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In order to do this, a number of factors and significant planning must be taken into account –
particularly as the company is meant to demonstrate growth over the next half decade. By splitting
each task into its relevant section – as follows – this should allow us to clearly and concisely
demonstrate our intentions when it comes to designing and implementing the network for Flat Land
Limited, in order to fully realise the scope of the task that has been assigned to us.
Below is each network requirement distinctly split to further explain its purpose.
IP Addresses serve to identify a host device’s network interface and provides the location of said
host within a network – Thus, the capability of establishing a path to that host is created. Without
this form of addressing, it would be incredibly difficult to reliably deliver network traffic, as there
would be very little contextualisation for any network hardware, making it difficult to process any
data.
Within I.P Addressing, it is also important to consider the individual subnets that fall within a larger
allocated network. As subnets are logical divisions of this I.P network, it is important to consider how
they are to be implemented both efficiently and effectively.
Using Variable Length Subnet Masking, or VLSM for short, to dynamically sub-divide a network and
vary the size of each subnet to optimally subnet in order to prevent the wastage of addresses and
optimally and allocate addresses for the number of hosts required.
Because of this efficiency and “future-proofing”, we have decided to take this approach to complete
our subnetting. Firstly, the subnets which have been provided to us would need to have a specific
size allocated to them based on the number of hosts required. This size is based on the binary octet
size within an IP Address.
In the situation at hand, considerations for the future are highly important, as Flat Land has asked
for a network implementation that will support potential growth over the next 5 years – specifically
an increase of 80% of I.P addresses being used. For example, the Karachi site will experience a
growth to approximately 953 individuals, and hence this must be accommodated for. In order to
take this calculation further, a formula was devised to ensure that growth could be accurately
predicted. This entailed:
E.g.
Based on the above calculation method, 20 switches would be required to cope with the projected
growth of the Flat Land network at the Karachi site over the next 5 years.
It is important to note, however, that the Technical, Vehicle and Security VLANs have extra
addressing space in addition to this future proofing. Each of these three VLANs at the four separate
sites require nine hosts each, making for a total of 36 hosts in combination. As a result, a /27 CIDR
network is not large enough to accommodate and support this many hosts, and in order to meet and
possibly supersede (in future) capacity, a /26 CIDR network is now utilising, providing 62 addresses
further cementing the idea that this design is able to accommodate future growth. In order to
maximise the use of the supplementary addresses, 15 were given to each subset “site” VLAN, rather
than the standard allocation of 9.
Finally, an assumption is being made in the supply of networking hardware and equipment for Flat
Land’s configuration, namely that the availability and use of 48 port switches will be such that they
can be used to fully implement this style of networking.
Primarily, this provides two main benefits in our use case. Using multiple physical connections allows
us to scale the available bandwidth as each cable is added, and these numerous connections also
allow for fault tolerance. Should one link fail, as a result of faulty hardware or it may be taken down
for maintenance, EtherChannel will automatically re-distribute any network traffic among the
remaining functioning links.
In order to actually enact this design, however there is also a further consideration to be made. The
protocol to be used to control this bundling within EtherChannelling was the Link Aggregation
Control Protocol, or LACP. Primarily, this was chosen to ensure interoperability between different
systems, as the alternative, Cisco’s own PAgP, is a proprietary aggregation standard. Should any
equipment fail, and it be replaced by equipment from competitors such as Huawei or HP, the links
themselves will not go down as a result of this change.
As per the Case Study Document, LACP EtherChannelling will only be implemented for the Lahore
site, as it is purely in the prototyping stage at this point in time.
DHCP Configuration
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, or DHCP, is a management protocol whereby a DHCP Server
dynamically allocates and assigns a variety of network configuration parameters to each device on a
network. Implementing DHCP reduces the overhead for a network administrator, as they no longer
need to manually assign an IP address to each individual network device. This is a very desirable trait
for Flat Land Ltd, as they would most certainly want to cut down on any unnecessary processes that
would create extra overhead and cost.
However, as per the Case Documents, in the prototyping stage, DHCP will only be implemented for
the Multan site, and there will be one specific manually configured IP address, which will be the
printer at said site. The other workstation and laptops will be configured as per normal via DHCP. At
the other sites within the Case, devices there will all be directly configured manually with an IP
address.
It is important to note here that, as per the prototype specifications, wireless LAN is currently only
implemented at the Karachi site. This is done in the form of