New_Computer_Network_Proposal

Fountains City Technology College New Computer Network Proposal Date 6th June 2003 Prepared for Dr Wakeham Prepared by Great Amazing Consultancy Company Introduction 2 Goals 2 Scope 2 Existing Network Environment 2 Summary of Existing Environment 2 Critique 3 Proposed New Network Environment 4 Introduction 4 Logical Design 4 Physical Design 4 IP Addressing Scheme 7 Estimates 7 Schedule 7 New Hardware required 8 Costs 8 Uncosted Expenses 8 Summary 9 Introduction This report has been complied for Dr Wakeham of Fountains City Technology College by the Great Amazing Consultancy Company. The purpose of the report is to summarise the existing computing environment of the college, and to propose a design for a new computer network. Goals The design is tailored to the specific needs of the college and must meet the following objectives: • To provide a reliable and scalable network infrastructure that can cope with the expected growth of internal traffic. • To facilitate the growth of the Creative Studies department’s interest in computer graphics and music. • To promote the use of internet-based resources in all departments and for all students. A particular aim is to support the interest of the new head of humanities in using Internet resources for teaching activities. • To enable the school to use an external management company to maintain the security and continued operation of the computer resources. Scope The scope of this project is to design a network to connect the ten departments of Fountains City Technology College throughout the five outbuildings of its campus. The ten departments are Maths, Modern Languages, Humanities, Creative Studies, Library, Workrooms, Administration, Reprographics, Science and Technology. The design should include access to the Internet and a third party consultant will provide ongoing support. Existing Network Environment Summary of Existing Environment The existing computing environment consists of ten existing departments (listed in the Scope section above), each with it’s own computing facilities based on PCs. The college departments comprise a campus of 5 outbuildings, each with two floors. See figure 1. Performance problems have become apparent since multimedia-based teaching packages were recently implemented. Only four out of the ten departments have networked their computers with security concerns and finance being among the primary reasons. [pic] Figure 1. Critique The existing environment has, until recently, been sufficient for the college’s needs. However, this is no longer the case, and a networked computing environment is now more appropriate. Problems with the current environment include the following: • Each department has grown its own computing facilities in an ad-hoc manner. This type of approach can lead to a lack of direction and standardisation and de-centralised management of security and resources, which in itself can cause unnecessary administrative overhead and inefficiency. • Only four departments out of ten have any form of network. This makes printer and peripheral sharing difficult and is not cost effective. Centralised data and security and useful collaboration tools such as intranets and email are not feasible in a non-network environment. • Desktop PCs are being used as database or file servers in some departments. Desktop PCs are not the best approach for application or file servers and there is also no evidence that the data on these devices is protected by tape backup or anti-virus solutions. • The college’s goals for Internet access cannot be achieved under the current infrastructure. • Using centralised device management tools such as inventory, SNMP based tools etc, and automatic application installation using tools such as SMS or MSI are not possible under the current infrastructure. • The existing cabling infrastructure has been installed in an ad-hoc manner and is not sufficient to support a modern computer network. • Devices such as faxmodems and ISDN Internet connections are not sufficient to provide centralised Internet access to staff and students. They also represent a security risk in any new network environment and will need to be removed and replaced by a centralised, firewall protected mechanism. Proposed New Network Environment Introduction The proposed new network should meet the objectives set out by Dr Wakeham and also address the problems of the existing environment. The design is set out in three stages: a logical design diagram, and physical design diagram and an IP address scheme. As the existing cable infrastructure is not adequate to base a modern computer network upon, new cables will be purchased and installed. Fibre Optic cable will connect the campus outbuildings and Category 5e UTP (copper) cable will connect network hardware within each building. Logical Design In the logical diagram, it is possible to observe a hierarchical method of network design. This three-tier effect of a core, distribution and access layer ensures that scalability goals are met. Utilising a partial mesh topology keeps the