E-commerce Business Expansion: Floor Plan And Network Design

Project Scope

An e-commerce business want to expand their business, the company’s infrastructure was very small and does not have sufficient space and network devices to establish a proper plan. The expansion of the organization was due to the merge of two small company. They proposed to move on a new building along with their 100 employees. The consumed three floors on that building where several departments will be situated at different floors. According to the organization requirement, the ground floor of the buildings will be divided into three area as reception, warehouse and foyer.

They also want five data points in the reception, four in the warehouse and two in the foyer. The first floor consists of five offices and forty open plan office cubicles.  The second floor consists of three room and each room has four office. The second floor also consist of thirty open office cubicles along with a meeting room. Each and every person needs two data points at their desk whether it is an office, room cubicle or open plan cubicle. Each floor also needs wireless connectivity.

1.2 Project scope: The scope of this project is to propose a floor plan for the e-commerce organization. The project scope must be defined and agreed with the stakeholders in order to avoid any complexity in near future. The proper plan for the floors are essential to establish a proper network connection within the building.

1.3 Proposed Network Design:  After analyzing the requirements for the floor plan, the following network diagrams are proposed.

1.3.1 Ground Floor: The ground floor consisted three areas as reception, warehouse and foyer. Every area has different requirement of data points.one switch for every area has been allocated along with connections. Moderate switch are capable of providing more than twenty connection at a time. For three areas individual switches are allocated to avoid any complexity of data migration. These three switches are then connected with a switch and then router along with a wireless router. The router provides the internet connection between end devices. The wireless router is connected directly with the main router as wireless connection is required in each floor.

1.3.2 First Floor: The first floor is consists of two sections. The first section is consist of five offices and other section is consists of forty office cubicles. For every office one switch has been allocated with required number of connections. For the office cubicles, two similar switch has been allocated which are connected with a switch as well through copper ware. Two switches are connected with Ethernet as they proposed a LAN where 40 connection were established by those two switches. Then the two main switches are connected with the parent switch. These two switches are then connected with a switch and then router along with a wireless router. The router provides the internet connection between end devices. The wireless router is connected directly with the main router as wireless connection is required in each floor.

Proposed Network Design

1.3.3 Third Floor: The third floor contains three rooms and each room has four offices. For every room, one switch has been assigned which are connected to four individual switches associated with the offices. This floor also consist of thirty open office cubicles along with a meeting room. For cubicles, two switch are assigned which are also connected with third floor switch. Finally three switches from meeting room, office rooms and open cubicles are connected with the parent switch. This switch is directly connected with the main router along with a wireless router. The router provides the internet connection between end devices. The wireless router is connected directly with the main router as wireless connection is required in each floor.

2. Network devices.

In the proposed floor plan, several network tools are used as router, switch, copper wire and servers. For a successful floor plan it is essential to choose the correct devices and configure them properly.  The proposed plan is consist of one cisco router which enables the internet connection to switches and computers connected with the switches.

2.1 Cisco 3260 Router:

In the floor plan, one cisco router of 3600 series is used. Cisco 3260 Router can be considered as a multiservice platform. Generally, it comes with a 32 MB of RAM and extendable up to 64 MB. The flash memory of this router is 16 MB and extendable up to 32 MB. It has mainly three port indicators which are port transmission speed, port duplex mode, and link/activity. It is a wired router comes with Ethernet and fast Ethernet data link protocol. The router is a standard product manufactured by CISCO with compliant IEEE 802.3 and IEEE 802.3u. The maximum data transfer rate is around 100 Mbps [1].

2.2 Switches of layer 2 and 3:

Traditionally, switching operates at layer 2 of the OSI model. In level 2, the packets are sent to a specific switch port based on destination MAC address. At layer 3 routing operates differently as packets are sent to a specific next hop address, based on a specific IP address.

Cisco SGE2000 24-port gigabit switch:

This switch is considered as one of the best switch for small business. It provides 24 port gigabyte connection with fully redundant stacking and dual image for resilient availability. he switch helps secure the network through IEEE 802.1Q VLANs, IEEE 802.1X port authentication, access control lists (ACLs), denial-of-service (DoS) prevention, and MAC-based filtering. The enhanced quality of service (QoS) and traffic-management features help ensure clear and reliable voice and video communications [3].

