Week 5 Assignment – Designing a Network

Grantham University

Abstract

The purpose of the following paper is to provide a solution to a company that needs to know what components they will need to establish a Local Area Network, with 1,200 users with e-mail, file and print, and Internet services, 20 servers used as LAN, proxy, and database servers and the option to expand to eight branch offices located in different states, two with only 10 users needing just a single Internet

Project requirements

A medium size company needs to know what components they will need to establish a Local Area Network. They plan to have 1,200 users with e-mail, file and print, and Internet services. They also plan to have 20 servers used as LAN, proxy, and database servers. Four departments will need sufficient bandwidth and access applications from a database server. They are also going to expand to eight branch offices located in different states, two with only 10 users needing just a single Internet. What hardware components does the company need to build the LAN for all areas?

Network Diagram

Application/Web Server

Minimum:

• Refers to Application and Web Servers.
• Scales horizontally with persistent (session-based) load balancing.
• When splitting tiers, less CPU for Web-page only servers should be acceptable
• Windows Server 2016
• Typically, CPU-bound. Operating range is average utilization of 75% or lower
• 2 is often sufficient, 4GB of RAM is sometimes needed. Cost is currently negligible.
• Consider multiple network ports for redundancy and DMZ deployments.
• No special storage requirements
• With x64, Windows and IIS can support larger memory spaces and multiple worker processes, but these servers tend to be limited by CPU processing rather than memory.

RAM

• 1.4 GHz 64-bit processor
• Compatible with x64 instruction set
• Supports NX and DEP
• Supports CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, and PrefetchW
• Supports Second Level Address Translation (EPT or NPT)

Minimum:

Network adapter requirements

• 512 MB (2 GB for Server with Desktop Experience installation option)
• ECC (Error Correcting Code) type or similar technology

Minimum:

Other requirements

• An Ethernet adapter capable of at least gigabit throughput
• Compliant with the PCI Express architecture specification.
• Supports Pre-boot Execution Environment (PXE).
• A network adapter that supports network debugging (KDNet) is useful, but not a minimum requirement.

Database Server

• DVD drive (if you intend to install the operating system from DVD media)
• The following items are not strictly required, but are necessary for certain features:
• UEFI 2.3.1c-based system and firmware that supports secure boot
• Trusted Platform Module
• Graphics device and monitor capable of Super VGA (1024 x 768) or higher-resolution
• Keyboard and Microsoft® mouse (or other compatible pointing device)
• Internet access

Microsoft recommendations for SQL Server 2016

• Scales up – not out, and because it throttles the solution overall, must be sized appropriately.
• Windows Server 2016
• More processing cores are useful, but be aware of your DBMS processor core pricing model.
• Consider x64 to benefit from a larger buffer memory cache at Standard Edition pricing.
• I/O speed, particularly for write caching of the transaction log, is important. Watch for I/O completions in 10ms or less for transaction log and temp spaces, 20ms for table and index I/O. Write caching is assumed.
• Consider multiple network ports for high availability (multi-pathing).
• Ensure latency as close to zero as you can make it for Server components, Processing Stations, and Classic Clients.
• Tuning the DBMS for OLTP work is part of accommodating larger workloads.
• Please refer to Database Guides published by the Hyland Database Engineers group for the latest information.

File Server and other Storage Platforms

Processing Workstation

• Scales up and out.
• Windows Server 2016, but anything that can be exposed as CIFS will work functionally.
• CPU use is minimal, but more when DDS is used. Two to four cores is usually appropriate.
• 2 GB of RAM is enough.
• Design with backup and recovery strategies, security, and retention policies in mind.
• Keep in mind that the speed of the slowest mass storage copy will throttle the ingestion of any documents
• added to the system outside of batch processes, and during commit for batch processes. This can become especially pronounced with electronic WORM storage that has an object creation latency.
• It follows that any secondary copy off-site could slow down import and ingestion, based on the network characteristics of the link to the other site.
• Consider data lifecycles. Less expensive storage on other hardware may be sufficient when data is not frequently accessed any more.

