Network Design Proposal for uSoft HQ: A Data Communication Report

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ASSIGNMENT -3
DATA COMMUNICATION

Contents
SUMMARY..................................................................................................................................... 3
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................. 3
ORGANISZATIONAL DESCRIPTION.................................................................................................3
REQUIREMENT ANALYSIS..............................................................................................................4
TECHNICAL GOALS.....................................................................................................................5
LOGICAL NETWORK DESIGN..........................................................................................................6
SECURITY....................................................................................................................................6
WIRELESS................................................................................................................................... 6
SCALABILITY AND AVAILABILITY................................................................................................6
VIRTUAL LAN..............................................................................................................................7
IP ADDRESS ALLOCATION PLAN.................................................................................................... 7
LOGICAL NETWORK DIAGRAM....................................................................................................10
PHYSICAL NETWORK DIAGRAM.................................................................................................. 11
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................... 12
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................ 13

SUMMARY
The use of modern network infrastructure has been necessitated by the value it brings to any
workplace. Companies build networks with specific goals and objectives in order to drive their
daily operations and grow profits. This document covers the proposal for a network at uSoft
HQ. The company has other branches but is currently focused on architecting a new local area
network (LAN) for its HQ. This process should support growth and engender increased
productivity and customer satisfaction.
INTRODUCTION
Technical design is an application of principles and guidelines driven by best practice and
deep knowledge of technologies. A designer begins by analyzing a list of requirements
presented by a client and afterwards proceeds to create a model to reflect the outcome of a
tedious process focused on producing the best results.
At uSoft the recent changes have triggered a necessary desire by the company to redevelop
its local area network and strengthen capability to sustain growing business levels. The
existing network was built to handle a presumed capacity and lacks the capacity to sustain to
meet the current challenges. A new network is therefore envisaged and urgently required to
reposition the company for optimum service delivery.
ORGANISZATIONAL DESCRIPTION
The company at the center of this network redevelopment is a biomedical software
development company with two branches and a HQ office. The company is critical about the
growth it is experiencing and has sought professional services to overhaul its current
infrastructure and build a new model. The company’s growth cuts across all facets of activities
from staffing to technical operations.
In order to sustain the company’s vison of staying abreast in software development market
and growing to become one of the advanced solution providers targeting the fortune 100
market. The network is a necessary tool to enable her achieve this desire and stay relevant.

REQUIREMENT ANALYSIS
A network design requirements analysis is a comparative process seeking to validate
conditions that must be met before a new design can be implemented. It begins with
gathering the list of requirement for the new network and culminates with a verified list of
value the client desires in the new infrastructure. Requirement analysis can be based on a
varied number of items but for the uSoft network they are broadly categorized under
business and technical goals. The business goals target processes that stimulate and maintain
the day to activities at the HQ. Technical goals are solutions that must be engineered into the
new network infrastructure model.
BUSINESS GOALS
uSoft like any profit driven company understands the activities that drive business growth and
serve as the life line for continuous service delivery. As the company looks forward to a new
infrastructure, there are a number of expectations that the network must attain to before it
can be accepted as a valid solution. Top on the business list of goals is improved
communication. The value of communications within the various departments enhances work
place collaboration and accelerates productivity. The new network will permit the usage of
various communication tools and software to bolster improved interaction between staff at
the head office. Wireless connectivity and mobility is another goal the company aims to
achieve with the new network. WI-FI changes the way people work and the devices that can
be connected to the network. Therefore a wireless LAN (WLAN) network will be design to
extend the LAN network.
In a modern enterprise a typical solution that enhances communication is voice over IP (VoIP).
VoIP is used to transmit voice packets over an IP network rather than traditional PSTN
network. This enables a large number of users to connect, communicate and transact
business activities. A major concern with VoIP is the bandwidth requirement associated with
its usage. This implies that appropriate bandwidth must be reserved for all VoIP traffic at
network intermediary devices.

