NETW 585 Course Project work

NETW
585 Course Project work

The
Network Design project gives you the opportunity to practice developing an
integrated business and network design strategy for a pre-selected topic listed
in the topic selection section of this document, or it allows you to select
your own topic to write about. This assignment should truly make the course
“come alive” through application of the principles about which you’ve
been reading in your book and provided by your instructor.
The
development of this project is an integral part of the course, and will require
several weeks of research, critical analysis, critical thinking, and writing.
To do well, you will need to begin early and work on it consistently throughout
the entire course. This project will have several graded milestones to assess
your progress and provide feedback, so your final plan will be comprehensive
and well developed.
In
developing your content, try to demonstrate clarity of thinking, understanding,
and application of basic network design principles. Exploration of your options
and choices are an important part of the demonstration of your mastery of
network design concepts. There is seldom only one potential course of action in
developing a network design; demonstrate that you have considered options and
alternatives at each step in your plan and have chosen the best.
As
your instructor, I will look at your Network Design Plan from the point of view
of a business proposal or Response for Proposal or Quote. Have you thought
through and considered your options? Have you provided details of your
proposal? Have you looked at the entire strategy, the “big picture”,
while still considering the more operational elements that make for a
successful implementation? How well written and persuasive is the plan?
The
final Network Design project should be a minimum of 15 pages and should not
exceed 20 pages in length. Be sure to include a cover page, along with a
“Works Cited” page – these should not be included in page count. The
paper is to be double-spaced, 12 inch font and have 1 inch margins.
Deliverables
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Dropbox

For instructions on how to use the Dropbox,
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Title

Points

Description

Topic Choice
Week 1

30

The topic selection
deliverable should be a minimum of two paragraphs. The first paragraph should
explain why you chose the topic, what your approach will be, and what you
hope to learn. The second paragraph should list some assumptions and
requirements that you will use over and above what has been provided in the
topic scenarios. If you do not select one of the three provided topics, then
please include a description of the topic you did select commensurate with
the details given in the three provided topics.
This deliverable should not become a part of the final plan.

First Draft
Week 3

60

As usual, this is the
time to ask questions. It’s difficult for me to be of much help to you in
Week 7.

Note that your FIRST draft’s evaluation is worth 60 points. The evaluation is
based on the depth and quality of your work and demonstrated progress towards
completion of each of the three requested sections –Project Scope, Project
Goal, and Design Requirements. Each section should demonstrate
“almost there” depth of content, as the completeness of these three
sections is important as you move forward with the remainder of your Network
Design plan. Good grammar and writing is expected, of course, and is part of
your FIRST draft’s evaluation.

Although your FIRST draft content is NOT the final version, it is expected
that you will have invested serious time to prepare a good FIRST draft of the
three sections. Your instructor’s comments should be helpful to you as you
later modify your FIRST draft content to create these three “final”
sections for your Network Design plan. These corrections are expected in the
final paper due in Week 7.

Second Draft
Week 5

60

Again, this is the time
to ask questions. Week 7 is too late.

At this point, I would expect to see most if not all of your research
completed, and most of your sections fully developed. You’ll use the next two
weeks to utilize my SECOND draft feedback and “fine tune” all of
your sections, as appropriate.

Note that your SECOND draft evaluation is worth 60 points. The
evaluation is based on the depth and quality of your work and demonstrated
progress towards completion of the Current State of the Networksection
of your plan. This section should demonstrate “we’re almost there and
done” depth of content, as the completeness of this section is important
as you move forward to finish the project.

Although your SECOND draft content is NOT the final version, it is expected
that you will have invested serious time to prepare a good SECOND draft of
the Current Network section. These corrections are expected in the final
paper due in Week 7.

Final Network Design
Plan
Week 7

190

Your FINAL Network Design
project will be evaluated upon its submission in Week 7. The FINAL plan will
be worth 190 points. Thus, between your Topic Submission (30 points), FIRST
draft (60 points), SECOND draft (60 points), and your FINAL Network Design
Plan (190 points), this will total 340 points or 34 percent of your overall
NETW585 course grade.

Total

340

A quality paper will meet
or exceed all of the above requirements.

Topic Selection
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Week 1 Final Paper Assignment: Topic Selection (graded
and required)
Read
the possible topic choices. Choose your term paper topic, and upload it via the
Week 1 Dropbox titled “Course Project.” Your topic choice will be
reviewed, and you will then receive feedback and/or approval of your topic
choice. You do not have to select one of the listed topics. If there is a topic
that you would like to write about that is not listed, let the instructor know.
The appropriateness of the topic will be evaluated against which TCOs your
paper is intended to address. Please note that if you do select your own topic,
additional description is required as mentioned in the deliverable section
above. The description should be at least commensurate with the descriptions
listed in the topic choices below.
The
term project allows you to apply the tools from the course to design a simple
network, optimize the network for its intended use, secure the network, and
manage it. In developing the project, assume that you are a consultant, and a
client has requested that you design and implement one of the following
networks:
Note:
There is not enough information in the below scenarios for you to complete this
project. You will have to make (and document) assumptions and come up with
additional requirements.a) A wireless LAN for a 100-employee law firm situated
in a two-story office building.

A wireless
LAN for a 100-employee law firm situated in a two-story office building.

The law office uses Windows 7 (64 bit) Operating System laptops running
standard MS Office 2010 Products. The administrative staff uses the
network to send e-mail, browse the Internet, run payroll, bookkeeping
(Quickbooks), scheduling appointments, invoicing, creating legal
documents, etc. The lawyers and legal aides mainly use the computers to
search electronic law libraries to research legal cases from around the
state and country, as well as some of the above administrative tasks (e.g.
e-mail, web search, calendaring). One of the office staff currently
maintains the computers and the 10BaseT LAN but is a novice. This limited
support is an issue with the law firm.

A WAN
linking a toy manufacturing plant (located in Dallas Texas) with two
distribution centers (Los Angeles, California and Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania)

The toy company has about a dozen old Windows 95 Operating System desktops
running standard MS Office 95 products. The administrative staff uses the
network to send e-mail, browse the Internet, run payroll, accounting,
scheduling shipments, invoicing, human resources, and inventory
management. The manufacturing facility has a rudimentary network running
robotics. The equipment and protocols are obsolete, and the vendor is no
longer in business. There is one IT person at the manufacturing facility
that is an expert on keeping this old system running, but lacks any
current technology experience.

A network
for a customer support center with 50 employees, and 20 mobile users.

The customer support center is run by a medium size locally owned and
operated cable company. The service area has a radius of 50 miles. The
support center provides a range of services from troubleshooting equipment
(Internet, TV, and phone) to answering billing questions. When solutions
cannot be provided by the Tier 1 and 2 support center staff, the field
technicians are contacted to provide Tier 3 support. The field support
team is responsible for fixing issues in the customer’s home and working
with equipment vendors for Tier 4 support. The network is antiquated and
needs to be replaced. The company has an excellent IT department with
experienced staff.
As a consultant, you bring to the table standard methods and processes for
developing the client solution. Your solution may be a general one with
special emphasis on at least two TCOs addressed in the course.
Your client is requesting a written analysis (typed, double-spaced, 15-20
page limitation; this does not include appendices or the cover page). The
format for this assignment will be further explained in the “NETW585
Network Design Project Evaluation Criteria” found in the Doc Sharing tab
for this course.