Question

You are an eager new networking consultant, and a school district has hired you for your first consulting job.

Currently, the district has no links between its buildings. School personnel share files by transferring CDs and diskettes between the buildings. The district is putting in new school management software for student and financial records. The software requires that the buildings be networked together.

That district has a grade school, junior high, and high school. The grade school and the junior high are smaller buildings on the same plot of land, but they are in separate buildings about 50 yards apart. The high school is newer and larger; it is several miles away on the other side of town.

The school district has thirty teachers, three principals, three administrative assistants, fifteen staff members, and 500 students.

Security is always an issue. The school offers courses in computer science at the high school. The principal is concerned that the students will be tempted to hack into the school management software. The superintendent requests a security plan to help prevent student hackers from accessing the school management software. Also, the superintendent has a vague worry about students accessing pornography on the Internet. The district would like to know if you can configure routers and/or switches to prevent this. Or, is extra equipment or software needed to prevent students from accessing pornography from school computers?

The school superintendent bought some equipment and then realized that no one knew how to make it work. The equipment includes one 2600 series router, two 2500 series routers, and six 1900 series switches.

Your mission: Design a network to connect the three buildings and recommend security features for this network. You will plan your solution step by step, and then present your overall design to your client.

Be sure to include all of the information about IP addresses, subnets, and subnet masks.

A well-detailed design adds to the general design diagram. Be sure to add the following:

1. The overall network address and subnet mask.
2. The addresses of the subnets.
3. IP addresses for hosts and router interfaces.

Answer 1