Protecting the company’s information and trade secrets is another value that must be derived
from the new network. The risk of losing such information can be very high and may in some
circumstances lead to closure of the company. The business therefore, desires to take right
steps and apply the right principles that will alienate it from any circumstance leading to
losses.
TECHNICAL GOALS
Technical goals rely on various network solutions to scale and integrate. When a solution is
deployed to a network infrastructure this translates to value for users. The company
prioritizes scalability of the new network on a list of technical requirements that must be
fulfilled. The planned increase in the number of staff at the HQ demands a robust and scalable
infrastructure. Scalability is the ability of a network to be enlarged to handle growth without
requiring notable changes or replacement to network devices. To provide flexible work hours
for the staff at HQ it can only be achieved if users can connect remotely and work in a secured
manner without being requiring local access always. The solution that can drive this goal is a
remote access virtual private network (VPN). A VPN provides connectivity between two
geographically dispersed LAN or for a remote teleworker. Also on the list of requirements for
the new network is that it must attain a high performance. Performance measure the level of
service quality experienced by the user. There are numerous metrics that can be used to
measure network performance, these include speed, delay, round trip time and latency. A
network with a high speed connection, minimal delay, and reduced latency. Therefore when
designing the new architecture, I will work to deliver high performance levels that are
sufficient to provide seamless connectivity across the network. At the core of any desired goal
is security for the HQ. Security guarantees safety for transactional data and operations that
run daily at the HQ and with other branches. While a flat network introduces static
boundaries to the infrastructure, flexibility can be achieved through the implementation of
virtual LANs (VLAN). A VLAN is a feature that segments the network into multiple broadcast
domains based any chosen criteria.
Finally network availability is a disaster planning approach that ensures consistent
connectivity and performance. An available network is void of noticeable downtime that can

impact on normal business operations. In line with achieving this goal, a highly available
network architecture will be designed for uSoft.
LOGICAL NETWORK DESIGN
Logical networks differ from the physical interconnections because they only reflect the flow
of traffic. It encompasses connectivity and IP addressing, thus it provides a unique view that it
different from the cabled connections that users see daily. It is a layer that can bundle several
links, share ports or extend beyond geographical locations. As the design of uSoft network
progresses, we will present certain features of the design that pertain to the new logical
network.
SECURITY
Security can be viewed from restricting physical access to a network facility. The dynamic
nature of IT services has also changed the boundaries of network and this implies that in the
logical space we can introduce demarcation points to define how far users can reach when
attempting to gain access to resources or services. The envisaged model for the new network
requires network firewall devices that will act as intrusion detection and prevention devices,
terminate VPN aces for remote users and provide filtering using access control list (ACL).
WIRELESS
A wireless LAN will extend and increase the amount of devices that can connect to the
network and also introduce mobility for end user devices. To connect and use a WI-FI
network, users must be able to locate an access point (AP) within their coverage area and
connect with it using the provision credentials. Wireless AP’s can be connected to switch
ports and automatically provide wireless access. In larger deployments a standalone wireless
LAN controller can be configured to manage a large number of AP’s.
SCALABILITY AND AVAILABILITY
Providing scalability can be achieved by using a campus LAN hierarchical model with multiple
device blocks that can easily be extended when additional hardware components must be
added to the network for new services or to extend the current capabilities of the
infrastructure. For availability and improved performance, multiple redundant pair of devices

