Christian Yates 7/19/2010 EDTEC461 WAN Design Proposal In order to reduce cost and centralize the IT services, a star

topology will be the best option. The company should lease T1 lines from the telephone company that run from each of the satellite offices to the headquarters in Washington D.C. The benefit of this is that there are fewer lines to lease than a mesh topology, management is easier and more centralized, and eliminates the possibility of one hub at a satellite office will not bring down the headquarters. A diagram of this WAN topology is included at the end of this proposal. Each of the satellite offices will also have a star LAN topology. This allows for easy expansion, remote management, low cost, keeps the failure of one cable from bringing down the network, and sufficient capacity. Each satellite office will have a leased T1 line coming into the building. That cable will connect to a router, which connects to a 48-port switch. A switch of this size will allow for all of the current 15 employees, a file/print server, and future expansion. It is hypothesized that the company will grow 15% each year over the next three years, which means there will be about 23 employees. Thus a 24-port switch, which would accommodate the offices now, will not be suitable for future growth. Each of the workstations and the file/print server will connect to the switch via a Cat5 or Cat6 cable. It is recommended to purchase the Cat6 cable. While more costly, it allows for faster connection, providing for future expansion and usage. Running cables is costly and timeconsuming so if the company can afford Cat6 now, it reduces costs later when demand increases. Being that the company expects to grow to 23 employees over the next 3 years, it is advisable to run at least this many cables from the switch.

The headquarters in Washington D.C. will use hierarchal star topology. Using a hierarchal star will allow the company to provide more bandwidth to the servers, while limiting what each employee will draw from the system. This will also make it easier to manage, expand, and fix. The hierarchal star will place the servers at the highest end, leaving the workstations at the lower end. The headquarters will have three leased T1 lines coming into the building (one from each of the satellite sites). These three lines will run into a router, which will connect to a 24-port switch. This switch will have 4 servers attached to it (file/print, e-mail, application, and mirror) as well as 6 other 48-port switches. Each of the 6 48-port switches will then connect to the employee workstations via Cat 5 or Cat 6 cable. Due to the expected growth, it is advisable to connect at least 39 workstations to each of the 48-port switches. This will allow for the three years of 15% growth, plus leaving available ports for growth beyond that. While a mirror server was not in the original plan, it is highly advisable to use one as a backup for one of the servers malfunctioning. The reason for leasing full T1 lines for the WAN is because it is T1 lines are commonly used for carrying data and voice and it will run at a speed of 1.544Mbps. If the company expects to have 15% growth over three years, each satellite site will have about 23 employees. With 40% of those employees needing 100kbps, that amounts to about .9Mbps. Thus a full T1 will allow for future growth beyond that, heavy traffic days, and optimal connection with headquarters while also enabling phone traffic between users with room for expansion. The company should chose to use a dedicated leased T1 circuit network over a packswitched network to avoid paying per use. Since this is a dedicated circuit, there would be no switching, thus creating a connectionless-orientation. This means that the careful planning is

extremely important though, because changes with this method are more expensive. It is expected that a leased T1 will cost approximately $1,000 per month. While using fractional T1 lines is an option, they would need at least 3 of them to allow for future growth. This ends up being less cost effective than simply leasing a full T1 line. To implement this plan, hardware will need to be purchased. This includes 4 routers (about $1000 each), 7 servers (about $1500 each), 9 48-port switches (about $1000 each), 1 24port switch (about $500), at least 298 workstations (about $400 each), and enough Cat5/Cat6 cable for the connections. Cat5 cable costs about $50/1000ft, while Cat6 cable cost about $130/1000ft. Running the cable will take the most amount of time, but should be able to be able to be completed in about a month. The installation of the hardware will then follow. The routers and switches should be able to be installed in just about a week, the servers will also take about a week, and the workstations will take another 2 weeks. This means the entire implementation should be done in about 2 months, allowing the company to open well before schedule. The hardware will cost approximately $143,200 plus cabling. Assuming that the buildings are not overly large, the cabling should run approximately another $5,000 for Cat6 or $2,000 for Cat5. There will also be additional hidden costs for taxes and labor. The entire project should cost about $175,000 for all expenses. In conclusion, for maximum performance, manageability, and protection, a start topology will be most beneficial for the satellite offices. This will limit any IT needs at these branch locations, centralizing the bulk of it at headquarters. The headquarters will use a hierarchal start topology to allow the servers access to the most bandwidth, while splitting up what remains amongst the workstations. The WAN will follow a star topology, also for centralization, using

leased T1 lines. These will allow for enough bandwidth for the company both now and allow for future growth.

Wan Diagram:

Headquarter Diagram:

Satellite Diagram: