Bead Bar Network Paper

The Bead Bar is a 1.5 million dollar company, that employee 15 full-time employees and 20 part-time employees. The company has three divisions that consist of studios, franchises, and Bead Bar on Board. The studio division oversees the company owned six studios across the Eastern part of the United States. The franchise division is in charge of managing the supply requirements of the five franchises. The last division is Bead Bar on Board, which designs the portable studios that are located on crew ships. (Malaga, 2005)

The Bead Bar is a growing company that is looking for ways to expand their business with the help of newly implemented information systems. The Bead Bar still uses several paper based forms and they are finding that several orders have been lost, invoices have been inaccurate and there have been delays in fulfilling orders. (Malaga, 2005) The first part of developing such a system would be to research the needs of the company. The basic requirements are as follows: network without noticeable cables in the studios, connection between headquarters and all studio locations, and access to corporate network remotely, improve data collection from all locations, electronic retrieval of sales information, and improved work flow systems to reduce paperwork. Proper infrastructure design and implementation is imperative to meet all the Bead Bar’s requirements.

The current computer hardware was just recently purchased and was recommended by Stan from BRJ Consulting. The hardware consists of 14 desktop computers, two notebook computers, ink jet printers, zip drives, two bar-code hand scanners, and a digital camera. Currently none of the systems are networked. (Malaga, 2005) The computers are running the Microsoft XP Professional operating system, along with the Microsoft Office suite. The company data will be stored on an Oracle 9i Database backend. The development of the network will enable all remote sites to access this distributed database to operate at its full capacity.

After completing the research of the requirements of the Bead Bar an overview of my recommendations is the use of a star topology and client server architecture, with wireless networking in the headquarters and the studios. The network will use the TCP/IP protocol. This solution will require the installation of Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL) in the studios, and the implementation of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) solution. The issue with regard to the Bead Bar on Board would have to be a satellite solution. Satellite communications cards can be purchased and will have a monthly service fee.

The network topology is mixed for the Bead Bar. The headquarters is a local area network that is using the star topology. Each device will connect via wireless to a Wireless Access Point (WAP) and the WAP will connect to the servers. The remote sites would typically be on a dedicated wide area network (WAN). Due to the cost of a dedicated line for this service the recommendation is to use VPN. This will allow the remote sites and telecommuters the ability to access the company’s network through a secure tunnel via the internet.

The wireless solution would be 802.11g standard which has high speed of 54 mbps and is compatible with the older 802.11b technology. This would be the best solution to save money by the lack of cable installation. The wireless solution in the studios would give them the ability to be flexible in the layout of the furniture. This will be more appealing to the customers by not having cables strung all over. This basically follows the star topology, as each system connects directly to the WAP and from there goes to the server which has the database. Each location will need to have a wireless access point installed and a wireless network adaptor for each computer. The WAP will provide the IP address via Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), and will allow the TCP/IP protocol to be used when communicating to the server.

Each studio will need a DSL line installed to allow high speed access back to headquarters. DSL is the most cost affective approach for type of communication. Once the computer is on the internet the VPN software can be used to connect to the company’s network. This will allow the studios and headquarters to communicate and the inventory and sales information can be kept current.

With the client server architecture the server will provide services that are requested from the client computers. “The servers are powerful computers with fast processors and a lot of memory that is capable of handling simultaneous requests from clients.” (Malaga, 2005) Servers will allow secure access