Proposed Network Design For Thuotech Soft Solution

Objectives of the New Network Design

Thuotech Soft Solution is a software development company with its offices located in three storey buildings adjacent to each other. Each building has about 2000 computers connected to the organizations network and they all have a similar LAN with a server room located in one of the buildings. The current set up of this organization network is poorly designed and does not effectively meet the needs of the company’s operations hence a need for replacement.

The need for the new design will ensure that the company meets various objectives that will make it perform its tasks more effectively. These objectives include:

Network Scalability – this is the ability to expand the network in future in the case where the need arises. The new design should allow the organization to easily add new networking devices or extend the network to other locations without having to interfere with its business operations.

Secured Services – The proposed design should ensure that the organization transmit its business operations at a more secured environment by minimizing or mitigating risks from attackers.

Network Troubleshooting and Management – the design should make it easy to troubleshoot the network as well as make it easy to monitor every activity across the network.

The focus of this report therefore, is to analyze the current state of Thuotech Soft Solution network design and propose a new design by providing a new network design. The report looks at various networking components and how they should be interconnected together in a new network. It also looks at the dedicated servers and cloud computing architectures suitable for this company and finally simulate the proposed network design using packet tracer.

The IT infrastructure components include both the hardware and the software components needed for the successful implementation of the proposed network design.

These are the physical network devices necessary for the implementations of the new network design. The hardware components needed for this solution include:

These are the endpoint devices that will be connected to the network. They include the PCs, laptops, smart phones, tablets among others. Thuotech employees will use these devices to communicate and transmit information across the network as they carry out their daily activities.

These are networking devices that allows other networking devices to be connected to the Local Area Networks (LAN). This device is characterized with a number of ports that can connect devices such as PCs, servers, routers among others. With switches, users of the network will communicate with each other without having their traffic being broadcasted to other devices.  

IT Infrastructure Components

This is the device that links different networks hence allowing possible communication between users of different networks. This devices keeps a record of all the possible destinations of the networking packet in its routing table thus channeling the transmission from one user to the appropriate destination. This is an important device in this solution considering that the organization is big and has a number of network segmentations.

This is a security device that protects the organization network from intruders. This device filters everything that comes in and out of the network and blocks any unauthorized transmission thus keeping the network secure. This device is configured to allow transmission from the selected devices or networks and to block communication from a certain devices hence ensuring the network is safe making it more reliable in the long run.

Servers are networking components that controls access to information and resources to various users (Rouse, 2009). For the proposed network design the servers needed include: Database server, Web server for hosting www. compName.org.au, DNS server, mail server, DHCP server, file server, and a print server. 

These include the network cabling such as Cat 5 Ethernet cables and Cat 5 Ethernet cables that connect networking devices to the LAN for communication and sharing of resources. This is a very crucial part of the infrastructure as for the employees at Thuotech Soft Solution to be able to send and receive information they ought to be connected to the internet.  

The software component needed basically is the operating system that is to be used in all the networking devices which include the PCs and the Servers. The operating system will manage how resources are shared across the network and also making it possible to execute other services via the network within the organization. 

This is a three-layered network design model. The three layers include: Access layer, distribution layer and the core layer. Each layer performs specific functions and is very crucial for the well-being of the entire network design. The hierarchical model segments the IT infrastructure into these layers thus making it easy to monitor and manage the network. 

This layer provides a direct connection of end user devices to the network and allows the control of how they communicate within the network (CISCO, 2014). The workstations are the main access layer devices and they include: PCs, printers, IP phones, smart phones among others. The access layer therefore, provides an interface for the end user devices to the network. The access layer devices are connected to a number of networking switches on each building and later all the devices are interconnected and converged to the distribution layer of the network design. The access layer is represented in the highlighted zone shown below. 

The Hierarchical Model

This layer acts as an intermediary between the access layer and the core layer. Its function is to allow WAN access, routing of the transmitted packets, filtering of transmitted data and provide access of the core layer to the workstations at the access level. It is at this layer where different services are defined and made available to the users in the network. The distribution layer in the hierarchical model can be shown below. 

This is the backbone of the entire network design. This layer consists of devices such as routers that links the local area networks with external network (internet). The devices at this layer are designed in such a way that they handle huge traffics and route packets faster to their destinations by interconnecting various devices, WAN, networking services, the data center and all the distribution modules in a network. The hierarchical model core layer is represented as shown below. 

The current network design at Thuotech Soft Solution is based on a flat network model. This means that all the interconnected networking devices operates under the same level and are interdependent on each other. With such kind of model, it becomes hard to troubleshoot the network in case of a failure as well as it is difficult to monitor the activities carried out within the network. The current design therefore, is full of vulnerabilities that could paralyze the entire network in case they are exploited. Having the network in operating in a flat model means that all the devices depends on a central medium to transmit information and therefore if the medium experiences failure the entire network will be shutdown thus making the current design less reliable. In terms of network security, the current model is more vulnerable since it is not segmented thus making it possible for an attacker to penetrate into the network and perform malicious activities that could interfere with the operations of this organization. With all these issues it is therefore advisable to have a well-designed network segmented into levels that are easily managed and monitored.

