Reference no: EM132208391

Wide Area Networking Technologies

Assignment Brief

As part of the formal assessment for the HNC/D programme you are required to submit an assignment for each module. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.

After completing the module you should be able to:

1. Understand the impact of WAN technologies
2. Design WAN infrastructures
3. Implement WAN infrastructures
4. Manage WAN infrastructures

Completing the assignment tasks will demonstrate your ability to do these things. Specifically, each part of each task corresponds to the relevant assessment criterion given at the end of this specification. E.g. task 1 part 1 corresponds with Assessment Criterion 1.1.

Scenario

Yellowstone National Park is a national park located mostly in the U.S. state of Wyoming with sections crossing into Montana and Idaho. It was first established in 1872 and claims to be the first national park in the world. It covers an area of nearly 9,000 km2 and has a wide range of natural wonders including extensive geothermal features, significant wildlife (bison, bears, bison, wolves, bison, elk, bison, moose, bison, mountain lion, bison, osprey, etc. etc.) Bison are everywhere, regularly stopping traffic and causing "bison jams" around the park. There are large areas of wilderness that are only accessible to humans on foot. Note that this map shows all the roads and villages in the park. There are no other roads (just a few trails and dead ends) and there are no other towns, villages or other man made developments other than those shown on the map.

An extensive programme of updates is being undertaken within the park, in order to provide modern IT infrastructure for both those running the park and for visitors. This assignment focuses on the Wide Area Networking technologies needed to achieve this.

Although the places are real, the rest of the scenario is not. You must use the information provided in this assignment specification to answer the questions. If anything you find out about the real park is different from that presented here, then you must use the information presented here. Reality has been changed to provide a suitable scenario for the assignment. In particular, DO NOT contact the park. They have more important things to do than answer student questions. If you have any questions about this assignment, contact the tutor.

Assignment Task

Task 1 - Guideline length 800 words

Each of the villages (e.g. Grant Village, Fishing Bridge) currently connects to the Internet via an ADSL. This was installed as part of a project sponsored by the US Government to provide Internet access to the entire park. However, these connections will not provide sufficient performance for the requirements of the new infrastructure.

Identify ONE wide area network technology that would be suitable for the villages to connect to the Internet. Explain how this differs from the ADSL currently used and how the park organisation will benefit. You should discuss:

in detail the key technical differences between ADSL and your chosen replacement technology.

in detail the types of traffic that the park might expect on the WAN link that would require the new connection. Remember that this is for park administration and visitor use.

an outline of how the park can ensure that their services are protected from malicious interference via the Internet.

an outline of ONE method that the park authorities can employ to ensure that confidential communications are not compromised when being relayed on the Internet.

Task 2 - Guideline length diagram plus 500 words

The park's new WAN connections will require the appropriate devices and connection to link into the Internet via a point of presence (PoP) at West Yellowstone, which is by the West Entrance. There are many ways that this can be done and there are many different devices that can be used to provide this connection. Remember that this is a large park network, not a small office or home network.

Use CISCO Packet Tracer to model the entire WAN connection from Old Faithful to the West Yellowstone PoP. Your model must clearly identify all devices and connection technologies used from Old Faithful Visitor Centre's wired Ethernet connection at one end to up to the PoP router at West Yellowstone.

CISCO Packet Tracer is available as a free download. You have to register as a self study user, which is free. Just follow the link "Enroll to Download Packet Tracer", enroll on the free Introduction to Packet Tracer course and follow the instructions to download packet tracer. This package is straight forward to use, with an intuitive drag and drop interface. The initial CISCO course you enroll on is free and is a good introduction to Packet Tracer. There are plenty of other tutorials on Packet Tracer available on line as well.

For the devices shown in your diagram, specify exactly which product (manufacturer and model number) should be use and explain why this particular device is appropriate for this application. Again remember that this is NOT a home network, so you must specify commercial grade products.

Task 3 - Guideline length 800 words

The connection of all the villages in Yellowstone to the rest of the National Park network will require some changes and updates to the National Park's wider infrastructure services.

Within the National Park Service, each park has its own domain name under the overall nps.gov domain, so Yellowstone will become yelowstone.nps.gov. Yellowstone already have a class C address 194.85.61.x which they have been using anyway and this needs to be integrated into the National Park DNS and addressing scheme.

Explain why the National Park Service will need to update its DNS to accommodate these changes and why no-one outside the National Park Service will need to change their DNS.

In order to keep their administration intranet secure, the national park service want to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

Explain how a VPN works in this context, making particular reference to the communications between villages within the Yellowstone National Park.

