6CC547: Network Management and Security Plan for Handmade Furniture

This report presents a detailed network management and security plan for HandMade Furniture, a company specializing in handmade furniture production. The report analyzes the existing network infrastructure, which includes two main sites (office and factory) with a total of 80 employees, various Windows operating systems, and Microsoft Office versions. It proposes a comprehensive network management plan that includes upgrading the Windows Server, implementing FTTC for improved internet connectivity, integrating cloud services for data management, updating Windows and Microsoft Office versions, establishing email communication via cloud providers, installing Wi-Fi, and incorporating a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy. Furthermore, the report outlines a network security plan to protect the company's network. The report also suggests the implementation of network pull printing and provides a new network design, ultimately aiming to enhance network efficiency, security, and employee productivity.

Running head: - HANDMADE FURNITURE NETWORK MANAGEMENT
HANDMADE FURNITURE NETWORK MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1HANDMADE FURNITURE NETWORK MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
1. Introduction:...........................................................................................................................2
2. Network Design (Existing):...................................................................................................3
3. Network Management Plan:...................................................................................................3
4. Network Security Plan:........................................................................................................14
5. Network Design (New):.......................................................................................................19
6. Conclusion:..........................................................................................................................19
7. Recommendations:...............................................................................................................20
8. References:...........................................................................................................................21

2HANDMADE FURNITURE NETWORK MANAGEMENT
1. Introduction:
HandMade Furniture is a company that specifically deals with the production and
manufacturing of furniture in their own factories but following a handmade procedure to be
exact. The company is in possession of two main sites, the office and that of the factory. The
organization consists of 80 employees in both the sites together, with 60 employees working
at the factory and the rest of the 20 working at the office doing desk jobs (Park et al. 2017).
In regards to the office, each individual of the 20 workers have their own workstations which
have various version of windows installed on them such as 7, 8 or 10. In addition to this, all
of the systems that are placed at the office have various versions of Microsoft office for
carrying out the basic work on a daily basis. On the other hand, the factory has an inclusion
of 8 personal computers with all of the systems installed with windows 7 and Microsoft
office 2010 (Ceselli, Premoli and Secci 2017). The entire network of the company runs on a
singular Windows Server 2012 along with an additional storage space added to the network
that provisions all the employees with a storage space of 10 TB. Internet connectivity is
provided to the network with the help of a local internet provider through the utilization of
ADSL account. The factory has been provided with a single Inkjet printer that needs to be
shared by all the 8 workstations within the factory. On the other hand, the office site of the
company has 23 printers among which, a high volume laser printer is attached to the
administration department and 22 other inkjet printers are shared by the remaining of the
workstations. The company has no centralized antivirus software and the employees have the
responsibility to deal with the same on their own. A recent situation of a virus infection was
solved by bringing in a local IT technician (Boland et al. 2017). As a reason, this discussion
carries the primary objective of creating a network management plan on the basis of which,
the entire network that belongs to the company shall be managed, as well as a network

3HANDMADE FURNITURE NETWORK MANAGEMENT
security plan that will provision the company with the required amount of security measures
that need to be implemented to make the network secure.
2. Network Design (Existing):
Figure-1: HandMade Furniture existing network
(Source- Created By Author)
3. Network Management Plan:
HandMade Furniture as a business organization have been making use of traditional
methods for running the company in terms of internet connectivity, wires, cloud services and
many other. In regards to this, the company needs to make drastic changes in various aspects
of the existing network for a better service to be provided to each of the individual employee
working within the organization.

4HANDMADE FURNITURE NETWORK MANAGEMENT
Internet Connectivity:
The current system consists of a wired network with no existence of Wi-Fi services or
cloud services and the workstations are provisioned with the connection from a local service
provider with the help of an ADSL account (Cioffi et al. 2020). The entire network is
connected to a singularly
existing Windows Server 2012. Upgrading the internet connection of the company shall be
done according to the following steps,
i) Server- the Windows Server 2012 shall be replaced with that of the latest version,
Windows Server 2019. This is the primary step towards upgrading the internet
connection of the company. The windows server 2019 shall be integrated for
multiple benefits such as Azure Services, increased security as well as reducing
the risk to the business procedures with multiple layers of security protection
(Akpinar et al. 2017). For installing the Windows Server 2019, the company
needs to make an investment of $6,155 that is a one-time cost for the company.
Figure-2: Windows Server 2019
(Source- Cioffi et al. 2020)

5HANDMADE FURNITURE NETWORK MANAGEMENT
i) Internet provider- the existing ADSL account that is provided by the local
service provide shall be replaced by the FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) to
specifically improve the speed of the connection across the entire network of the
organization with transmission of connectivity through the fibre optics rather than
copper wires (Singh 2017). The FTTC connection will provide with better speed
of uploads and downloads, a high-speed connection of internet as well as lower
amount of traffic that will allow both the sites of the company to have an
unintended communication with no interventions. For implementing the FTTC,
the company has to make an investment of $2900 at the initial installation along
with variable costs for maintaining the entire system on a yearly basis.
Figure-3: FTTC Connection
(Source- Akpinar et al. 2017)
ii) Cloud services- the company has been working on a singular network with
internet connection from a local service provider through an ADSL account.
However, with the amount of data that the company deals with on a regular basis,
there is a need of implementing cloud services. Hence, the company needs to

