ATHE Level 5 Diploma in Computing: Dana School Network Design

This document presents a detailed network design for the Dana School of Dance and Drama, addressing the school's need to transition from a paper-based system to a more efficient digital network. The assignment begins with an analysis of the school's business needs, including automated payment and attendance systems, a centralized database, cloud-based services, and a centralized email system. It then outlines the hardware and software requirements necessary to establish a functional IT network, including processors, RAM, storage, and essential software like Microsoft Office 365 and Adobe Acrobat Reader. The document explores methods for managing mobile devices within the network, focusing on Mobile Device Management (MDM) and mobility management strategies. Furthermore, it critically evaluates potential solutions to meet the design requirements, considering wireless networks and other design elements. The report concludes with a discussion of network protocols, security considerations, performance issues, and recommendations to ensure a secure and efficient network for the Dana School.

Network Design

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
ACTIVITY 1....................................................................................................................................1
Analysing the business needs to build a effective network.........................................................1
Determining the hardware as well as software requirements to run a IT network successfully
within the Dana school.................................................................................................................3
Assessment of the methods that can be used to manage the mobile devices on this mobile
network........................................................................................................................................4
Critical evaluation of possible solutions to meet the design........................................................5
Development of viable alternative solutions to meet the design.................................................6
ACTIVITY 2....................................................................................................................................7
A network design for the Dana School of dance and drama........................................................7
ACTIVITY 4....................................................................................................................................7
Evaluating the rules and networking protocols which are design to build a network.................7
Describing the required tools to manage the network.................................................................8
Evaluates the performance issues of the built network................................................................9
Recommendation for security requirements that will keep the network safe and secure..........10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Networking can be considered as one of the important activity within the era of this
digital based work. Networking design can be refers to the planning of the implementation of the
computer network infrastructure. This is generally performed to inter connect various devices
located at different places. In order to exchange the data and information over a network which
will be shared by all the devices together, a effective and efficient network design needs to be
developed. This report will be totally based on the networking design within the Dana school of
dance and drama. As this school still uses the traditional method for the attendance, payments
and various other options within the school. So in order to enhance the efficiency of the
operation, the management of the school is planning to develop a effective networking design for
such operations.
Moreover, this study will also provide the analysis and requirements which will be
needed to develop a effective software for Dana. It will also explore various software as well as
hardware needs within the school. Along with this, the present study will also be able to explore
different methods to build a network design. It will also help in developing a complete
information about the network protocols which will be used in designing a perfect networking
solution for the company. This document will also investigate various tools and equipments that
are needed to build a effective network for the school. Along with this it will also helps in
determining various security requirements to protect the authorisation and privacy for such
systems which maintains the confidential data for the Dana school. The report will also describe
some performance issues which are been raised during the implementation of the networking
software within the school. Therefore, this study will introduce all the requirements that will be
needed to produce a secure and a safe network design for Dana school.
ACTIVITY 1
Analysing the business needs to build a effective network
Before designing a network for the company, it is one of the important aspect to analyse
the needs and requirements. These requirements are the main thing which helps in developing a
effective network system for the Dana dance and drama school. As the Dana is currently using a
traditional method to record the data and information within the school, Therefore it has raised
various issues within the school (Agianniotis and et.al., 2017). As the things are generally
performed manually within the school so it increases the chances for the manual errors. In order
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to improve such functioning of the Dana dance and drama school, a effective and efficient
network is need to be developed within the school. All such manual tasks consumes a huge time
of the staff members. One of the common issue faced by the staff of the school is the data
management system which need to be improved and automated in order to improve the
operations within the school. So, there are various different types of needs in the business during
building a effective network system within the company. Such business needs are explained
below:
 An automated payment system: Business needs this type of system to be developed
within the school as it helps in managing all the outflows and inflows of the company in a
very effective as well as efficient way (Xia and et.al., 2016). Whenever any deposits or
payments received within the school will be recorded in the system and further the fees of
the particular student will be automatically credited to the account of the individual.
 An automated attendance system: Business requires an automated attendance system in
which students attendance will be regularly recorded and in case if some student stops
attending the classes for a week then the name of such student will be automatically
debarred from the list. These changes within the list will helps in updating the further list
which is transferred to the fees system as well as another classes in order to update the
record in the overall school management system to avoid and redundancy and maintain
the integrity.
 Central data base management system for Dana: Business requires a powerful
centralised system which will be accessed by the higher management within the school.
As the changes within the centralised system will be automatically reflects the changes
within the other software of the school that are employed to maintain the data and
information.
