In-flight network and entertainment system design for Gulfstream IV

Network Fundamentals

HR

Gulfstream Network Proposal

Network Fundamentals

Cover Letter

Appended information

Mr. Jet Buyer

1952 Kanako Lane

Gulfstream IV Network Proposal

Bob Smith

Customer Relations

In less than one hundred years, air travel and networking and computing communications have evolved from the Wright brothers and the UNIVAC housed in several huge rooms to fully functional in-flight Gulfstream network communications. Passengers today expect their palm pilots, laptops and PC's to work as seamlessly as the flight itself. The modern day concerns are mired in the fact that digital conversation now entails a two way link that has inadvertently opened up a can of worms for airline network administrators. Network security and key distribution and management authenticating and authorizing ad-hoc networks have taken on new meaning in the realm of personal aircraft.

The objective here is to tender a viable design regarding the configuration of a fully integrated local area network (LAN) and entertainment system for the Gulfstream IV private business jet. This proposal and design takes in to consideration nothing but the best available equipment that is both cost effective and extremely efficient. There is little doubt that the G4 is a very popular mid-sized business jet which is typically used for mid-range flights lasting up to 6 hours, so passengers will require both entertainment and business functionality. As with most business jets, the passengers require access to Internet connected computers while in flight and the aircraft should permit customers to connect to this network from their own personal Wi-Fi enabled devices. The goal is to allow passengers the flexibly to either use the plane's computers or their own.

Project Proposal

Deliverables

Stage 1 -- Selection of Equipment and Services

Equipment

8 PC MONITOR -- MIRACLE Business, LD117A 10.4 in Black LCD MonitorMax Resolution: 1024 x 768 / 75 Hz, Image Contrast Ratio: 300:1, Response Time: 40 ms

2 Server -- PowerEdge T310 with up to 4 Hot-Plug Hard Drives and LCD Diagnostics, Operating SystemMicrosoft® Small Business Server 2008, Standard Edition with Media Operating System, Memory 4GB Memory (2x2GB), 1333 MHz, Dual Ranked UDIMM Memory, Primary Hard DriveHD Multi-Select Primary Hard Drive, Processor Intel® Xeon® X3450, 2.66 GHz, 8M Cache, Turbo, HT,

4 Routers -- Cisco 3900 Series Integrated Services Routers, Delivers scalable rich-media services including TelePresence, highest density of service virtualization, and lowest TCO with energy efficiency, Ideal for high-end deployments requiring business continuity, WAN flexibility, superior collaboration capabilities, and investment protection, Field-upgradeable motherboard, circuit-speed WAN performance up to 150 Mbps with services such as security, mobility, WAN optimization, unified communications, video, and customized applications, 3 RU modular form factor

1 Printer -- Dell Color Laser 3130cn, Print Speed (Actual print speed will vary with use) Up to 31 ppm mono and up to 26 ppm color, Ports10/100BaseT-TX Ethernet, IEEE 1284 Parallel Port, USB 2.0 High speed supported (Type-B connector) Ports Print Speed (Actual print speed will vary with use), Dimensions (W x D. x H) 15.8" x 19.8" x 18.5" Dimensions (W x D. x H)

Services

External communications will utilize the DIRECTV High-Speed Internet bundled packages that utilize the WildBlue Satellite Internet Service for in flight sending and receiving both television and internet connections where DHCP protocol will automatically obtain IP address schemems. This provides access connections for either MAC or Windows-based systems. This service is also extremely fast and reliable, available virtually everywhere in the nation at any altitude and is very affordable. The on-plane CD tower provides a 28 piece CD tower that has 8 drivers per tower outlet which provides almost endless streams of music and movies. The on-board FTP server can receive full/long file structures for file sharing service of all documents, blueprints and oversized data files and will not interfere with bandwidth usage for other outlets.

Floor plan layout

This floor plan is potential assistance layout for the installation of the network. The Network rack holds two routers and 2 servers and all hardware for the AVP cloud Internet connection system to the external DirecTV Satellite receiving antenna on the tail of the plane. The Color Printer and FTP monitor/keyboard will be in the Front left closet. All power outlets, network ports, cable runs, will consist of under the floor wiring schematics from the network closet in the rear of the fuselage to the undersides of each seat for the headrest monitors and food tray keyboards and virtual mice and Bose sound eliminating headsets, and also directly into the front left closet for the printer and the FTP file server monitor. Any necessary wireless link antennas that are needed will be hidden in plain sight via under seat setup or in the roof of the inside of the plane.

Wireless Security -- D5 10 marks

Because Gulfstream is concerned that passenger's files and resources may be vulnerable through the wireless network, network security for the internet and networked environment will have three main objectives. The goals are to meet the basic security needs that entail the mix of internal and external data access, all necessary Internet confidentiality, integrity, and availability needs and to meet the needs of the customer's entertainment needs of television, music and movie interaction systems.