The new proposed network design will be based on the hierarchical model. This means that the network will clearly be segmented into three layers namely: access, distribution and core layers. These layers will make it easy to place the devices into the network segment based on their functions as defined in this model. This will make Thuotech Network more reliable, scalable, easy to troubleshoot and monitor and most of it all more efficient and secure (CISCO, 2014). With the proposed design, extension of the network could be made at any level without affecting the rest of the network devices or layout thus making it more reliable than the current design.

Current Network Design

This is the networking coverage that the proposed networking design is expected to reach. Considering that the organization is located between three adjacent buildings, the geographical scope for the network design is therefore characterized with many-to-many interconnectivity of the networking devices and infrastructure at large as shown below.

Each of the three buildings consists of various LANs that are converged to WAN and later interconnected to the network design core layer in order to access the data center Dennis, (2009). . The buildings are not far apart from each other and therefore the whole network design can be said to be a WAN network. 

Considering the fact the proposed network design will be built based on the hierarchical model, it makes it easy for the organization to expand the network to suite their future needs. The proposed network design can be expanded at the access level or the distribution level by introducing devices such as switches that allow interconnectivity of the additional devices to the network. Therefore, the proposed design is not limited to certain conditions when scaling the network. With the use of switches at any given layer, it will be possible to have more users getting connected to the organization’s network.

This is a networking device located in a centralized location and which is accessed by different workstations connected to the network. Dedicated server stores organization information and provide access to this information and other resources to the end users. This kind of design is based on a client-server model that involves the end user sending request to the server and the server providing response to the end user as shown below. 

With such kind of network design the organization will need to have a number of servers to perform their operations. These servers are shown in the table below:

The following show the logical design of the proposed network. 

This design show a client-server model only that the data center is accessed outside the local area network. This will make the network more reliable and dependable since no operations or activity performed locally can paralyze the operations of the network. The data center could be hosted on cloud and thus all the requests made via this network will be managed from the data center in the cloud. This kind of design is more secure and easy to manage thus making the network more effective and efficient to Thuotech Soft Solution Organization. With this design the network will be able to handle huge traffics without any failures since the servers are operated outside the organization’s LAN scope. 

Proposed Network Design

Considering the number of workstations connected to this network with each campus or building hosting about 2000 computers, a proper addressing scheme that accommodates all these devices and support future additional devices should be put in place. Therefore, for the proposed solution a class B IP address scheme would be appropriate for this design. This IP class will support future network expansion by accommodating more network devices. Thuotech Soft Solution network will therefore consist of three subnetworks to represent the three buildings.

This is the use of cloud computing to provide hosting services to organizations such as Thuotech Soft Solution. With this kind of design, the company seeks hosting services from a cloud computing organization and set up its server operations there. The organization end user performs their tasks by interacting with the servers hosted in cloud via the internet. Cloud based design helps the company reduce the cost of setting up a local data center as well as managing and maintaining it regularly Vermaat, (2017). These responsibilities are therefore bestowed upon the cloud computing service providers. There are a number of cloud computing organizations that could provide hosting services for this organization. They include: 

This company has the best hosting services that are affordable to the organization. Their server is well secured thus enhancing its reliability and trustworthy.  The amount of  space offered is 50GB monthly storage and its services operate at a relatively higher speed. It has a user friendly control panel and this makes it easy for users to manage their services. They also have flexible prices and are always available to offer technical support thus making it more suitable for Thuotech Soft Solution Company.

This is another cloud computing service provider. This cloud computing service is more reliable in the sense that in case of any failure the client’s servers are automatically moved to another machine thus enhancing guaranteed service delivery. Its control panel allows easy maintenance, management and administrative control of services and it allows many device connectivity.

This section provides a simulation of the access layer level and how various devices at this level are configured using packet tracer to perform their functions.

The diagram below provide a simulated design of the part of the proposed network design using packet tracer. 

Click on the DHCP server in the packet tracer and click desktop and go to IP configuration option. Then assign the server the IP Address in this case 134.30.0.2 and provide the DNS server IP. With this done, go to service and choose DHCP service and provide the poolname, DNS server, default gateway, the staring IP, subnet and the number of hosts or users. Then finally put the DHCP server ON as shown below. 

Geographical Scope of the Proposed Design

Now the DHCP server is up and running and it assigns IP addresses to other devices automatically.

Click the DNS server on the packet tracer, select desktop and open the IP configuration setting, choose DHCP and this give the server an automatic IP address as shown 

Open the Web server desktop setting, select the IP configuration setting and assign IP using DHCP option as shown below. 

Click the service tab and on the http service create www. compName.org.au web page as shown. 

Go to DNS server and select DNS service as shown below. 

Here provide the webpage url you created at the web server and its IP and add and switch it ON to complete the configuration process.

Now having configure the DHCP server to assign devices IP addresses automatically, click on the one of the PCs in this case PC0, open the desktop setting and go to IP configuration setting and chose DHCP. The PC0 will be assigned the IP address automatically as shown below.

Select any of the PCs in the network and select web browser from the desktop setting. Type www. compName.org.au on the browser and click access to connect to the web server as shown below. 

If you click go the content of the webpage will be displayed on the PCs browser.

Recommendations and Conclusions 

Considering the size of the organization, the cloud based design would be the best approach to implement the proposed hierarchical model network design. This will guarantee effectiveness, availability, scalability and the overall security of the entire network. The organization therefore should consider implementing the proposed solution in order to mitigate the threats and vulnerabilities associated with the current poorly designed flat model network. 

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