 Cloud based services to improve security: Business requires a proper cloud based
networking which allows the Dana school to maintain the private data and information
over the network. It helps in securing the private data of the school and also such services
cannot be steal or cracked easily.
 Centralised Email system: Management of the Dana school of dance and Drama needs
to enhance the communication system (Xu and et.al., 2016). Therefore centralised
mailing system helps in circulating the information to all the staff within the company.
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Along with this, examination information which will notify the parents about such
examinations.
Determining the hardware as well as software requirements to run a IT network successfully
within the Dana school.
In order to develop a effective and efficient network within the Dana school, it is very
important to determine the hardware as well as software requirements of the company. During
the successful development of the IT networking to maintain the operations of the Dana school
of dance and drama, various hardware and software requirements are as follows:
Hardware requirements
These requirements are needed to host the main services within the Dana school of dance
and drama. Such hardware requirements are as follows:
 Processor: This requirement is one of the main requirement as all the systems requires the
processor to run the applications or system. For example, CPU with 2 Gigahertz
frequency or above
 RAM: it requires the minimum 2 GB of Random access memory,
 HDD: Hard disc with the 20 GB of the available space will be required by the systems in
order to maintain and process the data.
 Virtual machine configurations: This requirements dynamically allocates the resources to
the system that is processor, memory, discs, network adapter and UI etc.
 Installations and web and data base server setup: It allows the installation of the
applications that are installed on the computer to connect to the overall database.
 Sound card: This is required to provide the input and output of the audio signals which is
generally used for the professional audio application.
 High quality speakers: It is one of the important hardware requirement for the business as
it is the dance and drama school.
 Big projection screen: This requirement allows the students to clearly visualise their steps
according to the beats, this assists the students properly within the dance and drama
school.
 Internet connection broadband: High speed internet broadband connection is required to
along with the speed of at-least 4 Mbps speed or it could be more then that but not less.
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 Browser configurations: These are required to establish a connectivity with the wide area
network such as chrome, internet explorer etc.
Software requirements
These requirements are generally are related to the management of applications and
functionalities which will be performed by the system (Zhou, and et.al., 2016). Such software
requirements within the Dana school of dance and drama are as follows:
 Microsoft office 365: It allows the Dana school to access various applications that helps
in maintaining the records properly.
 Real player: This software requirement is usually helps in circulating the quality based
audio and video content.
 quick time: it also provides the high quality of audio and video content within the school.
 power point viewer: this requirement lets the student to view the full featured
presentation in order to understand the main steps involved within the drama and dance .
 Abode Acrobat Reader: This software requirement allows the management of the school
to maintain all the PDF files as well as share the documents under the global standard.
 Java: It is required to interact with the all available blackboard applications.
Assessment of the methods that can be used to manage the mobile devices on this mobile
network
There are various methods that can be used to connect as well as manage mobile devices
on a mobile network (Eskandarpour and et.al., 2015). However, managing mobiles on a mobile
network increases security threats for the network if the devices connected on the network are
unauthorized or are not restricted in terms of using mobile network. One of the most common
method that can be used to manage mobile devices on network is mobile device management
(MDM). This method is used to manage, maintain, secure and monitor various mobile devices or
any kind of mobile operating system within a mobile network of an organization. MDM also
ensures network and mobile devices' security. This mobile device management method helps in
deploying devices, applications, software's used within a mobile network across multiple
platforms. This enables the organization in managing and maintaining multiple operating
systems and devices associated within a network. Proper deployment of MDM solutions can help
in ensuring proper configuration of devices within network, ensure proper usage of devices in a
supportable manner, ensure that all the equipments performs in a consistent manner and also
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helps in tracking and monitoring other devices present on the network easily by checking their
activities, status, ownership and many more (Ceselli, Premoli and Secci, 2017). Other than this
mobility management is another method that can be used to manage all the mobile devices such
as smartphones, tablets and many other devices within a mobile network. This network uses a
holistic approach which helps in protecting and securing all the mobile devices connected within
a network. One of the main benefit of this network is that it does not restrict the network in
managing number of devices that are connected to a network. It uses BYOD (Bring your own
device) which enables the organization to manage any number of devices within a network.
Other than managing mobile devices within a network it also helps in maintaining productivity
and security of the network and other mobile devices connected to a network and for this
mobility management method has their own security management strategy. In other words it
provides four main types of services that are managing mobile devices within a mobile network,
mobile application management, mobile information management and security to all the devices
and the network.
