Designing a Small Business Intranet
From Computing and Software Wiki
Based on a set of network requirements for a small business I have created an intranet to satisfy the businesses specifications. The network design utilizes a private address space, layer 2 switches, layer 3 routing switches and firewalls. I will describe several design aspects of the network including the wiring design, IP addressing design, redundancy design and the Internet network design.
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Business Specifications and Requirements
- Company X is moving into a new three floor building.
- Four hundred users will work in this new location.
- A computer room will be built on the 1st floor to house servers.
- There is currently no data communication cabling in the site.
The business requires a private Intranet design to support the following requirements:
- Twenty servers in the computer room (all applications are TCP)
- Redundant network within the building (redundant NIC’s in the servers)
- Very high speed access to all users PC’s to support data transfers of terabits of information between users.
- Very scalable network.
- Printers on each floor.
- Outbound Internet access for users.
- Inbound Internet access to a couple Web servers.
Wiring Design
While creating a wiring design to meet businesses specific network requirements both cost and performance were the main concerns. It was important to ensure the most cost effective wiring design which would support the very high speed network access required for data transfers of terabits of information across the network.
Gigabit Ethernet wiring (cat 6) will be run to each user on the network (PC’s, printers). Category 6 is a high quality cable with low attenuation (loss of signal strength as it travels the length of the cable) with a maximum length of 100m. On each floor all end device Ethernet wiring will be run to a single concentration point (a closet). This Category 6 Ethernet cable minimizes the wiring and cost of the network.
Between the closets and computer room 10gig Ethernet (Fiber) will be run. Ethernet fiber is required the traverse the potentially larger distance between each floors’ closet and the computer room. This provides a high performance 10 gig network backbone.
To connect the servers and layer 3 core switches Gig Ethernet wiring (cat 6) will be run. This Gig Ethernet wiring will again minimize the cost of cable in the network.
The Internet connection will utilize a 10mpbs Ethernet wiring. This wiring is very cost effective and is more then enough for this connection.