and connections will be built into the network architecture. This will eliminate the risk
associated with failure of a single link or hardware.
VIRTUAL LAN
The presence of virtual LANs in a network might never be noticed by users and can be viewed
as a connectivity issue because it segments the network into any desired number of subnets.
It works with the subnetting scheme to assign subnets to user groups or resources. Each VLAN
is isolated from each other and communication can only be possible when an upstream router
connects to the switches in the network. At uSoft HQ, there will be VLANs for the current
departments and additional VLANs will be created for any resource grouping for ease of
implementation and management.
IP ADDRESS ALLOCATION PLAN
An IP address allocation plan develops and documents the planned logical layer 3 addresses
for the network. It relies on a subnetting scheme to provide efficient addressing for all host on
the network. The LAN network at the HQ office uses a single private address block that will be
subnetted into multiple networks. The advantage of subnetting a network address is that it
reduces the size of the current broadcast domain and simplifies management. The results
obtained after subnetting can be used to implement IP addressing for all host on the network.
A IP address has three parts: a network address, a host range and a broadcast address. The
network address defines a group of devices, the host range depicts addresses that can be
assigned to a network interface card on a device while the broadcast address can be used to
communicate to all devices on the network (Sportack, 2002).
The address assigned where XY are the two first digit of ID which is 23. The address is
172.16.123.0/22, there are 10 available host bits that can be used for subnetting.
The departments and number of host are required are:
DEPARMENT NUMBER OF HOST
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT 207
SOLUTION DESIGN DEPARTMENT 186
CUSTOMER SUPPORT DEPARMENT 125

SALES DEPARTMENT 105
FINANCE 65
HUMAN RESOURCE 45
Considering the network with the largest number of host (207)
There are 10 host bits from 172.16.123.0./22
207 host devices is 8 host bits, we subtract this value from 10 to give 2 network bits
The number of networks is 2^2 = 4
The new calculated subnet mask is /24 or 255.255.255.0
The networks are 172.16.126.0/24, 172.16.125.0/24, 172.16.124.0/24, and 172.16.123.0/24.
I assigned 172.16.123.0/24 this to software development LAN.
The further largest particular subnet with 186 host also requires 8 host bit. This matches on
the next available network. Therefore I assigned 172.16.124.0/24
The next two networks both require 7 host bits. We pick the third network 172.16.125.0/24
and segment into 2 equal halves. This gives 172.16.125.128/25 and 172.16.125.0/25.
I assigned 172.16.125.0/25 this to customer support and 172.16.125.128.0/25 to sales.
With only a single address available 172.16.126.0/24 I will subnet for the last two networks.
Finance requires 7 host bits. I will have a single bit left resulting in 2 new networks
172.16.126.128/25 and 172.16.126.0/25.
I will assigned 172.16.126.0/25 this to finance department.
For the human resource department I will subnet the network into 2 because the department
requires 45 host which is 6 host bits.
This gives us 2 new networks 172.16.126.192/26 and 172.16.126.126/26.

I assigned 172.16.128.128/26 this to human resource.
SEGEMENT CIDR SUBNET MASK NETWORK BROADCAST VALID HOST ADDRESS
SOFTWARE
DEVELOPMENT
DEPARMENT
/24 255.255.255.0 172.16.123.0 172.16.123.255 172.16.123.1 –
172.16.123.254
SOLUTIONS
DESIGN
DEPARTMENT
/24 255.255.255.0 172.16.124.0 172.16.124.255 172.16.124.1 –
172.16.124.254
CUSTOMER
SUPPORT
DEPARTMENT
/25 255.255.255.128 172.16.125.0 172.16.125.127 172.16.125.1 –
172.16.125.126
SALES
DEPARTMENT
/25 255.255.255.128 172.16.125.128 172.16.125.255 172.16.125.129 –
172.16.125.254
FINANCE
DEPARTMENT
/25 255.255.255.128 172.16.126.0 172.16.126.127 172.16.126.1 –
172.16.126.126
HUMAN
RESOURCE
DEPARTMENT
/26 255.255.255.192 172.16.126.128 172.16.126.191 172.16.126.129 –
172.16.126.190
(Tracer, 2009).

LOGICAL NETWORK DIAGRAM
The proposed logical diagram for the redeveloped network at uSoft HQ is presented below. It
depicts all connections between network intermediary devices and end host components. The
basic idea behind the logical design is that it uses a campus network model for the network
infrastructure.
Figure 1: Logical network diagram

PHYSICAL NETWORK DIAGRAM
A physical network topology is similar in characteristics to a logical network but highlights
only the physical links and devices on the network.
Figure 2: physical network diagram