LAN Redesign for uSoft.com: Network Design and IP Plan Report

This report outlines a Local Area Network (LAN) design and IP address planning solution for uSoft.com, a software development company aiming to redevelop its existing network. The primary requirements include improved communication, wireless capabilities, VoIP integration, and robust security measures to protect company information. The design focuses on scalability to accommodate a planned 15% increase in employees, ensuring high network performance, flexibility for logical grouping, and continuous availability. The proposed solution includes wireless access points, VLAN implementation, DHCP server configuration, and subnetting to reduce network congestion. The IP address plan details subnet allocations for various departments such as Software Development, Customer Support, Sales, and Finance, including dedicated subnets for data, voice, and server traffic, using VLSM to efficiently allocate IP addresses.

Running head: DATA COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS
Data Communications and networks
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1
DATA COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS
Requirement of the Local Area network
The main requirement for designing the local area network solution for uSoft.com is
to meet the current growth of the organization. The network should be designed such that the
communication between the employees working in the organization can be improved and the
network should be available 24 hours. A wireless access point should be installed for each of
the department such that the employees can connect their wireless devices with the network
for transferring data and increase the flexibility of the network solution (Pfaff et al. 2015).
The wireless access point should be protected with password such that it cannot be access by
any external agents to intrude into the network. For increasing the security of the network
different VLANs must be created and assigned with the IP address according to the IP
address plan. The floor plan of the building is analysed for the development of the local area
network solution (Simmons 2014). The servers installed in the departments should be
configured with DHCP configuration such that the host can be automatically assigned with
the IP address. Different VLANs are used for the data and the voice such that there is no lag
in the voice communication due to congestion (Koponen et al. 2014). The network is divided
into smaller subnet such that the generation of broadcast messages in the network is reduced
and the congestion in the network is avoided. The main focus for designing the network
solution is to improve the communication and it can be done with the creation of redundant
links such that if a link fails the data packet can reach the destination using the other link.

2
DATA COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS
Logical Network Design
IP address Plan for the LAN
Major Network: 172.16.122.0/22
Available IP addresses in major network: 1022
Number of IP addresses needed: 527
Available IP addresses in allocated subnets: 766
About 78% of available major network address space is used
About 69% of subnetted network address space is used
Subnet
Name
Need
ed
Size
Alloca
ted
Size
Address Ma
sk
Dec Mask Assignable
Range
Broadcast
Software
Develop
ment
102 126 172.16.122
.0
/25 255.255.255
.128
172.16.122
.1 -
172.16.122
172.16.122
.127

3
DATA COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS
Data .126
Software
Develop
ment
Voice
102 126 172.16.122
.128
/25 255.255.255
.128
172.16.122
.129 -
172.16.122
.254
172.16.122
.255
Software
Develop
ment
Server
2 2 172.16.123
.12
/30 255.255.255
.252
172.16.123
.13 -
172.16.123
.14
172.16.123
.15
Solution
Design
Data
72 126 172.16.124
.0
/25 255.255.255
.128
172.16.124
.1 -
172.16.124
.126
172.16.124
.127
Solution
Design
Voice
72 126 172.16.124
.128
/25 255.255.255
.128
172.16.124
.129 -
172.16.121
.254
172.16.124
.255
Solution
Design
Server
1 2 172.16.123
.24
/30 255.255.255
.252
172.16.123
.25 -
172.16.123
.26
172.16.123
.27
Custome
r
52 62 172.16.122
.0
/26 255.255.255
.192
172.16.122
.1 -
172.16.122
.63

4
DATA COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS
Support
Data
172.16.122
.62
Custome
r
Support
Voice
52 62 172.16.122
.64
/26 255.255.255
.192
172.16.122
.65 -
172.16.122
.126
172.16.122
.127
Custome
r
Support
Server
1 2 172.16.123
.16
/30 255.255.255
.252
172.16.123
.17 -
172.16.123
.18
172.16.123
.19
Sales
Data
32 62 172.16.122
.128
/26 255.255.255
.192
172.16.122
.129 -
172.16.122
.190
172.16.122
.191
Sales
Voice
32 62 172.16.122
.192
/26 255.255.255
.192
172.16.122
.193 -
172.16.122
.254
172.16.122
.255
Sales
Server
1 2 172.16.123
.20
/30 255.255.255
.252
172.16.123
.21 -
172.16.123
.22
172.16.123
.23
Finance 2 2 172.16.123 /30 255.255.255 172.16.123 172.16.123

5
DATA COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS
Data .0 .252 .1 -
172.16.123
.2
.3
Finance
Voice
2 2 172.16.123
.8
/30 255.255.255
.252
172.16.123
.9 -
172.16.123
.10
172.16.123
.11
Finance
Server
2 2 172.16.123
.4
/30 255.255.255
.252
172.16.123
.5 -
172.16.123
.6
172.16.123
.7

6
DATA COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS
Bibliography
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Pfaff, B., Pettit, J., Koponen, T., Jackson, E.J., Zhou, A., Rajahalme, J., Gross, J., Wang, A.,
Stringer, J., Shelar, P. and Amidon, K., 2015, May. The Design and Implementation of Open
vSwitch. In NSDI (pp. 117-130).
Simmons, J.M., 2014. Optical network design and planning. Springer.
Vlsm-calc.net. (2018). VLSM CIDR Subnet Calculator. [online] Available at:
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