Network Design Scenario Straight Sales

Network Design

Scenario

Straight Sales Service Company is a small business company with three locations. Presently, the company is using a business class DSL service to achieve the internet connection for all the three locations. However, the President of the company decides that it is time for the company to set up technology where the company will run its mail server linking all the company locations so that employees will be able to share files across the network. The company also intends to set up online sales applications where every employee will use. The online systems will compose of a centralized server and client applications for both on the-road sales people and in-house employees.

The objective of this paper is to provide recommendations for Straight Sales Service Company on the strategy to implement network design.

Recommendations for Internet connectivity options Network Design

The paper recommends Internet-based WAN (Wide Area Network) connectivity solution to secure the internet connection over the three locations. The paper suggests using Cisco WAAS (Wide Area Application Services) technologies to accelerate WAN application and WAN optimization to easily manage the consolidated company infrastructure and application delivery performances. The WAAS will assist the company to set up application server over WAN where employee could communicate and accelerating communication flow between the client and the server. (Cisco, 2012). The WAN connectivity could be used to achieve multiples connections in various company branches and facilities scattered across the wide geographical locations. Since the company has three locations, the paper suggests internet-based WAN connectivity solution because the technology will provide end-to-end availability, online sales applications, security and performances at lesser costs. The system could also facilitate easy migration to VPN-based network. The cohesive solution of WAN internet connectivity offers the following benefits:

Multi-link WAN (Wide Area Network) connection traffic management

Online sales applications

Access control

Bandwidth management

Site-to-site compression

Integrated VPN gateway

Network security

Monitoring performance

Availability

The company will also derive the following benefits from Cisco WAAS Central Manager:

• Create, delete and edit application policies

• Configure application-specific acceleration which includes Microsoft File Sharing, Microsoft Encrypted Messaging, SSL and HTTP.

Recommendations using Commercial Services linking the three Locations

There are different methods that the company could employ to link the three locations. The company could use DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) to provide the high-speed internet over the WAN interface. The DSL technology uses the twisted pair of telephone line to transport data and assign IP address over the network. Moreover, the company could host server through the IP over the Ethernet cable network. The paper does not recommend this method since the company has already have experience with this technology. Moreover, Cable modem technology will allow the company to allow company to have access to internet through cable internet.

However, this paper recommends the ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) WAN technology to link the three locations. ATM WAN technology is one of the WAN technologies that either use the cell switch service, frame relay or other switching technology. The ATM WAN technology will assist the company to have access to connection through WAN interface. The ATM is capable of transferring voice, file data, and video simultaneously over the remote access. The company will use router to connect LAN of each location with the ATM WAN via access link. The company could use Cisco WAN solution to connect the three locations. In the contemporary business environment, WAN has become a reliable network technology to connect business branches scattered at different geographical locations. Since the company has three locations span across the country, the paper recommends Cisco WAN technology to link the three locations. The Cisco WAN will provide the internet connection for the three locations where the company could have access to internet for the internal use as well as connecting the other locations through extranet.

The extranet is the private intranet that is mapped onto the internet, which will allow the company to achieve communication in a secured server. The company should use the Cisco hedge router to make the company to achieve a reliable communication over the internet. The edge router will also make the company to achieve higher capacity, scalability, and improve routing protocol convergence at lower costs. As traffic volume increases, the solution will allow the company to implement incremental bandwidth upgrades without necessarily changing the router interface. The edge firewall will be used to protect the network from the unwanted traffic. The firewall will also be responsible to enforce the internet access policy. As an added security policy, the company should also use the Intrusion Detection System (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) to detect and prevent unwanted traffic into the network.

Explanation of how hosting servers will affect the above choices

The router needs to link LAN communications on a WAN. However, the leased line is expensive, the paper recommends that the company use WAN through standard digital subscriber line. In this case, each LAN in the three locations will communicate with WAN using the standard digital subscriber line. The company will use DSL-based WAN to protect the company network from intrusion. The company will also use VPN (Virtual Private Network) to encrypt the traffic through internet. The DSL could access IP address using DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) that enables the router to provide the dynamic IP (Internet Protocol) address on the private network. The DHCP will allow the company to acquire IP address over the WAN interface. The DHCP is beneficial to WAN interface because it allows the company to acquire useful information such as DNS addresses, default route, and DNS default domain name. (AL_Taiey, 2011). Typically, DHCP will free the company from assigning the IP address manually on the network system since DHCP assigns IP address automatically. One of the features of the DHCP is that the DHCP could run on the company router, which is immediately activated on the company router and server. (Columbia University, 2010).

Recommendations on how on-the-road sales people connect securely to the centralized sales application server