Local Area Network Analysis and Design

(House & Home)

Fanding P. Njie
University of Derby Online Learning, University of Derby, UK
f.njie2@unimail.derby.ac.uk
7CS506, Tuesday, 1st November 2016, Mark Judge

Abstract
In this modern world of massive innovation and ever increasing advancement of
technology in various and diverse areas, enterprises find themselves facing
challenges such as keeping up with the evolution taking place within technological
sphere, staying competitive and at the same time maximising profit for the enterprise
and investors and realising returns on investment. Enterprises are constantly looking
for innovative ways of benefitting from such advancements but also cognisant of the
risks involved and invest in systems and processes to mitigate those risks. Faced
with these challenges, yet large to small medium entities use enterprise computer
networks as their primary tool of communication. Thus, the need for continued
innovation and investment due to expansions within or outside of these entities. An
enterprise network is an entity's primary communications backbone that connect
systems and related devices across full spectrum of a given corporation and network
workgroups, giving easier insight and accessibility to enterprise data. In the early
days, computer networks are generally drawn upon three main sources, which are:
large research networks often setup and operated by universities and research
corporations and support by governments; private networks owned and operated by
large computer manufacturers; and public offerings by companies providing public
telecommunications facilities. Before the development of enterprise style computer
networks, networks were basically used to facilitate communications mostly between
terminals and mainframes stations to enable remote job entries (White, 2008). As
requirements change in the design of networks, the concept of computers in a
network viewing each other as equal peers for resource sharing increased (Roberts
and Wessler, 1970).

Keywords
Enterprise Networks; Internetworking; Network Protocols; Network Management;
Network Analysis

Analysis
House & Home is a real estate agent company having offices and branches in at
least three different locations. The company currently has a network infrastructure
that is not able to cope with the expansion of the company and the data sharing and
communication requirements. House & Home has branch offices and with agents,
managers, consultants and receptionists. These branch offices house their own
computing and networking facilities ranging from internet connections, servers and
separate Internet Service Provider (ISP) services. The company runs mostly out-of-
date systems or equipment which is not only slowing down their operations but also
impact their productivity which renders their systems more vulnerable to network and
computer security risks. The company is also prone to many downtimes leaving it
less competitive due to equipment failure. The company’s branches have a leased
telecommunications facility to allow inter-branch communications and file transfer.
The company’s own IT department cannot repair or reconfigure the equipment;
however, the equipment is provided and maintained by another large
telecommunications company. Branches have internet connections provided by an
ISP using Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) broadband, furthermore,
most branches have standard domestic service plans and payment packages
provided for by different providers. The company has several database and file
servers located in various branches and scattered across a large geographical area,
these are not shared, therefore, network resources are not accessible enterprise
wide. Staff from different branches and/or departments cannot access and share
company data (i.e. property details for marketing purposes or customer information
for verification). The IT staff requires remote connection to all branches but with the
current systems, configurations and facilities, this is near impossible. Due to
proximity and distance between the branches and the head office, the IT staff cannot
operate physical administrative tasks and have to travel to some locations to perform
such tasks onsite, in turn incurring time and financial costs. Backups are done
separately and on various sites at certain times of the day. Backups are carried out
by one person in each of the branches and on separate storage media. Storage is
done using tapes and disks and kept by the branch managers. The company uses
data networks while some of the branches use digital telephone systems to allow for
better call routing and call forwarding. The company uses a mix of proprietary
operating systems ranging from UNIX, Linux, and Windows. It uses TCP/IP protocol
suite, in addition some legacy systems. PC users within some branches use a
different version of Windows to access systems remotely utilising telnet and other
communications methods.

Components of new enterprise network

House & Home has three branches in different locations, the current network
infrastructure is not modular and scalable for future expansion. In enterprise network,
devices such as routers, switches, and Ethernet hubs are used to interconnect
multiple devices to make up the core of the physical network (Ciscopress.com,
2013). Reliable data transmission is realised when such network devices are
connected physically and proper network addressing done to assign each device an
identity within the network (Aikebaier et al., 2008) which will be required for House &
Home’s enterprise network.

Routers, switches and hubs are identified by the way they transmit data to and from
their destination (Tyson, 2001). Routers are used to route data packets and this is
done between two routers in an internetwork. A router’s primary function is to direct
traffic within a given network. In a scenario where many routers are involved (i.e.
three or more routers), the first router will typically forward packets to the next level
router and from there on to the next through the internetwork until the data reaches
its final destination. There are many different types of routers, but regardless of the
numbers, these are categorised as either broadband or wireless. Broadband routers
are used in several different ways but fundamentally are used to connect two or more
devices to the internetwork or internet (Sundaresan et al., 2012). Enterprises also
use broadband routers to connect phones. Voice over IP (VoIP) technology, is used
to connect phones to the internet. These routers are sometimes in the form modems
that can be used with both Ethernet and phone jacks. Wireless routers on the other
hand are connected to modulation and demodulation type devices to create wireless
signals between two devices. Generally, routers connect Local Area Network (LAN)
and Wide Area Network (WAN) and to an ISP’s network. Routers also connect the
internet gateways, and are found where two or more networks converge. Routers
use data headers and forwarding tables to determine the path of packets, routers use
Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) protocol to communicate with other
routers and figure out the best routes between nodes. Routers typically operate on
the Network-Control layer, which is the third layer of the Open Systems
Interconnection (OSI) layer or the internet layer of the Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) reference model.

