Design and Implementation of a Secure LAN for an Engineering Building COMP2250A2 Assesment

Marks: 60, Value: 20%

This assignment is designed to help you develop skills and strengthen your understanding of data communications reflected in one or more aspects of the COMP2250 unit learning outcomes below:

1. Ensure that you read and adhere to the following instructions:

The format for this assignment is a technical report with separate sections for each task below. This means that you must have appropriate structure that might include one or more of the following: title page, executive summary, TOC, table of figures, headings and sub-headings, proper in-text citations, reference list and appendices.

Also:

• You will need to do some research as part of this assignment and as such you will need to make references and citations within your report. As this is a networking unit you should use theIEEE referencing style.
• Note that failure to include citations is a form of plagiarism. Significant sanctions may apply to cases of plagiarism up to and including exclusion from further study towards your degree.
• Generative AI tools such as CharGPT utilise existing resources such as websites, publication databases, as well as other resources. This means that the text generated by these tools is ultimately sourced from the work of real people. Therefore, any text written with such a tool must be cited.

Your assignment will be submitted electronically via TurnItIn on the unit's iLearn page. Ensure that you adhere to the following requirements:

• The filename should be in the following format: (assuming your student ID is 44332211)
• 44332211_cp2250a2.pdf
• All submissions must be in PDF format -- do not submit a MS-Word file (or anything else other than PDF).
• Do not include the text of any of the questions in your submission.
• Do not use double-spacing.
• Use a sensible, clean font, 10-12 pt in size.
• Hand-written or scanned submissions will not be accepted.
• Your report should not exceed 10 pages including diagrams, tables, and figures, but excluding any reference list or bibliography.
• How much you write for each question is up to you.

Failure to follow any of the above requirements may result in a loss of 3 marks for each infraction.

Also note that citation of a non-reliable source may also incur a penalty (e.g. Wikipedia).

Finally, please note that the late submissions policy is as stated in the COMP2250 unit guide under the general assessment information section.

Submission

The submission is on iLearn with a tool called TurnItIn. The tool cross checks for online papers and other student papers for any plagiarism (copying). In short DONT COPY or get others to do your assignment, we are pretty good at catching people out and the consequences can be severe. Do not trust anyone who will take money to do assignments. They can take money from several students, return the same assignment, and you get caught. They dont care about you, but we do!

Assessment

Your mark will reflect both content and presentation. You will lose marks if there are problems with the presentation, particularly with clarity. This means that your answers to each question should be a coherent statement and that the spelling and grammar of your submission will be taken into account in assessing its presentation.

For full marks, your answers should be well argued, clear, and coherent.

2 Your mission (The Scenario)

The Engineering School of a small Australian university is getting a new building. It has two floors; the buildings architecture has been approved and the builders are about to start. The building is expected to be operational within six to twelve months.

On the Ground floor there are eight labs, a common area, and a lecture theatre. The 1st floor has administrative and academic offices, shared offices for postgraduate students and other research staff, and two specialised research labs. While the walls, floor and ceilings surfaces are being completed, subcontractors will install all networking cables according to layout specifications provided by the Universitys IT Service Centre, the architects firm and structural engineers from the building company.

Then, office furniture and equipment will be delivered, and all areas will be fitted out.

Simplified drawings of the architects' plans are provided in the document below "Floor plans and other materials"(also linked here). Some information about the build and layout:

The building

• 2 floors, 1080 sq. m. each

Ground floor

• 4 Computer labs (70 sq. m. each)

Each lab has capacity of 30 students : 20 desktops and 10 hot desks for personal, mobile machines

A lectern with a desktop machine, an IP telephone and a projector for the TA in each lab

• 4 specialised labs (70 sq. m. each)

20 student capacity

Up to 10 desktop computers in each

Students can bring their own machine

A lectern with a desktop machine, an IP telephone and a projector for the TA in each lab

• The Tesla Lecture Theatre has a seating capacity of 150; area: 216 sq. m

It has a lectern with a desktop machine, IP telephone and a projector

The lobby and hallway will be fitted with scattered seating and tables.

One networked multifunction printer for students and staff.

First floor

• 30 individual offices for the School academics equipped with desktop machines and IP telephones
• 2 shared offices (6 desks in each)
• 2 meeting rooms
• 3 school admin offices?equipped with desktop machines and IP telephones
• One networked multifunction printer for staff and postgraduate students.

You can assume that all offices on the 1st?floor and all desks and lecterns in the labs have been provided with ethernet cabling.

There are no local servers. Any servers required by the School will be located?within the campus data centre, in a different building. Physical layer connectivity to the campus data centre has been already provided via high bandwidth cabling. Part of your design should include any necessary devices within the School building to enable that.

3 Your tasks (The things you need to do)

The University IT Service Centre has decided to outsource the LANs completion and has issued an Invitation to Tender (ITT). Each tender submission is required to include a high-level design of the LAN (either physical?OR logical topology diagram), risk assessment, scheduling and costing,?among many other documents. You and your company have decided to submit a bid and you have been tasked to generate part of the documentation as described in the tasks below.

