ASSIGNMENT 1

RESEARCH PAPER ON DATA COMMUNICATION

Research in data communication and networking concepts

XYZ Research
Company

By Noradlirazman Bin Othman

1
 Table of Contents

Table of Contents ........................................................................................................ 2

Summary of XYZ Research Company and Network Requirements ................................ 3

Implementation of IP Addresses and variable-length subnet masking (VLSM)

………………………………… ... 4
Implementation of Routing .......................................................................................... 7
Implementation of VLANs, Spanning tree protocol (STP), and Switches ...................... 9
Physical Layer Design and Equipment ........................................................................ 11
Testing and Verification Strategies ............................................................................ 12
Recommendations for the Future ............................................................................... 13
Logical Diagram ........................................................................................................ 14
The Advantages and Disadvantages of
VLAN……………………………………………………………………………………..... 15
Reference.................................................................................................................. 17
2
 Summary of XYZ Research
Company
and Network Requirements

About XYZ Research Company

The XYZ Research Company is a small company that is developing high-
speed wireless
products. The main office occupies two buildings in Bangi. One building
is for the
Administration Group. The other building is for the Sales and Marketing
Group, and the
larger Research and Development Group. The Research Group and the
Sales and
Marketing Group will each have employees located on all three floors of
the main
building. The XYZ Research Company also has a Sales Branch Office
located in
Kajang.

Host Requirements
• 18 employees in the Research and Development group
o 8 located on Floor 3
o 6 located on Floor 2
o 4 located on Floor 1
• 9 employees in the Sales and Marketing group
o 2 located on Floor 3
o 4 located on Floor 2
o 3 located on Floor 1
• 7 employees in the Administration group
o All 7 located in Administration
Building • 5 employees in the remote sales
office
o All 5 located in Branch Office
• 5 servers
o All 5 located on Floor 1
• 100% growth of IP requirements expected (except servers)

Routing, Switching, and VLAN Requirements

• Connection to the Internet router using subnet 200.200.100.0/30
• Internal addressing with public class C network 223.0.0.0
using VLSM
• IP addresses on all networking devices
• 4 VLANs: Management, Research and Development, Sales and
Marketing, and Server
• Switches connected in a loop to allow for alternative paths
• Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing protocol; all routers use Process ID 50, Area 0
• Loopback address assigned on each router and used as the Router ID

3
Implementation of IP Addresses and variable-length subnet
masking (VLSM)

All networking devices are assigned an IP address from the public class C network
223.0.0.0. VLSM is used to allow for the most efficient use of the IP address pool as
possible.

VLSM Design
The following table shows how the class C network was subnetted to fulfill the host requirements.

# of Network Address Subnet Mask Max # In Use? Network Name

hosts of hosts
37 223.0.0.0 255.255.255.192 62 Yes Research and Development VLAN
19 223.0.0.64 255.255.255.224 30 Yes Sales and Marketing VLAN
11 223.0.0.96 255.255.255.240 14 Yes Sales Branch LAN
6 223.0.0.112 255.255.255.248 6 Yes Server VLAN
4 223.0.0.120 255.255.255.248 6 Yes Management VLAN
15 223.0.0.128 255.255.255.224 30 Yes Admin LAN
2 223.0.0.160 255.255.255.252 2 Yes Border to Admin Link
2 223.0.0.164 255.255.255.252 2 Yes Border to Main Link
2 223.0.0.168 255.255.255.252 2 Yes Main to Branch Link
— 223.0.0.172 255.255.255.192 62 No —
— 223.0.0.236 255.255.255.240 14 No —
— 223.0.0.252 255.255.255.252 2 No —
4
IP Address Design
The following tables indicate the IP address assigned to each device in the network.

Research and Development VLAN

For all hosts on this VLAN, Subnet Mask is 255.255.255.192 and Gateway is 223.0.0.1.

Hostname IP Address Hostname IP Address

R&D01 223.0.0.2 R&D19 223.0.0.20
R&D02 223.0.0.3 R&D20 223.0.0.21
R&D03 223.0.0.4 R&D21 223.0.0.22
R&D04 223.0.0.5 R&D22 223.0.0.23
R&D05 223.0.0.6 R&D23 223.0.0.24
R&D06 223.0.0.7 R&D24 223.0.0.25
R&D07 223.0.0.8 R&D25 223.0.0.26
R&D08 223.0.0.9 R&D26 223.0.0.27
R&D09 223.0.0.10 R&D27 223.0.0.28
R&D10 223.0.0.11 R&D28 223.0.0.29
R&D11 223.0.0.12 R&D29 223.0.0.30
R&D12 223.0.0.13 R&D30 223.0.0.31
R&D13 223.0.0.14 R&D31 223.0.0.32
R&D14 223.0.0.15 R&D32 223.0.0.33
R&D15 223.0.0.16 R&D33 223.0.0.34
R&D16 223.0.0.17 R&D34 223.0.0.35
R&D17 223.0.0.18 R&D35 223.0.0.36
R&D18 223.0.0.19 R&D36 223.0.0.37

Sales and Marketing VLAN

For all hosts on this VLAN, Subnet Mask is 255.255.255.224 and Gateway is 223.0.0.65.