• User/network port-level security via 802.1X authentication and MAC-based filtering
• Can be configured and monitored from a standard web browser
• Twenty-four 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports

Ground Floor

2.3 Connections:

For constructing connection between network devices cisco SFP gigabyte interface converter can be used to link switches with routers. Mainly these type of cable will be used which are 1000BASE-T, 1000BASE-SX, 1000BASE-LX/LH, 1000BASE-EX, 1000BASE-ZX, or 1000BASE-BX10-D/U on a port-by-port basis. Hot swappable to maximize uptime and simplify serviceability[2].

• Flexibility of media and interface choice on a port-by-port basis, so you can “pay as you populate”
• Robust design for enhanced reliability
• Supports digital optical monitoring (DOM) capability

2.4 Cisco IOS DHCP server:

DHCP server is used in the plan to automatically provide and assign IP address, default gateways and other network parameter to client devices. It is also respond to broadcast quarries by clients. 

2.5 DNS Server

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a distributed database in which you can map hostnames to IP addresses through the DNS protocol from a DNS server [4]. Each unique IP address can have an associated hostname.

2.6 HTTP 1.1 Web server:

HTTP 1.1 Web server provides a consistent interface for user and applications by implementing support for HTTP.

Specification:

3.1 DHCP Configuration: 

Steps	Commend	Purpose
Step 1	Enable	Enables EXEC mode. Had to put password if prompted.
Step 2	Configure terminal	Enable configuration mode
Step 3	ip dhcp pool [name]	Enters DHCP pool configuration mode.
Step 4	utilization mark high [percentage-number] log	Configures current address pool.
Step 5	utilization mark low [percentage-number] log	Configures current address pool.
Step 6	network network-number [mask | /prefix-length] [secondary]	Set mask of the DHCP address pool
Step 7	domain-name [domain]	Define domain Name
Step 8	dns-server address [address2 … address8]	Specify IP address
Step 9	bootfile [filename]	Define the name of default boot image
Step 10	next-server address [address2 … address8]	Configure next boot process.
Step 11	netbios-name-server address [address2 … address8]	Specify the NetBIOS
Step 12	netbios-node-type type	Specifies the NetBIOS node type
Step 13	default-router address [address2 … address8]	Specify ip address
Step 14	option code [instance number] {ascii string | hex string | ip-address}	Configures DHCP server options
Step 15	lease {days [hours [minutes]] | infinite}	Specifies the duration of the lease
Step 16	end	Exit from configure

3.2 Configure DNS:

Mapping hostnames to ip address

1. 1.enable
2. configureterminal 
3. iphost name [tcp-port-number] address1 [address2 … address8]

4     ip domain name name ip 

1. ipname-server server-address1 [server-address2 … server-address6]
2. ipdomain lookup [source-interface interface-type interface-number]

3.3 Customize DNS

1. 1.enable
2. configureterminal 
3. ipdomain timeout seconds 
4. ipdomain retry number 
5. ipdomain round-robin 

3.4 Configuring DNS Spoofing

1. enable
2. configureterminal 
3. ipdns server 
4. ipdns spoofing

3.5 DNS Server

1. enable
2. configureterminal 
3. ipdns server 
4. ipname-server server-address1 [server-address2… server-address6] 
5. ipdns server queue limit {forwarder queue-size-limit | director queue-size-limit}
6. iphost [vrf vrf-name] [view view-name] hostname {address1 [address2 … address8] | additional address9 [address10 … addressn]} 
7. ipdns primary domain-name soa primary-server-name mailbox-name [refresh-interval [retry-interval [expire-ttl [minimum-ttl]]]]
8. ip host domain-name ns server-name

3.6Router: 

Router Configuration:

Router(config)#enable

Router(config)#

Router(config)# ip http server

Router(config)# ip http secure-server

Router(config)# ip http authentication local

Router(config)# line vty 0 4

Router(config-line)# privilege level 15

Router(config-line)# login local

Router(config-line)# transport input telnet

Router(config-line)# transport input telnet ssh

Router(config-line)# exit

4. Network Device Configurations Commands:

This section will demontrste the configuration of the following networkn design. This simplenetwork diagram is consist of one router and 3 layer 2 and 3 layer 3 switches along with 6 pcs. Layer 2 switches are followed by the layer 3 as showing in the diagram. Every network device on the design is connected through staraight copper wire. Even though, the initial design is established the packet cannot be transferred from one device to another [5]. Router, switches and pcs need to be configure inorder enable data flow among them. Every individual device onthe network diagram needs to be linked with each other through ip address and default gateways.