Task 4 - Guideline length 800 words

As Yellowstone National Park has a number of sites that are geographically dispersed and in some cases in difficult geographical locations they need to have appropriate monitoring in place to keep the network running properly.

Identify one monitoring tool and explain in detail how the National Park Service can use it to:

Monitor the network for connection issues and identify outages.

Monitor the network for performance issue and security breaches.

Produce annual reports for the National Park Trust on the overall performance of the network.

In order to verify this work, you need to provide a signed witness statement. A template is provided below, which you MUST get complete and signed. This MUST be included in your submission document.

Internet Server Management

Scenario

Birkenhead is a town on the Wirral peninsula which forms the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite its more famous city neighbour Liverpool.

Rationalisation of college provision on the Wirral peninsula means that the former Art College is being merged with the much larger Birkenhead College. The Art College is located a few kilometres from the main campus in the town of Wallasey.
The Art College has until now run its own IT services and network with Internet connection but they are now to come under the main IT Services provision at Birkenhead College. Unfortunately, the Art College has been using different technologies from Birkenhead College in many areas of IT. This assignment is about the differences between these technologies and how the Art College might be better integrated into the main IT systems run at Birkenhead College.

Note: All the places mentioned in this scenario are real. You can find them by using any on-line mapping service. www.streetmap.co.uk is recommended as it provides detailed maps of the UK.

Although the places are real, the rest of the scenario is not. You must use the information provided in this assignment specification to answer the questions. If anything you find out about the real colleges is different from that presented here, then you must use the information presented here. Reality has been changed to provide a suitable scenario for the assignment. In particular, DO NOT contact either of the colleges. They have more important things to do than answer student questions. If you have any questions about this assignment, contact the tutor.

Assignment Task

Task 1 - Guideline length 800 words

Since the Art College is a small college they only have limited computer facilities and they have to date allocated IP addresses manually and statically to each device. Birkenhead College on the other hand have an extensive range of facilities and allocate addresses across all its sites using DHCP.

Explain why Birkenhead College use DHCP whereas the Art College can manage with static addresses.

Up to now the Art College has been using an e-mail service contracted from Google called Gmail which has a web access interface. This has provided a suitable service for the small college but now they need to integrate with the Birkenhead College system, which is based on Microsoft Exchange and uses a locally installed client.

Explain the different ways of accessing e-mail (web front end compared with local client) in detail. You should focus on the protocols used by each approach.

Birkenhead College uses Microsoft Active Directory to manage its network resources and users.

Explain why the Art College should have a Domain Controller on site rather than relying on the Primary Domain Controller at the main campus in Birkenhead. You should focus on the management issues of the server and the local resources and users rather than the network traffic issues.

Task 2 - Guideline length 800 words

The Art College has been running their web server using Internet Information Services (IIS) from Microsoft. Despite being a predominantly Microsoft site Birkenhead College uses Apache running on a Linux server.

Explain the key technical and operations differences between these two solutions.

In order to align with the main college, the Art College are going to move their web server to Apache on Linux.

Explain in detail the hardware and software consequences of this move. Assume that the old server hardware will not be re-used. You do NOT need to consider any issues relating to the actual web site contents itself. (You should read task 3.1 before doing task 2.2 to avoid overlap.)

Task 3 - Guideline length 1000 words

As stated in 2.2 above, The Art College are moving their web server to Apache on Linux.

Recommend, with clear justifications, a suitable hardware platform and Linux distribution for them to use.

The network manager at The Art College is not happy about moving to Apache on Linux as she has spent a significant amount of time and effort getting IIS working properly.

Explain to the network manager why she needs to move to the new platform. You should focus on the advantages that the new platform will give over IIS.

There are many free Linux distributions available via the Internet which can be installed onto partitions of a hard disk, or a separate internal or external hard disk, or on to a USB memory stick. There are also many web sites documenting the procedure of setting up both Linux and Apache.

Download and set up a suitable Linux installation and Apache server. Document this installation by taking screen shots. Provide an annotated set of screen shots showing the installation of the Linux operating system and Apache, up to the point where Apache is up and running. You MUST annotate the screen shots. You will not get a good grade if you just submit the screen shots without any notes.

It is strongly recommended that you do this task using a "live" version of Linux, either to CD or USB as this will not affect your normal operating system at all. It is also recommended that the server is run on an isolated machine that has been physically disconnected from any local network and the Internet to avoid interfering with other live services.

For the installation you have just done, provide a critical review of the setting up of the server, describing the procedure you followed and with a clear focus on the issues that you encountered and how you resolved them. Also compare the Linux installation with that for Windows.

