Network Design Fundamentals For High Availability, Scalability, Security, And Manageability Essay.

Scalability

Question:

Discuss about the COIT20264 Network Design.

Network design revolves around the customer service, meaning that a network should be always up like 100 percent and this network need to be in a position to adjust to the dynamic traffic loads and prove consistency in response, hence these calls for careful planning and design. These are the requirements we need to put into consideration when designing a network that will meet the client needs.

1. Always build a network having in mind that it need to be up all time, hence we need to have alternatives in situations that the network fails how are we going to recover from that error, also suppose there is an issue of equipment failure how are we going to tackle the situation also on issue of overload how are we going to come up with a network that will be able to tackle overload issues.
2. It is a requirement that the network we build do support the applications we are using effectively; also we need to understand that the response time should be very high in communication of these apps between the host. Once we achieve these we will be having the most efficient network.
3. Network security is an important requirement for the networks design as it is important that the company data are protected while being transmitted over these network as well as the data stored on the devices that are used to connect to it. A well secured network locks out scammer and people trying to infiltrate the network.
4. Scalability, and easy to modify is another requirement of the network, it should allow for growth and make it easy to make changes in situation of company growth or there is business changes in the company.
5. Network trouble shooting should be made easy because on several occasion failures do occur, hence recovery from these problem should be so easy and not time-consuming saving a lot for the company.

These are the basic fundamentals for the network design to achieve the goals

Scalability-Network designs can be made in a way it allows room for growth to include new users in the company and increase the mobile site, it should support new application without causing an effect on service delivery of the current users.

Availability-Networks designed for high availability are the best since it delivers consistently, provide reliable performance, in addition it has a recovery mechanism such that in case of a failure it will not impact on the network performance.

Security-this is the most important feature of a network that is a must to be considered when coming up with a design and not after designing. It is so critical for safeguarding network resources.

Manageability-we should come up with a network design that is easy to manage and support, a network that is complex will compromise on the effectiveness and efficiency of the network. (Oppenheimer, 2011)

When designing the network topology for this network we are going to take top-down approach. From these approach the network applications and the service requirements is first identified before the network is designed to support all. Generally we first ensure that the new design works handles all the functions before it is being implemented.

With top down approach the designer gathers requirements by identifying the issues that affect the entire network and those affecting a given section; hence we can identify what our estimate can be in term of cost and time. a top down model we start from the application layer down to the physical layer

With the Australian project, the network design requires us to implement a network design that  involve  manning of unmanned Ariel vehicles, we are going to use computers mounted on mobile cars in motion as well as link to the main data centre where all the controls of these equipment will be done; these are the applications the company needs. These network for transport will  involve us of wireless network and satellite communications for those devices that are in constant motion so that the connectivity is not lost when these UAVs goes deep into the sea.

It will involve the use of commercial network like an internet service provider to allow connectivity of these devices since we are using mobile application, so that they can easily communicate to the devices in the main data centre and be able to acquire the information about the fish quantity in a given area. Satellite will come in a situation where the farmers are deep in the sea where the telecommunication devices cannot reach the place hence ensuring reliability, consistency and efficiency in information delivery to the fishermen. These are the logical design for the network. (Froehlich, 2010)

Availability

The AG network considers all the pc mounted vehicles, unmanned Ariel vehicles and any other device connected as a node in the network, it is capable of performing the services assigned to and exchange information.

We have the main data centre where observation and admin task is operated as well as remote stations for management purposes, these stations interact with the unmanned Ariel vehicles and then it analyses the data obtained from the sea and provides out to their members so as to know the best part to carry out fishing. The data centre also is a storage point where users can retrieve some history data when they want to analyse the fishing pattern.

Remote operator and the members of the company may interact with intermediate server to access information stored about the fishing report, they can also interact with the data processing system which interact with the unit tasked with collecting data so as to generate a precise report on fishing information.

For us to attain reliability of our network we will implement the Cisco three-layer hierarchical model made of core layer, distribution layer and the access layer. Core layer is mostly tasked for transporting data quickly and ensures reliability, hence always designer is to ensure core layer is fault tolerance and avoid delays in the network

Switches and routers at the core layer provide high speed and reliable connectivity. The core network has more than one links connecting the server and supports virtual private networks as well as WAN access. This core layer design primary goals is to provide the company 100 percent uptime, maximize throughput and to facilitate growth in the company.

IP addressing

The addressing scheme we are going to implement is the IP addresses to distinguish one network node from another. The IP address of devices in a network must be unique hence cannot be shared with any other node in the network simultaneously, a breach of that will make the router not know the best route to deliver packets to.

Ip addresses are centrally allocated from the main data centre in our AG network so as to ensure that we avoid the issue of duplicate addressing, from these centre is where we also do subdivision of network to smaller sub-networks (subnets) so that it make it easy for network management. (Nikolaidis, 2002)

IP assigning for the company we are going to use Dynamic IP address so as to make it easy for a new member to join the group since not all members are permanently in the network hence dynamic allocation makes it easy for network management.

Routing and Switching Protocol

These protocols are base on the autonomous system,it is a collection of routers in a company which are commonly used

Interior Gateway Protocols(IGP):these protocol is mostly for the internal network of the company

Exterior Gateway Protocols(EGP):is the official protocol for use when connecting to the internet and by remote users to access the company .

It help us identify how far the device we getting information from  hence choose the best way to relay information to the user, or we can channel the user to pick information from the nearest server so as to reduce the issue of delays. Distance Vector routing Protocol measure distance based on distance of the devices from the router and vector for purpose of the direction. These will enable the system choose the best shortest route to deliver the packets to destination.

Physical Security

Physical security is all about limiting access to the company network resources, either in a well locked area, protecting from natural and human-caused disaster. Physical security locks out unauthorised personel or people with no skills on handling of the network devices also it help to protect from bad weather or any hazards event that can cause physical damage on these devices like breakages.

Authentication

We need to authenticate the users requesting the services, it helps us separate members and non members of the company and prevent them from accessing data they are not subscribed to.

Authorization

We need to set privileges for users of these network and what transaction they are able to transact in the network, hence we have to set users and assign each their roles, we can assign an administrator to manage these network and set user privileges.

Data Encryption

We need to have an encryption algorithm for our network to encrypt the data as it transit over the networks that intruders are not able to alter the meaning of these messages in transit. Hence ensure data accuracy and confidentiality.

Firewalls

We need to have a network firewall that will only allow genuine data necessary for the company network, any other data not useful are locked out from infiltrating our network, and hence we protect our client’s data, confidentiality and data integrity.

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems

This will detect any malicious activity in our network and it will raise a red flag to the administrator who is then able to act on the threat and introduce am mechanism to safe guard that event from not occurring anymore. (Gorodetsky, Kotenko and Skormin, 2005)

References

Froehlich, A. (2010). CCNA voice study guide. 1st ed. Indianapolis, Ind.: Wiley Pub.

Gorodetsky, V., Kotenko, I. and Skormin, V. (2005). Computer Network Security (vol. # 3685). 1st ed. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

Nikolaidis, I. (2002). Cisco IP routing [Book Review]. IEEE Network, 16(2), pp.4-5.

Oppenheimer, P. (2011). Top-down network design. 1st ed. Indianapolis, Ind.: Cisco Press.