Assignment Task

Summary

The main area of the College Lane Campus of University of Hertfordshire is. In this assignment, you need to use all your existing network knowledge to design a campus area network based on the given scenario.

You need to provide a network design diagram showing the backbone structure. Where it is required, you need to extend your illustration with a separate detailed LAN design based on the given floor plans. Appropriate network devices should be used to ensure cost, effectiveness, and efficiency. Justifications need to be given to the design in the report.

In order to carry out this assignment, you need to revise all the contents you have learned in the first five units:

• Network protocol layers: Units 1 – 4
• Network hardware: Unit 5
• Network design: Tutorials 1 – 3

Design Requirements:

The university has purchased a class B network address 147.197.0.0. You need to analyse the machine requirements of the campus and devise an effective IP address management solution. DHCP router should be added to the network where you deem necessary. The address pools should be allocated to devices appropriately.

There can be more than one effective solution for this project, each of which may have its own advantages and limitations. You only need to provide one design, which you deem is the most appropriate solution. In your design, you should justify the choices you have made (examples are shown below) and give a self-evaluation of the design as well.

• The justification of network device choices, i.e. if a layer 2 device is chosen instead of a layer 3 device, explain why; if a particular layer 2 device is chosen over others, explain why.

• The justification of IP address allocation choices

The machine requirements within each building block as well as their administrative ownership are listed in Table 1 where LCS represents Library and Computing Services, SH means School of Humanities, and SSE is School of Science and Engineering.

The floor plans and machine requirements for the Main Building and the Learning Resources Centre are shown and respectively. You are to make reasonable assumptions for visitors, students and staff that utilise mobile devices within the campus.

Report

You can use any illustration software that you feel comfortable with, for example, Microsoft PowerPoint, Word, Visio, or Lucidchart (a free online diagram software, available etc. The illustration does not need to show many details of the hardware features, instead a symbolic icon or simply a square box will suffice if appropriate annotations are added to the diagram to enhance the readability. Where there are multiple machines in the scenario, you do not need to present every single machine, but only need to demonstrate a range of machines. An example of such illustration style is 

The content of the report should include at least the following components:

• Backbone network design diagram, showing the placements and interconnections of network concentration devices in the core layer and the distribution layer of the network design mode

• LAN design diagrams for the Main Building and the Learning Resource Centre, showing the placements and interconnections of workstations in the access layer of the network design model

• Annotation of network devices and IP address pools on the diagrams

• Calculation process of IP addresses

• Justification and self-evaluation of the design to include, but not limited to end devices, interconnection devices and network media include e.g. copper, fibre, wireless etc.

The report should not exceed 20 pages, although marginal variation is accepted. Proper academic language should be used. References must be used where necessary.

Stretch Abilities

If you are feeling keen, confident, and devoted, you may wish to stretch your abilities and enhance your design by implementing VLAN management. You will need to specify which protocol layer the VLANs work on. Justification is also required for the VLAN choices. Read the tutorial 4 for the additional information on LAN management.