CCNA Network Design Project
The purpose of this project was to demonstrate the ability to design a large network by using a school system in Arizona as the basis. The stated project on the Cisco instruction site mandates that this process be undertaken over a two semester period. In our class this project was done over a three week period so the project was scaled down a bit to accommodate for the amount of time available.
The project involved choosing three of the five buildings given as examples, provide a high speed network between them and the ability to access the internet via a main link in one of the buildings. Additionally, the project required the development of the subnet structure over the whole of the network and the installation of various servers to provide configuration and applications services.
Due to the limited information regarding the locations of the schools in relation to one another and the requirement of a high speed inter-school link, I chose an ATM backbone made to be run between the buildings. Additionally we are only using one pair of the fiber to create the redundant ATM link and I have 6 pair fiber in the specs. This will allow for future expansion of the backbone network.
The MDF for this building is located in the same room as the telephone POP. The room large enough to house all of the necessary equipment racks, ladder racking, conduit, patch panel, electrical and air conditioning equipment. Before any installation, the room would be made to conform with EIA/TIA-568B spec by removing any carpeting, drop ceiling, installing tile and fire-resistant plywood, etc.
On the top end there is a LightStream 1010 ATM switch to provide connectivity to the other campuses. This switch connects to the Cisco 6500 router with a Router Service Module installed. This allows the switch to support Gigabit speeds and VLANs while still functioning as the router for the building.
This building was relatively straightforward with regard to network design. Three are only nine classrooms in the building, each with a 48 port switch. There are also a number of offices, which connect to a single 48-port switch.
There are three 48 port switches in the MDF that provide for connectivity throughout the building. These switches are all connected together through an 801.2Q Gigabit Trunk which then connects back into the Catalyst through two Gigabit connections. There are a total of 14 subnets in the building which are distributed as follows. 1 128-host subnet for administrative purposes, 12 64-host subnets (roughly one for every two classrooms) and one 64-host backbone network which is used for switch management.
The subnets are distributed from the router using trunked Gigabit VLANs connected to the three main 48 port switches in the MDF. One switch is dedicated to serving the faculty and staff offices and the remaining two are configured to provide a trunk of 300mb over three 100Base-T connections to the remote switches in the classrooms. By distributing the VLANs through the trunks, any one of the ports on any one of the switches can be configured to be a member of any given network. This would allow the workstations for the teachers, in each individual classroom to be configured for use on any one of the classroom subnets or on the faculty/staff subnet.
Hardware needed for implementation:
|
Description |
Quantity |
|
Lightstream 1010 |
1 |
|
Catalyst 6500 w/RSM |
1 |
|
GBIC Modules for Catalyst |
3 |
|
100Base-T for Catalyst |
1 |
|
3548 Switches |
15 |
|
GBIC Modules for 3548 |
11 |
The main MDF for this campus is located in a centrally located room in the South Building. The room large enough to house all of the necessary equipment racks, ladder racking, conduit, patch panel, electrical and air conditioning equipment. Before any installation, the room would be made to conform with EIA/TIA-568B spec by removing any carpeting, drop ceiling, installing tile and fire-resistant plywood, etc. This room was also chosen because of it’s proximity to the center of the campus and high concentration of data ports.
As in Acadia, the South Building MDF contains a LightStream 1010 ATM switch to provide connectivity to the other campuses. This switch connects to the Cisco 6500 router with a Router Service Module installed. This allows the switch to support Gigabit speeds and VLANs while still functioning as the router for the main building.
The 13 classrooms in this building are connected in the same fashion as the classrooms in the Acadia building.
Connection to other campus buildings is done through two Gigabit VLAN trunks from the 6500 to a 3524 switch. This switch is configured to trunk the VLANs to the other buildings. The 100Base-T ports are converted to fiber using a rack mounted media converter.
In the remote buildings the switch in the MDF has one 100Base-FX fiber module which connects to the media converter in the South Building’s MDF. In the Media Center the 3548 is connected by multiple 100Base-T trunks to each of the individual classroom switches. In the remaining buildings, because of the high number of drops that need to be supported, multiple switches are connected together using a gigabit trunk and those switches distribute to the classrooms, faculty and staff in the individual buildings.
There are a total of 41 subnets in the building which are distributed as follows. 1 128-host subnet for administrative purposes, 39 64-host subnets (roughly one for every two classrooms) and one 128-host backbone network which is used for switch management.
|
Description |
Quantity |
|
Lightstream 1010 |
1 |
|
Catalyst 6500 w/RSM |
1 |
|
GBIC Modules for Catalyst |
3 |
|
100Base-T for Catalyst |
27 |
|
3524 Switches |
3 |
|
3548 Switches |
43 |
|
GBIC Modules for 3548/3524 |
25 |
|
100Base-FX Modules for 3548/3524 |
5 |
|
Rack Mount Media Converter |
1 |
The largest campus in the system, the South Building was chosen as the MDF for the campus. The building had the largest concentration of conduit connectivity and was centrally located.
The equipment room preparation and specifications are the same as in the other buildings. This distribution to the other buildings in the campus is accomplished in the same fashion as on the R.E. Miller Campus.
