Network Design Proposal

NETWORK DESIGN PROPOSAL
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. FEASIBILITY STUDY
II. NETWORK NEEDS ANAYLSIS
III. HIGH-LEVEL NETWORK DESIGN
IV. DETAILED DESIGN DOCUMENTATION
V. COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
FEASIBILITY STUDY
Situation in which the Project Exists: This proposal is for a data communication network to
serve the Maryland public education system. The Maryland legislature recently approved
funding sufficient to pay for the development of this proposal. Pending proposal acceptance by
the Maryland State Public Education Office of Technology (a department within the state Office
of Education), funding will be sought to implement the proposal.
Network Scope: The proposed network is designed to serve the state Office of Education and
two of its school district offices. The state office, located in Kenzington, contains five
departments to be served by this network. Each district office contains four departments to be
served. The North School District is located in Ricksville, 25 miles from the state office.
The South School District is located in Albanton, about 40 miles from the state office. Note that
this network does not serve instructional needs of students; other resources have been allocated
for that purpose. This network is for administrative purposes and is specifically designed to be
independent of student computing facilities.
Objectives of the Network. The network is designed to achieve several specific

business/operational objectives:
1. Secure Service: The main objective of this network is to provide secure administrative
computing service to the State Office and two districts. It is designed to be functionally and
physically isolated from access by people not employed by the Maryland public education
system so as to minimize the risk of unauthorized use.
2. Integration and Update: Presently there are many LANs in the Maryland public education
system, but much of the equipment is out of date, many of the LANs are incompatible with
each other, and not connected in a system-wide network. This proposal describes a WAN that
integrates and updates these LANs to support productive collaboration across the system.
3. Versatile Information Processing: The network will enable users to retrieve, process, and
store ASCII and non-ASCII text, still graphics, audio, and video from any connected
computer.
4. Collaboration: The network will combine the power and capabilities of diverse equipment
across the state to provide a collaborative medium that helps users combine their skills
regardless of their physical location. A network for this educational community will enable
people to share information and ideas easily so they can work more efficiently and
productively.
5. Scalability: The design is scaleable so that more district offices can be added as funding
becomes available without having to redo the installed network.
Intended Users. The primary users of the network at the state level will be the three
administrators, three secretaries, ten members of the Curriculum Department, eight members of
the Human Resource Department, six members of the Finance/Accounting Department, and
three members of the Computer Services Department. At the district level the primary users will
be four administrators, four secretaries, four members of the Computer Services Department,
sixteen members of the Human Resource Department, and two members of the
Finance/Accounting Department. Parents, pre-service teachers, teachers, and the public are
secondary users of the network in that they will receive information produced on the network,
but they will not directly use the network.
Design Assumptions. This design assumes the following:

1. The State Education Network has a firewall that protects all information coming and going
from the network.
2. Internet service is provided by the State Education Network, which is subsidized by the state
government.
NETWORK NEEDS ANALYSIS

Data Types. The types of data served by the network will be reports, bulletins, accounting
information, personnel profiles, and web pages. The majority of the data will be text (ASCII and
non-ASCII), but there will be some still graphics and possibly a small amount of voice and video
(primarily for PC-based teleconferencing).
Data Sources. Data will be created and used at all end stations on the network. The data will be
produced by software applications in Windows 2000, primarily Dream Weaver and Office 2000
Professional (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, and Outlook). Other data sources to be
supported on at least a limited basis will Windows 2000 Accessories (Paint, Notepad, etc.),
NetMeeting, Media Player, and PhotoShop. Note that the network will be not be accessible from
outside
Numbers of Users and Priority Levels. At the state level, the users will be administrators,
secretaries, and members of four departments. At the district levels, the users will be
administrators, secretaries, and members of three departments. The maximum estimated number
of users on the network at any given time is 100: 33 regular users in the State Office, 30 regular
users in the North District Office, 30 regular users in the South District Office, and seven
otherwise unanticipated users.
Three priority levels will be supported: management (top priority), user (medium priority), and
background (low priority). Note that these designations do not correspond to administrative
levels in the Maryland public education system; rather, they are network service levels. Network
management processes will receive top-priority service; most network processes will receive
medium-priority service; a few processes (e.g., e-mail transfers, backup, etc.) will be given low-
priority service. It should be noted that network management will usually consume a small
amount of the available bandwidth; this means that management and user processes will usually
enjoy identical support. Background processes will also usually receive more than adequate
service, but they will be delayed as needed to maintain support for management and user
services.
Transmission Speed Requirements. The network is to be transparent to the users. Thus,