overall design simple and provides adequate resilience. [pic] Figure 2 Physical Design Figures 3 and 4 display the physical network designs. Figure 3 demonstrates how the campus buildings are connected using high-speed fibre optic cable, while Figure 4 illustrates how a campus building will typically be wired for data. The second image in Figure 4 is an exception to the typical configuration due to the extra “core layer” of hardware required to provide access to the Internet. • The network will use switched ethernet, which will ensure scalability and performance requirements are met. • Departments will be in their own broadcast and bandwidth domains, ensuring that performance is optimised and traffic flow is efficient. • Each department will have it’s own subnet address. Although IP assignment to desktop hosts is outside of the scope of this project, this could be achieved by DHCP. • All equipment purchased will support SNMP and\or RMON to facilitate the goal of ongoing support and management by a third party. • Outbuildings will be connected using a pair of 62.5/125μm multimode fibre optic cables (1000baseSX) with a 200MHz/km rating, running in full duplex ethernet mode. This will support performance and resilience requirements in particular. • Each outbuilding will employ a layer 2 switch (D-Link 1218R) that should run the 802.1d spanning tree protocol to avoid network loops. These switches will have a connection to each layer 3 switch in building 5. • Building number 5 houses the Technology Department and will employ two layer 3 switches (D-Link DES6300). These switches allow four fibre optic ports required to support a connection from the switches in buildings 1,2,3 and 4. They also support basic routing and hardware based filtering which can be applied to block outside traffic entering the Reprographics subnet. Adopting this stategy meets addresses the security concerns of the Reprographics department. • The switches in building 5 will connect to each other via a port trunk group operating in full duplex mode at 800Mbps using Category 5e UTP cable. This will provide high throughput between the two switches, thus improving performance. • Departments will require their own 10/100 hub(s). These will be connected to the layer 2 switch with Category 5e UTP cable with collared RJ45 connectors. Hubs can be stacked as required to allow growth in each department. Four hubs are already in use and will be retained in the new environment. This allows for a cost saving as only 7 hubs will be required including a spare. • Desktop computers will connect to the department hub with category 5e UTP cable with RJ45 connectors and a 10/100 auto-sensing network interface card. This will provide 200Mbps transmission speeds when operated in full duplex mode, improving performance. • A router (Cisco 2611XM) will be employed at the core layer to provide WAN access to the outside world. It will support OSPF and BGP routing protocols and the RMON management protocol. • The router will support multicast technologies such as the IGMP protocol to allow the use of Internet based resources for teaching activities. • Internet access will be provided by an ISP and will be based on ADSL technology. Application to JANET by the college is recommended. • A firewall appliance will isolate the internal network from the Internet and will enforce a security access policy. • Anti-virus software will be installed on all PCs to protect the network from virus attack. A designated server will be configured to apply signature updates using “push” technology, centralising administration. • SNMPv6 (Castle Rock Computing) monitoring software will be implemented to provide performance, fault, configuration, accounting and security management. • Due to the security concerns mentioned in the critique (page 3), it is recommended that a server is purchased to serve each department that currently doesn’t have somewhere central to store and protect it’s data. It is appropriate for two departments to share a single server, provided that strict security permissions are applied to protect department data. A tape backup device should also be purchased with each server to ensure that data is protected from disk failures, accidental deletion etc. • Trunking and wall plates will be fitted to each classroom to ensure cables are tidy and protected from damage. [pic] Figure 3 [pic] Figure 4 IP Addressing Scheme The IP addressing scheme requirements are to provide enough subnet addresses for the ten existing departments whilst allowing for growth. Each subnet must contain enough host addresses to support the existing nodes, whilst again allowing for growth. An IP address of 148.199.0.0 has been leased from an ISP for use by Fountains City Technology College. The recommended subnet mask to use is 255.255.240.0 The subnet mask of 255.255.240.0 will allow 14 subnets and 4094 hosts per subnet. As ten subnets will be used immediately, four subnets remain spare for future use. The IP address can therefore be CIDR’ized at the router level as 148.199.0.0/20 The subnet addresses are defined