Clients

• Scales up and out.
• Windows 7 or 10. Windows Server 2016
• Regular processor modules are typically “single-threaded”, meaning one document is being processed at a time. Two processing cores should be fine.
• Advanced processors are ingesting more than one document simultaneously, and will benefit from having more processing cores.
• Clock speed can matter here. Most processors are also copying files and generating queries, so
• connectivity to other components and their speed might be limiting factors.
• 2GB of RAM should be sufficient.

Communications devices

• Windows 10.
• Two or more cores is typical in 2016. User experience can be significantly impacted by CPU power available.
• 4GB of RAM or more is appropriate for operating systems and the future.

Switches

The following are the characteristics that the proposed switches must have to carry out the installation.

The approximate amount of this model will be around 500 and 800 dollars, depending on the number of ports.

• Be stackable and modular.
• Be manageable.
• They must have VLAN functionalities based on the Access Control List.
• Selectable port speed 10/100/1000 Mbs
• Fiber connection capacity
• The switches of the same type must be installed, and at least one reserve for the fault case.
• The switch models selected for the network, due to their performance and price are of the
• Brand HP series 2610 1 in its versions of 48 and 24 ports.

Switch HP 2610 Series

Routers

Router HP MSR2000 Series

• The routers will be chosen of modular architecture to adapt them to the company requirements. Two Giga Ethernet connections and one Internet-facing connection will be required in each.
• The routers will be equipped with their corresponding processing units and FIC cards for connectivity.
• The selected router model will be the HP MSR2000 Router Series 2 whose approximate market price is around 900 dollars.

VPN Remote access

For the access of remote offices of the company in other cities, the solution to the use of virtual networks or VPN is considered. A virtual private network (VPN) is a network technology that allows secure extension of the local network (LAN) over a public network such as the internet. Data packets from the private network will travel through a tunnel defined in the public network. This will allow the computer in our network to send and receive data on public networks as if it were a private network with all functionality, security and management policies of such networks.

Basic requirements for a VPN

Personnel required to maintain the network

• When considering the use of a VPN system, it must be ensured that it guarantees the following characteristics:
• User Identification: The VPN must be able to verify the identity of users and restrict access to the VPN to those users who are not authorized, in addition to creating connectivity, statistics, and use of the system.
• Address Management: The VPN must establish a client address to the private network.
• Encoding of data: the data to be transmitted through the public network, must travel in encrypted form, so that they cannot be read by users who do not have access to the private network.
• Key management: the VPN must generate and renew the encryption keys for the client and the server.
• Support of multiple communications protocols: the VPN must be able to support the most common protocols used in the public network, such as internet protocol (IP), packet exchange over the Internet (IPX), etc.

Estimated cost of hardware

Estimated cost of software

The estimated value of a network solution, considering equipment and licensing for 1200 employees, 8 possible remote accesses, with 20 servers, and assuming that the infrastructure of data and electrical wiring of the facilities and other adjustments are already established, may be to the order of the $483,662 and this value does not include taxes and installation and configuration services, work applications and other additional software that may be required.

Conclusion

The purpose of the following paper was to provide a solution to a company that needs to know what components they will need to establish a Local Area Network, with 1,200 users with e-mail, file and print, and Internet services, 20 servers used as LAN, proxy, and database servers and the option to expand to eight branch offices located in different states, two with only 10 users needing just a single Internet

References

Vacca, J. (2014) Network and System Security, 2nd edition. Syngress

System requirements, retrieved January 29 from:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server-docs/get-started/system-requirements

Hardware and Software Requirements for Installing SQL Server, retrieved January 29 from:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143506.aspx

Pricing and licensing for Windows Server 2016, retrieved January 29 from:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/windows-server-pricing

How Is SQL Server 2016 Licensed, retrieved January 29 from:

https://www.mirazon.com/how-is-sql-server-2016-licensed-part-1-the-basics/