Designing a Wide Area Network for a Small Pharmaceutical Research Company

Assessment task details and instructions

You are required to provide a suitable Wide area network design for a small Pharmaceutical Research company that currently has a HQ in London and is creating two new subsidiary sites in Edinburgh and Cardiff.

The company would like these sites to be networked together with the most cost-effective connections so that data and voice traffic may be exchanged across the various divisions.

Due to the sensitive nature of the research there are also several access restrictions required between the sites that are detailed in the attached detailed brief

The deliverables required from this assessment are:

This design report must be in design report form with an introduction and conclusion. It must detail the topology of the network design, specify the Wan technologies you have chosen to use along with the supporting protocols that will be implements. These decisions must be fully justified in the context of the company requirements for the network. The report must also detail the security features required to implement the company requirements. This should take the form of a full subnet design and suitable access control lists to implement the security features. The completed design should be implemented in packet tracer along with the router configurations required. These router configurations should also contain the access control lists require to implement the required security features. You should also devise a set of ping tests that will fully test all security features and implement those in your packet tracer simulation to prove the operation of your security implementation. This report is expected to be up to 5000 words in length depending on your use of diagrams.

You must reference all research sources that you use in all reports.

This report is worth 100% of the assignment marks.

Assessed intended learning outcomes

On successful completion of this assessment, you will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding.

·An undestanding of how WANs operate, their general features and how they are used to provide wider area data distribution

·Be able to consider issues relaing to the design, creation and operation of global scale networks

·An understanding of how to design WAN access for users with appropriate access and security

Transferable/Key Skills and other Attributes.

·Communication: Presenting Information in the form of a clear written report.

·Information Technology: Using several information sources for research

·Critical Analysis: Using a specification to make an informed design choice

Deliverables

This module aims to provide you with a systematic knowledge and understanding of the operation of wide area network technologies, the services that they offer and the factors that influence their design; how wide area network services are used and exploited to build global corporate networks for organisations and how various WAN technologies are used to connect small- to medium-sized business networks.

The report is expected to be written as a design report implemented through simulation. It should be up to 5000 words in length and have appropriate introductions and conclusions. Fully labelled network diagrams, packet tracer screenshots, router configurations, access lists and tabulated ping tests backed up with screenshot evidence are expected. Harvard 6 referencing is expected for all referenced material. There is no penalty for exceeding the word count.

You can obtain support for this assessment by continual contact with the module tutor during the classes or by email contact at any other time.

The University offers a range of support services for students through askUS.

Good Academic Conduct and Academic Misconduct

Students are expected to learn and demonstrate skills associated with good academic conduct (academic integrity). Good academic conduct includes the use of clear and correct referencing of source materials. Here is a link to where you can find out more about the skills which students require http://www.salford.ac.uk/skills-for-learning.

Academic Misconduct is an action which may give you an unfair advantage in your academic work. This includes plagiarism, asking someone else to write your assessment for you or taking notes into an exam. The University takes all forms of academic misconduct seriously.  

Assessment Information

If you have any questions about assessment rules, you can find out more here.

Personal Mitigating Circumstances

If personal mitigating circumstances may have affected your ability to complete this assessment, you can find more information about personal mitigating circumstances procedure here.

Personal Tutor/Student Progression Administrator

If you have any concerns about your studies, contact your Personal Tutor or your Student Progression Administrator.

The assessment criteria are listed at the end of this document.

In Year Retrieval Scheme

This assessment is not eligible for in year retrieval.

If you fail your assessment, and are eligible for reassessment, you will need to resubmit on or before 07/08/2020. For students with accepted personal mitigating circumstances, this will be your replacement assessment attempt.  

This assessment will be an individual research and design exercise different to the original group project as it is not possible to perform the group work over the summer vacation period.

A small Pharmaceutical Research company has three sites distributed across the UK, the HQ in London and two new subsidiary sites being created in Edinburgh and Cardiff. A diagram of the existing network is shown in Figure 1, below.

The company would like these sites to be networked together with the most cost-effective Wide Area connections so that data and voice traffic may be exchanged across the various divisions.

Your task is to research and specify a suitable network design to achieve this given the following criteria:

·The company expects the inter-site traffic (between any two sites) to not normally exceed 20Mbps. Although bursts of up to 40Mbps may occur. Research Division traffic should be prioritised.

·Due to the sensitive nature of the company’s research maximum security of the network against possible internal and external attacks is required with the following specific requirements:

Internet access is only available from the router at the London site using the single public IP provided by the ISP This IP is 81.23.123.88.

Network management can only be conducted through the London router by direct console access

No other division can access the subnets of the Research division

The trainee subnets cannot access the subnets of any other division and should not have internet access

External traffic from the internet is limited only to sites from which an internal connection was established

VOIP traffic must be allowed onto all subnets to facilitate voice communications