Critical evaluation of possible solutions to meet the design
It is important to design a network accurately and properly for the smooth functioning
and connectivity of the network (González and et.al., 2016). Properly designed network ensures
that all the services required by the users or subscriber of the network are being fulfilled by the
operator. Network designing process consist of various steps that involves networking linking
through switches, routers and all the devices connected with each other within a network. It is
extremely important to perform all the above tasks efficiently for smooth operability and
performance of the network. Possible solutions that can be used to meet the network design are:
First is by using different type of wireless network i.e. instead of LAN, WAN, CAN or any other
network so that its usability can be improved. Usage of networking technologies completely
depends upon the business or organizational requirements, types and number of devices that will
be using and many more As per the requirements of dance and drama school both LAN and
WAN both can be used. There are mainly two types of approach to design a network top down
approach and bottom up approach (Alshamsi and Diabat, 2015). So, in order to meet the network
design both the type of networking approaches can be used. Both the approaches has their own
benefits. In top down approach networking design is simplified and divided into smaller
designing tasks. It helps in increasing the designing scope which eventually helps in increasing
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the scope of the network. Bottom up approach mainly focuses on selecting networking
technologies that will be used within a network and design model. This helps in ensuring that all
the business or application requirements are being fulfilled. Both the approaches can be used as a
solution to meet network design. The approach that is chosen defines the way network will be
designed and all the technologies that will be implemented within a network.
Development of viable alternative solutions to meet the design
Currently the dance and drama school network designing will be using both wired and
wireless technology and in wireless technology LAN network will be used. Other than this
bottom up approach will be used for network designing (Alumur and et.al., 2016). Alternative
successful solution that can be used to meet the design are: first of all instead of LAN, WAN
network can be used as it helps in providing better opportunities for the business and increases
the connectivity of the organizations, It also helps in connecting more than one locations so if in
future dance and drams school expands their business then WAN network will help them to
easily expand their network top another location in a more easy and accurate manner this will
reduce their expansion expenses. Other than this Instead of bottom up approach, top down
approach can be used to build a network (Govindan, Paam and Abtahi, 2016). It will make
network designing much more easier as whole network will be divided into smaller designing
tasks. This approach provides easy designing solutions if required and fulfil all kind of business
needs. It is one of the most easy business driven approach which can help in fulfilling all kinds
of strategic business goals. It is quite an easy and cost efficient way of designing a network.
Currently Network design is using MDM method to manage all the devices within a network but
instead of using mobile device management method, mobility management method can also be
used as mobility management method will help them to securely manage and maintain all the
devices present on the network (Keizer and et.al., 2017). Other than this method will also help in
managing all the applications that are used by the users within the network easily like attendance
management system, centralized email system and various others.
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ACTIVITY 2
A network design for the Dana School of dance and drama
ACTIVITY 4
Evaluating the rules and networking protocols which are design to build a network.
Networking protocols and standards are the set of instructions and rules which allows to
transmit, receive data from different networking devices (Han and et.al., 2015). It is basically
considered as a digital language through which devices communicate with each other over
internet. However, protocols are the set of mutually excepted and implemented rules at both the
ends of the communication channel for the proper exchange of the information. A set of
cooperating network protocols are called as a protocol suite, Various rules and networking
protocols that are used to build the network are explained below:
TCP / IP
Transfer control protocol and internet protocol uses a set of rules to exchange the
messages with other internet points at information packet level (Rosenkranz and et.al., 2015) . IP
generally uses a set of rules to exchange and receive the messages at the address level over
internet.
HTTP
It is a application layer protocol which is used for transferring the files on the internet.
This protocol allows the Web browsers and servers to communicate with each other in order to
establish a connectivity within various devices of Dana School of dance and drama. These
protocols and standards are generally set the standards and define various rules to exchange the
data and information over the network.
UDP
It is also a alternative communication protocol that is used within the Dana school of
dance and drama. It allows in transmission control protocol which is used primarily for
establishing a low -latency and loss-tolerating connection between applications over the inetrnet.
Voice over IP
This protocol is used within the Dana School of dance and drama in order to enhance the
communication system which allows the staff to make the voice calls using the broadband
internet connection instead of regular phone line(Favoino ed., 2018). It basically helps in
converting the voice into the digital signals which travels over the network.
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Dynamic Host configuration protocol
DHCP generally helps in assigning dynamic IP addresses to devices on a network. It
provides the dynamic addressing to the devices every time when it connects to network.
Internet message access protocol
IMAP is considered as one of the most powerful protocol which is used by the email
clients in order to retrieve the email messages from a mail server over a TCP/IP connection.
