Network Design For EZY-Books: A Case Study Essay." (70 Characters)

Case Study: Network Design for EZY-Books

EZY-Books is a specialised publisher for customised book publication services. The company’s main office is in Sydney, and its branch offices are in Melbourne and Brisbane.

The operation of the business is still quite old fashioned that all customer services rely on paper-based forms. For example, if a writer wants to publish a book, he/she has to talk with a sales representative by phone or face-to-face to receive a paper order form, and then send the paper manuscript together with the completed form back to the company. The sales representatives travel around the country to meet customers, but the only communication channel to the company is via telephone.

The customers complain that the processing cycles of orders are too long, and frequently paper-based forms get lost. Moreover, customers expect to submit their orders form and manuscripts electronically, as well as an online order status tracking capability. The sales representatives also complain that it is not easy for them to get the latest updates from the company about the promotions or discounts. They have laptops with all working documents stored locally, but they hope there could be a file server that they can access anytime with any device, and sometimes they can share their working documents with the administration team.

The company is very concerned about these complaints, and decided to rebuild its IT infrastructure that would help it maintain its reputation for providing an elevated customer experience. After comprehensive consultation with technical experts and business partners, EZY-Books decided to dump its current IT infrastructure because the patching changes may be more expensive and less likely to satisfy the business needs.

A fresh design for its IT infrastructure, especially the networking, is required. The design is vital to support and enable the future growth of the company. It should enable the connection of all devices, offices, branches, and staff

Assignment Task

You are a member of the network planning team, and need to write a formal business management report to explain your solutions and recommendations about the future network infrastructure for EZY-Books.

Network Infrastructure

According to Liao, Hong, Wen, Pan & Wu, (2018) applying technology in running the operations of a business is now a common technique in most industries. The use of technology and networking capabilities has helped firms cover a great mile in not only reducing communication barriers but also boosting the security of their data and information. The network layout of any business, however, should be robust and easy to use for all users including individuals with minimal computer knowledge. Customers and employees of EZY books are experiencing delays and are frustrated with the current system applied in running activities in the firm ((Treasury, H.M.S., 2011).).The customers find the order processing cycles to be extensive and dislike the paper forms as they easily get damaged or lost. They prefer an electronic system with monitoring capabilities that will reduce the work of tracking their records. Employees (Sales representatives) on the other hand find the current communicating structure of the organization internally to be slow. They get updates on discounts and promotions late which creates a challenge in doing their roles. The staff also prefer a centralized server that eases the gain to access to the company’s information and data. To increase the employees’ satisfaction and maintain their good reputation on excellent customer experience, EZY books will need to incorporate a new networking system within their activities. Certain factors will be considered in the design of the system that will help in arriving at the best networking solution that will solve the firm’s current issues and still be relevant to their operations in the future as the company grows (Escobar,Montoya & Galindo,  2018).

 The following is an analysis of the factors to consider in creating the new networking system for EZY Books.

Network Convergence and Cabling plan

The new system will need hardware components added for it to work effectively. The devices that will be incorporated should fit to meet the needs of the business. For EZY books, they will acquire hardware components that will offer a secure connection to a common database for the staff members. Devices obtained should also allow the employees to remotely transmit data among themselves (Fritzsche, Schweigel & Zhao, 2019, p. 43-52). The hardware components should allow customers to get real-time output on the placement of their orders, track them and get notified once they are complete. A central server could be acquired that stores all the company’s information and data in a common database. Wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi could also be installed to allow for scalability and remote connectivity (Jin & Chapman, 2018). The central database identifies all the users under the network and retrieves and organizes data from any device across the system.  This will help the staff members in easily accessing data with less redundancy of information and operations. Staff will be able to easily carry out their tasks. For example, information updates on discounts and bonuses or memos can be posted by the management (head office) and accessed by the staff in all branch through the central server. This reduces the workload of the administrators in transmitting a common message to multiple recipients and ensures information gets to the intended recipient on time. Remote devices such as smartphones and laptops could be acquired that enable staff members to operate beyond the work premises. Users do not necessarily have to be physically in contact to enable communication among them. Through wireless technologies and the central server, staff using mobile gadgets such as smartphones allows them to carry their work with them. Customers to benefit from the remote communication as they can receive relevant updates from the company anytime (Lee, SOHN & Seok, 2018).

Network Convergence and Cabling plan

Local Area Network and Wide Area network

The devices connected under a common network will need to be properly organized to check security threats. A network layout that defines each device and its role in the system is established. This is the Local Area Network (LAN) for users within the organization and a Wide Area Network (WAN) that recognizes external devices that are added to the network. For the local area network, the topology of the network should have an authentication mechanism that regulates access to information by staff members. The authentication mechanism checks to ensure any user is authorized to access certain information by use of passwords. User accounts are created under the LAN that uses a hierarchical approach in classifying staff members (Xu, Lan, Lin, Khalifa, Bergmann, Hassan & Hu, 2017). For example, the managers and department heads could each have a user account under the system that categorizes them under one level. For them to access data and resources related to their role, they will need to fill in their passwords. Subordinates and lower level staff cannot access the same contents as the network layout prohibits them. Firewalls could be added to the network limiting unauthorized access by third parties to the network. External users will have a specified port that allows them access to the network through the WAN. The port will be configured to limit the users' access to information only relevant to them. For example, Customers should be able only to view their records on the system and limit their access to staff and other customers' information (Hou, Qiu, He & Gao, 2017).

