ITC542 Internetworking With TCP- Wireless Network

office, research office, sales office, information technology school, head office and sales group users’ sites. These sites are connected with each other. Each group contains number of work stations such as English school contains 480 work stations, accounting School contains 250 work stations, sales group users contains 600 work stations, research office contains 67 work stations, head office contains 90 work stations, sales office contains 40 work stations, transport office contains 130 work stations and information technology school contains 550 work stations. Each site is connected, by using the routers. The overall network design uses Cisco network products to provide effective network for an organization. The Cisco network devices are used to provide a flexible and scalable network. It also reduces the maintenance costs. The proposed network design uses the following network devices,

• Cisco routers
• Cisco Switches
• Cisco core switches
• Cisco Firewall
• Cisco Access Point
• Cisco Server
• Dell computers

The Proposed network design provides effective wireless network connection by using the Cisco wireless access point. The Study group’s overall network organization provides a secure wireless network, with the help of Cisco firewall. It does not allow any unauthorised users to access the organization’s sensitive information. This organization currently does not allow network analysers to monitor the network. But, in general, the network analysers and network analysers tool is useful for the organization. Because, network analysers tool aims to provide a secure network and also monitors the overall network. The network analyser tools are also used to resolve the network trouble shooting problems. It provides effective network for an organization.

 Network Design Specifications

Cisco Routers

• The modules used on the Cisco 3900 can be supported on the other routers in Cisco, to invest maximum protection investment.  
• The complexity of managing the inventory requirements is reduced by common interface cards across the networks.

Cisco Switches

• LAN segments are connected by switches and the main benefit of the switches is to reduce traffic.
• The work group switch provides LAN access.

Cisco core Switches

• The core switches has 60W power, per port in a single rack.
• It provides easy upgrade path for the software features.

Cisco Server

• The server such as 2509 and 2511 router series terminates remote access.
• Analog modem network modules such as the NM-8AM and NM-16M can be used in 2600 series.

Cisco Firewall

• The primary function of the firewall is based on layer 4 connection filters’ traffic on the network.
• The primary function of a firewall is to filter traffic based on Layer 4 connections.

Cisco wireless Access point

• Cisco access point performs and troubleshoots the problems, which it detects.
• It is used to deliver data across the entire network.

Network Hosts

In the current network design, the /22 subnet mask is used which provides hosts up to 1024. When the number of hosts per network exceeds 1500 in English, Accounting and Information technology schools, then it is required to use /21 subnet mask which can provide hosts up 2048 per network. Hence, this network design will be expanded based on the subnet mask.

The current policies of the organization don’t allow using network analyser, in the organizations network. In the last team meeting, the uses of network analyser and its troubleshooting efficiencies are viewed by the staff. The following report shows different types of network analysers, which are currently used in many organizations. It also recommends best network analyser tool for this organization’s network. It also specifies advantages of network analysers, in the network (Robertazzi, 2017).

 Protocols used in Communication Network

Communication protocols are mainly used in communication networks. It is a formal description of the digital message. It requires exchanging the message between computer system and telecommunications. These communication protocols are also used for authentication, signalling, for error detection and correction. It can be implemented in the hardware and software. Most of the communication protocols are used in digital and analog communication. It also defines rules, for sending the data from one node to another. Protocols are mostly defined in a layered manner and it provides service for all the OSI layers. The specification of the protocols also defines the protocol’s operations and it also suggests implementation procedure for the protocol (Chappell, 2014).

Network Analysers Role

Network analyser is a tool to analyse the activities of a particular network. It is a combination of hardware and programming. It is also used as a stand-alone hardware device. It can be installed in the computer, to improve the protection of the network. The main roles of the network analyser are listed below ("IP subnetting: How to calculate subnet masks", 2017).

1. It tests the anti-malware programs to detect the vulnerabilities.
2. It detects the unusual characteristics of packets.
3. It also identifies packet’s source and destination.
4. It configures alarms for the threats, which are already defined.
5. It can also be used to search some particular data in the string packet.
6. It is also used to monitor bandwidth of a particular function. It creates application for the specific plug-ins.  
7. It displays all the statistics in a control panel.

