Detailed Network Design and Structure Report for ABXYZ Company

This report provides a comprehensive network design for ABXYZ, a medium-sized company specializing in grain trading. It begins with an organizational description, detailing the company's business model, industry, and network requirements. The report outlines the physical office layout and presents a detailed network diagram, explaining the role of each network component, including routers, switches, and servers. It covers IP addressing and allocation, discusses the advantages of the chosen scheme, and concludes with a summary of the network design. The report also addresses network security, ensuring the company's digital operations are secure.

Running head: ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION AND NETWORK STRUCTURE
Organization Description and Network Structure
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION AND NETWORK STRUCTURE
Summary
For any small or medium sized business designing and setting up the network plays a crucial
role in determining whether the company will see profits or run in losses. This is because the
efficiency and effectiveness of business operations are directly dependent on how the
network is set up and if the right components and devices are being used. The report first
talks about the description of the organization chosen and discusses about the background of
the company where it explains the business model of the company, the industry it caters to
and the kinds of activities involved while also mentioning how the company is transforming
the traditional ways of doing business. Then the report lists the network requirements based
on the innovative steps taken by the company for the said industry where the number of
devices and departments is mentioned. Based on these requirements the report then presents
the physical layout of the office at the headquarters. Next the report enters the network design
portion where the report first presents the network diagram followed by explanation of the
network design. After this the report describes the role of each network component before
providing the IP addressing and allocation details. Thereafter the report discusses the
advantages of the addressing scheme and ends with conclusions.

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ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION AND NETWORK STRUCTURE
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Organizational Description........................................................................................................3
Background............................................................................................................................3
Network Requirements...........................................................................................................4
Physical Layout of Office......................................................................................................5
Network Design.........................................................................................................................6
Network Diagram...................................................................................................................6
Network Component Description..........................................................................................7
IP Address Allocation..........................................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................14

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ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION AND NETWORK STRUCTURE
Introduction
It is observed that, to help small or medium sized businesses in earning profits it is pivotal
that they invest more time and money in designing and setting up the network (Rezapour,
Farahani, & Pourakbar, 2017). This results from the impact that network implementations
have in efficient and effective running of business operations which also depends on how the
network is set up and the type of components and devices being used (Ivanov et al., 2016).
The report begins by providing description of the chosen organization and discusses about the
background of the company where it explains the business model of the company, the
industry it caters to and the kinds of activities involved while also mentioning how the
company is transforming the traditional ways of doing business. Then the report lists the
network requirements based on the innovative steps taken by the company for the said
industry where the number of devices and departments is mentioned (Lemmens et al., 2016).
Based on these requirements the report then presents the physical layout of the office at the
headquarters. Next the report enters the network design portion where the report first presents
the network diagram followed by explanation of the network design. After this the report
describes the role of each network component before providing the IP addressing and
allocation details. Thereafter the report discusses the advantages of the addressing scheme
and ends with concluding notes.
Organizational Description
Background
The organization concerned is ABXYZ based in Singapore which specializes in
facilitating buying, selling as well as storing grains. It helps better manage the commodities
orders and deliveries of customers, inventory management, as well as managing payments in
real time in one place (Fountas et al., 2015). The organization is a medium sized company

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ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION AND NETWORK STRUCTURE
that consists of about 250 members. The organization is making use of digital platforms to
fast track the activities required for processing, delivery and warehousing of agricultural
goods de (Reuver, Sørensen & Basole, 2018). This helps the company to operate a very
efficient business model and thus optimize profits by having to rely less on human resources
for certain tasks (Cascio, 2015). To enable this the business needs to have a network
established that can sustain network access for employees to operate according to the
digitised business model.
Network Requirements
The company ABXYZ consists of 8 different departments among which there are at
least four number of users present in a particular department. There are five departments with
40 users, two departments with 23 users and one department having four users respectively.
The departments are named Department A to Department H. Based on the needs of the
company headquarters it is required for the network to contain appropriate components as
also to have the right choice of network topology in place (De Schepper, Latré & Famaey,
2017). Since company also involves members responsible with delivery of goods as also
positioned in other places like warehouses to provide updates on their activity, the network
must ensure that such facility is available to these members.
The network must also be able to provide adequate security to the devices and
components as well as help in authenticating and validating the accounts of users (Acemoglu,
Malekian & Ozdaglar, 2016). For this the network needs to be equipped with appropriate
devices and also have dedicated software applications for fending off any risks to the network
configuration or to protect the information stored by the network which are usually sensitive
in nature and any leaks can result in massive losses for the company.