Network Address Translation

The networking features of the new system should have networking services with Network Address Translation (NAT) capabilities. This will add a security feature to the traffic of data between the organizations’s LAN and the internet. This feature translates the addresses and the port numbers on the firm's network into a public address that hide the actual address of the devices in the private network. This assist in reducing unauthorized access to the organization's internal network resources by unknown users. The management will also be able to regulate the web addresses that staff members’ access via the company’s network (Menachem, Raikin, Burstein & Kagan, 2018).

Emailing

Emailing will also be used as a networking service in transmitting files within the network system (Johannisson, 2017, p.368-386). The private network for EZY books should be configured with emailing techniques that will assist staff send data to each other. Emails are a simple way of sending different types of data files. Creating an email address for all staff members in the company integrated with the central server system will enable the users to send emails easily. The emailing system will also be secure as it will allow users to send messages to only the staff members under the private network by implementing a file transfer protocol (FTP). This reduces instances of employees sending the organization’s information to irrelevant parties (Chen, Gan, Li & Hua, 2018).

Local Area Network and Wide Area network

Extranet

An extranet can also be used in bridging communication between the staff members and customers. An extranet is a networking service that allows specific individuals to communicate with the staff members in a private virtual space. The individuals should be crucial to the organization like suppliers or customers. In our case, EZY books could add a closed virtual place for their customers to place and track their orders. They will be able to send any further information directly to the employee they are familiar with. The extranet will also allow the sales vendors to broadcast information on offers and promotions to the customers in a secure environment (Barnier, Mueller, Dean & Madrid, 2017).

Intranet

An intranet networking service would also be ideal for the business. The idea of this approach is somewhat similar to extranet but excludes individuals outside the organization. An intranet is a private network that is designed to specifically allow only staff members to communicate within the network. For EZY books, the approach will allow the head office to transmit information to their branches securely. Users will also be able to send data among themselves without the need of using third party file sending protocols (Dendooven, & Luisi, 2017).

Data Storage

The organization needs to find a perfect data storage solution. The alternative they choose should be able to securely protect their data from access to unauthorized personnel and also offer a backup capability for the data (Turner, 2018). A cloud storage technique would work out for the business. Cloud computing is a service that offers databases and files storing resources through the internet. Users are charged for the service and pay for only the service they require (Li, Li, Huang, Gao, Chen & Chen, 2017, p.1-10). EZY Books could pay for cloud services that offer storage solutions. Acquiring this service minimizes the operations used in running the organization's network infrastructure and creates a contingency plan as a backup to the company's data.  Cloud services are also secure. Users are required to set up virtual accounts with the vendors of the cloud services. This creates an authentication mechanism that allows only registered users to access the data stored in the cloud (Matsuoka, Masuda, Hase, Yamada & Fujiwara, 2017).

Voice over IP

The organization needs to develop voice over network protocol.  This would assist the company to deliver voice multimedia and communication sessions over a through the internet protocol like the internet.  The VoIP would enable the company to have dynamic interconnections among their clients

World Wide Web

This would help to avail the products of the company to all users over the internet. The clients would be able to view the products freely on after another by use of the hypertext links

Data Processing

When it comes to a data processing model that will be used in transmitting data among the network users, a client-server model (C2S) would be effective for the company. This is a centralized system whereby the communication framework involves clients who request for data from a central server (Cao, Wang, Kamel & Kim, 2017, p.1822-1835). The server capabilities include database, Web, and email while the client’s side has email software’s and web browsers to request services. For EZY books, the C2S model allows staff to request relevant data from the central server. The model enables the users to store their data and resources on the server. This creates a pool of data and resources that can be accessed by any employee in the business. Sales representatives will find the model effective in getting information that will help them in running their operations (Mei, Li, & Li, 2017).

Networking services

Conclusion and Recommendation

EZY books is facing challenges in communication and data management for their employees and customers. The issue if not addressed will create a negative working atmosphere leading to employee frustrations. Customers will also view the company as a disorganized firm with little regard to their satisfaction. Growth for the company will be a challenge if their internal communication barriers persist. A new networking system will be a win-win situation for the staff and customers alike. The system if properly designed, will ease the transfer of data and information within the organization, increase security measures in the networking services used in transmitting files and create an opportunity for scalability to add more users under the network. The management, however, needs to come up with a budget plan for the network. The hardware needed to design the network, switches, routers, and computers are costly and require one to estimate the amount they are willing to spend on the equipment. A perfect budget estimate will also assist the management plan for the future growth of the network infrastructure (Yang, Huang, Li, Liu  & Hu , 2017, p.13-53).

References

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Dendooven, T. and Luisi, B.F., 2017. RNA search engines empower the bacterial intranet. Biochemical Society Transactions, 45(4), pp.987-997.

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Jin, H. and Chapman, J.T., Cisco Technology Inc, 2018. Interference suppression in full duplex cable network environments. U.S. Patent 9,966,993.

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