The Network Design project gives you the opportunity to practice developing an integrated business and network design strategy for a pre-selected topic listed in the topic selection section of this document, or it allows you to select your own topic to write about. This assignment should truly make the course “come alive” through application of the principles about which you’ve been reading in your book and provided by your instructor.
The development of this project is an integral part of the course, and will require several weeks of research, critical analysis, critical thinking, and writing. To do well, you will need to begin early and work on it consistently throughout the entire course. This project will have several graded milestones to assess your progress and provide feedback, so your final plan will be comprehensive and well developed.
In developing your content, try to demonstrate clarity of thinking, understanding, and application of basic network design principles. Exploration of your options and choices are an important part of the demonstration of your mastery of network design concepts. There is seldom only one potential course of action in developing a network design; demonstrate that you have considered options and alternatives at each step in your plan and have chosen the best.
As your instructor, I will look at your Network Design Plan from the point of view of a business proposal or Response for Proposal or Quote. Have you thought through and considered your options? Have you provided details of your proposal? Have you looked at the entire strategy, the “big picture”, while still considering the more operational elements that make for a successful implementation? How well written and persuasive is the plan?
The final Network Design project should be a minimum of 15 pages and should not exceed 20 pages in length. Be sure to include a cover page, along with a “Works Cited” page – these should not be included in page count. The paper is to be double-spaced, 12 inch font and have 1 inch margins.
Deliverables
| Dropbox | |
|
| Title | Points | Description |
| Topic Choice
Week 1 |
30 | The topic selection deliverable should be a minimum of two paragraphs. The first paragraph should explain why you chose the topic, what your approach will be, and what you hope to learn. The second paragraph should list some assumptions and requirements that you will use over and above what has been provided in the topic scenarios. If you do not select one of the three provided topics, then please include a description of the topic you did select commensurate with the details given in the three provided topics.
This deliverable should not become a part of the final plan. |
| First Draft
Week 3 |
60 | As usual, this is the time to ask questions. It’s difficult for me to be of much help to you in Week 7.
Note that your FIRST draft’s evaluation is worth 60 points. The evaluation is based on the depth and quality of your work and demonstrated progress towards completion of each of the three requested sections –Project Scope, Project Goal, and Design Requirements. Each section should demonstrate “almost there” depth of content, as the completeness of these three sections is important as you move forward with the remainder of your Network Design plan. Good grammar and writing is expected, of course, and is part of your FIRST draft’s evaluation. Although your FIRST draft content is NOT the final version, it is expected that you will have invested serious time to prepare a good FIRST draft of the three sections. Your instructor’s comments should be helpful to you as you later modify your FIRST draft content to create these three “final” sections for your Network Design plan. These corrections are expected in the final paper due in Week 7. |
| Second Draft
Week 5 |
60 | Again, this is the time to ask questions. Week 7 is too late.
At this point, I would expect to see most if not all of your research completed, and most of your sections fully developed. You’ll use the next two weeks to utilize my SECOND draft feedback and “fine tune” all of your sections, as appropriate. Note that your SECOND draft evaluation is worth 60 points. The evaluation is based on the depth and quality of your work and demonstrated progress towards completion of the Current State of the Networksection of your plan. This section should demonstrate “we’re almost there and done” depth of content, as the completeness of this section is important as you move forward to finish the project. Although your SECOND draft content is NOT the final version, it is expected that you will have invested serious time to prepare a good SECOND draft of the Current Network section. These corrections are expected in the final paper due in Week 7. |
| Final Network Design Plan
Week 7 |
190 | Your FINAL Network Design project will be evaluated upon its submission in Week 7. The FINAL plan will be worth 190 points. Thus, between your Topic Submission (30 points), FIRST draft (60 points), SECOND draft (60 points), and your FINAL Network Design Plan (190 points), this will total 340 points or 34 percent of your overall NETW585 course grade. |
| Total | 340 | A quality paper will meet or exceed all of the above requirements. |
Topic Selection
Week 1 Final Paper Assignment: Topic Selection (graded and required)
Read the possible topic choices. Choose your term paper topic, and upload it via the Week 1 Dropbox titled “Course Project.” Your topic choice will be reviewed, and you will then receive feedback and/or approval of your topic choice. You do not have to select one of the listed topics. If there is a topic that you would like to write about that is not listed, let the instructor know. The appropriateness of the topic will be evaluated against which TCOs your paper is intended to address. Please note that if you do select your own topic, additional description is required as mentioned in the deliverable section above. The description should be at least commensurate with the descriptions listed in the topic choices below.
The term project allows you to apply the tools from the course to design a simple network, optimize the network for its intended use, secure the network, and manage it. In developing the project, assume that you are a consultant, and a client has requested that you design and implement one of the following networks:
Note: There is not enough information in the below scenarios for you to complete this project. You will have to make (and document) assumptions and come up with additional requirements.a) A wireless LAN for a 100-employee law firm situated in a two-story office building.
- A wireless LAN for a 100-employee law firm situated in a two-story office building.
The law office uses Windows 7 (64 bit) Operating System laptops running standard MS Office 2010 Products. The administrative staff uses the network to send e-mail, browse the Internet, run payroll, bookkeeping (Quickbooks), scheduling appointments, invoicing, creating legal documents, etc. The lawyers and legal aides mainly use the computers to search electronic law libraries to research legal cases from around the state and country, as well as some of the above administrative tasks (e.g. e-mail, web search, calendaring). One of the office staff currently maintains the computers and the 10BaseT LAN but is a novice. This limited support is an issue with the law firm.
- A WAN linking a toy manufacturing plant (located in Dallas Texas) with two distribution centers (Los Angeles, California and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
The toy company has about a dozen old Windows 95 Operating System desktops running standard MS Office 95 products. The administrative staff uses the network to send e-mail, browse the Internet, run payroll, accounting, scheduling shipments, invoicing, human resources, and inventory management. The manufacturing facility has a rudimentary network running robotics. The equipment and protocols are obsolete, and the vendor is no longer in business. There is one IT person at the manufacturing facility that is an expert on keeping this old system running, but lacks any current technology experience.
- A network for a customer support center with 50 employees, and 20 mobile users.
The customer support center is run by a medium size locally owned and operated cable company. The service area has a radius of 50 miles. The support center provides a range of services from troubleshooting equipment (Internet, TV, and phone) to answering billing questions. When solutions cannot be provided by the Tier 1 and 2 support center staff, the field technicians are contacted to provide Tier 3 support. The field support team is responsible for fixing issues in the customer’s home and working with equipment vendors for Tier 4 support. The network is antiquated and needs to be replaced. The company has an excellent IT department with experienced staff.
As a consultant, you bring to the table standard methods and processes for developing the client solution. Your solution may be a general one with special emphasis on at least two TCOs addressed in the course.
Your client is requesting a written analysis (typed, double-spaced, 15-20 page limitation; this does not include appendices or the cover page). The format for this assignment will be further explained in the “NETW585 Network Design Project Evaluation Criteria” found in the Doc Sharing tab for this course.
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