Network Design And Implementation Solution For E-commerce Organization Essay.

This assignment is designed to assess students’ knowledge and skills related to the following learning outcomes:
a.Investigate suitable network designs to match requirements.
Create appropriate frameworks and standards for network implementation

Introduction of M-Tech Limited

M-Tech Limited is a network consulting and engineering firm which specialized in providing solutions such network design, network implementation, supply of network devices and provide a wide range of solution in information technology.  Our team consist of wide range of expertise which have deep analysis on the customer’s problems.

E-Commerce organization has contacted M-Tech Limited to provide a solution on network design and implementation in the new building which they will be moving soon. Since it is a new building everything will be set it from the scratch.

M-Tech’s expertise have done thorough analysis on E-Commerce organizations and have come up with the following problems which client need to be addressed in the new building. The network services that need to be availed in the new building will include:

• Network Security
• Email Services
• File Sharing
• Network Printers
• Cable layout
• Setting up new domain service
• Setting up DHCP Server
• Wireless network

The above problems will be addressed by the M-Tech expertise within one week of service.

Our network design and implementations considers the following factors include:

• The design of our network will consider the need of future scalability.
• Security. With current trend of network design, we will consider the need of secure network by using the current hardware which have been tested in production. Other network design standards will be consider.
• Fault tolerance in the network will be implemented by using smart switches and routers will can work in case of errors.
• Redundancies help to avert network risk in case of hardware failures. The system administrator will quickly enable redundant data to be used for example router’s configurations will stored in a separated files.

1. 2 Dell Power Edge T440 Tower Server requirements include:

• 2 TB of storage space
• 64 GB of Random Access Memory
• 16 Processor Cores
• 4 Network Interface Card

2. Windows Server 2012 Revision 2.
3. 4 Cisco Catalyst 2960-L Series Switches  each with 48 ports
4. 4 Cisco Catalyst 2960-L Series Switches each with 24 ports
5. 4 TB of Transcend External storage for backup purpose.
6. Cat 6 Ethernet Cable with Solid Conductors 305m Reel Box Green Color.
7. 110 Dell OptiPlex 3020 - SFF  with the following requirements:

• Core i3 4130
• Processor speed 3.4 GHz
• RAM 4 GB
• Storage Hardisk 500 GB

8. 2 Firewall Cisco ASA5505-BUN-K9 ASA 5505
9. 3 Cisco Aironet 2800 Series Access Point.

1. DNS Services
2. DHCP Services
3. FTP Services
4. Email Services
5. Printing Services
6. Active Directory Services
7. Firewall Services
8. Web Server
9. Proxy Server

As the number of system users’ increases, resource controls system need to be implemented to ensure that all the resources are shared among the authorized personnel only. Without this controls data integrity, confidential and availability may be negatively affected. In this network of E-Commerce organization, there is a need to be implemented a security measures that authenticate and identify individuals connected to the network.

Active Directory is one of the services that windows server 2012 is shipped with. All the computers in the network and users will authenticate through this. Users and policy implementation will be based on departmental. Staffs which belongs to specific department will share common files and policies. This will ensure security in the organization’s network.

Backup is essentials in every business. Hardware and Software tend to failed in unpredicted time. Other disasters which are not predicted included environmental for example flood, fire and human factors. In case of malware attack data may be attack therefore they must be a need to ensure that the down time of company systems are low. Local Backup and Cloud backup will be implemented in the network. This will ensures the safety of data. For local backup, external Hardisk which support network sharing will be used. This external Hardisk will be synchronized to the cloud. All the backup will be schedule so that every day during the midnight all the schedule backup services will be running.  For each backup service running logs will be generated to show if the backup is running successfully or running with errors.

E-commerce organization's problems

All the services that employees are accessing over the internet are placed in a demilitarized zone for example Dynamic Network System, Email Service, and File Sharing. The demilitarized zone has an external Firewall which will protect the router from unauthorized access by the black listed internet protocol addresses. Also the purpose of external firewall is to block any public IP address trying to access the internal network.

The internal network is protected by the internal firewall. Any user trying to access the internet will have to use proxy server. The purpose of the proxy server is to receive all the internal clients’ requests and send the request to a remote server. All the responses will be received by the proxy server and forward to the clients which had requested for the resource.

Internal resources are only accessible from within the internal network. Any staff which wants to access emails will use the hypertext protocol to access from the internet. The firewalls also being used support virtual private network therefore any employee which want to access internal application will have to use this virtual private network. All the internal and external users will authenticate to network services using a centralize Active Directory in the network. . Wireless hot’s spot will be place at the open office’s location where signal’s interference will be low.

The purpose if DNS is to resolve internet protocol address into domain name and to resolve domain name into internet protocol address. Domains names are very important since it is easier to remember than IP addresses.