First, the router config tab must be open and type following codes in order to configure it by provididng unique IP address and default gateways.

Enable: For enabling the configuration mode.

()Config terminal: this command is used for configure different terminal in a same device

(Config)Inrerface fastethernet 1/0  

(Config-if)ip address 190.172.2.2 255.255.255.0

(Config-if) no shut

(Config)

(Config) Inrerface fastethernet 2/0 

(Config-if)ip address 190.172.3.3 255.255.255.0

(Config-if) no shut

Switch> enable

Switch> configure terminal

First Floor

Switch (config)>#hostname L3switch1.2

L3switch1.2(config)> default gateway 190.172.2.2

L3switch1.2(config)>exit

In the layer 3 switch 1.1 the default gateway needs to be configured like previous one. This switch will be connected with the IP address of 190.172.2.2 and the switch 3 will be connected with port number 190.172.3.3. The same commends will be used to acknowledge switch about the router IP address after setting the hostname. The router 1 have the host name of L3switch1.2 and the router 1 have the host name of L3switch1.1.  

Layer 2 switches also needs to be configure in order to start communicate with the layer 3 switches along with the router1. The layer 2 switches are configured while using the previous commends. The second switch is connected with the router port which consist the IP address of 190.172.2.2 and then exit.

The first switch of the second layer is connected with the port number 190.172.1.1 and the third switch connected with the port   number 190.172.3.3. The hostname of the first, second and third switches are followed as L2switch1.1, L2switch1.2 and L2switch1.3.

The computers are also configured with IP address and subnet masks to provide unique identification number.  To configure IP address on the pcs, ipcofig /ip is used to provide a unique address along with the subnet mask. The IP address 190.172.1.4 is assigned to the PC2 along with the subnet mask 255.255.255.0.Then the ipconfig /dg 190.172.1.2 is executed. Similarly, the other pcs are configured .The ip address 190.172.1.3 is assigned to the PC1 and 190.172.2.3 is assigned to the PC3 along with ipconfig/dg 190.172.2.2. The PC4 is been assigned the ip address190.172.2.4 along with ipconfig/dg 190.172.2.2. The ipaddress 190.172.3.3 is assigned to the PC5 along with the subnet mask 255.255.255.0. On next step, ipconfig /dg 192.172.3.2 is executed. The ipaddress 190.172.3.4 is assigned to the PC6 along with the subnet mask 255.255.255.0. On next step, ipconfig /dg 192.172.3.2 is executed.

After configuring all network devices, the connections are verified though sending ip packets to a destination ip address. The following screenshot shows that five packets are sent from the ip address 192.172.1.3 to 192.172.2.3 and 190.172.3.3 which has the subnet mask of 255.255.255.0.

One other verification has been conducting by transferring ip packets from the ip address 190.172.1.4 to 190.172.3.4 and 190.172.2.4. Both time every packets were successfully transferred to the destination as shown in the diagram.

Conclusion

The network design of the floor plans are constructed with proper network devices and connection. The description of every devices are also described along with the specifications. The project scope was to implement the required floor plan by the given e-commerce organization. The network design is also constructed along with the servers, router and switches configuration process. In the second part of the report, the connection of a small network diagram has been described along with screenshots.

References

[1]”Ahuja, Magnanti & Orlin, Network Flows: Theory, Algorithms, and Applications | Pearson”, Pearson.com, 2018. [Online].

[2]N. Alon, E. Demaine, M. Hajiaghayi, P. Kanellopoulos and T. Leighton, “Correction: Basic Network Creation Games”, SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 1638-1640, 2014.

[3]J. SIMMONS, OPTICAL NETWORK DESIGN AND PLANNING. [Place of publication not identified]: SPRINGER, 2016.

[4]R. Farahani, S. Rezapour, T. Drezner and S. Fallah, “Competitive supply chain network design: An overview of classifications, models, solution techniques and applications”, Omega, vol. 45, pp. 92-118, 2014.

[5]S. Popov, “CISCO connect – 2018: from complex to simple”, LastMile, no. 3, pp. 58-61, 2018.