IT 2035C Network Infrastructure Management

C2 Design Scenario: Harriet’s Fruit and Chocolate Company

Student Name: Joseph Svintsitsky

Harriet’s Fruit and Chocolate Company was established in 1935 in the Pacific Northwest of the United
States to ship gift baskets of locally grown peaches and pears to customers in the United States. The
company also makes chocolates and baked goods to include in the gift baskets. It has grown extensively
over the years and is currently one of the biggest companies the Pacific Northwest.

Harriet’s descendants, who still run the company, have identified a need to immediately report when
fruit is starting to ripen and should be placed in cold storage. Employees in the marketing department
have identified a need to access inventory data for the fruit in the orchards and in cold storage. With
this data, they can design and sell gift-basket products that take advantage of the ripe fruit. This data
must also be fed into e-commerce applications so that web orders can correctly specify product
availability.

In addition, the company recently hired an ambitious programmer who is anxious to use her knowledge
of SAS programming, SQL, and DB2 to design reporting applications for senior management. She calls
you every day with new ideas on what she could accomplish if the network were upgraded so that she
could reach up-to-date data from the orchards and cold storage buildings.

As the network designer for this company, you have been charged with selecting network technologies
to reach the orchards and cold storage buildings. Each of the six orchards has a shack with one or two
standalone PCs and a printer. The three cold storage buildings are huge warehouses that include a few
standalone PCs and printers. The local telephone company has suggested that you lease fractional T1
lines, but these links are expensive and possibly beyond your budget. Wireless technologies are also
possible, but you have heard that fruit trees, especially full-grown trees that are tall and leafy, can
absorb a wireless radio frequency (RF) signal. You have also heard that the cold storage buildings have
ice hazards making it hard to install equipment. But you will not let these challenges faze you.

C2 Design Scenario: Harriet’s Fruit and Chocolate Company

 Question 1: What investigation will you do with regard to the physical infrastructure of the
orchards, the orchard shacks, and the cold storage buildings? (20 points)
Note: How do environmental conditions influence technology?

Answer 1: The investigation of the physical infrastructure of the existing network will cover the
communication between the orchards, the orchards shacks, and the cold storage. Based on the
information provided in the case, the only records available for the entire business would be
paper-based records. My suggestion as a network designer to this record keeping process would
be the implementation of a database system that will be accessible to only authorized users. The
design of this database will depend on how information is recorded and shared among users
and how it is stored. I will therefore need to know how the fruits reach the warehouse and how
they are received. After reading the case I assumed the communication is either telephonic, text
messaging or instant messaging using smart phone with internet feature. I would recommend
the barcoding and scanning of the packages of fruits before storing them in the warehouses.
Once the packages are scanned the upload of inventory data is done real time to the website.
Customers would be able to order the fruits as well as products from confectionery if they do
not want them as gift basket products. Also, gift basket products should be packed and
barcoded. All packaging and barcoding should be conducted at the packaging department. The
infrastructure that is therefore required in this protect is a simple LAN to enable communication
in the organization as well as sharing of resources. Consumers will have access to our products
through the internet as well as in stores or warehouses. The internet connection can be through
a router from an ISP or through a modem.

Question 2: List three business goals for Harriet’s Fruit and Chocolate Company. What are
some constraints that will affect these goals? Be specific for this company and how it affects
the technology aspect. (20 points)

Answer 2: Business goals for Harrit Fruits and Chocolate Company may consist of:
• Remaining competitive by maintaining high quality products and services.
• Offering the best customer support
• Enabling file sharing, accessing, and transferring for authorized users

The constraints that may affect these goals may comprise:

Budget constraint: budget has always been part of the triple constraints of projects, especially
for a new system as in our case.
Human resource constraint: as the business is migrating from its rudimentary process to an IT
system, it will have to recruit an IT support team to maintain the network. This may involve
additional costs of hiring, training as well as incremental pay.

C2 Design Scenario: Harriet’s Fruit and Chocolate Company

 Question 3: List three technical goals for Harriet’s Fruit and Chocolate Company. What
tradeoffs might you need to make to meet these goals? Be specific. (20 points)

Answer 3: The technical goals are much focused on our system proprietary features that are:

 Scalability
 Availability
 Affordability
 Network Performance
 Security
 Usability or user-friendly

The tradeoffs needed to make to meet these goals may be based on their relevance to the
system functionality. In this respect functions such as availability, affordability and security will
come first. We need a powerful web server for the e-commerce to be readily available. To
achieve this, we may subscribe for amazon web service (AWS). Another tradeoff is between
security and affordability: For a high security infrastructure, a lot of money must be available.
Another tradeoff is between security and affordability. We can implement a hybrid cloud system
to store our business data. As cloud services are usage based billed, they are much affordable
than in house or physical data centers.

Question 4: Compare the advantages and disadvantages of using wireless verses a wired
technology. Will a wireless solution support the network requirements? Defend your answer.
(20 points)

Answer 4: I would prefer a wired solution like fiber wireless with larger bandwidths as well as
undistorted signals over long distance. As we are seen a continuing proliferation of wireless
devices, these wireless devices are hogging the already congested lower microwave frequency
region of the wireless spectrum. Future broadband access networks will be bimodal, capitalizing
on the respective strengths of both optical and wireless technologies and smartly merging them
in order to realize future-proof Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) networks that strengthen our information
society while avoiding its digital divide. By combining the capacity of optical fiber networks with
the ubiquity and mobility of wireless networks, FiWi networks form a powerful platform for the
support and creation of emerging as well as future unforeseen applications and services, e.g.,
telepresence. FiWi networks hold great promise to change the way we live and work by
replacing commuting with teleworking. Although satellite wireless solution is deemed viable its
implementation and maintenance costs are burdening.

C2 Design Scenario: Harriet’s Fruit and Chocolate Company

 Question 5: What security concerns should you bring up as you design the network upgrade?
Explain. (20 points)

Answer 5: My first task will be to examine some of the security issues commonly found in the
small to medium sized LAN set up for a business or other institution, and to identify some of the
best practices from the perspective of the network designer. The security issues involve:

• Securing the network from Internet launched attacks

• Securing Internet facing web, DNS, and mail servers
• Containing damage from compromised systems, and preventing
• internally launched attacks
• Securing sensitive and mission critical internal resources such financial
• records, customer databases, trade, or business secrets, etc.
• Building a framework for administrators to securely manage the
• network
• Providing systems for logging and intrusion detection

Before beginning the design process, a security policy should be put in place, or updated to
accurately reflect the goals of the company. Additionally, a realistic assessment of the risks
faced, and identification of the resources (manpower, hardware, budget) that are available
should be made.

C2 Design Scenario: Harriet’s Fruit and Chocolate Company