Describing the required tools to manage the network
Networking is a huge complex process which requires a various tools and techniques to
establish the connectivity and manage the network of the company. Following are the powerful
tools that helps in managing the effective and efficient network within the school such as:
Solar winds network Performance
This performance monitoring tool is easy to setup and this tool is automatically discovers
the network devices and deploys the network within an hour. This tool helps in developing a
customized web based performance dashboard and charts. It also allows in designing a tailored
topology for entire network based infrastructure which allows the customised dependency aware
intelligent aware (Sholahudin and Han, 2016). This tool is used for automatic network discovery
and helps in scanning of wired and wifi computer devices.
PRTG Network Monitor from Paessler
This tool allows in managing the advance infrastructure management capabilities. It can
easily display all the devices, systems, traffic and applications in a hierarchical view which
basically summarizes the performance and alerts. In order to design a effective network design
for the Dana school of dance and drama, this tool allows the staff to manage the user interface
and provides the ability to access the information with a mobile app.
Manage engine Op Manager
It is an infrastructure management, networking monitoring and application performance
management software (Sholahudin and Han, 2016). This tool helps in managing the server,
network configuration along with the fault and performance. It also helps in analysing the
network traffic.
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Evaluates the performance issues of the built network
There were various kinds of performance issues of building a network that were faced by
us while building a network. These problems were mainly faced because of building a
networking against the clients brief. Problems that were faced are:
 Mismatch in speed: This problem mainly occurs when there is mismatch in speed
because many people try to use the network at the same time which results in slowing
down in network speed.
 Usage of more power: This problem occurred when new programs, applications wire
installed on old systems and those systems were connected to the connected to the school
network (Varsei and Polyakovskiy, 2017). Due to this old systems or devices started to
consume more power and took time to process in other words processing speed of the old
devices was less and required capacity was more.
 Hardware failure: Due to the above problems of processing speed and power
consumption many cases of hardware failure were recorded. Many times system used to
get disconnected from the server, system used to get automatically shut down due to
more power consumption and low processing capacity or speed.
 Network switching configuration: As the members using the network and devices had
low knowledge of network and its designing, whenever there was a need to switch or
configure a network defects within a network were identified due to which data packets
used to get lost, many physical errors were identified (Babazadeh and et.al., 2017).
 Bandwidth congestion: this issue mostly occurred when more number of data packets
were sent to/from their destination then the defined limit and exceeded network capacity.
This issue occurred because of more amount of web browsing, frequent updates or
backups other than normal time.
 Increase network latency: Due bandwidth congestion, the time duration in which data
packets were sent within the network has also increased.
 Network configuration: Another issue that was observed within the network was that
many times problems related to entire network were observed especially in connection of
individual computers or other wireless devices. This poor connection lead to poor
connection and poor network performance. This caused various kinds of troubles
especially in configuration of networking devices.
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 Data quality: All the above issues results in degraded quality of data (Park and et.al.,
2017). Whenever, any data is transferred through network or downloaded through
network, quality of the data gets degraded.
Recommendation for security requirements that will keep the network safe and secure
There are various kinds of security requirements that are required to keep the network
secure and safe. Here, are few recommendations that will help in increasing the security of the
network:
 Network authentication: By protecting organizations network with a password so that no
random person will be able to use or connect to the network. This will also help in
protecting and securing the data present on the network as limited number of people with
passwords will be able to access the data.
 Another way through which network security can be increased is by providing each and
every user with an id and password for using and connecting themselves within the
school network so that all the users connected to the network be easily identified and all
the activities done by them can also be identified. This also help the admin to restrict
network usage on the basis of type of user. These ids and passwords will word as an
identity proof for all the devices that are connected to the network. This will also limit all
the users in terms of usage of devices or connecting to the devices like one user will only
be able to connect only one device with the network. This will also help in reducing rush
or traffic within the network, which will eventually reduce bandwidth congestion.
 By installing Anti virus software on main server and on all the other devices connected to
the server. This antivirus software will help to protect the network and the data stored on
it so that no virus or spam, malware and many more. All the data stored will be secure
and corruption of data can be reduced. This will in smooth functioning of all the devices
connected to the network as well as the network.
CONCLUSION
From the above assignment it has been summarized that Dana School of Dance and
Drama are currently using paper based system were most of the work is done manually whether
it is related to payment, student information, attendance and many more. There had been facing
many issues as this paper based system is never accurate. Due to this they had developed a
business network where they can store all the information on cloud, online payments can be
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