remotely executed applications, file transfers, and so forth should ideally appear to operate as
quickly as processes executed within an end-station. Interviews with users to ascertain their
needs and expectations indicate that an average throughput of 20 mbps per user within each LAN
and 10 mbps per user between LANs will more than support the needed performance in most
cases (teleconferencing being the possible exception).
Load Variation Estimates. Interviews with users and observation of LAN use at the three
locations yielded data on hourly average and peak loads from January to March, 2001. The data
are tabulated in the appendix. The data indicate that the highest average traffic volume will occur
from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The peak network traffic volume is
expected at two times during the day: 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. At
night and on weekends the network traffic is minimal except for the daily backups of the PCs to
the LAN servers in the districts and several batch data transfers anticipated from the districts to
the State Office. The data indicate the following network design parameters:
The average required throughput on any LAN during work hours (7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.)
will be only about 0.2 mbps.
The average required throughput on the WAN during work hours (7:00 a.m. to 6:00
p.m.) will be only 0.04 mbps.
The peak expected traffic load on any LAN will be about 10.4 mbps.
The peak expected traffic load on the WAN will be about 6.4 mbps.
Of course, to avoid user complaints, the network is designed for the peak traffic loads, not
the average throughput.
Storage Requirements. Storage requirements need to be large enough to store all student,
teacher, and state data (note: student data are data about students, not data generated by
students). Interviews and observations of users present and anticipated storage requirements
indicate that each user will need an average of 100 MB of server space (in addition to secondary
storage on local PCs); the maximum estimated server-side storage requirement per user is about
1 GB. Additionally, the network operating system will occupy about 500 MB on each LAN
server. Taking price-performance issues into account, each PC will have a minimum storage
capacity of 10 GB, each LAN server will have a minimum storage capacity of 20 GB. A main
data server in the State Office will have a 36 GB capacity.
Reliability Requirements. In keeping with user expectations and industry standards, both the
LANs and the WAN are expected to operate at 99.9% uptime and an undiscovered error rate of
.001%.
Security Requirements. A firewall will be used so unauthorized users will be restricted. Part of
the security will be Users accounts and passwords that will give limited access. There will be
different access capabilities for network managers and users.
Existing Network. There is no existing network.
HIGH-LEVEL NETWORK DESIGN

Top-Level Network Diagram
State Office Network Diagram

(LAN cabling is 100BaseT CAT5)
State Office Network Sub-Diagram
Administration LAN

Finance/Accounting LAN

Curriculum LAN

Human Resources LAN
Computer Services LAN
North District Network Diagram

North District Network Sub-Diagram
Administration LAN

Finance/Accounting & Computer Services LAN
Human Resources LAN
South District Network Diagram

South District Network Sub-Diagram
Administration LAN

Finance/Accounting & Computer Services LAN
Human Resources LAN
COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
Cost Analysis
Tangible Costs
Product Price Quantity Total
HP File/Print Server LH 3000 $4,089.00 6 $24,534.00
HP NetServer Hard Drive $379.95 10 3,799.50
IntelliFax-4750 Commercial Laser Fax $499.95 3 1,499.85
HP Laser Jet 8150N Series $2,469.95 4 9,879.80
Windows 2000 Server $819.95 6 4,919.70
Compaq DeskPro EN P3/600 $999.00 65 64,935.00
CAT 5 Cable (1,000 feet) $145.99 4 583.96
SmartPro 1400 $454.99 6 2,729.94
EtherFast 8-Port 10/100 Desktop Hub $79.99 5 399.95
EtherFast II 24-Port 10/100 Switch $449.99 3 1,349.97
CISCO 2621 Ethernet Router 2 10/100
$2,319.00 3 6,957.00
Ports 2 Slots
RJ45 Plugs
$49.99 8 399.92
*Packs of 50
Ultimate Tool Kit $399.00 1 399.00
Firewall I Internet Gateway V4.1 100
$6,000.00 1 6,000.00
Nodes ONL
Labor (Maintaining the System) per
$75.00 300 22,500.00
hour
DS-2 Connection (1 month, exclusive
$650.00 36 23,400.00
rights)
Subtotal of Tangible Costs $175,207.53
Intangible Costs
Product Price
Network Down Time $8,000.00 1 $8,000.00
(Estimated at 9 hrs/yr)
Subtotal of Intangible Costs $8,000.00
Total 3-year Cost Analysis $183,207.53

Total Annualized Cost $61,069.18

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NETWORK DESIGN PROPOSAL

Objectives of the Network. The network is designed to achieve several specific

Design Assumptions. This design assumes the following:

NETWORK NEEDS ANALYSIS

Transmission Speed Requirements. The network is to be transparent to the users. Thus,

Existing Network. There is no existing network.

HIGH-LEVEL NETWORK DESIGN

State Office Network Diagram

State Office Network Sub-Diagram

State Office Network Sub-Diagram

State Office Network Sub-Diagram

North District Network Diagram

North District Network Sub-Diagram

South District Network Diagram

South District Network Sub-Diagram

Subtotal of Tangible Costs $175,207.53

Subtotal of Intangible Costs $8,000.00

Total 3-year Cost Analysis $183,207.53

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