Washington Elementary School District Data Network Project: Sunnyslope School
Pros and Cons of Design

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Client Requirements | Floor Plans Main | Detailed Floor Plans 1 | Detailed Floor Plans 2 | Detailed Floor Plans 3 | Sunnyslope LAN Wiring Description | Physical Topology | District IP Addressing Scheme Overview | District Subnet, IP & IPX Addressing Scheme Details | Sunnyslope LAN Addressing Scheme | District WAN Description | Interface IP addressing | Router Configs | Network Security Description | Networking Equipment Details | Desktop Equipment Details | Sunnyslope School Server Details | Equipment Requirements and Costs | Pros and Cons of Design | Miscellaneous Design Details | Learning Objectives

Design Pros and Cons

 

Pro

 

·         LAN upgrade can be easily enabled by replacing hubs in the classrooms with switches and upgrading horizontal cabling to 100 mbit/s. Vertical cabling can be upgraded to Gigabit Ethernet using the existing fibres.

·         Resilience on the WAN links provided by the dual fibre feeds to each District Office.

·         WAN link upgrades can be easily enabled with minimal additional equipment installation (little more required than additional cards in the SDH equipment)

·         Partial Routing resilience at the District Office provided by deploying 4 core routers per site.

 

Con

 

·         No resilience for the Internet connection.

·         No WAN resilience at any school.

·         Installing cabinets with hubs and patch panels in each classroom, whilst reducing cabling costs, requires accommodation in each classroom and reduces security of the network.

·         Inefficient use of IP addressing and only one spare subnet from a class B address.

·         Two routed protocols implemented on the C Network. IPX implemented only for teaching purposes, and requires bandwidth for SAP broadcasts and routing updates. Router configurations are also more complex.