Firewall ensures network and its devices are protected from potential attacks. This is done through analyzing data passing in and out of the network. Firewall uses preconfigured rules to detect any unauthorized packets in the network. So in our network configurations we will consider the following:

• Perimeter Coverage. All the network entries and exits must passed through the firewalls.
• Defining security needs in the organization. Based on data analysis the security needs will be addressed before implementing firewalls rules
• Firewall maintenance and managements. This involves regular monitoring of rules and traffics. Firewall rules needs to be updated regularly basing on firewall analysis. This will ensures that the current rules still applies and more need to be added.

VLANS will be implemented in the switch. Traffics from different departments will have their own VLANS. This will ensure security for different departments.

In every organization, files such as spreadsheets are shared by several employees. For example Finance department financial entries are done by different people. So this files need to be shared with top managers to review if everything is alright. File sharing among staff will be accessed through internal network and internet. FTP services will be installed in windows server 2012.

Wireless access points will be available in the entire organization. This will ensures that all the staff are able to access network within the building premises. All the wireless access points will use dhcp to issue IP address to all the computers in the network.

Solutions provided

Installing printers in the network will ensures that few resources are shared over the network. This will reduce the cost of buying printers to each computer. Printers will be install in the network. This will ensures sharing of resource among staff. Each office will have its own printer.

Communication in every business is essentials. Getting in contact with business customers’ will thrive the business to the best level. So Microsoft Exchange will in install to carter for email communication. Emails will be accessible over the internet and internal network. The mail server will be hosted within the premises.  

Network logs play an important role in any network. Any system that run in a network logs data to the files. This logs file are much important since administrator can know what kind of activity a device is running. Any anomalies activities are logged to the file. Since the devices in network are many for example. Servers, switches, routers, hubs, workstation etc. So to monitor this devices one by one is expensive in terms of human resources. Also they are time consuming. Using a centralized logging system will ease the work of collecting logs from each. Also automated system can be used to analyze logs in one station without the need of manually analyzing.

Web proxy is an intermediately between the user requesting for a resource and a server responding to a user requests. Proxy server is use mainly for privacy purpose in the network. It hides users’ information requesting the resource from the server. The server cannot be able to get users’ details information such the operating system, system architecture etc. In then E-Commerce organization proxy server will help to hide Internet Protocol Address from the internet. Malicious attackers will be hard to get the internal IP address of users therefore protecting them from malicious attacks.

Also apart from hiding actual internet protocol address to the internet, proxy server speeds up the browsing activating in the network. The most visited sites will be cached from the server. If the site content has not change the proxy server will send resources to the client requesting. All the resources are cached by the proxy server. This will reduce traffics in the network therefore enabling users to experience first browsing. The network through the support of learning from another will be able to learn of failures. This will enable a router to change the paths for routing as it seeks to look for a better path with a successful packets routings.

Factors considered in network design and implementation

Router will reside in demilitarized zone of the network. This is because the router will be facing the public face that is internet. The firewall will be facing the internet in order to prevent router from the various attacks such as denial of service, brute force of router login. The purpose of the router in the network is to look for the shortest path to destination of a request. It forwards all the traffics to other routers in the network. This is the most intelligent system in the network. Dynamic routing will be configured in E-Commerce organizations. They are several advantages of dynamic routings. It involves:

A dynamic routing adapt easily with the network configurations. Routers has ability to learn from another router communication between them. Router broadcast packets to identify itself from the network. The other router will receive the packets and learn by using those packets.

All the workstations except servers will be configured to use dynamic host configuration protocol. Since the number of workstation will more than a hundreds, maintaining the database of the internet protocol address being issued will be time consuming and expensive. Assigning IP Addresses to all workstation come with challenges such as IP addresses conflicting. Using Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol will ease the work by issuing and revoking from workstations. Also maintain addresses to be excluded from issuing to other workstation is convenient since administrator adds to the exclusion table in dhcp server.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we have seen the network requirements, the network design and its implementations. E-Commerce will be able to access all the services with high availability and its security implementation which ensures that everyone in the network is safe from any potential attack.

References 

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[3]B. Nelson, "How to Setup and Configure DNS in Windows Server 2012 - Install and Configure DNS on Windows Server 2012", Tom's IT Pro, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/configure-dns-windows-server-2012,2-793.html. [Accessed: 08- May- 2018].

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[6]P. Kennedy, "Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hardware Requirements and Recommendations", ServeTheHome, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.servethehome.com/microsoft-windows-server-2012-hardware-requirements-recommendations/. [Accessed: 08- May- 2018].

[7]"What Is a VPN, and Why Would I Need One?", Howtogeek.com, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.howtogeek.com/133680/htg-explains-what-is-a-vpn/. [Accessed: 08- May- 2018].

[8]"Star topology - Telecom ABC", Telecomabc.com, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.telecomabc.com/s/star.html. [Accessed: 08- May- 2018].

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