Data Communications Assignment: Benefits of Networking, Network Design, IPv4 Addressing, and Network

As part of the formal assessment for programme you are required to submit a Data Communications assignment. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.

Each task addresses aspects of the learning outcomes listed after the task title. The assignment as a whole covers all the learning outcomes, spread across the tasks. You should answer the tasks set, in the order they are set and clearly label each task. Do not treat the Learning Outcomes as if they are the tasks to be answered. LO4 is covered throughout the report.

Write a brief report for the management explaining how a zoo wide network would benefit the zoo. This must be clearly focussed on things that are relevant to the zoo and not just be a generic list of the benefits of networking. 

Design an appropriate local area network infrastructure for the zoo. You must as a minimum include a switch and a wireless access point in your design.

a) Provide logical network diagrams showing how the zoo might provide the required services and connections. This may be one or more diagrams as you see fit. Any suitable drawing package can be used and you will not be graded on the drawings themselves; just the network design.

b) Outline the cabling requirements for your design. You will obviously need a basic plan of the zoo for the physical layout design to determine the cabling requirements. You can use the link above to get a map of the zoo site. Identify and justify the type(s) of cable used. Provide rough costs based on referenced supplier information found by searching the Internet. Since the zoo is in the UK, the supplier and price must be UK based.

c) Explain each infrastructure device, what its function is and why you have selected that device for the job. This explanation must focus on the zoo and its requirements.

d) Identify and justify TWO specific products that could be used for each infrastructure device, including the exact make and model along with a supplier and price. Since the zoo is in the UK, the supplier and price must be UK based. Remember that this is a business and covers a large site, so equipment designed for home network use will not be appropriate.

For the network you designed in task 2, devise appropriate IPv4 address allocations and explain how these will be implemented. You need to include both static and dynamic addresses in your scheme. You should cover the following:

a) Actual addresses and address ranges used, with justification. This should clearly identify appropriate logical groupings of devices and show the relevant address ranges used by each group.

b) Methods used by different devices to acquire their address, with justification.

Every network depends on the services provided to make it useful. These include obvious foreground user services such as e-mail and less well-known background services such as the Domain Name Service (DNS).

Identify an appropriate set of services (both foreground and background) for the zoo to run on their network. For each service, clearly explain why it is necessary and how it helps the zoo either in running their network (background services) or running the zoo itself (foreground services). Make sure that you are describing services, not servers and not protocols.