Network switches act as filtering and packet forwarding device between LAN
segments. Switches operate at the link layer of the TCP/IP model and at the data link
layer or sometimes at the network layer of the OSI model and can support many
packet protocols. Local area networks that use switches are referred to as switched
LAN (Wechta, Eberlein and Halsall, 1999). A switch uses the MAC addresses of all
connected devices and store it and then can identify which devices is connected to
which port. Switches allocate full 10/100Mbps to all its ports and regardless of the
number of nodes or connected devices, all of them can have access to enough
bandwidth.

Hubs act as connection points within a network and are used to connect LAN
segments. Some hubs have multiple ports that take other devices. During data
transmission, when packets arrive at one port of a hub, the data gets copied to all
other segments of the LAN. However, it is also worth noting that packets are sent or
transferred to all nodes within a network. Therefore, the bigger the network, the more
connected devices you have within a network, the bigger the traffic and so does the
amount of conflicts. This leads to a slowdown in network speeds. Hubs are less
expensive, but generally unpopular because they are thought to be weak.

In an enterprise network, devices are either connect physically (wired) or wirelessly.

Wired connections use Ethernet cables and connectors to connect devices and
nodes to routers and switches in a network. This type of connection is cheaper,
faster, reliable and more secure (Gillooly, 1999). A network cable is medium through
which data moves from one network node to another.

There are several different types of network cables commonly used in LAN. In many
cases, networks may several types of cables in a given network. However, the type
of cable used can be determined by size of the network, the protocols involved and
the design of that particular network (Bradford, 2007).

Following are some of the commonly used cables:

 Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP),
 Shielded Twisted Pair (STP),
 Coaxial, and
 Fibre Optic.

Twisted Pair cables comes in two different types: unshielded and shielded, but
unshielded or UTP is widely used and is the best option for many network designers.
The type of UTP to use is dependent on largely the amount of speed involved. In
UTP the wires inside the jerk has four pairs, each of the pairs are twisted to eliminate
interference. On the other hand, a STP, is less expensive but prone to radio and
electrical frequency interference. However, STP can be used in long distance
cabling. Coaxial cables have a copper conductor that is wrapped in a plastic layer to
minimise outside interference. There are two types of coaxial cables: thick coaxial
and thin coaxial. Thin coaxial or thinnet, is popular with many networks. Thinnet has
a specification of 10Base2 that carries Ethernet signals. The approximate length of a
segment in thinnet is 185metres. Thick coaxial or thicknet, also carrying Ethernet
signals. Thicknet is 10Base5 and carries approximately 500metres between
segments, making thicknet a great choice for long distance linear bus networks.
Fibre optic cable has glass core protected by several layers of protective material.
This type of cable transmits electronic signals rather than light signals, thus,
eliminating the electrical interference and at the same time transmits signals over
long distances compared to others. This cable is the ideal choice in connecting
networks between buildings. Fibre optic cables come in two different types; single
mode and multimode. Single mode run between 2metres to 10,000metres, and has
lower power loss and light can travel longer distances but it is costly and fragile,
Multimode fibre runs ~550metres, is less costly and durable however, both provide
high capacity bandwidth at high speeds.

In other for House & Home to connect all buildings within head office and branches in
other locations, they will need a combination of network technologies, which are
LAN, WAN, MAN and internet gateways. A local area network (LAN) is used to
connect devices and nodes with a limited area of the enterprise. A LAN can connect
two or more computers or devices within the same office using either wired or
wireless devices. The components of LAN consist of the cabling and connectors to
connect devices, interfaces that connect to the media, protocols to forward data, and
software for network administrations. LAN connections use high-speed connections
of either Ethernet (10 Mbps), fast Ethernet, and even Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbps).
LAN use standard technologies such as wireless LAN using IEEE 802.11, Ethernet,
Token ring, and FDDI. Ethernet is widely and commonly used.

Wide area network (WAN) is an interconnection between two LAN. WAN uses a
larger network of networks to connect two LAN. WAN use interfaces, devices,
protocols and software to do this (Bradford, 2007). WANs spans several different
entities in the same location or even geographical places. Common WAN
technologies used include TCP/IP, Frame Relay, ATM and etc.

Metropolitan area network (MAN) is used to interconnect both LAN and WAN. MAN
technologies include 10 Gigabit Ethernet etc.
Solutions for House & Home
Analysis of current system shows gaps, the new architecture will achieve
accessibility, reliability and security. The solution will employ both wired and wireless
technologies. This will be a LAN Derby head office, and a separate LAN for Leicester
and Nottingham. WAN will connect braches to the head office using a combination of
bus and star design. All LAN will use Cat5 cables and run IEEE 802.3 protocol. The
new solution will use two separate ISPs for redundancy, reliability, efficient
distribution, and load balancing. Fibre optic will be used between the buildings in
Derby; this will be multimode connected with switches if distance is more than 350ft.
There will be 100BaseT Unshielded Twisted Pair between buildings for maximum
speed and reliability. The design has five routers, one for Leicester and Nottingham,
within Derby, one router will act as gateway from the ISPs and another to route traffic
from the firewall.

Derby will be behind firewall with a demilitarised zone in between. The DMZ will use
wireless router to allow connections wirelessly, thus will have IEEE 802.1X to
minimise vulnerability of air-signal-interception. All departments will have two level of
switches; the first level will forward data from the router, whiles the second levels will
connect different network groups. Check Point will be used as the firewall software
this is because of its robustness, agility and price when compared to other so-called
Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs). A separate module within the IT to house a
data centre where servers will be centralised for distribution and backup purposes.
There will be connection to Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) using a IP
PBX to allow call switching between sites. IT will use VPN to do remote
administrations and do remote backups to the datacentre. All backups will be done
remotely at midnight every day, and backups will be replicated to backup servers
located in a different backup facility for disaster recovery.

Figure below shows the network design.

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