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ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION AND NETWORK STRUCTURE
Physical Layout of Office
Figure 1: Office Floor Plan
(Source: Created by the Author)
The above diagram shows the floor plan of the headquarters office of the company
ABXYZ. The office is found to comprise of the eight different departments, a server room, a
database room, two toilets, the conference room and the cafeteria (Shibuya & Croxford,
2016). The total area covered by the office sums up to 301 square meters. At either side of the
entrance to the office are positioned the cafeteria and the conference room. Then there
follows a hallway all the way till the toilets at the opposite end of the entrance. On each side
of this hallway, four departments are present. After the women’s toilet the hallway ends at the
server room and similarly, after the men’s toilet the hallway ends at the database room or the
opposite end of the server room.

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ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION AND NETWORK STRUCTURE
Network Design
Network Diagram
Figure 2: Network Diagram
(Source: Created by the author)
Above is the network diagram that presents the network of ABXYZ. The top down
approach undertaken by the company in implementing the network is clearly visible (Newell,
Yang & Deng, 2016). First the network is obtained by the router of the company from the ISP
(Internet Service Provider) who offer several packages at different tariffs for providing
connection to the rest of the networks of the internet (Douros et al., 2017). These packages
can differ mainly on the basis of bandwidth and data usage. The router then provides the
connection to the multilayer switch which serves the purpose of distributing the connection to
two layer 3 access level switches which are used to connect individual devices like computers

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ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION AND NETWORK STRUCTURE
and servers. The network also consists of a wireless router which is used for setting up
wireless network connectivity for laptops and mobile devices using the wireless LAN
(WLAN) network topology which is different from the typical wired LAN networking
topologies (Khalajmehrabadi, Gatsis & Akopian, 2017). This router is connected to the same
switch that provides connection to the devices of the departments. The other switch is used to
provide network access to the various servers namely the web server, the mail server,
database server and the authentication server. The network helps the company host a web
portal which the organizational members can access even from outside the office (Iannucci et
al., 2015). Thus the members placed in other units of the company like warehouses or the
employees who are on the move are now able to update details of their activity in the
company network through the public internet access. Since the network components and
devices are protected from information security risks by both hardware and software side
security solutions, these members do not have to worry about security issues except ensuring
privacy of their devices through the usual measures like lock screen, pin, pattern and
biometrics (Holz, Buthpitiya & Knaust, 2015). The individual accounts of these members for
the web portal are validated in the network by the authentication server. This authentication
server is a separate standalone server dedicated for verifying and validating user credentials
as it is compute intensive task (Lee & Lee, 2016). This verification of user credentials occur
in the form of sequential batch processing and requires consumption of substantial resources.
Every organizational member communicates using the common mailing domain of the
network and all the data associated with this communication as well as activities on the
website are stored in the data stores and the database server.
Network Component Description
Firewall/Router: These are routers which also perform the function of hardware firewall
devices. When the router obtains internet access from the ISPs, the network also gets

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ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION AND NETWORK STRUCTURE
screened before the connection is provided to the switches. The device being used by the
network is the Cisco RV110W Wireless-N VPN Firewall router. The device provides
comprehensive security by supporting rule driven access levels along up to date wireless
security measures small and medium businesses. Additionally it also comes with support for
IPsec VPN to ensure secured remote connectivity with client devices. These devices can cost
up to 100 US dollars.
Layer 2 Distribution Switch: The network can require multiple connections and several
switches to facilitate these connections. A single router alone cannot connect that many
switches by default. To increase number of interfaces with which the router can connect,
additional ports need to be installed and this shoots up the cost of acquiring network
equipment. To connect all the devices, the medium sized company ABXYZ will be needing
approximately 13 switches. Even with additional ports, a single router is not enough and
purchasing more routers can raise the costs radically. Layer 2 switches can address this
problem as these are used to distribute the network connection to the different access level
switches by forming a three layer hierarchical network (Hong et al., 2016). One Cisco SG350
having 28 ports is a more than enough layer 2 switch solution to meet all network needs of
the company ABXYZ and can cost up to 475 US dollars.
Layer 3 Access Switch: These are those switches that are used to directly connect the
individual devices of the network or for providing connectivity to the wireless access point.
With each of the departments operating with 30 to 40 devices in general, they need at least
two switches. These are the Cisco WS-C3560V2-24TS-S switches having 24 ports each and
can cost about 100 US dollars.
Wireless Router: The wireless router in the network of ABXYZ is being used as a wireless
access point for the laptops and mobile devices. Additionally the router also creates a

