It Summary for Xyz Company

Division LAN’s

The following will be my suggestions on setting up the Sterling Co. network for them. Since the sites have several hundred users I am recommending that the division LAN’s use the Ethernet protocol to communicate and have an IP based network. TCP/IP uses a unique address that is associated with each device attached to the network. The IP is assigned based on the MAC address of each device and is sort of it’s Social Security number and is only assigned to that device. I am using 100mb speed since most devices are 10/100 and are not all gigabit as of now. 100mb is more of the standard in today’s world. Although all switches and backbone equipment will be 10/100/1000 to give users that have gigabit network cards that capability.

Given the company has several hundred users at each location we can say that they will have multiple floors in each location. For this reason, I will connect the floors via gigabit fiber. Cabling for the user network will be CAT6e copper which is the latest standard. Users can connect their pc to the network via CAT5e or CAT6e patch cords. CAT5e is going to be the best for the budget as it is cheaper than CAT6e. Devices used to connect these computers would be Cisco switches since all devices will connect to the switch via Ethernet cable and the switch will connect to the backbone located in the server room via fiber. They are configured to give each computer 100mb connections to the network unless the computer can do gigabit in which it will have 1000mb connection. Each Floor switch will be dual homed to the appropriate redundant backbone switch with Gigabit Fiber links.

To simplify the design I would give each floor in the office a class C IP range and not

subnet. I would configure the switches with VLAN’s to also simplify configuration and management. VLAN’s would possibly be DATA, VOICE and WIRELESS in which I could segment differently as deemed necessary. This makes it easy to identify floor locations and buildings and makes it very easy to deploy other devices such as printers, copiers, etc.

Division WAN

To connect all the LAN’s I would use routers, preferably Cisco, that work to route traffic from all the 5 sites to each other as well as connect the offices to the rest of the world. I would connect the offices at 100mb as well from the router to the switch in each office unless the router has gigabit capability. I would then connect via gigabit fiber. For this project I would use a new technology called MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching(Webopedia.com,2007)) to connect the offices. This circuit connection I would make 10mb MPLS which makes each office seem as if it has a direct connection with the others. This reduces congestion and latency as can be noticed with an ATM or Frame Relay. For offices this size I would use a MPLS DS3 circuit. They provide more bandwidth and they are more powerful than DSL lines.