FIT 9137 Computer Architecture and Networks
1. Assignment Description
Objective
A public transport company requires its office buildings to be connected over a wired LAN and Wireless LAN (WLAN). You have been asked to respond to the following excerpt from their RFP (Request For Proposals) in the newspaper.
Scope of The Work
At present, the total number of office employees in Melbourne is 360. Each office worker is
provided with an office space or cubicle with a multimedia desktop PC having a wired network
connection. Owing to a business acquisition, the number of employees in Melbourne is
expected to increase substantially. The size of the Melbourne office, both Wired and Wireless
LAN will increase (from current 360 employees) to 600 employees; after two new 2-storey
buildings called East side building & West side building (located across the road) have been
acquired to accommodate the additional office space needed to provide equitable seating
arrangements for the increased number of employees in the new buildings (see Figure 1).
The new buildings require structured network wiring for network connections, where each floor
has a wiring closet with necessary structured cabling. Each wiring closet requires four fiber optic
cables running to a dedicated server room in the basement (same as the ground floor). The new buildings also need a backbone network to be connected to the existing Main office network
(across the road). Please note that the ground floor of the buildings (west and east) are not the
same, they have different ground floor (same as the word basement)
It is envisaged that the new buildings in Melbourne office would support, both, wired and
wireless networked office environment where each of the staff PC and their personal laptops
would be equipped with office desktop high resolution video conferencing software (VoIP),
along with the usual business applications such as web, email, and regular office productivity
packages. The average network traffic generated by each active wired network user is estimated
to be around 25-30 Mbps, while the WLAN traffic generated for each floor would be 25% of the
wired traffic.
The expected user activity pattern for the new buildings may be seen in Figure 2, where the new
buildings will accommodate the new staff members equally distributed to each floor of the new
buildings. The Wired LAN infrastructure needs to be designed to support the anticipated peak
time data traffic, and in addition, support the Wireless LAN. The design should show the WLAN
Access Points (AP) connectivity to the wired infrastructure. At the existing main office network
(across the backbone network), a capacity increase will be required for key devices and their
support infrastructure (e.g., Servers, Routers and/or switches) to accommodate the increased
traffic volume from the new buildings. Employees are expected to access the main office
network and its resources frequently. So, from the business perspective, it is important that the
backbone network connectivity is maintained all the time. Loss of productivity is not an option
from the network connectivity point of view.
2. Assignment Requirements
Submissions for this assignment should be in the form of presentation slides (PDF/PPT) and voice- over video presentation and its complete set of slides with explanatory figures and other requirements for a professional presentation. The assignment specifications are in the form of a request for proposal (RFP) to potential suppliers. An RFP is a solicitation often made through a bidding process by any company interested in the design and procurement of installation contract services. This assignment provides an opportunity for you to work individually and apply Data Communications and Computer Networking concepts to a practical network design. You are required to design the network, make networking recommendations based on the RFP requirements and present your solutions in a formal presentation.
2.1 The video presentation should contain the following important diagrams to support your
proposal:
(a) A conceptual high-level diagram showing a typical floor plan, backbone network (connecting the floors) and a backbone network to connect to the main office.
(b) A typical floor plan (only one floor of both the East & West building would be sufficient).
(c) Students need to specify the types of Switches, Routers, Access Points, Cables, and show the Servers, Routers, Switches and Access Point (AP) locations in the design. No addressing and/or routing is required.
(d) Traffic throughput calculations for each floor, each building and backbone network.
(e) Backbone connection diagrams (using schematic diagrams of cross-section of a building showing switches, routers etc.).
(f) Backbone network connectivity for the new buildings connecting with the head office building.
2.2 Students may include some details of the following information in response to the request
for Proposal (RFP) in the Appendix. We ask you to submit your final presentation slides along
with your appendix.
(a) Project Requirements: Project requirements can be derived from the Objectives and Scope of Work section of the RFP. A requirement brief is usually an itemised list of the client’s requirements derived from the RFP.
(b) Wired, Wireless LAN and backbone network Design: Wired, Wireless LAN design (for a typical floor) and backbone network design, must include the following information:
(i) Computer desktop layout plan with network topology for a typical floor level.
(ii) Switch and Wireless Access Point locations on a typical floor, vertical cable paths and lengths between the floors. Switch and Access Point functional specifications. Assume the floor to ceiling height as 3 metres approximately including the false ceiling.
(iii) Router (and/or Switches) locations (both the existing and the new ones) and their interconnections providing backbone network connectivity.