Acme's Wan Design

WAN Design

Jason Johnson

University of Phoenix: IT/242

October 1, 2014

Acme’s WAN Design

With Acme’s headquarter located in Atlanta, Georgia and quickly expanding to China and then across the United States, Acme Manufacturing is a top tier company that in turn needs a top tier WAN network to help tie together it’s various locations. Along with Acme’s many other needs they also want to install a telecommunications technology like PBX or VoIP to facilitate interoffice communication. Acme Manufacturing wants to build its network on the principles of security and usability. The following is an outline of the recommendations for their WAN implementation for this company.

Network Design

1. Topology

The first consideration for Acme’s new network is the topology to be used. The Atlanta office serves as Acme’s headquarters and because the company is quickly expanding across the globe I believe that the star topology is the most suited for their needs. Star networks are easily expanded upon and doing so does not interrupt the other locations. Centralized administration is a strong selling point for this topology as well. A powerful mainframe computer and an array of Cisco Catalyst switches will serve as the network’s hub. Figure 1 below represents the proposed WAN topology:

Figure 1- Proposed Acme WAN topology

Figure 1- Proposed Acme WAN topology

ATL (HQ)

T1

T1

T1

PHX

CHI

CHINA

NY

ATL (HQ)

T1

T1

T1

PHX

CHI

CHINA

NY

2. Connection Types

Acme should strongly consider leasing fractional T1 lines to connect its hub location to each of the offices in Phoenix, Chicago, and New York. These connections can be upgraded to full T1, fractional T3, or even full T3 connections should the need arise. Acme has an engineering office across the street from its headquarters; this building will be connected to the Acme WAN over the PSTN using the VPN protocols IPSec and L2TP. Acme should network to the China office via a leased satellite...