Network Design, Implementation, and Configuration: People Software

This report presents a comprehensive Local Area Network (LAN) design and implementation plan for People Software Company, addressing the organization's need for a high-performance, scalable, and reliable network. It begins with an analysis of the client's requirements, including the need for centralized management, print services, automatic IP address assignment, website hosting, and secure file storage. The proposed solution involves a hierarchical network design with a star topology and a 6a LAN backbone, incorporating core, access, and distribution layers. The report details the server requirements and technologies, recommending Windows Server 2012 R2 with specific hardware configurations and outlining the benefits of tiered storage and virtualization. It includes a configuration process description, focusing on the deployment of servers, DNS server configuration, and DHCP server configuration, accompanied by screenshots. Furthermore, the report addresses network security best practices, such as data monitoring, security patch management, and the implementation of firewalls to protect against threats like Denial of Service and malware. Finally, it provides a summary of configurations and demonstrations of DNS server configurations.

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PEOPLE SOFTWARE COMPANY: LOCAL AREA NETWORK
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PEOPLE SOFTWARE COMPANT: LOCAL AREA NETWORK
Abstract
Before embarking on the process of network design one ought to analyze client
requirements which form the basis of developing a network system so as to meet the goals of an
organization. As a network engineer hired by a client company, I will analyze clients’
requirements for People Software Company. This paper will include network design solutions
for the company. How to implement and configure the network design. Lastly, this paper will
show how one can troubleshoot the implanted network design.
Overview of People Software Company
People Software Company is an organization which is located in Sydney. The company
comprises of four departments which Finance, Operations, Developers, and Marketing.
Section 1: Introduction
There is an increasing demand for high-performance network for many organizations. For
People Software Company, the organization needs a high throughput and a network which have
very low delays on an end-to-end basis. One most important considerations for the current
organization network is to support future expansions. In addition, the network design must be
scalable and reliable. This means a network designer must define the client’s requirements
extensively particularly the current application used by the client, the current technology, and the
data architecture required. Other issues to consider during network design are manageability of
the organization network, the location of switches, firewalls, and routers. After this, the network
engineer can go ahead to design a network which is flexible, manageable, and scalable [1].
To implement People Software company network design, a network engineer needs to
divide the organization network into modules which can be easily managed and maintained. This

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means that this paper will implement a top-down type of topology as the building block to
enquire on client’s requirements. One of the major advantages of Top-down type of approach is
that it focuses on specific requirements and goals for network services and applications.
Section 2: Requirements Analysis and identification of server roles and technologies
To start with People Software Company requires a dedicated LAN service with a
centralized mode of management. The network design must be able to provide print services to
the organization employees. All the users’ computers for the company must be able to acquire IP
address automatically from the server. The organization also needs to host their website. Lastly,
there is a need to host the organization files in the separate server where only the accredited users
can access the files only i.e. not every employee or user computer can access the organization
files.
Proposed Topology
One of the need of People Software Company is to support the current organization
services. Designing a new network requires choosing the very best topology to meet People
Software needs company. A topology which is easy for a network administrator to troubleshoot
and for a system administrator to be able to reconfigure when the need arises. For this
implementation, this paper will propose a star type of topology with 6a Local Area Network
backbone. The 6a LAN backbone ought to be configured with a logical star configuration and
dedicated organization servers. The star configuration ought to meet the IEEE 802.11 standards
[2].
Desired network design for People Software Company
To meet the organization needs; a network that is able to support the growth of the
company. Peoples Software Company needs to go for a hierarchical type of design. This is