The security objectives of the system entail balancing the information in regard to system authentication, authorization, and nonrepudiation. The system's security software will therefore stop illegal entry into the network and provide levels of data access via a permission table that is regulated and maintained on the DNS server, but will allow for low level access of non-classified data.

IP addressing Scheme

The centrally located DNS server acts in two capacities, to connect to the outside world via a DirecTV Satellite/Internet connection and as the central hub for the internal network utilizing a single static address and allows all other hosts to be configured via DHCP. The DNS server will be a Dell PowerEdge T310 tower server with at least 2Tb of hard disk space, a processor no less than 2 GHz, at least 4Gb of memory, and Gigabit Ethernet. It will have the ability to house all required routing tables and DNS server table connections for both internal and external network communications and also have a separate Dell PowerEdged that act in the capacity of a FTP large file server. The beauty of this type of connection is that the Gulfstream will only require 2 IP addresses for the entire process to work properly, one for the plane to access the internet, the internal cloud technology provides a seemingly virtual connection to the DNS server and parses out the internet bandwidth to each of the internal subnet IP connections. This process will make it seem as though every PC workstation or node has its own direct internet connection similar to a house with a single internet connection and through an antenna provides connections for any PC within range of the signal. A proposed but not final routing scheme is as follows:

DNS Server routing table [IP 198.22.0.118, seat1 = 198.23.0.1, seat2 = 198.24.0.1, seat3 = 198.25.0.1, seat4 = 198.26.0.1, seat5 = 198.27.0.1, seat6= 198.28.0.1]

Node Router Address table [198.21.0.1: Router Table for seat connections, 198.22.0.1 printer1, 198.21.0.2-29 entertainment system, 198.21.32.30-59 television, 198.21.64.60-89]

FTP 1 Subnet Server [198.23.0.1: Router Address, 198.24.0.1, Router Table, 198.22.0.119 FTP File Server, 198.23.0.2-29 color printer, 198.23.32.30-59 Extra]

Packet Tracer Prototype -- D7 20 marks

****** Do not have access to this information or software specs

Use Packet Tracer to prototype the planned network. You don't need to have all 19 computers connected in the simulation, 3 at most will be enough to verify the correct operation. Test various scenarios such as traffic coming from the Internet to the internal server and host traffic moving to the Internet. Also confirm that the wireless network behaves as expected. Not all features of the designed network will be able to be tested using Packet Tracer. You can simulate each of the headrest mounted computers by just using a standard PC in Packet Tracer.

Appended information

The networking hardware requirements for this tender include:

• The provision of 19 network points including cabling into the headrest of each seat; where there is no forward headrest, the network point is to be located in the arm rest. These network points are to be used for the headrest mounted PCs

• 802.11 Wireless access throughout the passenger cabin

• Minimum of a 24 port managed switch

• Router capable of handling the expected traffic flow from no more than 20 computers

In addition to the network requirements Gulfstream has also asked for recommendations on the following computing hardware:

• 19 x touch sensitive computers which can be mounted into a headrest of an aircraft seat. These computers must be able to be wired into a local area network and be capable of running Passenger Seats Network Rack standard desktop applications such as office applications, stream audio via a headphone socket, and display full motion video which will be streamed from a remote media server. In the situation where the computer cannot be headrest mounted, the aircraft manufacturer can accommodate it into the arm rest. You can assume any device which can be headrest mounted can be arm rest mounted also

• 1 x server to be located in the rear of the aircraft along side of the networking equipment. This server must have at least 2Tb of hard disk space, a processor no less than 2 GHz, at least 4Gb of memory, and Gigabit Ethernet. This server must also provide a file serving service so passengers are able to share files between each other

1 x network ready color printer

Internal communications hardware will consist of CISCO routers in addition to the DELL server technology. Routing to and from these classrooms will require two hubs per class. The reason each class needs two hubs will be because each classroom currently has 24 students and could grow to 32 students. Each workstation will need network interface cards to communicate with the hubs and are easy to manage. The stackable hubs provide 12 and 24 connections each for a total of 36 connections for each classroom. This number will therefore provide an additional set of node outlets for things like printers, servers or teacher stations. How many IP addresses the school needs will be set by the student population. The overall network should easily provide just under 500 potential subnet IP connections in order to meet the need of the 12 classrooms and the library. If and when the school expands beyond 12 classrooms, these requirements will have to be re-addressed. Internet Protocol (IP) for the school can be met by utilizing a class C address structure where the entire school's needs are met with hosts and subnets. The subnet mask for the school would be able to offer 254 hosts which will easily cover future requirements.