LAN Design Analysis
There are many positive features of our LAN design. The IP addressing scheme is very
well organized and arranged. If there is ever a problem or suspicious behavior with a
specific workstation, we can easily and quickly pinpoint where the workstation is by
looking at the IP address. For example, if we suspect hacking activity from a
workstation with an IP address of 172.16.49.232, we know immediately that the
workstation is an administrative workstation because all administrative workstations
have a third octet of 49. Also, since the value of the fourth octet is so high, we know
the workstation is an administrative workstation in the A building.
The installation of our LAN is also fairly inexpensive. Our low costs also take into
account our many free horizontal and vertical cross connect ports and switch ports, so
our LAN will be easily scalable.
There are also negative features to our LAN design. Because of the large geographical
area that Sunnyslope Elementary School covers, we needed to use seven IDFs. Though
such a design move was necessary, having to deal with seven IDFs makes managing
and maintaining the network much more difficult and complex. There are many more
places to have to check for loose connections and physical security breaches.
Maintenance costs will be even higher compared to the installation costs.
The way in which some of the IDFs must use another IDF as an intermediary to get to
the MDF can also have negative effects on network performance. This creates more
points of failure; if the intermediary IDF is down, the peripheral IDF will fail, too.
Again, the geography and architecture of the campus forced us to take these risks.