in the following table: |Subnet |First Host |Last Host |Broadcast address | | | | | | |148.199.16.0 |148.199.16.1 |148.199.31.254 |148.199.31.255 | |148.199.32.0 |148.199.32.1 |148.199.47.254 |148.199.47.255 | |148.199.48.0 |148.199.48.1 |148.199.63.254 |148.199.63.255 | |148.199.64.0 |148.199.64.1 |148.199.79.254 |148.199.79.255 | |148.199.80.0 |148.199.80.1 |148.199.96.254 |148.199.96.255 | |148.199.96.0 |148.199.96.1 |148.199.111.254 |148.199.111.255 | |148.199.112.0 |148.199.112.1 |148.199.127.254 |148.199.127.255 | |148.199.128.0 |148.199.128.1 |148.199.143.254 |148.199.143.255 | |148.199.144.0 |148.199.144.1 |148.199.159.254 |148.199.159.255 | |148.199.160.0 |148.199.160.1 |148.199.175.254 |148.199.175.255 | |148.199.176.0 |148.199.176.1 |148.199.191.254 |148.199.191.255 | |148.199.192.0 |148.199.192.1 |148.199.207.254 |148.199.207.255 | |148.199.208.0 |148.199.208.1 |148.199.223.254 |148.199.208.255 | |148.199.224.0 |148.199.224.1 |148.199.239.254 |148.199.224.255 | Estimates Schedule Great Amazing Consultancy Company currently has a lead-time for new network installations of 2 weeks. Estimated installation times (in man-days) are as follows: Procurement of hardware and software 1 day Accurate measuring and surveying 1 day Installation of fibre optic cabling (based on 1 day per connection) 4 days Installation of UTP cabling (based on 1 day per floor) 10 days Installation of switches\hubs (based on 1 day per building) 5 days Installation of router and firewall 1 day Installation of network cards and protocol stack on desktops 10 days Installation of AV and network monitoring software 3 days Installation and configuration of servers 4 days Thorough testing of new network 1 day Hand over and training 1 day Total time in man-days 42 days (Note: 1 man-day = 7 hours and will be charged at £75 per hour) New Hardware required |Item |Unit Cost |Number Required |Total Cost | | | | | | |UTP Cat5e cable |£47.50 per 305m |8200 meters |£1300 | |Fibre Optic cable |£22.50 + £1/m |3 x 55m, 1 x 5m |£260 | |Network Cards |£10 |150 |£1500 | |Cisco 2611XM Router |£1950 |1 |£1950 | |D-Link DES6300 Ethernet Switch |£2150 |2 |£4300 | |D-Link DES6306 2 port Gigabit |£1050 |4 |£4200 | |SX module | | | | |D-Link DES6303 16 port 10/100 |£830 |2 |£1660 | |TX | | | | |D-Link DES1218-R Ethernet |£290 |5* |£1450 | |Switch | | | | |2-Port Gigabit-SX Fibre Module |£350 |10* |£3500 | |D-Link DES 1024D Ethernet Hub |£116 |7* |£812 | |D-Link DES DFL1000 Firewall |£1820 |1 |£1820 | |Wall Plates |£1.50 |75 |£112.50 | |Truncing |£1/m |1392 |£1392 | |Network Server |£4000 |4 |£16,000 | |AV software |£30 |150 |£4500 | |Network Monitoring Software |£1850 |1 |£1850 | |UTP cable tester |£60 |1 |£60 | |Fibre cable tester |£130 |1 |£130 | * Allowing one spare. Costs Hardware costs £40,446.50 Software costs £6,350 Installation, Labour and consultancy costs £22,050 Training costs £700 Total costs £69,546 Uncosted Expenses Other costs to be taken into consideration, but are not factored into the above financial analysis include: • Ongoing maintenance. This will be provided by a third party company and is outside of the remit of Great Amazing Consultancy Company. • Training. It is not clear what training, if any, will be required by the company retained by Fountains City Technology College to manage the network. However, Great Amazing Consultancy Company will spend one day with nominated college staff to familiarise them with the new network hardware and software. These costs are included above. Summary The network design proposed by Great Amazing Consultancy Company provides a reliable and scalable network infrastructure, which is able to cope with growth. It has achieved this by using a three-layer hierarchical design model, which employs redundant links between departments with high performance cabling. The growth of the Creative Studies department’s interest in computer graphics and music has been met by making provision for safe downloading of music and graphics from the Internet. Isolating each department into it’s own bandwidth domain will enable the Creative Studies department to continue these activities without affecting the traffic in other departments. Promoting the use of internet-based resources in all departments and for all students can be achieved now that provision has been made for secure Internet access through a firewall appliance. Anti virus protection adds to this security to make Internet usage safe for all users. The interest of the new head of humanities in using Internet resources for teaching activities is addressed by allowing the router to support multicast traffic by utilising IGMP. To enable the college to use an external management company to maintain the security and continued operation of the computer resources, each network device will run the SNMP or RMON protocols. This will allow centralised management of the devices and to this effect, the SNMPv6 management tool from Castle Rock Computing has been purchased. Should the network fail, all switches and the router have an RS232 port to allow out of band management of the device.