Hostname IP Address Hostname IP Address

Sales01 223.0.0.66 Sales10 223.0.0.75
Sales02 223.0.0.67 Sales11 223.0.0.76
Sales03 223.0.0.68 Sales12 223.0.0.77
Sales04 223.0.0.69 Sales13 223.0.0.78
Sales05 223.0.0.70 Sales14 223.0.0.79
Sales06 223.0.0.71 Sales15 223.0.0.80
Sales07 223.0.0.72 Sales16 223.0.0.81
Sales08 223.0.0.73 Sales17 223.0.0.82
Sales09 223.0.0.74 Sales18 223.0.0.83

5
Sales Branch LAN
For all hosts on this LAN, Subnet Mask is 255.255.255.240 and Gateway is 223.0.0.97.

Hostname IP Address Hostname IP Address

Branch01 223.0.0.98 Branch06 223.0.0.103
Branch02 223.0.0.99 Branch07 223.0.0.104
Branch03 223.0.0.100 Branch08 223.0.0.105
Branch04 223.0.0.101 Branch09 223.0.0.106
Branch05 223.0.0.102 Branch10 223.0.0.107

Server VLAN
For all servers on this VLAN, Subnet Mask is 255.255.255.248 and Gateway is 223.0.0.113.

Hostname IP Address
Server01 223.0.0.114
Server02 223.0.0.115
Server03 223.0.0.116
Server04 223.0.0.117
Server05 223.0.0.118

Management VLAN
For all switches, Subnet Mask is 255.255.255.248 and Gateway is 223.0.0.121.

Hostname IP Address
Floor1Sw 223.0.0.122
Floor2Sw 223.0.0.123
Floor3Sw 223.0.0.124

Admin LAN
For all hosts on this LAN, Subnet Mask is 255.255.255.224 and Gateway is 223.0.0.129.

Hostname IP Address Hostname IP Address

Admin01 223.0.0.130 Admin08 223.0.0.137
Admin02 223.0.0.131 Admin09 223.0.0.138
Admin03 223.0.0.132 Admin10 223.0.0.139
Admin04 223.0.0.133 Admin11 223.0.0.140
Admin05 223.0.0.134 Admin12 223.0.0.141
Admin06 223.0.0.135 Admin13 223.0.0.142
Admin07 223.0.0.136 Admin14 223.0.0.143
6
Router-to-Router Links
For all router-to-router links, Subnet Mask is 255.255.255.252.

Function IP Address 1 IP Address 2

Border to Admin 223.0.0.161 223.0.0.162
Border to Main 223.0.0.165 223.0.0.166
Main to Branch 223.0.0.169 223.0.0.170

Implementation of Routing

Selection of Routing Protocol

XYZ Research Company needed a recommendation on which routing protocol to use
on the network, so four properties of four different routing protocols were examined.
Properties in favor of a protocol are marked in green, while properties against a
protocol are marked in red.

Routing Protocol Property 1: Property 2: Property 3: Property 4:

Supports VLSM Easy to Configure Fast Convergence
Proprietary
RIPv1 No Yes No No
RIPv2 Yes Yes No No
EIGRP Yes Yes No Yes
OSPF Yes No Yes No

Based on the findings, Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) was recommended to be the
routing protocol to use on the XYZ Research Company’s network, and the company
agreed with this recommendation.

Selection of DR ( Designated Router)

Because OSPF was selected to be the routing protocol used on the network, the next
step was to select which router will be the DR.

Between the two routers in the Administration Building, the Admin LAN router AdminRo
was selected to
be the DR. AdminRo only handles traffic in and out of the Admin LAN, whereas the
Border router
BorderRo handles all traffic to and from the Internet as well as traffic between the
Admin LAN and the
other LANs. Since AdminRo has significantly less workload than BorderRo, AdminRo is
the ideal choice
for DR.

A DR does not have to be elected on the serial connections between the routers
because an election is not required on point-to-point links such as these.

Router Tables
The following tables show the purpose and connection details of each interface and
subinterface on each router.

