ALEXANDER APANYIN

SNHU

IT-640-Q4622 TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORKING 23TW4

5-3 MILESTONE TWO: CURRENT NETWORK ARCHITECTURE

MAY 2023

SNHUEnery Current Network architecture

Introduction

SNHUEnery Inc. does oil-based product discovery and drilling. The company needs an advanced and complex information infrastructure as a medium-sized organization. The existing one is sufficient for its current operations. However, the company is now focused on growing and expanding its operations to include transportation and refining the oil products they discover. Therefore, the current infrastructure will not meet the emerging needs, and therefore, the company is looking forward to expanding its IT infrastructure. The company wants to have its infrastructure ready in the next 12 or 18 months. The company has about 120 employees in different parts of the current; the office headquarters is in Dallas, Texas. This report will evaluate the network's current logical and physical design to determine the network connectivity and traffic. The discoveries will be important in designing the infrastructure to meet the organization’s emerging needs.

SNHUEnergy Inc. currently has offices in Dallas and Memphis, which uses physical devices such as routers, switches, firewalls, and internet connection. Each of the offices has an installed router that manages communication among different nodes in the network infrastructure. Using the local network, the organization is in a position to share the broadcast domain. When configuring the routers, it can be set to ignore some of the network traffic on any of the IP addresses or the type of traffic in the network (Goni, 2021). The router can assess the headers of individual packets moving through the network. Also, the router directs traffic to the destination of the read packet header by reading the headers used to support the relevant software, algorithms, and protocols, such as the RIP and OSPF.

The current network infrastructure has three switches and devices that are used for directing the data packets in the network infrastructure. The switch has a 4-48 RJ45 port and A MAC address which gas a port assigned to it (“What is network architecture? ” n.d.). This information is usually stored in the working memory in a CAM-tabled data set. In the network, a firewall and other security devices asses and filter network traffic moving in and out of the network infrastructure. The firewall in the Dallas office enables the company to prevent data breaches and any other software or security endangerment that hackers could cause (Goni, 2022). A firewall regulates traffic flow between boarding schools and local area networks (Simoneau, n.d.). It serves as a control mechanism, ensuring that all incoming Internet traffic adheres to defined filters and rules set by the firewall. Likewise, it directs and filters outgoing traffic from the local network. The Internet source within the current network is exclusively connected to the firewall located in the Dallas office. It is important to note that the Internet itself is not tied to any specific device but rather encompasses a network of interconnected devices functioning as a unified system. These devices are crucial in facilitating communication between users and service providers, enabling them to access the Internet. They are found within local networks to establish connections (Drago, 2018).

Important Traffic Patterns

It is essential to set the limits of the network components and traffic. This is important for ensuring the firm operates within its needs for the infrastructure. Some of the limits in the network infrastructures include the following.

Errors – the errors occur in the network facility, and thus they should be separated and labeled accordingly. The labels include queuing, delay, and jitter. However, the data waiting in line impact the network performance.

Speed – the pipe comprises the data the network can send on a single connection. The hardware defines the maximum frequency, and the software sets apart and distributes low radio frequency for each network service.

Memory is a crucial resource in the data and control planes, providing valuable information for calculations. However, network performance suffers when control plane processes fail, mainly when routing requires additional memory.

Distance – impacts network performance, especially without program optimization. For example, the speed of light, around 186,000 miles per second, causes significant packet forwarding delays in international client/server programs.

Central Processing Unit (CPU) – The CPU of a node is commonly shared by the control and data planes in a network. Therefore, optimal performance management necessitates adequate processing capacity throughout the network and its nodes. In modern networks, if a single node lacks sufficient CPU power, it can adversely affect the entire network due to the interconnectedness of nodes. Furthermore, insufficient processing capacity can increase latency if a node's CPU struggles to handle the network traffic effectively.

Applications – impact a network's capacity and performance, including data transmission limitations and requirements. This aspect is crucial for Wide Area Networks (WANs). Additional factors that affect capacity and performance include application keep-alive and window sizes (Team, 2017).

Performance Issues

Network performance problems can stem from various factors, such as faulty hardware, exceeding allocated bandwidth, security breaches, and device configuration errors. Some common enterprise network performance issues include packet loss, wrongly configured software/hardware, high CPU utilization, network access link congestion, and link failures.

Packet loss occurs when applications respond slowly to missing packets, leading to timeouts and retransmission. Wrong configurations can overload a LAN or VLAN, affecting data transfer rates (Singh, n.d.). High CPU utilization arises from increased traffic, causing network device response delays. Network access link congestion negatively impacts VOIP call quality, resulting in jitter, packet loss, and delayed voice transmission. Link failures occur when continuous packet loss indicates reliability issues or equipment problems.

If the SNHUEnergy network does not adapt to support expansion, physical resource overload risks degrading network performance below minimum requirements. This degradation can lead to data packet loss, network congestion, and conflicts due to increased concurrent resource demands.