Network Planning and Implementation: Contoso Corporation Case Study

This case study analyzes Contoso Corporation's plan to redesign Adatum's network infrastructure using an automated server installation plan. The proposed hierarchical network aims to reduce operational costs, proactively maintain the network, enhance security, and ensure high network availability. The solution involves a three-layer hierarchical network design (core, distribution, and access layers) and modular design based on Cisco Enterprise Architectures. The project follows a five-phase methodology: initiation, planning, execution, testing, and closure. The goal is to provide a secure, efficient, and scalable network infrastructure that supports Adatum's business growth. Desklib provides access to similar case studies and solved assignments for students.

Running head: PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING
PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING: A Case Study of Contoso Corporation
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING
Executive Summary
The aim of this report is to propose a new network infrastructure for Adatum. The importance
of network infrastructure has become an issue because the only aim of the organisation in the
recent time is to increase the productivity of the organisation. This is because there has been
an increase of competition in the market in different sectors and that the only means to
combat against these is to rebuild the network infrastructure. The report proposes a
networking infrastructure which will enhance business growth of Adatum.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Purpose of the Project................................................................................................................3
Requirements of the Project:......................................................................................................4
Proposed Solution......................................................................................................................5
Hierarchical Network.............................................................................................................5
Modular Design provided by Cisco Enterprise Architectures.............................................11
Methodology:.......................................................................................................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................................14

3PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING
Introduction
Contoso Corporation is the leading producer of the smart devices used for home
purposes. They nearly completed one of their products which is centralized on servers and
fetch data from the wireless nodes present in the houses or may be from the worn devices.
The company needs hundred of servers to rollout the product. The manager of the company
wished to generate a solution which will generate hundred of servers monthly for the
company to influence the business growth. The investors of the organization decided to
acquire another organization Adatum headquartered in Melbourne. It consists of three great
sites and each site comprises of 500 to 1000 users. The report mainly focuses on redesigning
the network infrastructure of the organization. The report briefly describes the purpose of the
project, requirements of the project and finally it delivers a solution to the Contoso
corporation to deliver a secure and developed network infrastructure in Adatum.
Purpose of the Project
The purpose of the project is to generate an automated server installation plan for
Contoso corporation to redesign the network infrastructure of Adatum. It will be benefitable
for the organization in many ways like
 It will help in controlling the operational cost of the entire IT network (Yi et al.,
2014): Adatum can reduce its total operational cost by controlling the maintenance,
service, software, infrastructure and hardware costs. As this is a form of fixed cost
expense the operational cost is almost reduced and predictable. Thus, it can provide
business growth for the organization by increasing the productivity of the
organization and allow the business officials to estimate the overall cost of the
production.

4PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING
 Issue prevention and active network maintenance: It allows the business officials to
concentrate on the business operations rather focusing on the irrelevant methods.
Contoso will implement a high-quality network infrastructure which will increase
and develop the production rate of the organization. Proactive and security checks is
to be carried out frequently to avoid any kind of disrupt in the network infrastructure
(Kim & Feamster, 2013).
 Security: Advance network infrastructure provided by Contoso are secure enough
and block the attacker to enter in the network layer. Many organizations prevent
themselves by implementing different technologies for each and every malware
attack. MaxSecure will be used in Adatum to secure every node of the network
infrastructure. It blocks an attacker and disallow him or her to enter in the network
infrastructure to spread the malware. Malware can impact highly in every
organization (Guo, Cheng & Kelley, 2016). Thus, Adatum was recommended to
focus on the malware and their counter measures after the implementation of the
secured network infrastructure.
 High network availability: Network availability is the primary key for every business
operation. High network availability boosts the business operation to enhance the
business growth and run the business operation smoothly. It allows Adatum to
improve the voice quality, call routing and network management. Advanced network
infrastructure prevents the organization from traffic that are introduced by some
attacker.
Requirements of the Project:
The official heads of the Contoso Corporation decided to produce hundred servers
monthly which uses the windows Internal database. The Contoso decided to redesign the
network infrastructure of the Adatum using some advanced and developed automated server

5PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING
installation plan. The network requirements of the proposed network infrastructure are as
follows-
 The proposed network should be installed with some countermeasures so that it can
handle some failure or disruption in the network layer.
 The network should provide instant delivery from one host to another host. It should
response to the input as fast as possible and should deliver a proper output to the other
host (Lu et al., 2013)
 The proposed network should be secured. It should protect all the data and will guard
them from any leakage. The data should be kept back up so that in case of any failure
the data can be restored to the organization system.
 The network infrastructure should be easily modifying according to any updates. The
performance of the network infrastructure increases by the proper and regular
maintenance of the infrastructure.
 The layout should identify and fix the issues that aroused in the network
infrastructure. It should be easier for the network officials to identify the failure
occurred in the network layout (Filsfils et al, 2015).
Proposed Solution
Hierarchical Network
The Network requirements can be meet by implementing the hierarchical network
design that will be used to organize devices in multiple domain or networks. The hierarchical
network comprises of three layers (Jan et al., 2015):
Core layer: Connects the devices of distribution layer.
Distribution layer: Interconnects smaller local networks

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Access layer: Gives Connectivity to the network hosts as well as to the end devices.
Flat network will be divided into smaller groups or manageable hierarchical blocks to
make the traffic local. Devices in the flat network does not allow the user to handle the
broadcasts or to block the undesirable traffic in the network. When more device or
applications are added to this type of network the response time becomes low and it
consumes high time to transfer the output from one host to other.
Figure 1: Flat Network
(Source: Layout 1, 2019)

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Figure 2: Hierarchical network
(Source: Layout 1, 2019)
Core Layer
The switches and the routers in this layer give high speed connectivity. In an
organization the core layer can connect multiple buildings and also give connectivity to
server farm. The core layer consists of VPN, extranet, WAN. It enhances the network
development (Li & Pan, 2013). The technologies in the core layer are high speed, aggregate
links, enhancing routing protocols and load balancing.

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Figure 3: Core design
(Source: Layout 1, 2019)
Mesh topology
The core layers are wired by mesh topology. The wiring process can be done in two
different methods namely, partial mesh and full mesh. In Full mesh wiring system every tools
are connected with each other which provides redundancy and it is a complex process and
consumes high cost (Neishaburi & Zilic, 2013). In the partial mesh topology one device can
be connected with two other devices which provides sufficient redundancy. It reduces the
complexity of the wiring system.

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Figure 4: Mesh topology
(Source: Layout 1, 2019)
Distribution layer
This layer deals with filtering, communication point and filtering between the access
layer and the core layer. The main functions of this layer are filtering as well as handling the
traffic flows, summarizing the routes before the advertisement of the routes to Core,
Enforcing the access control policy and isolating core from the access layer disruptions (Liu
et al., 2017).

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Figure 5: Distribution Layer
(Source: Layout 1, 2019)
Access layer
It is utilized to handle user access regarding the internetwork resources. Network
designer facilitate traffic that is produced from access layer. The end devices are connected
here. The access layer resides in the campus building, server farm and at the edge of the
company (Du, Wang & Wang, 2015).

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Figure 6: Access Layer
(Source: Layout 1, 2019)
Modular Design provided by Cisco Enterprise Architectures
Three-layer hierarchical design will be further divided in modules. Each module
defines various logical or physical connectivity. These modules enhance the flexibility of the
network design (Sood, 2014). Three areas of the modular network design are:
Enterprise Campus: This particular area comprises of the network elements that are
required for the independent operation in a unit campus. It consists of building distribution,
building access and campus core.