Proposal For Technical Solution For CAC’s Networking And Communications Requirements

Part 1: Gather System Requirements

You have obtained a contract position at a small marketing and advertising firm called the Colour Ability Corporation (CAC). Your contract responsibilities are to help them plan their emerging networking and communications requirements and update their IT resources. CAC currently hires 80 employees and operates from Level 10 and 11 on the X Tower in Brisbane CBD. CAC has recently purchased a four-story building in a Brisbane suburb where they can allocate a separate floor to each of their four departments, i.e., (1) marketing, (2) advertising, (3) design and photography, and (4) HR and accounting. They plan to move to their new office in three months. Also, CAC’s list of customers has greatly expanded to other cities, mainly Sydney where their customers in Sydney are demanding more interactive advertising media, including video presentations. The management recognizes the business potential in this new market in Sydney and have leased a small office in Sydney (aka CAC’s fifth department) to host 8 local employees.

They have hired you to review their existing IT resources and produce a proposal that allows the company to take advantage of their firm’s expansion. The management has stated that if the proposal meets their requirements, they may hire you full-time to implement and manage these new resources. You now have an idea of the scope of the project that you have undertaken, but do not have all of the information required to proceed.

Using the details provided in the following sections you are required to prepare a professional business report of 2500 words addressing the eight activities identified below

Part 1: Gather System Requirements. CAC has provided a written summary containing floor plans for their Brisbane and Sydney offices, and notes from a verbal interview with the management team. Gather as much information as possible from these two sources to help you plan a technical solution for CAC’s networking and communications requirements.

Part 2: Plan the installation. After the equipment has been selected and the required services planned, the physical and logical installation is planned out. Physical installation includes the location of equipment and devices, along with how and when these devices are to be installed. In the business environment, it is important to minimize disruption of the normal work processes. Therefore, most installations, changes, and upgrades are done during hours when there is minimal business activity. Physical installation should also consider such things as adequate power outlets and ventilation, as well as the location of any necessary data drops.

Part 3: Prepare and present the proposal.

All of the gathered information and the proposed technical solution must be assembled into a format that makes sense to the company who has asked you to provide a solution. The formal report usually contains many different sections, including:

• Title page
• Executive Summary
• Tables of Contents, Figures and Tables
• Introduction
• Project proposal, comprising needs statement; goals and objectives; methodology and timetable; technical solutions and evaluation; budget summary; future plans
• Recommendations and Conclusions
• Bibliography and List of Refences
• Appended information

This proposal will have two major parts. Part one is gathering the system requirements where six activities will be presented. Part two will be planning for installation. This part will include planning for the physical and logical layout. The two fundamentals principles when designing any network is to focus on the organization requirements and Security

To start with, CAC is connected via fourteen switches of ten ports each. The users’ computers are towers with 2GB memory. All their user computers are running on Windows seven. In this part, this proposal will highlight the computer requirements which will in a form as shown in table one.  

Activity 1: Computer System Planning form

Table 1: Computer System Design department planning form

Table 2: Computer System HR/Accounting department planning form

Table 3: Computer System marketing department planning form

 
Table 4: Computer System Advertising department planning form

Table 5: Computer System Sydney office planning form

Activity 2: Printer Requirements

Before buying a printer in an organization it is important to first determine the organization printing needs. For CAC organization needs both color and black and white printer. The following table highlights the type of printer need in each department and the location

Table 6: Printers needed

Activity 3: Network Layout for CAC requirements

Network physical layout captures how network physical devices are laid. Each user computer as shown by the diagram below is connected to the switch, where the switch is connect to a server and a server is connected to a router then to the firewall and then to the ISP. 

Activity 4: Alternative ISPs

In Australia, there are over ten Internet Service providers. TPG is one of the best ISP providers In Australia. The company has positioned itself for over ten years. The company is one of internet powerhouse which is built on a large tract of internet infrastructure across Australia. TPG currently have three-speed plans which are NBN 100, NBN 50, and NBN 12. All the TPG plans have unlimited data. iiNET is another ISP in Australia which has what the company calls iiNet Limitless data internet plan. The following table compares the two ISP and its associated cost (AustralianCommunicationsAuthority, 2004)

Table 7: ISP comparison

Activity 5: Internal services

CAC organization need to have both managed services which are provided by an external organization and internal services which are managed by CAC personnel. Some of the internal services that can be provided by the organization are proactive and monitoring maintenance. This a service that CAC can implement to monitor its network 24/7 and the CAC upper management is notified immediately in case potential problems comes up. The organization need also to budget for upcoming technology and prepare a comprehensive report. Other services that can be provided internally are computer repair, repair a range of peripherals devices example scanners, mice, and keyboards. Restoring computer systems and windows registry and clipping those worn-out cables (Kurose & Ross, 2016).  

Activity 6: Network planning form

Table 8: Network Planning Form

After selecting all the physical devices required in Part one, this part shows the installation of the devices. This will include things like subnetting, naming, data flow, and some of the security measures.  This part will also explain how CAC can use both public and private IP address to provide security of its files and resources.

Activity 7: Sub-netting

Table 9: Subnetting

Security measures

To boost the organization network security, the organization need to implement some measures. First, the organization need to install Kaspersky’s anti-virus in all of their computer systems. With this, the organization will be able to detect any form of malware attacks which may intrude computer systems.  The organization needs to have both network-based and Host-based Intrusion detection systems (Orchier, 2000). The Host-based intrusion detection system can be installed in the organization server. The organization needs also to install Vulnerabilities scanners to always detect any form of organizational network weaknesses (Kurose & Ross, 2009).   

Activity 8: Public and Private IP Address

Public Internet Protocol is a type of IP address which can be accessed over the wide area network. It is a global IP address which is assigned to a certain device. Private IP address, on the other hand, is used to assign devices within organization computing space. For this case, CAC can use both public and private IP address to address the concern of file and resources security. Example the organization can assign the router provided by the ISP with a public IP address; in this case, the ISP router provided to CAC is assigned public IP address but for the other devices within the organization are assigned private IP address through DHCP protocol. With this, the organization will be able to protect its files and resources.

References

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