Network Design Solution for London College of Law and IT - Assignment Example

? Operating Systems and Networking By Presented to Operating Systems and Networking Part A: Network Design Solution for London College of Law and IT 1. Background and requirements a. Background Description London College of Law and IT located in West London was established in 1994 with about 30 staff members and just over 300 students. For three years since 1994, the college operated only one campus, the main campus, which specialized in Legal studies, Law. The student population the three years after it establishment, gradually grew to about 900 students. In 2000, the college saw the need of introducing Information Technology related courses, specifically, Computer Science and Information Technology. This led to an unprecedented increase in student population from 900 to 1,500, in 2 years. Clearly, the student population and the number of staff members had outgrown the physical infrastructure at the college. In this regard, the college management, in 2004, decided to open a constituent college or campus in East London, to cater for the gradually increasing student and staff population. With the aim of meeting diverse labour requirements of the society, the college introduced, yet again, two more course, Finance studies and Computer Engineering. As a result, the student population increased to about 2,000, as did the staff members. This led to the opening of a third campus in 2008 in North London. Additionally, the college launched Distance and Open Learning program that targeted students both within and outside London. This move led to an increase in student population from 2,000 to 3,000. The London College of Law and IT, as at today, has three constituent colleges or campuses within the greater, including, the School of Law, School of IT and the School of Finance and Accountancy. In addition, the college also has 10 open-learning study centres outside London and has more than 3, 000 students in total and more than 100 staff members (both part-time and fulltime academic staff). All the three campuses are independent in terms of administration and have staff offices, student lecture halls, student’s halls of residence, computer laboratory, and a library. Each of the 10 study centres have an administrative office, a library that doubles up as a computer laboratory, three study/reading rooms-1 for law student, 1 for IT students, and 1 for Finance and Accounting students-which also doubles up as examination centres. In all the three campuses and the 10-study centre, there several designated Wi-Fi hotspots that serve students with laptops and tablets. London College of Law and IT faces stiff competition from various colleges in London that offer Law, IT, financial studies, or both. Notable competition includes the Imperial College London, King’s College London, London College of Law, University College of London, and London College of Legal Studies, among others. b. Requirement Analysis: Computer networks link a collection of computers, hardware and software through specialized software, cabling systems and other devices, thus enabling their users to work together by sharing files and other resources, for example, printers and scanners (N. Olifer & V. Olifer, 2006). Today, computer networks are very important; they shape the way we live, study, work or play. They enable us to communicate, interact, learn, and collaborate in ways that we could not do before. For higher institutions of learning such as universities and colleges, digital communication with voice, video and data is critical to achieving todays educational and learning objectives. Therefore, a well and properly thought of and designed network is an essential requirement for meeting day-to-day institutional functions or for doing business (White, 2012). Improving computer networks enable us to enjoy better and reliable data speeds, and new exciting services and applications such as video conferencing, IP telephony, education, ecommerce and more. Designing a new network would benefit the London College of Law and IT by making it competitive about ensuring that available resources such as printers, scanners and other software are shared across departments and schools; thus ensuring proper utilization by centralizing such resources (Stewart et al., 2008). This new, improved and robust network will be of high quality; thus enabling the college to implement new products such as VoIP/IP telephony and videoconferencing. This will make it possible for the college to offer open/distance learning lectures at study centres via videoconferencing and live video streams. Additionally, the availability, efficiency and reliability of the entire network would be improved and guaranteed through the logical subnetting or subdivision of the network into discrete layers, which would each provide specific function (N. Olifer & V. Olifer, 2006). As a result, users will enjoy high data transmission speeds, which will in turn result into them being more productive and achieving more. The network will also be modular; this will facilitate performance and scalability. In summary, London College of Law and IT will enjoy the following benefits from this new improved network: This network design will scale very well as such, making it possible for the college to duplicate features as the network grows since there is consistency in every instance making expansion easy to plan and implement. This design will guarantee availability of the network; remember, as the network grows, availability becomes very critical. With this network design, availability will be increased through easy redundant implementation; meaning, in the event that a failure occurs, only those devices directly linked to the point of failure are affected, the rest of the network will continue functioning. This design will ensure that the communication performance is enhanced by ensuring that data is not transmitted through intermediary, low-performing switches. There will be improved security that is easier to manage. This design will ensure that there is flexibility of using more cutting-edge security policies. Manageability and maintainability under this network design will be easy. For this network design to be realised, the following will be required Hardware These devices will facilitate the internetworking and act as nodes in the network. They include i. Servers, which will offer client stations access to printers, scanners, files and other shared resources. ii. Computers which will be the clients stations used by users. The college will provide these in the laboratory and libraries; however, some students and staff members also have their own personal computer-laptops. iii. Switches which will be used in determining which packets should be transferred and which remains on the LAN iv. Routers which will be used to forward data packets between computers in the network v. Wireless Access Points – these will provide wireless signal at the Wi-Fi hotspots vi. VoIP phones which will be used for IP telephony vii. Scanners will be centrally placed and shared viii. Printers will be centrally placed and shared Software In order to make the network usable and accessible by users, several applications, also referred to as software, will be need, for instance i. Operating Systems, both for the computers and for routers, such as Windows Vista, 7, 8; Macintosh, or Linux. ii. Word processing software iii. Document readers iv. Browsers and video conferencing software. Connection In order to facilitate the network, devices and media that will connect the notes-the servers and clients will be used. These include Fibre optics cables, which will be used to link the LAN to the ISP network; Copper cables, specifically UTPs that will be used to connect nodes and devices within the LAN; and Electromagnetic radiators the will be used to transmit wireless signal in the designated Wi-Fi hotspots. 