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ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION AND NETWORK STRUCTURE
separate subnet for these wireless connections. This WLAN network thus created provides
about 250 connections that is to the laptops and mobile devices of all the members present at
the headquarters. The security of this WLAN network is ensured by WPA encryption and
authentication techniques, more specifically WPA 2 or Wi-Fi Protected Access. This is a
standard security for protecting devices in wireless connections. Both WPA and WPA 2 are
comprehensive data encryption techniques developed by Wi-Fi Alliance and offers more
advanced authentication when compared to WEP or Wired Equivalent Privacy which
happened to be the original security standard for Wi-Fi connections. The router used by the
network is the Cisco CVR100W and can cost up to 100 US dollars.
Servers: The servers are being used in the network of ABXYZ in to perform various
specialized tasks such as web hosting, managing mailing domain and databases as also for
authentication purposes. These are high end systems capable of processing compute intensive
workloads and handling memory heavy applications. The devices used by the network are
Dell PowerEdge 2900 III servers and each of these units can cost up to 950 US dollars.
Workstations: The workstations are mid tower desktop computer systems equipped with
moderately powerful processors and sufficient memory to execute most professional
applications at decent time. The devices being used by the employees at the headquarters are
OptiPlex 3060 from Dell and can cost up to 650 US Dollars.
Laptops: The network of the company consists of a WLAN network for providing wireless
connectivity to mobile devices of the employees at headquarters. These mobile devices
mostly include laptops assigned to these employees to aid them with their professional work.
The laptops provided by ABXYZ are the Lenovo ThinkPad L480 laptops and they can cost
about 707 US dollars.

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ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION AND NETWORK STRUCTURE
IP Address Allocation
Name
of the
Subnet
Number
of IP
address
es
needed
Number
of IP
address
es
allocate
d
Network
Address
es
Mask
or
CIDR
value
Subnet
Masks
Assigna
ble
Range
Broadcast
Address
Depart
ment A
40 62
172.16.1
12.0
/26
255.25
5.255.1
92
172.16.1
12.1 -
172.16.1
12.62
172.16.112
.63
Depart
ment B
40 62
172.16.1
12.64
/26
255.25
5.255.1
92
172.16.1
12.65 -
172.16.1
12.126
172.16.112
.127
Depart
ment C
40 62
172.16.1
12.128
/26
255.25
5.255.1
92
172.16.1
12.129 -
172.16.1
12.190
172.16.112
.191
Depart
ment D
40 62
172.16.1
12.192
/26
255.25
5.255.1
92
172.16.1
12.193 -
172.16.1
12.254
172.16.112
.255
Depart
ment E
40 62 172.16.1
13.0
/26 255.25
5.255.1
172.16.1
13.1 -
172.16.113
.63

11
ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION AND NETWORK STRUCTURE
92
172.16.1
13.62
Depart
ment F
23 30
172.16.1
13.64
/27
255.25
5.255.2
24
172.16.1
13.65 -
172.16.1
13.94
172.16.113
.95
Depart
ment G
23 30
172.16.1
13.96
/27
255.25
5.255.2
24
172.16.1
13.97 -
172.16.1
13.126
172.16.113
.127
Depart
ment H
4 6
172.16.1
13.128
/29
255.25
5.255.2
48
172.16.1
13.129 -
172.16.1
13.134
172.16.113
.135
The major network used to create the different subnets for all the eight departments is
172.16.112.0/23. This is because the company ABXYZ requires IP addresses for 250 devices
and for the mask of 24, only 254 IP addresses are available (Sun & Sun, 2016). This is not
enough for maintaining eight different subnets. The mask 23 however offers 510 IP addresses
and hence this is chosen for the major network. The total IP address allocated by in the eight
different subnets are 376. The method used in creating the different subnets is CIDR or
Classless Inter Domain Routing which offers meaningful advantages as opposed to the
classful IP addressing scheme (Shirmarz & Sabaei, 2016). In classful IP addressing, the
number of addresses per network can vary widely with respect to transitioning from one class
to the other, for example in Class A there can be 16 million IP addresses per network, in class