connects premises that are geographically
dispersed; for Arr, the concerns for the WAN
system include security, costs, scalability of the
system, latency, network uptime, packet loss,
and jitter; these concerns are also true for the
Internet connection. The different branches will
require a simple to implement WAN system in
which they can share files, some resources, and
communicate through e-mail. To meet the
objectives of the firm and tackle the concerns
associated with such a system, the proposed
WAN is a virtual private network (VPN) to
enhance security and integrity of resources,
especially during transfers [1]. The VPN will be
a multi protocol label switching (MPLS) type;
this is a system that can allow for the transfer
and routing of multiple types of network traffic
as well as data, where data include multimedia,
text, and any other file types. There are various
types of MPLS systems, but for this case, the
simple point to point one will be utilized because
it is compatible with protocols such as Ethernet,
ATM, and TDM [2]. The WAN will be designed
to enable mobility, where users on the move can
access their mails and system resources; this will
be achieved through dial up connection via

IPSec. The proposed design is illustrated below
in Fig 1
Fig 1
Question Two: Local Area Network (LAN)
Design for the Head Office
The Arr organization occupies three
floors at its headquarters, with the lower offices
occupied by other companies. The concerns for
the company for such a system are similar to
those of the WAN and include security, costs,
scalability of the system, latency, network
uptime, packet loss, and jitter, for the network,
intranet, and Internet [3]. The head office LAN
will serve all three floors and departments and
work groups, with a total of 90 workstations for
the marketing, general support, and sales
departments. The LAN to be used for the head