Requirements for Our Business Network

Determination of Scope and Objectives

From a business point of view, it's wise to insure that we have the finest available internationally connectivity for our web. Slow connections and major limitations are not something we can afford to burden business with if we intend to revolutionize multi-media distribution. We also need state of the art back end database servers which will reliably deliver data on demand to hundreds of simultaneous connections.

Our servers, for both web hosting and our back-end database systems, will be the HP L3000 Unix server. This server provides the best transaction performance of any 4-way server and the best Web server performance. This server provides an ideal solution for our media streaming applications.

The HP L3000 is powered by four PA-86000 processors and can handle 171,000 transactions per minute (1) The HP L3000 server also has a Network Equipment Building System, Level 3 Certification and –48VDC power supply.

The HP L3000 server has been designed to allow administrators to create dynamic virtual partitions that direct computer power where it is needed, a unique capability available only on HP servers is the claim that is made by HP.

That raises the question, "why could ISP hosting be slow and what can we do to prevent it?"

With our revolutionary business model, it's reasonable to assume that we will have from hundreds to thousands of shoppers accessing our Internet bandwidth. It's also reasonable to assume that our guests will not visit us again or stay with our site long enough if they are having to wait for our pages to load, or even worse, if they never see many of our pages at all because of time outs or slow response time.

To address this problem, we will install a world class Network Operations facility. It will have the following characteristics: Redundant connections, high-speed access, 100% up-time and state of the art Unix/Apache Servers.

Systems Design

The Network Operations Center:

We will build a secure first class facility that will house our Network Operations Center (NOC). This facility will contain raised flooring which will enable a stead flow of filtered and conditioned air that helps maintain a uniform room temperature and humidity at all times. This will also reduce random static and maintain a production environment for our servers. For fire control, we will install a fire suppression system designed by

Raytheon. This system will immediately extinguish fire while still protecting our equipment and personal.

Finally, our Network Operations Center is located in a secure building and will be monitored at all times. Only a select number of pre-approved personnel will be allowed access to our highly sensitive areas and equipment. This system is coordinated using automatic card-key access doors to further secure and protect our equipment. Detailed records of employees and visitors are kept and available to management at all times.

To guard against local power failures, we will install two enterprise-grade, three-phase MGE UPS systems which provides complete protections for datacenters.(3) These UPS systems act as back-up batteries, maintaining uninterrupted power in case of surges or power outages. With these back-up systems in place, we can keep our network up and running indefinitely without relying on external power. MGE 6000 UPS system offers Fault tolerant circuitry, precise voltage regulation and an advanced browser based power monitoring system options for easy and reliable monitoring.

Custom Web Servers

We will purchase our HP database and web servers through AcmeWidgets.com. The web servers will be specialty custom-built industrial strength servers designed to handle a rigorous 24/7 high production, commercial, web serving environment. All of our servers will be stocked with dual-redundant, 700-watt power supplies.

The hard drives for our severs will consist of hot swappable SCSI Seagate Barracuda/Cheetah drives and force-filtered cooling systems. Of course, we

will have RAID level 50, NIC controlled redundancy sets for all our hard drives. RAID 50 uses two RAID controllers to control 12 SCSI disks. With this level of redundancy, we could lose and entire hard disk and the RAID unit would still maintain complete data integrity without missing a step. (2) The drives and drive bays of all HP AcmeWidget.com servers are built from industrial-grade aluminum and rest in shock-mounted drive cages. This contributes to the long-term durability