7
Border Router—Hostname BorderRo
Inter- Description DCE/ Speed/ Network Network Interface Subnet Mask
face DTE? Clock Name Address Address
rate
s0/0 Internet DTE — — 200.200.100.0 200.200.100.2 255.255.255.252
Connection
s0/1 Border to DCE 64000 — 223.0.0.164 223.0.0.165 255.255.255.252
Main Link
fa0/0 Border to — 100Mb — 223.0.0.160 223.0.0.161 255.255.255.252
Admin Link
lo0 Loopback — — — — 192.168.0.1 255.255.255.255

Admin Router—Hostname AdminRo

Inter- Description DCE/ Speed/ Network Network Interface Subnet Mask
face DTE? Clock Name Address Address
rate
fa0/0 Border to — 100Mb — 223.0.0.160 223.0.0.162 255.255.255.252
Admin Link
fa0/1 Admin LAN — 100Mb Admin 223.0.0.128 223.0.0.129 255.255.255.224
lo0 Loopback — — — — 192.168.0.2 255.255.255.255

Main Router—Hostname MainRo

Inter- Description DCE/ Speed/ Network Network Interface Subnet Mask
face DTE? Clock Name Address Address
rate
s0/0 Main to DCE 64000 — 223.0.0.168 223.0.0.169 255.255.255.252
Branch Link
s0/1 Border to DTE — — 223.0.0.164 223.0.0.166 255.255.255.252
Main Link
fa0/0 Management — 100Mb Switch 223.0.0.120 223.0.0.121 255.255.255.248
.1 VLAN
fa0/0 R&D VLAN — 100Mb R&D 223.0.0.0 223.0.0.1 255.255.255.192
.10
fa0/0 Sales VLAN — 100Mb Sales 223.0.0.64 223.0.0.65 255.255.255.224
.20
fa0/0 Server VLAN — 100Mb Server 223.0.0.112 223.0.0.113 255.255.255.248
.30
lo0 Loopback — — — — 192.168.0.3 255.255.255.255

8
Branch Router—Hostname BranchRo
Inter- Description DCE/ Speed/ Network Network Interface Subnet Mask
face DTE? Clock Name Address Address
rate
s0/0 Main to DTE — — 223.0.0.168 223.0.0.170 255.255.255.252
Branch Link
fa0/0 Branch LAN — 100Mb Branch 223.0.0.96 223.0.0.97 255.255.255.240
lo0 Loopback — — — — 192.168.0.4 255.255.255.255

Implementation of VLANs, Spanning tree protocol (STP), and Switches

In order to accommodate the employees on each of the three floors of the Main
Building, three switches
will have to be used, and VLANs will have to be set up on all of them, so that members
of each
workgroup can communicate with each other, even though they are physically
separated by floors.

The Branch Office and Administrative Building will each have one switch to connect the hosts of
the
Sales Branch LAN and Admin LAN, respectively. These switches will not be configured with any
VLANs.

Selection of STP Root Bridge

In this network, the three switches in the Main Building are connected in a loop so that
if one switch or
trunk link fails, an alternative path can be used. When redundant links are used, one
of the switches
should be selected to be the STP Root Bridge. In this case, Floor1Sw, the switch
located on the first
floor, should be the STP Root Bridge, because it is the switch where the router serving
the Main Building
is connected. This makes it so that traffic destined for a location outside the
originating VLAN has to
travel no more than two trunk links (including the one attached to the router) to reach
the router.

Switch Tables
This table outlines the necessary switch hardware, their locations, and their roles in the network.

Hostname Model # of Loc. IP Address Gateway Mgmt VTP VTP STP

Ports VLAN Mode Dom. Root
Floor1Sw 2950 24 1st Fl. 223.0.0.122 223.0.0.121 1 Server XYZ Yes
Floor2Sw 2950 24 2nd Fl. 223.0.0.123 223.0.0.121 1 Client XYZ No
Floor3Sw 2950 24 3rd Fl. 223.0.0.124 223.0.0.121 1 Client XYZ No
BranchSw 2950 24 Branch 223.0.0.110 223.0.0.97 1 — — —
AdminSw 2950 24 Admin 223.0.0.158 223.0.0.129 1 — — —
9
1st Floor Switch—Hostname Floor1Sw
Inter- Descrip- Spd. FDX Network Network Subnet Mask VLAN Port Encap-
face tion Name Address Type sulation
fa0/1- R&D 100 Yes R&D 223.0.0.0 255.255.255.192 10 Acc.—
fa0/9
fa0/10- Sales 100 Yes Sales 223.0.0.64 255.255.255.224 20 Acc.—
fa0/16
fa0/17- Server 100 Yes Server 223.0.0.112 255.255.255.248 30 Acc.—
fa0/21
fa0/22 MainRo 100 Yes — — — — Tru. dot1q
fa0/23 Floor3Sw 100 Yes — — — — Tru. dot1q
fa0/24 Floor2Sw100 Yes — — — — Tru. dot1q