2. Network Architecture and Design This new network design for the London College of Law and IT will be based on the TCP/IP network model and will be built as a switched LAN Architecture (Sakandar, 2004) hierarchical network design. This is because, as opposed to other network design, this design-hierarchical network-is easy to expand and manage. A hierarchical network design entails subdividing the overall network into discrete layers each of which offers specific task that outlines its role within the whole network (Oppenheimer, 2004). This design separates various functionalities that the network offers, thus making the network to become modular and enable performance and scalability. For this network, the network will be subdivided into the following three discrete layers Distribution Layer, which aggregates the received data from the switches in the access layer, before transmitting them to the core layer for routing to their end destination. Access Layer, which interfaces with end nodes such as IP phones, printers and PCs to offer access to the rest of the network. It also includes bridges, routers, wireless access points and hubs. Core Layer, which is the high-speed pillar of the internetwork and is critical for interconnectivity between the devices at the distribution layer. 3. Network Components a. Network Connections For horizontal wiring and for work area connections within LAN, UTP category 5e cables will be used. Advantages of using UTP cables a) UTP cables, compared to STP cables, are relatively cheaper b) The fact that many transmission standards have adapted to use UTP 5e Category cables, and that most buildings are readily wired with it, they are Cheaper to implement. c) They satisfactorily deliver speed of up to 1000 Mbps Disadvantages using UTP cables a) These cables have a maximum length of 100m; therefore, there is the need of using repeaters when the 100m length is exceeded. This results in additional costs. In order to connect the LANs to the Wide Area Network, Fiber optic cables will be used. Advantages of using fiber optics on this portion of the network a) High speeds of up to 10gbps, large throughput, and capacity b) Fiber optics are immune to electromagnetic interference since they do not carry electrical signal c) Fiber optics have the ability to carry data over long distances without requiring repeaters Disadvantages a) It is more expensive and difficult to install compared to cables such as copper cables b) More expensive than copper cables b. Networking Components The following networking devices have been used: a) Switches – within the LAN network, switches have been used to offer connectivity points of an Ethernet network. Using the twisted-pair cabling, devices connect to switches, each device using one port. Unlike hubs, which broadcast to all hosts, switches forward packets only to those ports that connect to the destination device. b) Routers – at those points where LANs connect to the internet, routers have been used to regenerate signals, manage data transfers, route packets from one network to another, and to merge multiple connections. c) Wireless routers have been installed to link wireless networks to the wired Ethernet in Wi-Fi hotspots and act as access points for wireless clients Part B: Critical Analysis and Reflections 4. Critical Analysis and Reflections The strength of the proposed network is the availability, efficiency and reliability that it is based on a switched LAN Architecture hierarchical network design, which logically subnets or subdivides the network into discrete layers, which would each provide specific function, ensure and guarantee the availability of the entire network. As a result, users will enjoy high data transmission speeds, which will in turn result into them being more productive and achieving more. The network will also be modular; this will facilitate performance and scalability. This network design will scale very well as such, making it possible for the college to duplicate features as the network grows since there is consistency in every instance making expansion easy to plan and implement. It will guarantee availability of the network; remember, as the network grows, availability becomes very critical. With this network design, availability will be increased through easy redundant implementation; meaning, in the event that a failure occurs, only those devices directly linked to the point of failure are affected, the rest of the network will continue functioning. Additionally, it will ensure that the communication performance is enhanced by ensuring that data is not transmitted through intermediary, low-performing switches. Security will be improved and as such, easy to manage. This design will ensure that there is flexibility of using more cutting-edge security policies. Manageability and maintainability under this network design will be easy. I have been able to learn the goals of good network designs including scalability, functionality, scalability, manageability and adaptability. Most importantly, I have learnt how to design and implement, efficiently a hierarchical IP network based on switched network architecture. I have also learnt how hierarchical networks support video, data and voice needs of an academic institution. References Olifer, N. & Olifer, V. (2006) Computer networks: principles, technologies and protocols for network design. New York, John Wiley & Sons. Oppenheimer, P. (2004) Top-down Network Design. 2nd ed. Indianapolis, Indiana, Cisco Press. Sakandar, B. (2004) Cisco Lan Switching Fundamentals. 2nd ed. D. Barnes ed. Indianapolis, Indiana, Cisco Press. Stewart, K., Adams, A., Reid, A. & Lorenz, J. (2008) Designing and Supporting Computer Networks, CCNA Discovery Learning Guide. Indianapolis, Indiana, Cisco Press. White, C.M. (2012) Data Communications and Computer Networks: A Business User’s Approach. 7th ed. Boston, MA, Cengage Learning.  Read More