Business Data Comunications and Networking : Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith

Chapter 4: Mini Case 1 – Smith, Smith, Smith, and Smith

As Smith, Smith, Smith, and Smith’s (SSSS) decide on the design of the new building a cabling plan, they need to understand that the company’s productivity is only as good as its network stability. The company needs to maximize the least amount of down time due to errors and system wide crashes.

I would recommend Controlled Access it would work better with high volume traffic. This would reduce the amount of collisions. SSSS’s network should keep the cabling away from electron emitting sources to prevent errors on the network such as white noise or line noise. A backbone network should use 2 star topologies per floor (one topology per LAN per floor) starting on the ground floor and connecting to the next floors.

Using routers and switches would improve the performance of the network by minimizing the amount of collisions that occur on the network. Installing a switch for each floor and pre-running CAT5 cable would help with the continuity of information from point to point minimizing the collision of data. Also this would allow the company to have further growth with their network allowing more end users to be added to the network easily with minimal cost.

Incorporating different error detection methods such as Cyclical Redundancy Check will help check all the devices attached to the network and be able to find minor errors and correct them. These are my recommendations to SSSS to help reduce network errors in their new headquarters building