6HANDMADE FURNITURE NETWORK MANAGEMENT
include cloud service for carrying out the activities of data management, backup
as well as to have a faster access to the company data from anywhere at any point
of time (Learning and Tutorial 2017). For the storage, a minimum of 5TB space is
to be provided for which the annual cost is $419.4.
Figure-4: Cloud based services
(Source- Singh 2017)
Windows and Microsoft Office Versions:
The office site has 20 workers currently employed by the company for which 20
workstations have been provisioned. In regards to this, all the workstations are not having
Windows 10 installed on them (Adams 2018). As a reason, the workstations devoid of that
will be identified and the existing versions of windows operating system will be replaced by
the Windows 10 version to provide with greater efficiency and to increase the performance of
the work that is carried out with the help of the PCs.

7HANDMADE FURNITURE NETWORK MANAGEMENT
On the other hand, the factory has 8 workstations currently running with Windows 7
installed on them. Hence, as a part of upgrading the entire network of the organization, the
windows 7 will be replaced by Windows 10 on every single PC that is operated within the
factory premise of the HandMade Furniture. For installing the Windows 10, cost for each of
the original version of the operating system is $199.99.
Figure-5: Windows 10
(Source- Learning and Tutorial 2017)
In addition to this, the workstations have been provided with various versions of
Microsoft Office to carry out general activities related to the business of the organization. In
regards to this, all the PCs belonging to the office site as well as the factory site will be
installed with Microsoft Office 2019 to provide the employees with greater services to carry
out their individual work with greater efficiency (Nas 2019). Cost of Microsoft Office 2019 is
$249.99.

8HANDMADE FURNITURE NETWORK MANAGEMENT
Figure-6: Microsoft Office 2019
(Source- Adams 2018)
Email via Cloud Provider:
To improve the communication between all the individual employees of the
organization, cloud services have been provisioned for backing up data as well as to provide
the employees with an extra space for storage to access the same set of data whenever
necessary at any place or time. However, there is also a necessity of the employees to
communicate within themselves as well as to provide certain information to the upper
management of HandMade Furniture (Bhardwaj and Goundar 2017). As a reason, every
individual employee working at the office site and the factory site will have a specific email
address that can be used for the purpose of communicating as well as conveying various
forms of information related to the business activity. Microsoft Office 365 will be installed
on every single workstation of the organization to provision the employees with the
allowance to access their email and convey necessary information. This will cost the
company $99.99 on an annual basis.
Figure-7: Microsoft Office 365
(Source- Nas 2019)

9HANDMADE FURNITURE NETWORK MANAGEMENT

10HANDMADE FURNITURE NETWORK MANAGEMENT
Wi-Fi installation:
With the implementation of FTTC and cloud based services, the network will be
installed with a Wi-Fi server that will gain the internet access from the FTTC service
provider. This server will have a connection to a Wi-Fi router that will be open to all the
workstations as well as mobiles of the employees to connect to it and access the internet from
there itself (Vasisht, Kumar and Katabi 2016). Especially, the team leaders of every single
team will have a laptop that shall be Wi-Fi enabled to allow them to connect to the router and
carry out their daily work for the company. Netgear C7100V Nighthawk DOCSIS 3.0 Cable
Modem and Router will be installed into the company’s network to enable the Wi-Fi service.
The router will cost $ 521.20 that is a one-time investment for the company.
Figure-8: Netgear C7100V Nighthawk DOCSIS 3.0
(Source- Bhardwaj and Goundar 2017)
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD):
HandMade Furniture will provision all the existing employees to bring in any kinds of
their own computing device for any work that needs to be accomplished. Such devices can be
the like of smartphones, tablets or might as well be laptops. Now, the employees will also be
provisioned with the allowance to connect their own devices to the Wi-Fi service that will be

11HANDMADE FURNITURE NETWORK MANAGEMENT
integrated into the newer design of the network after upgrading (Lee Jr et al. 2017). They will
be able to connect their devices and carry out their work on the internet through the Wi-Fi
router that has been included into the upgraded network of the company.
Figure-9: Bring Your Own Device
(Source- Lee Jr et al. 2017)
However, when the workers will be bringing their own device, every individual
device shall be monitored once before coming in and again when the person is leaving with
the device to check if some unethical misconduct has been carried out such as stealing away
company’s data. This can be done or improving the security of the BYOD policy in
particular.
Networked Pull Printing:
Pull printing refers to the technology that has the primary inclusion of server-based
printing or server less printing. This procedure refers to the method of printing that usually
exists in larger-sized business organizations that usually print long as well as documents that
are rich in colour (Kim and Oak 2017). For such pull printers, there is a separate existence of
a pull printing server that entirely controls as well as monitors over the printing
functionalities freeing the workstations of the business organizations for carrying out other
important procedures.