Wireless Network Mary Hickernell, Professor

Wireless Network

Mary Hickernell, Professor

From: Anupam Walia, Student

Proposal to Evaluate and Analyze a Wireless Networking Solution for a Travel Agency

The Worldwide Travel Agency has business units in Baltimore, Aberdeen, and Bethesda, Maryland. The agency earns thousands of dollars from booking clients' online reservations. To efficiently serve its clients, the company's managers and sales representatives often travel between offices to make reservations for special occasions such as weddings, conferences, and group tours.

Working in another office is quite inconvenient for mobile employees of the Worldwide Travel Agency, particularly in setting up their computers. Before they can start receiving and transmitting data, they always have to look for an empty desk where they can be able to connect their machines to the office's local area network (LAN).

Mr. Choo, the owner of the Worldwide Travel Agency, has contacted me to consult and find a solution to their problem. The agency wants a low cost and efficient solution that will allow its mobile employees to easily access their office's LAN.

Statement of the Problem

Installing data ports and cables in every offices of the Worldwide Travel Agency is not a solution that Mr. Choo looks forward to. This is because he finds this to be an expensive solution and will not allow mobile employees to use their workspace and resources in the most efficient way. Mr. Choo wants a solution that can empower his employees to be able to turn their laptops on wherever they are within the office and get full access to the LAN with the same speed and functionality at all of the Worldwide Travel Agency's offices. Generally, the two major issues that the solution they need must focus on the following.

Cost

Cost is an important factor that must be realized in the solution to be proposed. The current setup of LAN in the Worldwide Travel Agency's offices, which uses fiber optics or coaxial cables are found not ideal for mobile employees. Installing these between offices is too time consuming and expensive, including the costs of permits to lay cable underneath the railroad lines that separate the offices.

Mobility

The solution must be able to support the mobility of employees, allowing them to access information wherever they are in an office or whichever office location they may travel to. The use of data ports, which can provide mobile employees with access to LAN, is not an ideal solution because it requires phone jacks for dial-up connections to access the LAN, allowing mobile employees to only access the LAN in places where phone lines and phone jacks are available. Such condition presents barriers to mobile employees on becoming updated with information from their central database.

Proposed Solution

To provide a cost-effective and efficient means of accessing Worldwide Travel Agency's LAN, I would like to propose the installation of wireless LAN system in the agency's main office in Baltimore, Maryland. Wireless LAN is a type of networking where a mobile user can connect to a local area network (LAN) without using cables to communicate between nodes. Instead, the wireless connection uses high-frequency radio waves.

Wireless LAN will provide connectivity among computers without the expensive and time-consuming installation of cables between each computer. This solution will provide the Worldwide Travel Agency with LAN access flexibility and mobility that it lacks in their current wired LAN system. To provide several options on wireless LAN solution, I will compare three different wireless LAN systems of the following three manufacturers.

Cisco Systems

D-Link

From the comparison, it is hoped that the best technical solution for the Worldwide Travel Agency will be selected. After this, the establishment of recommendation, in an analytical report, to Mr. Choo shall follow.

Scope

The Worldwide Travel Agency needs a wireless LAN solution to provide its mobile employees with an efficient and convenient way of accessing the company's database system. This solution will not only benefit the mobile employees but all the employees as well. In view of this, this research will cover an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed wireless LAN solution. A comparison to other possible solutions will also be included in the analysis report.

Three wireless LAN systems will be evaluated to provide the Worldwide Travel Agency with the best solution. The three systems are the following.

Cisco Systems

D-Link

The first step in the evaluation of these three systems is to assess the performance and stability based on interoperability, speed, and compatibility. The second step is to perform a cost analysis by comparing these three wireless LAN systems' configurations. The final step is to seek advice from a network consulting agency to discuss issues of a wireless LAN installation.

Sources

Information shall be gathered from different sources. This includes the Internet such as from networking web sites, computer magazines such as PC Magazine, and computer stores such as the Radio Shack and Circuit City. In addition, I will consult from hardware specifications as published by various wireless LAN manufacturers.

Qualifications

My ability to perform an evaluation of network solution that will best fit for the Worldwide Travel Agency comes from my Computer Science education as well as from my previous job experience as an it Technician in a computer consulting firm. My experience in designing web sites, and in creating programs, databases, and network projects, provides me with idea of what network specification can allow a cost-effective and efficient use of networks.