The main difference for this school, other than it’s size, is the presence of the internet connection for the district. The T1 line comes in through a CSU/DSU (which could be incorporated into the 6500) to provide internet connectivity.
There are a total of 58 subnets in the building which are distributed as follows. 1 128-host subnet for administrative purposes, 56 64-host subnets (roughly one for every two classrooms) and one 128-host backbone network which is used for switch management.
|
Description |
Quantity |
|
Lightstream 1010 |
1 |
|
CSU/DSU |
1 |
|
Catalyst 6500 w/RSM |
1 |
|
GBIC Modules for Catalyst |
3 |
|
100Base-T for Catalyst |
27 |
|
3524 Switches |
5 |
|
3548 Switches |
62 |
|
GBIC Modules for 3548/3524 |
17 |
|
100Base-FX Modules for 3548/3524 |
10 |
|
Rack Mount Media Converter |
1 |
There are a total of 113 subnets required to implement the network architecture as shown in this example. In order to do connect all of the current system and provide for future expansion we would need a class B network. By reserving 128 hosts per subnet, but allocating only 64 hosts where needed we can insure there is enough IP space for expansion on the existing subnets while not overloading them with too many devices. This would put the subnet mask between the school and the ISP at 255.255.0.0. We could EIGRP on the routers to allow for variable subnetting so the classrooms could be 64 host subnets and the faculty/staff and management subnets can grow to 128.
Alternatively, if the school cannot obtain an entire class B, half can suffice for now and provide for a reasonable amount of expandability. This configuration would put the subnet mask between the ISP and the school system at 255.255.192.0. This would give us a total of 64 C class full subnets. By assigning 7 bits to the network field (the remainder of the third octet and one bit from the last) using an internal subnet mask of 255.255.255.128 we can increase the number of total subnets to 128. This would satisfy the current requirement and provide for 100% expansion.
The proposal calls for DHCP and DNS services to be controlled by a master server and for application services to be more distributed but still centralized at one point. In order to accomplish this Novell Netware 5 can be used to provide all services. A central server, the NDS tree master can be located in the MDF at the Royal Palm school. This system can provide for application distribution to faculty and staff in Royal Palm, work as the DNS and DHCP master. By using the replication services in Novell NDS, the database information on the master server would automatically be replicated to the servers on each of the remote campuses. These servers would be configured with similar applications to provide local services to the individual buildings. Load balancing capabilities of the operating system would provide for fault-tolerant operation should one of the servers fail.
The high speed backbone also provides the capability for centralized backups of all servers from one main backup system which should also be housed in Royal Palm’s MDF.
Classroom application servers should be installed in each building, on each campus, with the exception of the mobile classroom buildings. These servers can be configured to provide high speed application and streaming video distribution to the classrooms at their individual locations. Due to the distributed nature of NDS, students could be provided accounts in the NDS tree and would be permitted to login to any classroom server thereby bringing with them any data that belongs to them. The servers for mobile classrooms should be installed in the MDF in the building with the closest logical network connection.
Due to the fact that all of the buildings in this example are relatively small, there is no need for IDFs. The MDF would be the termination point for all Cat5 network and would hold all equipment for the backbone network. Additional equipment is located in classroom locations to cut down on the amount of cabling needed. By installing switches in locked cabinets that are mounted on the classroom walls, the number of cables can be significantly reduced although there is a higher equipment cost. Each classroom has four Cat5 connections running from the MDF and terminating in patch panels on each end. By using patch cables three of these drops are connected into the distribution switch in the MDF and the classroom switch on the other end. These three drops are configured for 801.2Q trunking which allows for load balancing and bandwidth aggregation to provide up to 300Mb of bandwith back to the MDF. The remaining drop is designated as a teacher’s workstation drop and would be patched from the patch panel to another patch panel connection which would eventually terminate at the instructor’s desk.
The project specifications stated that two protocols, namely IP and IPX would be permitted on the backbone. Due to advances in technology at Novell, IPX is no longer the protocol of choice for Novell Netware servers. These server now run pure IP as their transport so there is no need to have IPX on the backbone. Removing IPX routing from equation we are able to increase the speed of the network by using Layer 3 switching. Additionally, less memory and processing power is required at the router since there is one less protocol to deal with and SAP tables no longer need to be maintained.
There are obviously many ways to implement a network in this situation, however, due to the limited amount of information available, I decided to have a little fun with it. If I were actually implementing this project I would probably have made some different choices. For example, I would not locate switches in classrooms, whether they were in a locked rack or not. I would also probably have more routers and less switches but I wanted to experiment with designing a network that relied more heavily on VLANs, switching and trunking with more centralized routing.
I have used all Cisco equipment in the creation of this imaginary network with only one exception. The modular, rack-mounted, media converters that are used in the R.E. Miller and Royal Palm buildings are not made by Cisco. By combining this piece of equipment with a 3524 switch, buildings can be connected directly through a switch from fiber and aggregated onto one connection into a router. Cisco would probably recommend that incoming fiber connections be connected directly to a router port or a fiber switch, but these devices are extremely expensive and I have found that using the media converter in concert with a high speed switch can provide better function for 10% of the cost.