Design Internet Services Providers Network - Report Example

Dеsign ISР Network Name: Course Name: Unit Name: Submission Deadline: 1.0 Introduction Since commercialization of the internet in the 1990s, it has received phenomenal success and exponential growth. The internet has developed from the then government owned and accessible to only few in the academic research field in the U.S. Today’s internet is available to thousands and thousands of end users, through independently operated networks around the globe. Many of these networks in the internet are ISPs (Internet Services Providers), which offer other networks access to the end users (customers). Collectively acting as the “core” networks for the internet; ISPs has been found to place a crucial role in keeping end users well connected and have stable internet, as well as providing internet services that meet the need of their customers or end-users. All services that are offered by the Internet Services Providers (ISPs) fundamentally depend on routing i.e. this process involves discovering paths in a network which to send traffic packets to reach its destinations (i.e. the receivers). In spite of the importance of internet, today’s Internet Services Providers (ISPs) routing network practices are surprisingly primitive and cannot be understood. For example, even though customers to customers have different preferences for the path they would like to use, todays Internet Services Providers (ISPs) are not able to provide such customized services. Nowadays, the configuration practices for networks are usually disruptive, complicated and error-prone. Using these principles as a guide, we will design a network that offers Internet Services Providers (ISPs) flexibility in realizing their objective. 2.0 Problem Statement Today, internet based economy demand round the clock efficient and effective customer services. This simple means network infrastructure of ISPs must be available at 100 per cent at all the time. The network should be set in such a way it can protect against any security issue or incident. In addition, the network should be able to support the changing traffic loads in order to maintain consistent application response time. From this argument, it is not practical to develop a network that has many users without carefully design the network itself to handle the demand. This project proposal sought to design a network infrastructure for an ISP in Muscat that will link it four branches located in Dakhleya, Sharqiya, Salalah and Batina to local and wide area networks throughout its Wide Area Network (WAN). The network infrastructure will be able to support internal servers like DHCP, AAA, DNS, and Speed Servers, which will be used by end users in the network for Authentication and name resolution and IP assignment. All the branches in the network will have high speed Links of 10G. There will be approximately 5,000 users in each remote city and 10,000 end users in the main city. 3.0 Methodology 3.1 Waterfall Methodology The waterfall model, a sequential development process that involves the stages of requirements i.e. analysis, design, implementation, validation or (testing), integration, and maintenance, was used to develop and test the network. The various phases of this model may overlap each other. The waterfall methodology was preferred as it lays emphasis on time schedule, budgets, target date, and implementation of an entire network on time. A brief description of the various phases is as follows: 1. Requirements analysis: The process of studying and analyzing the customers and end user needs to arrive at a definition of the system requirements. 2. Design: Involves developing the network, which is establishing inputs and outputs from the network, processes, structure of the files, security and back-up concerns, and network testing and implementation planning. 3. Implementation: The actual translation of the network design (logical system) into a working network. Key function is designing of the network. 4. Testing: Involves testing the network to ensure it successfully performs the tasks in the business environment. 5. Maintenance: This is a stage that runs throughout the lifecycle of the project or the network. It involves the continuous assessment of the system functionality and addressing the drifts where necessary. 3.1 Requirements Elicitation Techniques 3.1.1 Interviews This involved visiting the firm to talk to the management and staff about the operations of the company and how they went about their day to day work. 3.1.2 Observation This involved personally visiting the company’s site and watching the staff, and management performing their daily tasks. 