2nd Floor Switch—Hostname Floor2Sw

Inter- Descrip- Spd. FDX Network Network Subnet Mask VLAN Port Encap-
face tion Name Address Type sulation
fa0/1- R&D 100 Yes R&D 223.0.0.0 255.255.255.192 10 Acc.—
fa0/13
fa0/14- Sales 100 Yes Sales 223.0.0.64 255.255.255.224 20 Acc.—
fa0/22
fa0/23 Floor1Sw 100 Yes — — — — Tru. dot1q
fa0/24 Floor3Sw100 Yes — — — — Tru. dot1q

3rd Floor Switch—Hostname Floor3Sw

Inter- Descrip- Spd. FDX Network Network Subnet Mask VLAN Port Encap-
face tion Name Address Type sulation
fa0/1- R&D 100 Yes R&D 223.0.0.0 255.255.255.192 10 Acc.—
fa0/17
fa0/18- Sales 100 Yes Sales 223.0.0.64 255.255.255.224 20 Acc.—
fa0/22
fa0/23 Floor2Sw 100 Yes — — — — Tru. dot1q
fa0/24 Floor1Sw100 Yes — — — — Tru. dot1q

Branch Office Switch—Hostname BranchSw

Inter- Descrip- Spd. FDX Network Network Subnet Mask VLAN Port Encap-
face tion Name Address Type sulation
fa0/1- Branch 100 Yes Branch 223.0.0.96 255.255.255.240 1 Acc.—
fa0/24

Administrative Building Switch—Hostname AdminSw

Inter- Descrip- Spd. FDX Network Network Subnet Mask VLAN Port Encap-
face tion Name Address Type sulation
fa0/1- Admin 100 Yes Admin 223.0.0.128 255.255.255.224 1 Acc.—
fa0/24

10
 Physical Layer Design and Equipment

This is a summary of the equipment that will be needed at each distribution facility within the
company.

Administration Building
Equipment Type Model Qty. # of Ports
Description Cost
Router 2620 1 2 Serial Border Router (BorderRo). Connects to
1 Fa Internet Connection, AdminRo, and MainRo.
Router 2621 1 2 Fa Admin Building Router (AdminRo). Connects
to BorderRo and AdminSw.
Switch 2950 1 24 Fa Admin LAN Switch (AdminSw). Connects to
AdminRo and Admin LAN PCs.
Patch Panel — 1 24 Allows connections between network
devices.

Main Building, 1st Floor

Equipment Type Model Qty. # of Ports
Description Cost
Router 2620 1 2 Serial Main Building Router (MainRo). Connects to
1 Fa BorderRo, BranchRo, and Floor1Sw.
Switch 2950 1 24 Fa Floor 1 Switch (Floor1Sw). Connects to
MainRo, Floor2Sw, Floor3Sw, and Floor 1
VLAN PCs.
Patch Panel — 1 24 Allows connections between network
devices.

Main Building, 2nd Floor

Equipment Type Model Qty. # of Ports
Description Cost
Switch 2950 1 24 Fa Floor 2 Switch (Floor2Sw). Connects to
Floor1Sw, Floor3Sw, and Floor 2 VLAN PCs.
Patch Panel — 1 24 Allows connections between network
devices.

Main Building, 3rd Floor

Equipment Type Model Qty. # of Ports
Description Cost
Switch 2950 1 24 Fa Floor 3 Switch (Floor3Sw). Connects to
Floor1Sw, Floor2Sw, and Floor 3 VLAN PCs.
Patch Panel — 1 24 Allows connections between network
devices.
11
Branch Office
Equipment Type Model Qty. # of Ports
Description Cost
Router 2620 1 2 Serial Branch Office Router (BranchRo). Connects
1 Fa to MainRo and BranchSw.
Switch 2950 1 24 Fa Branch Office Switch (BranchSw). Connects
to BranchRo and Sales Branch LAN PCs.
Patch Panel — 1 24 Allows connections between network
devices.

Testing and Verification Strategies

After configuration of all network devices (routers and switches), testing will need to
be performed to ensure that the configuration is correct. XYZ Research Company
required a minimum of three types of tests to demonstrate the functionality of the
network. Ping (ICMP ECHO) will be the primary test
method used to verify accessibility between hosts. When the destination host is the
HTTP Server
(Server01), an attempt will also be made to access the website stored on the server.

