Assessment Objective
- The report helps you grasp the fundamental concept of network design and acquire the knowledge on the techniques required for developing both logical and physical network designs.
- The presentation enables presentation, oral communication and team skills to be exercised as well as providing an opportunity to research a specific topic.
Learning Outcomes Assessed:
K4. Describe the technologies and architecture of LANs, Wireless LANs and WANs.
K5. Identify the principles of LAN design.
A1. Analyse and design LAN architecture for organisational requirements.
S1- Analyse data communication and networking technologies in today's Internet.
Network Design Case
Assume Ballarat Technology Park, Mt Helen Campus, Federation University, Australia owns 300 employees with a 150-computer network. The park has two adjacent buildings: (i) a fivestory office building comprising 120 rooms and (ii) a single-story administration building with 20 rooms. The office building houses 120 computers, with additional 30 computers in the administration building. The current network is old and needs to be replaced.
The new network will house a data centre, the e-commerce edge, and 12 printers. 10 printers will be installed in the different rooms of the office building, while the other two are to be installed in the administration building. An employee is allowed to have printing service with any printer through the new network. Employees will bring their own mobile devices (e.g., laptops, smartphones, tablets) to work. Employees will use them to access required information such as their work email, required documents, and Internet through wireless communication facilities (Wi-Fi access points). Note, there are no other campuses, so you can omit WAN access. You will need to make some assumptions, so be sure to document your assumptions and explain why you have designed the network in this way.
There are two parts of the requirements for this assignment – a) Report and b) Presentation. Hand drawn layouts for both logical and physical designs are fine. However, if you like, you would use ConceptDraw or SmartDraw or any other network design software to draw the layout of logical and physical network designs.
The report should be no more than 10 pages and needs to consider the following design tasks:
Design Tasks:
T1. Using the building-block network design process, develop a logical design of the new network for this enterprise campus that considers the seven network architecture components. Remember to consider the expected growth of the company. For the logical design, you need to consider the following items: [25 marks]
- Network architecture components
- Application systems
- Network users
- Categorizing network needs
- Deliverables
T2. Design the physical design of the network based on the logical design completed in Task T1. Note, you do not need to develop an alternative design. For the physical design, you need to consider the following items: [25 marks]
- Designing client and servers
- Designing circuits
- Network design tools
- Deliverables
T3. Briefly describe how you will minimise the interference from Wi-Fi access points (APs) on different floors. [10 marks]
T4. You will make some assumptions; therefore, document your assumptions and explain why you have designed the network in this way. [10 marks]
Network Design Assignment
You need to produce a presentation consisting of eight PowerPoint slides based on your report and the relevant assessment criteria. The presentation time is 10 minutes. The presentation will be given in Week 12's timetabled tutorial.
Please look at Weeks 6-8 study materials including, lecture notes, tutorial problems, and their solutions, online materials, and relevant sections of the prescribed text. You also need to use Internet resources. Please see the assessment criteria carefully.
