Network Design Proposal

Situation in which the Project Exists: This proposal is for a data communication network to serve the Maryland public education system. The Maryland legislature recently approved funding sufficient to pay for the development of this proposal. Pending proposal acceptance by the Maryland State Public Education Office of Technology (a department within the state Office of Education), funding will be sought to implement the proposal.

Network Scope: The proposed network is designed to serve the state Office of Education and two of its school district offices. The state office, located in Kenzington, contains five departments to be served by this network. Each district office contains four departments to be served. The North School District is located in Ricksville, 25 miles from the state office. The South School District is located in Albanton, about 40 miles from the state office. Note that this network does not serve instructional needs of students; other resources have been allocated for that purpose. This network is for administrative purposes and is specifically designed to be independent of student computing facilities.

Objectives of the Network. The network is designed to achieve several specific business/operational objectives:

1. Secure Service: The main objective of this network is to provide secure administrative computing service to the State Office and two districts. It is designed to be functionally and physically isolated from access by people not employed by the Maryland public education system so as to minimize the risk of unauthorized use.

2. Integration and Update: Presently there are many LANs in the Maryland public education system, but much of the equipment is out of date, many of the LANs are incompatible with each other, and not connected in a system-wide network. This proposal describes a WAN that integrates and updates these LANs to support productive collaboration across the system.

3. Versatile