Test Tables
The following tables outline the three types of tests requested by the company and their results.

Routing Between Main Building VLANs

From VLAN To VLAN Protocol Hosts Pass/Fail?
10 20 ICMP ECHO R&D03/Sales02
10 30 ICMP ECHO/HTTP R&D03/Server01
20 30 ICMP ECHO/HTTP Sales02/Server01

Access of All Hosts to Each Other and HTTP Service

From Host To Host Pass/Fail?
R&D03 Branch01
R&D03 Admin01
Sales02 Branch01
Sales02 Admin01
Server01 Branch01
Server01 Admin01
Branch01 Admin01
12
Behavior of the Internetwork When a Trunk Link Fails
From Host To Host Trunk Up/Down Route Pass/Fail?
R&D03 Sales02 1-2 Down
R&D03 Sales02 2-3 Down
R&D03 Sales02 3-1 Down
R&D03 Server01 1-2 Down
R&D03 Server01 2-3 Down
R&D03 Server01 3-1 Down
Sales02 Server01 1-2 Down
Sales02 Server01 2-3 Down
Sales02 Server01 3-1 Down

Recommendations for the Future

The network as designed will meet XYZ Research Company’s requirements as well as
their expectations
of 100% growth within the next few years. However, if growth exceeds their
expectations, the
networking equipment selected will be insufficient. Fortunately, the use of VLANs in
this network will
allow the network to scale easily. One recommendation is to add additional switches
to the network to
allow additional host and/or server connections as needed. There are plenty of
leftover IP Addresses to accommodate additional hosts, so purchasing another class C
network should not be necessary until
much later in the future.

The trunk links in the Main Building are Fast Ethernet (100Mbps) links. This is ok, but
during periods of
heavy network usage, such as multiple users simultaneously transferring large
amounts of data between hosts on different VLANs, the trunk links may prove to be a
bottleneck. A second recommendation
would be to purchase switches which have Gigabit Ethernet (1000Mbps) support. This
change would
theoretically increase the bandwidth of inter-VLAN communications tenfold, reducing
slowdown and
increasing productivity.
13
Logical Diagram

14
 The Advantages and Disadvantages of VLAN
Introduction
VLAN(Virtual Local Area Network)is a newly used technology, a VLAN is a
logical subnet and also a logical broadcast domain, it allow us to set network
logically instead of physically. This is very useful when we design networks
for a big company, because generally, a computer should has lots of
departments, we use VLAN technology to provide security and more
convenient management for each department. But everything has two
sides ,VLAN is the same, this article is to sum up the advantages and
disadvantages of VLAN.

 1. Advantages of VLAN
• 1.1 Prevent from broadcasting

• 1.2 Perform more security

• 1.3 Use switch instead of router

• As we know, VLAN technology use layer3 switch, which has both the
routing function and switch function, because router should do the
routing of the whole network, it’s a huge job, so the speed of the
network will be slow down by the router. If we use VLAN, we can avoid
this, because we use the layer3 switch, we can do switching on the
switch, and don’t need to check the ip address of each package, it’s
much faster than the router, and so we can improve the speed of
networks.
• 1.4 Simple and intuitionistic network management and not bounded by geography

• 1.5 Economic elements

• 1.6 Can also use wireless technology

•
 2. Disadvantages of VLAN
• 2.1 Communication problem between VLANs
• For VLAN provide high security, there must be another problem,that is the
communication between VLANs. If a user in VLAN1 need to communicate with
someone in VLAN2, they can’t directly connected, we must configure the
information of the user in the switch, if case like that occur continually, we can’t
manage them if we use VLAN. We should always configure, and then VLAN loses
its predominance.
• 2.2 Complexity of VLAN
• Just like VLAN provides us such advantage, it also brings us troubles. If we
expand the whole network extensively, the Complexity of VLAN will increase
quickly. We can imagine the result, and once the network broken, maintaining
will cost a lot of money.

• 2.3 Router’s carrying capacity

• We use a router to manage the routing of VLANs, if the whole network is not very
large, the router can afford the workload, but if we use it in a really large network
which has lots of VLANs, it is not a good way to load all the works to a single
router.

• 2.4 Can’t prevent from virus

• Because in a VLAN, every user is in the same network, so if one user infects the
virus, there would be great possibility for others to infect the same virus.
 Reference

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_LAN
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR#Computing
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanning_tree_protocol
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classless_Inter-Domain_Routing#VLSM
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Shortest_Path_First