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because this type of design is adapted to the future growth of the company. Also, hierarchical
type of network design fits very well with network security models and the network traffic; this
is achieved in hierarchical by segregating the organization LAN into what network engineers
refer to as logical parts that are in line with the needs of the company. A hierarchical LAN
network design is manageable and very easy expand when the need arises [4].
A LAN design must interconnect data center, endpoints, and workstations. With a
hierarchical type of design, it involves diving the entire network into three main layers which are
the core layers, the access layer, and the distribution layer. As shown in figure two below, the
network involves the use of cat 6a type of ca less from the main Router to a distribution
manageable switch to the various departments. Each switch in each department acts as a
distribution point which then connects back to the main router. One of the requirements for this
type of design is cooling and power. This design will also require space in each room. Assuming
that all the departments were located in each floor in one building the distribution of services will
be as shown by the figure one below

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Figure 1: Distribution of Services using hierarchical model [5]

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Figure two below shows the location of each equipment within the organization.
Figure 2: location of each equipment
Server needs and technologies
To start with, People Software Company is a medium sized company as it only has four
departments. The organization needs to implement windows server 2012 R2 64 bits. The
hardware requirements ought to be inter Core i7 with a 2.2 GHz frequency. The RAM machine
needs to be 16 GB with a storage configuration of 300 GB where 50 GB for the server and 250
GM for the organization database [6].

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Why windows server 2012
One of the features with Windows Server 2012 was a tiered storage space which provides
greater performance and scalability. The feature also allows a mix of SSD and HDD in a single
space. Other features of server 2012 are mirrored virtual disk and the PowerShell 3.0, Hyper-V
and server manager [7].
Section 3: Configuration Process Description
Deployment of Servers and their technologies
As highlighted previously in this report, People Software Company can only benefit from
a network infrastructure which is fault tolerance, scalable and consistent. Network engineers
need to consider lots of factors when deciding the type of server technologies. For this case one
of the factors to consider is the number of users within the organization and the applications
which are needed by the company. People Software Company need one server that ought to
serve a maximum of 10 employees so as to improve performance. In here the Company desire to
increase network users in the future. Due to this the organization needs to have seven servers. Six
servers are located within the organization and one server to be located in the DMZ zone [8].
Four of the servers need to have a data center edition and three servers to have a data center
edition. The four severs must be optimized for what network engineers refer to as large scale
virtualization. This allows one of the organization server run what computer scientists refer to
run an unlimited number of the windows server instance. The two editions i.e. the standard and
datacenter editions require what this report refer to as Per Cole license model. Also, all the even
servers each require a minimum of 11 core licenses for each of the server and every processor
[5]. The deployment of servers ought to be as shown by table one below

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Server Name Functions of the server Server edition
SS1 Active Directory, Primary
DNS
Server 2012 datacenter
SS2 ISCI Server 2012 datacenter
SS3 File and sharing Server 2012 datacenter
SS4 DHCP, terminal services and
Application services
Server 2012 datacenter
SS4 Back-up and File sharing
server
Server 2012 datacenter
SS5 DNS server services Server 2012 standard edition
SS6 ISCO local SAN Server 2012 standard edition
SS7 Application services and
DHCP relaying
Server 2012 standard edition

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DNS server configuration description
Domain Name System is what is referred to as phonebook in simple language. The
reason as to why this report had gone for DNS server is that with a DNS server, the organization
will be able to maintain domain names. In addition, the DNS server will help in translating the
domain names into IP addresses. This report would recommend the use of two DNS servers; if
one of the DNS servers fails then it would provide a continuous process of DNS server services.
Also, it would provide room for continuous network growth [9].
DHCP server configuration Description
The DHCP server, in this case, will be used to assign IP address automatically. The
consideration made here is the fault tolerance factor where split-scope DHCP implementation
will be done. When implementing DHCP server People Software Company should perform six
major steps. First, the DHCP server ought not to share the organization database of the leased IP
address. This means that if the organization network has more than DHCP server as in this case
then it is important not to overlap the DHCP scope. Second, one needs to know the various
DHCP options. Third, one needs to assign static IP to all the non-DHCP clients. Lastly, one
needs to configure DHCP relay agents and assign static IP addresses [4]. For this case, the
configuration process will be as shown in the figure below

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Figure 3: DHCP configuration Process

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Section 4: Configuration screenshots
DHCP screenshots

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