Wireless LAN (WLAN) System Design for Footscray University Campus

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments. This report details a new WLAN design for Footscray University.

INTRODUCTION
As technology is updating day by day. Now wireless technology took over the scenario from
wired one. As wireless technology enables users to freely move in the network area without any
disruption of internet connection. With the wired technology, the users are bounded with the
desk which has an Ethernet internet connection. This problem is solved by wireless technology,
but on the comparison, the data rate speed in wired connection is more than in wireless
connection. That’s why the standards of networking protocols have been updated accordingly so
to meet the data rate demands in the current scenario. Also, the cost of installation and
maintenance of wireless connection equipment is less and easy than the wired connection.
Having these advantages, the present scenario is shifting from wired to wireless connectivity.
Hence, for meeting the data rate demands, the standard of the already installed network need to
be updated in the campus arena of Footscary University.
Proposed WLAN Design
As technology can be accessed from anywhere through wireless links. So, high-speed internet
connectivity is in great demand. But in the campus area, there exists a simple network, and all
the wireless access points (AP) follow the outdated IEEE 802.11n wireless local area network
standards. There also exists an issue of interoperability of the equipment which is already
installed in the Footscray university campus. Hence in order to keep the momentum going, the
standards need to be updated to deliver high-speed network connectivity and the interoperability
between the different types of equipment used in the establishment of wireless LAN (Lindsey,
2002). Hence designing a new wireless network, there is a need for updated standards to be
implemented. Also, the proposed WLAN system should be from a single vendor for ease of
operability between different types of equipment. The proposed system has the following
features:
 The whole system is from a single vendor that is Cisco.
 All the equipment have the ability to support 802.11ac 5GHz MIMO wireless standard.
 Support older 802.11 series wireless standard.
 System has a centralized controller and management system.

 3x3:3 MIMO Access points are used.
 Response matrix setup of APs all over the campus.
 Time-based policies configuration for APs.
 Routers get connected to APs as well as switches also for providing wired support (Ji,
2017).
Specifications of the connectivity section
WLAN standard
For faster Wi-Fi performance in the campus, here is a proposal of the WLAN design. The IEEE
standard 802.11ac should be implemented. As 802.11ac is a super operated version of 802.11
standards and deliver multiple times high speed starting from 430 Mbps to several Gigabits per
second speed (Mitchell, 2018).
As compared to 802.11ac standard, 802.11n technology only supports four spatial streams and
the channel width of 40MHz whereas eight special streams are utilized by 802.11ac with a
central channel width of 80MHz. As 802.11ac operates in 5GHz bandwidth as compared to other
standards which operate in 2.4GHz bandwidth only. Hence the proposed WLAN design
components like access points, routers, repeaters, and antennas should utilize 802.11ac standard
for faster internet connectivity throughout the Footscray university campus (Lendino, 2016).
Routers or Access controllers (AC) used

For the campus area, routers of D-link and Netgear which supports dual-band with combined
multiple in multiple out (MIMO) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)
technology with a rating of 802.11ac is used. This scalable version will provide all the students
as well as staff members better internet connectivity as compared to the previous network. In
these routers, the operability frequency of 5GHz provides 23 free channels, hence maximum gain
from bandwidth can be achieved by these routers (Mehta, 2015).
Access points used
As the access points in the campus arena are connected to the router through a wired medium.
Hence the access points supporting high-speed Ethernet cable should be implemented so to
provide the wireless connectivity with great speed to staff members and students of the
university. Also, the AP’s of the campus and hostel arena should be rated of 802.11ac which is
defined in a proposed matrix throughout the Footscray university. Auto channel selection, an
omnidirectional antenna and distributed intelligence for channel distribution to the students are
mandatory requirements in APs (Chen, 2018).
WLAN Roaming
In the campus arena, for better connectivity, while moving from one point to another, handoffs
between different APs must be specified when the user’s mobile or laptop roam from one AP to
another in the campus (Ciarlone, 2013).