Task 4 - Guideline length 900 words

Using the server you set up in task 3, install a simple web site. This does not need to be a complex web site at this stage. A single web page showing your full name and student id will be sufficient.

Take screen shots to show the web site being uploaded onto your server and being accessed via a browser. These shots should be annotated to explain what they show. The browser can be running on the same machine as the server. There is no need to connect the machine to a network or the Internet.

On your Linux installation, set up a general user with your student id as the user name. This user should be given a suitable set of access rights to allow them to upload web pages and generally manage the web server.

Take screen shots to show how you set up this user and to show the login sequence for both failed and successful login. These shots should be annotated to explain what they show.

Provide an annotated printout of the appropriate log files for your web server. You should provide sufficient log files to show that the server is working and sufficient annotation to show that you understand what the log file tells you about the server.

Explain whether the EXACT setup you have just implemented is appropriate for the college. Discuss the EXACT implementation you have done including the hardware you have actually used and the distribution you have actually used. Remember that this is meant to be a web server for the organisation in the scenario. You should clearly state whether the exact setup you have done on your hardware is suitable and then justify your answer in light of the likely requirements of this organisation.

Network Security

Assignment Task

Read the following scenario and base your answers on the individual tasks by completing all parts of Task 1, Task 2, Task 3 & Task 4 with reference to the particular organisation described.

Scenario - a LAN to WAN network extension for Mobile Computers World LTD

Mobile Computers World LTD (MCW) is a medium-sized business organisation which specialises in the sourcing and distribution of mobile computing hardware components, including hand-held devices such as smartphones, tablets, phablets, ultra-books, lap-tops, etc., including their respective accessories, such as protective cases, input devices, and storage capacity upgrades.

Currently, MCW has an internal chain of supply which is networked using a local area network (LAN) topology, and associated security architecture and features, which is currently appropriate for the current context in which the organisation does business. Thus far, this has helped the company reduce costs and respond to customer orders very efficiently. The current network security design is thus consistent with that of a Local Area Network (LAN), and the people using the network are employees of the company who are generally trusted to use it in an ethical and legal way. However, company communications as well as data relating to mobile computer supplies planning, distribution and support are increasingly being undertaken using the computer network, which the company is constantly upgrading to increase sales performance and thus its competitive position.

Although MCW's chain of supply data and company communications have been secure thus far in accordance with its current size (as a LAN), the company plans, in the next financial year, to significantly increase the size of its chain of supply to include external suppliers and consumers, with whom it wishes to communicate using its computer network and a Wide Area Network (WAN) which will give it connectivity nationally and world-wide.

MCW has, therefore, given you the contract as a trusted network security consultant, to review the network security of its current LAN with a view to maintaining its security going forward when connected to the planned WAN environment of the increased chain of supply.

Task 1:
(This task concerns a discussion of the social and commercial impact of network security design on MCW. Word count: 1000 words).

a) Evaluate how the company's current LAN is kept secure (1.1).

b) Discuss the potential impact of the proposed WAN design (1.2).

c) Discuss the current and common threats to network security and their impact (1.3).

Task 2:
(This task concerns a discussion of the production a design specification for the network security solution for MCW. Word count: 1000 words).

a) Discuss the design considerations and how the new network security solution can be designed and evaluated. (2.1, 2.2).

b) Discuss the methods used to design the new network security solution and produce a specification of the technologies to be used in the design (2.3, 2.4).

c) Produce an actual network security policy (2.5).

Task 3:
(This task concerns the discussion of the production of an implementation specification for the network security solution for MCW based on the design. Word count: 1000 words).

a) Discuss the network security implementation considerations and clearly show how these follow from the network security design (3.1, 3.2).

b) Use CISCO Packet Tracer to model the network under discussion, making sure that the security features discussed in your design are clearly presented in the diagram. Submit your security design diagram along with annotation to explain the security features and how they are implemented in your design. (3.1, 3.2).

Task 4:
This task concerns a description of how to manage a network security solution for MCW. Word count: 1000 words).

a) Describe the process of managing a network security solution (4.1).
b) Describe the process of analysing network security policies and practices (4.2).
c) Describe the process of recommending potential change management (4.3).

Student Guidelines

1. You should write the answers to the tasks in the form of a report, including a title page, contents page, and sections headings based on the tasks and sub-tasks.

2. You must ensure that the submitted assignment is all your own work and that all sources used are correctly attributed. Penalties apply to assignments which show evidence of academic unfair practice. (See the Student Handbook which is in the Induction Area). Please also refer to the ‘Guide to Unfair Practice in Assessment' on the module page on ilearn.

Attachment:- Internet Server Management Assignment.rar