It 242 Final (Wan Design)

WAN Design

Acme Manufacturing is a rapidly expanding company with the headquarters located in Atlanta, Georgia. The headquarters building is located in Atlanta, Georgia and houses corporate operations, marketing, administrative staff, and accounting with the engineering and sales offices located across the street. In addition to the Georgia locations, Acme Manufacturing also has distribution offices in Chicago, Phoenix, and New York. With the acquisition of a plant in China as well as several other offices throughout the United States, the company is in need of a WAN that will allow each office to communicate with one another securely. Implementing the proper WAN for Acme Manufacturing will require a combination of services and products.

Network Design

The most suitable design for Acme Manufacturing’s WAN is a star topology using CAT-5 UTP; this will allow each U.S. location to have direct connectivity to headquarters. A VPN will be used to connect sales and engineering to the main office while maintaining proper security and a leased satellite connection is used to establish communications with the manufacturing plant located in China (Figure 1.1). Fractional T3 lines can then be used to establish a direct connection to offices in New York, Chicago, and Phoenix from the Atlanta headquarters. Leasing T3 will also leave room for company growth.

Figure 1.1

VoIP

Although PBX and VoIP are both considerable options for the advancement of Acme Manufacturing’s telecommunication source, they must both be evaluated to determine which best suits the needs of the company as a whole. Traditional PBX systems offer many of the same advantages as VoIP systems, but they are much more expensive. Although it is suggested that PBX is a more stable connection, the improvement in Internet quality over time has made VoIP almost equally stable. In addition, with a PBX system the customer must purchase costly equipment which includes switching equipment and...