Work's Network

Going from the Physical Layer both fiber and copper connections are used. The next portion would be several thousand switches, routers. The company that is selected to provide this type of connectivity is Cisco.

The main purpose of this network is to provide connectivity for associates domestically and internationally for the purpose of processing and communicating financial information. Due to the complexity of the multiple LANS established an outside vendor is used to provide support for this topology. Another aspect of this topology is the fact that there are thousands of sub-nets on this network in order to provide for a stable structure on the network. V-LANS are also used to help segregate the network to provide both security and separation. Most of this is done using the IP4 protocol. This is soon to change within the next five to ten years since all the IP addresses that could possibly be used have been exceeded. IP6 protocol will be the replacement however it implementation will require new hardware and additional training for support staff.

Most of the WAN connectivity is not discussed or available due to security reason. A possible protocol that is used would be the Cisco EIGRP since it is proprietary and offers enhanced security. Several different types of back bones are used varying from OC192 lines to OC3 lines. Many of these back bone lines carry both voice and data over them since the institution uses the VOIP technology. This offers a great advantage over standard phone systems since the VOIP phones can make a call to any other phone with in the enterprise network for no charge. This is advantageous since international calls cost on average about 25 cents a min.

Network have changed greatly over the years. The first time I ever saw a network setup it was where my father worked and it was done using COAX cabling. I do not know if it was IBM Token Ring networking at the time or if it was simply just one big Ring network. In...