ICT120 Introduction to Computer Networks Task 2
Case Study: Network Design for Safety Supplies
Safety Supplies is a wholesaler who supplies safety supplies to companies in Australia and New Zealand. They buy goods branded with their logo from overseas and Australia. They have two key departments the logistics/ warehousing department and sales. The company has its Head Office in Melbourne which occupies one building in a row of warehouses, hosting about 25 employees from the 2 key business departments and another 5 in office administration roles.
In addition, it has a secondary warehouse in Sydney which has a team of 5 local employees in a leased warehouse.
Each staff member is equipped with a desktop computer however, the warehouse has two shared computers between 5 staff in Melbourne and there are about 10 laptops available for loan in the Head Office.
The company also runs 4 servers in its Head Office. 2 of them run services to support various internal business functions, including file sharing, job tracking, Payroll, etc. All staff apart from warehouse staff frequently need to visit these servers during their daily work. The other 2 servers host the website for customers. Safety Supplies plan to implement an online shopping platform open to the public and customers, potentially on these two servers. Please include this in your planning.
Please help to design the network for the company. The aim is to enable the easy and efficient connection of all devices, offices, staff, and customers.
End of Case Study
Assignment Task
You are a member of the network planning team and need to write a technical report to explain your solutions and recommendations about the network plan for the company.
Your target audience also includes executive business people who have extensive business experience but limited ICT knowledge. Therefore, besides the technical design for the network, the report needs to explain why the recommended networking technologies/solutions are the most appropriate and how they will benefit their business. You may need to compare your recommendations with other available technologies.
Specifically, you should discuss possible solutions for the following 3 topics in the report. The distribution of marks is suggested in the marking sheet at the end of this file.
Topic 1: Network topology design
Please describe the topology of your solution with the discussion on the recommended devices and types of cables. The topology discussed here should be used to form the basis of your discussion in Topic 2 & 3.
It should be noted that the manager hopes to have devices of each department isolated because they have different roles.
Topic 2: Network planning
With regard to your network topology design in topic one and the Safety Supplies case study, please write a discussion and recommendations for your plan for the below topics. Please include a justification for your plan based upon the course materials and your research. Please note this must be referenced. This section should be approximately 600 words.
- For this network, would subnets be required and if so where? Justify your recommendation.
- Please discuss the IP addressing plan, would you need to use public and private IP addresses. Would some devices need static IP addresses while others would use dynamic IP addressing, please reference your plan developed in topic one. The company gets from ISP one public IP address for each office site:
Topic 3: Essential network services
You also need to recommend some key network related services, addressing the following requirements:
- User accounts: The warehouse machines will be shared. Please discuss your solution for shared machines and account and password solutions for all machines.
- Network reliability is important to Safety Solutions. Please discuss how you would recommend fault tolerance and backups be planned.
Report Format
The assignment will be assessed according to the marking rubric which is viewable in the submission area on the Blackboard.
Your report should be no less than 1,500 words and it would be best to be no longer than 2,500 words long.
The formal technical report usually contains many different sections. The following outline is recommended for this assignment:
Title page
Summary
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Network topology design
3.0 Network planning
4.0 Essential network services
5.0 Conclusion
References
The report MUST be formatted using the following guidelines:
- Paragraph text – 12 point Calibri single line spacing
- Headings – Arial in an appropriate type size
- Margins – 2.5cm on all margins
- Header – Report title
- Footer – page number (including the word “Page”)
- Page numbering – roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv) up to and including the Table of Contents, restart numbering using conventional numerals (1, 2, 3, 4) from the first page after the Table of Contents.
- Title Page – Must not contain headers or footers. Include your name as the report’s author.
- The report is to be created as a single Microsoft Word document (version greater than 2007). No other format is acceptable and doing so will result in the deduction of marks.
Refer to the following references for details on report structures:
Summers, J. & Smith, B., 2014, Communication Skills Handbook, 4th Ed, Wiley, Australia.
Referencing
The report is to include (at least 5) appropriate references and these references should follow the Harvard method of referencing. Note that ALL references should be from journal articles,
conference papers, technical papers, recognized experts in the field or vendors’ and service
providers’ websites. The use of unqualified references will result in the deduction of marks.
Assignment Return and Release of Grades
Assignment grades will be available on the blackboard in two weeks after the submission. Details of marking will also be accessible via online rubrics on the blackboard.
Where an assignment is undergoing investigation for alleged plagiarism or collusion the grade for the assignment and the assignment will be withheld until the investigation has concluded.
Assignment Advice
This assignment will take many weeks to complete and will require a good understanding of computer networks for successful completion. It is imperative that students take heed of the following points in relation to doing this assignment:
- Ensure that you clearly understand the requirements for the assignment – what must be done and what are the deliverables.
- If you do not understand any of the assignment requirements – Please ASK the course coordinator or your tutor.
- Each time you work on any aspect of the assignment reread the assignment requirements to ensure that what is required is clearly understood.