4.0 Literature Review A network is simple a collection of devices and computers connected by communication channels that allow communication among end users and allow end-users to share resources with other end-users. In today’s networks, one way to categorize network designs is by their scope or scale. Most common types of networks have been classified according to their characteristics. Wide Area Network (WAN) and Local Area Network (LAN) and are the popular network topologies that were original categories of area networks. Over the years, these type of networks have gradually emerged thanks to technology development. LAN connects computers or devices that are over short distances, for example a network in a school, office building or a residential place. LAN is typically owned, managed and controlled by a single organization or person. LAN tends to use certain connectivity technologies, primarily Token Ring and Ethernet. WAN as the term implies, it involves a large physical distance or area. At the moment, the internet is the largest WAN connecting many users around the globe. A WAN is a collection of LANs. A router is used to connect numerous LANs from different areas to a WAN. In IP networking, the router will maintain both LAN addresses and WAN addresses. A WAN infrastructure differs from a LAN infrastructure in several ways. Most WANs are not owned by any organization but exist under distributed or collective management and ownership. WANs tend to use technology like VRRP, ATM, Frame Relay, and X.25 BGP, for connectivity over the longer distances. Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) is a standard protocol that can be used in an environment where the network has many devices that are not from the same manufacturing vendor (Salchow, 2012). In VRRP, a group of routers are configured that contains a number of default gateway; and one router in the network is selected to be the master router (Ding, 2010). While the other member routers in the VRRP network will be in a position to communicate with the master router and take over duties of forwarding traffic should the master router fail to work in the network. The IP address that will be used will belong to the master router which will be referred to as the IP address owner (Ding, 2010). But, when the master router recover, it will revert to its previous role of routing for that IP address (Salchow, 2012). It is possible to have many VRRP groups on a single subnet, which will be used to spread the load of the traffic that is coming from the subnet (Ding, 2010). However, this will be done manually at the end-user’s location, by changing their gateway addresses. Intermediate System to Intermediate System (ISIS) protocol has been designed to move information efficiently within a network infrastructure, a group of physically connected similar devices or computers (Gredler and Goraiski, 2005). ISIS protocol will accomplish this by determining the best route for datagrams through the packet-switched network. Even though ISIS protocol has been designed to route ISO CLNP packets, it is used in IP environments as Integrated IS-IS. Integrated IS-IS protocol has evolved over the years into robust, scalable, and easy to use Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGP) that can be used in a dual mode to support overlayed ISO CLNS and IP networks (Gredler and Goraiski, 2005). However IS-IS protocol has gained popularity on the internet, where its primary application is for intra-domain IP routing. Integrated IS-IS plays an important supportive role for the for Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Boarder Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a routing protocol that is used to transfer information and data between different host gateways, autonomous systems or internet (Craig, 2015). Boarder Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a Path Vector Protocol (PVP), which is used to maintain the paths to different networks, hosts and gateway routers and determines the routing decision based on that (Craig, 2015). Sometimes, BGP is described as a reachability protocol rather than a routing protocol. Internet forwarding and routing are vulnerable to misconfigurations and attacks that compromise secure communication between end users. With networks facing external attempts to compromise their routers (Craig, 2015). Much prior work has proposed to improve network security with BGP. Secure routing protocols focus on providing path validity and origin authentication, identified as necessary by the IETF to secure BGP. 5.0 Development Tools 5.1 Software Requirements 5.1.1 Operating System Microsoft Windows and Linux 5.1.2 Development Platforms a. Virtual MX box b. Cisco Packet Tracer 5.1.3 Hardware Requirement a. Intel Pentium 4 computer or later version b. Flash disk for transferring information c. HP LaserJet printer for printing reports d. Servers 5.1.4 Technical Requirements a. POP Topologies -Core Routers-High speed trunk connections -Border routers- Connections to other providers. -Distribution routers and Access routers-high port density -Service routers-Hosting and servers. b. Boarder Gateway Protocol (BGP) c. Intermediate System to Intermediate System (ISIS) d, Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP). 6.0 Project Time Schedule Table 1: Project Schedule Table Activity Duration Problem statement 7 days Project Proposal 17 days Requirements gathering 21 days Requirements Analysis 14 days Network Design 7 days Network Coding 21 days System Testing 14 Days Report Writing 20 days System Demonstration 1 Day User Manual/Documentation Through out References Craig T. (2015-05-31). “Quick fix for an early Internet problem lives on a quarter-century later” . The Washington Post. Ding J. (2010), "Basic concept of network management," in Advances in Network Management , Boca Raton: Taylor & Francis, pp. 43-48 Gredler, H and Goraiski, W. (2005). The complete IS-IS routing protocol. Springer. p. 1. Salchow, K. (2012). Load balancing 101: Nuts and bolts. [Online].Available: http://www.f5.com/pdf/white-papers/load-balancing101-wp.pdf. Read More