Purpose and Justification, Essay Example

The proposed network for the small community college illustrates 25 administrators, 50 faculty members, 50 staff members along with 1500 students. The administrative staff and faculty members have their own workstations that are accessible via 802.11 Wi-Fi connectivity. For gaining IP address, a dynamic host configuration protocol is configured. A separate laboratory is also proposed for students, as they can do research and development while on campus. Likewise, the connectivity of the laboratory is established via access points and IP is configured via dynamic host configuration protocol. There are two separate Cisco catalyst 3750 switches i.e. one for teaching and administrative staff and the other one are for support staff and student laboratory. These switches provide scalability and capable of supporting VLAN that can be used for security purposes. The data center of the college demonstrates a database server, Microsoft Exchange server, VLE server and Internet server. All these servers are terminated on a Cisco catalyst 3750 switch that is connected to Cisco 3845 Integrated services router. The router is than connected to a Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance 5500 Firewall that is also an Intrusion Detection System (Circuit level Gateway/Firewall, 2007). There are two types of firewall, one is hardware based firewall and the second one is software based firewall. We have chosen hardware based firewall, as it does not require an operating system to be operational (Nelson, 1998). For establishing online connectivity, Cisco wireless LAN controller and Services Mobility engine will provide uninterrupted WAN services. If a student wants to connect the college network online, user credentials are mandatory. The network devices and security appliances are selected based on their capability to support expansion, scalability, integration with upcoming technologies, performance and providing ultimate security (Dickerson, 2004). Likewise, these devices are capable of balancing the load. For instance, if 500 students are connected online and 500 students are using the laboratory along with 50 staff and faculty members, there is a probability of network congestion, bandwidth choking etc. These devices ensure peace of mind by eliminating unwanted broadcasting for inbound and outbound networks.

References

Dickerson, C. (2004). The top 20 IT mistakes. InfoWorld, 26(47), 34.

Circuit level Gateway/Firewall. (2007). Network Dictionary, , 99-99.

Nelson, M. (1998). Two faces for the firewall. InfoWorld, 20(41), 1.