Wire Shark

Wire shark is one of the most popular network analyser tool which supports most common and uncommon protocols. One of the most powerful tool in the network analysers is Wire shark, it is available either free or has a paid option, in the market. Among the industry, it is considered as a genuine standard network analyser. It is also used for troubleshooting in the network. The features of network analyser are - It supports many platforms such as Windows, Linux, etc. both online and offline traffic are analysed by Wire shark. It consists of powerful display filters. In most of the versions, the open source software the code of the software is required in the library, to download from the same website. It supports read, write and many other capture file formats. The captured data includes, FDDI, USB, Token ring, Bluetooth, ATM, IEEE, etc. (Ipcalc.nmonitoring.com, 2017)

Purpose of Wire shark

1. Wire shark filter and search packets on many conditions sort out the required Packets.
2. It opens and saves packed data capture.
3. Detailed protocol information, occurring time source and destination are displayed.
4. Form the network interface it captures live packed data.
5. The packed data forms are imported and exported.
6. It also typically stores the content of various protocol fields (Intense School, 2015).
7. The transfer of message sent and received by the protocols, are monitored.
8. It is an ideal packed analyser i.e., stable and well documented.
9. It has the capability of analysing hundreds of protocols.
10. It runs in the network platform, without modifying the Ethernet protocol.

 NAST (Network Analyser Sniffer Tool)

   NAST is a wire-tap device, which plugs into a network of computer and snoops on the network traffic. This tool is developed for analysing the network traffic. It can follow TCP-DATA stream and builds LAN host list. As the DATA stream travels back and forth over the network, the packets are captured and carries out decodes by sniffer without any conditions. Depending on the network structure on wired broadcast LANs, the traffic can be captured on all parts, from a single machine. To monitor all the packed data, network monitoring is required. Using the network switch for all packed data is also called as monitor port, which is used to mirror all the packets passing through all the switch port. Capture drive is the important part. The network traffic from the wires are captured and filtered. Then, sorts it for the required traffic and stores the data in buffer. Once they are captured, they are stored in buffer (Chickowski, 2013). These are the two main components of sniffer tool.

 Zen map

Zen map is an official tool which is a graphical front end for the Nmap command line tool. It is pen source tool for auditing and network security. When working with the large networks, it is a powerful tool for most administration and it doesn’t work with command line tools (Alpcan & Bas?ar, 2011). The interactive graphical maps of the network are given by Zen map. It has the ability to create IP packets from scratch and eliminates them, with unique methodologies. It comes with the command line or by GUI functionality and it quite easy to install. The installation requirements depend on the Nmap version, which are installed and contains main network library. The features of Nmap has the capacity to perform basic scans such as ICMP to determine that, the host are up or down. It require means, to command advanced scans that contain multiple options (Doug Vitale Tech Blog, 2017).

 Recommendation

The current network of the organization has many troubleshooting problems. To resolve this issue, network analyser must be implemented in the network. When comparing with the other network analyser, the Wire shark network tool has more advantages and it is the best trouble shooting tool. Moreover, it is more effective than the other tools. Hence, it is recommended for this network design to build an effective network for this organization (Chappell, 2012).

 Conclusions 

A detailed network is designed for the Study Group organization. The eight sights are connected by router. Each network is connected with a single subnet. Approximately 1600 work stations are connected across the eight sites. IP address is given for each work station. Solution is provided for the question- “When the number of hosts per network are more than 1500 in a particular network?” The uses of network analyser in the network are given and best network analyser tool is recommended for this network. A brief explanation is given for the protocols used in the communication network. The role of network analysers are addressed.

 References 

Alpcan, T., & Bas?ar, T. (2011). Network security. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chappell, L. (2012). Wireshark network analysis. San Jose, Calif.: Chappell University.

Chappell, L. (2014). Troubleshooting with wireshark. San Jose, CA.: Protocol Analysis Institute, Chappell University.

Chickowski, E. (2013). 10 Free Network Analysis Tools. [online] Network Computing. Available at: https://www.networkcomputing.com/unified-communications/10-free-network-analysis-tools/2020208395 [Accessed 20 Dec. 2017].

Doug Vitale Tech Blog. (2017). Understanding and performing IPv4 subnetting. [online] Available at: https://dougvitale.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/understanding-and-performing-ipv4-subnetting/ [Accessed 20 Dec. 2017].

Ipcalc.nmonitoring.com. (2017). IP calculator online | Online network tools. [online] Available at: https://ipcalc.nmonitoring.com/ [Accessed 20 Dec. 2017].

Intense School. (2015). Top 10 Network Analysis Tools - Intense School. [online] Available at: https://resources.intenseschool.com/top-10-network-analysis-tools/ [Accessed 20 Dec. 2017].

Kurose, J. and Ross, K. (2010). Computer networking. Boston: Pearson.

Robertazzi, T. (2017). Introduction to computer networking. New York, USA.

Shaw, M. (2017). IP subnetting: How to calculate subnet masks. [online] SearchNetworking. Available at: https://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-subnet-Subnetting-calculations-and-shortcuts [Accessed 20 Dec. 2017].