System features
 VLAN and policy support: The wireless routers and APs of the new system must
provide IEEE 802.1 q VLAN support. This can be done by changing the routing
protocols of existing routers or the user’s network configuration. The proposed WLAN is
able to isolate the traffic whether it is VLAN or other APs.
 Ethernet support: Access points and routers of this new system comply
802.3/10/100/1000 high-speed Ethernet support. As the access points are connected to the
routers by wired Ethernet, so special Ethernet has been used for ensuring high data rates.
 Scalability: The students are not to plug in the access points instead now they get the
automatic configuration for accessing network. This helps in better speed to them if any
technical issue will occur in their respective AP, then using another AP will not disrupt
the connection.
 IPv6 support: The router and AP of the university network also supports IP version 6 for
better operability as compared to the previous network.

 Traffic Management: Traffic tunneling and a direct gateway to the specific AP can be
done by the Footscray university router. It supports a minimum 30 students or staff’s
devices to a single AP (Ji, 2017).
Security Section
 Encryption Security: The system routers exhibits WPA/WPA2 security encryption
which assures the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) and Advanced Encryption
Standards (AES).
 Authentication: The proposed WLAN system exhibits Medium access control MAC-
based authentication for protecting the campus system network from any unauthorized
access by any other person. RADIUS proxy functions are also available in the campus
system network.
 Guest access control: The WLAN system of the university has the ability to filter out
and manage the guest users on the network using PSK technique of encryption (Hoffman,
2017).
Management Section
The newly designed WLAN system provides a wireless management interface for overall
managing and maintaining the functions of the system. The overall network monitoring is done
by the monitoring control section.
 Visibility and management of access controllers and access points done from time to
time.
 Web GUI is installed for the content management of the network in the campus arena.
 Visibility of WLAN users on the network is highly desirable like user name, IP address,
mac address, location, bandwidth usage etc.
 Visibility of radio frequency allocation to the devices through APs.
 Spectrum analyzer
 Management of security reasons for Footscary University.
Designing a demo architecture of WLAN model

1. Design of network model is done by connecting the wireless access point to the router
through Ethernet cable. The switch and router are also connected to Ethernet cable. The
clients connected to wireless access points wirelessly and to the switch by cable medium.
The router is then connected to the modem (modulation and demodulation) and modem
to internet server cloud.
2. Configuration for the switch: Configuration of the switch is done by enabling the port of
the switch to connect to the router.

3. Configuring the router: Configuration of the router is done by assigning a unique IP
address to the router. After adding the IP address to the port of the router, all ports are
configured accordingly.

4. Connectivity of router to switch and APs: After configuring the routers, access points,
and switches, the IP address of switch and access points have to be entered in router’s
routing table. This gives gateway mask to access points and switches.

5. Adding a network interface to router configuration: Adding network in router
configuration gives gateway address to the clients connected to access points and
switches.

6. Ping the router to other devices: For ensuring the connectivity of the wireless access
points and switches to the routers, the ping command is fired with the IP address of the
required equipment.

The Schedule of New WLAN Design Project

In scheduling the design of the new WLAN network in the Footscray University, the following
implementations have been done orderly:
 Firstly, the site of an existing network of the university has been visited. All the routers,
wireless access points, and their connectivity have been analyzed.
 The main issue of slower internet connection has been analyzed so that the new design
can be made accordingly to meet the demands of internet connection in the arena.
 For the implementation of new design, one particular vendor have been decided to buy all
the equipment of the network.
 Proper selection of routers, wireless access points and switches for the WLAN system
have been chosen.
 The standard which meets the internet connection data rates should be taken.
 Deployment of these routers and wireless access points can be done and configured
accordingly all over the campus of Footscray University.
 Proper connectivity should be checked between the access points and routers.
 Before implementation, testing of each equipment and the overall system is done. If there
is any fault in equipment, then it should be replaced as soon as possible.
 After implementation, proper guidance and training would be provided to the students
and staff members for accessing the network and rules and regulations should be given to
them.
 Security check and encryption would be done after implementing the network so to avoid
any unauthorized access.