3.1 [20 marks] LAN Design

The LANs design should satisfy the needs of both students and staff. All stationary computers and IP telephony are expected to use wired connections. All common areas should have good wireless coverage so that students and staff can work in various areas on their portable machines without interruption.

Draw a diagram of all machines and devices in the School of Engineerings LAN. Clearly label all 2nd?and 3rd?layer devices that will be needed to provide internal and external connectivity; all subnets in the building should be clearly identified in your diagram.

It is expected that the diagram is accompanied with a short (1/2 to 1 page) description stating assumptions, decisions and a brief justification for these.

3.2 [10 marks] Project Management: Timeline, implementation plan and costing

As part of the tender documentation, based on the network diagram in Part 3.1 and the details provided in Part 2.

1. Put together a budget that includes costs for all equipment including desktop computers and displays, lecterns, IP phones, multifunction printers, network devices and labour costs for delivery, installation, LAN configuration and equipment, and LAN testing.
2. Propose a schedule in a Gantt chart clearly showing?how long it would take for your team to complete the job (i.e. start and end date), the tasks and activities involved and their duration.

You have also been told that if you were to win the tender, you could start any time after?1 Sep 2024, and you should complete it by 1 Dec 2024.

Your company's other contracts

You really want to win this tender, but you should be realistic and provide an estimate as accurate as possible. Moreover, there are several other jobs that you have planned to complete between 1 Sep and 1 Dec 2024. Those are from several days to 2 weeks long but are flexible enough to be moved around:

Netowork testing and maintenance job in two offices in Homebush: 3 days and 1 day respectively.

Rewiring two small offices: 2 weeks each (Both companies have relocated and have changed the office layouts). The offices are located in North Sydney.

There may also be other jobs coming your way and you want to be as efficient as possible to accommodate those too.

3.3 [10 marks]?Risk Assessment

Assemble an asset / control spreadsheet to identify and prioritise:

• potential assets (physical and data / intellectual property / staff)
• potential risks for those assets (1 or 2 risks per asset is ok)
• One or two potential strategies to reduce the risk's likelihood or severity of the impact occurring. Present this as a table like the example on the last page of the document "Floor plans and other materials", but do not use the rows and columns used there -- decide what rows and columns you need for this project.

Your asset / risk control spreadsheet might take up one page, but you can also use a second page to elaborate on your reasons / choices if you feel you need to provide further clarity. For instance: How did you prioritise the assets? How did you identify potential risks? How did you come up with the different strategies for mitigation / avoidance of risk impacts

3.4 [10 marks] Security and Privacy

Review the proposed network diagram in 3.1 to ensure that the solution meets the needs of both education and research conducted in the School in terms of secrecy, security and data privacy. The researchers in the School conduct cutting?edge research often in collaboration with?external partners from both industry and academia. Lab 2.1 is assigned for collaboration with a private sector partner with a strong patent portfolio and thus very protective of their IP. Lab 2.2 is assigned for collaboration with the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Both collaborations are expected to run for at least five years, with a possibility to be extended.

Communication with partners is both in-person (on campus) and online; it takes various forms: meetings, email exchanges, video conferencing, presentations, and file uploads.

Explain how does your design in Part 3.1 address the above Does anything need to be changed or added? How would any changes have impact on your cost estimates in Part 3.2

For example, if you need extra or more expensive equipment, revise the project management documentation, or highlight the changes that need to be made.

This section of your report should not need to be more than two pages long. One page for the revised logical or physical diagram, and up to one page identifying what changes you have made, why you made those changes and/or additions to address the security and privacy requirements.

3.5 [5 marks] Code of Ethics

As part of your tender, you have been asked to advise the Tender Review Panel about certain boundaries and ethical obligations to consider. As part of the?ACS Code of Professional Ethics?(links in the week 8 lecture section in iLearn), what would be good ethical considerations to bring to the attention of the Tender Review Panel? Specifically:

• touch on four or more sub-points in the Code.
• for each sub-point you have selected, outline what you would say to the Tender Review Panel to convince them of the importance / relevance of that point.

3.6 [5 marks] Presentation

Answer all the above in a well-structured technical report for your boss, who will be using your design, solutions, proposals, considerations and insights in the Companys tender documentation. As such, you are expected to include an executive summary, conclusions/summary, and recommendations sections.

4. What you will be rewarded for in your report

4.1 Elegant LAN design that will meet all stakeholders' needs. Assumptions, considerations and insights explaining and backing up your decisions.

4.2 Demonstrated understanding of project managing LAN design, installation, configuration and testing plan. In particular timeline, implementation plan and costing.?Provide insights to any trade-offs that have been made.

4.3 Risk assessment. Security and privacy issues when designing a LAN. Identify security risks and potential privacy violations; suggest remedies for those. How is security and privacy addressed in your design???Justification of the changes made in the initial proposal; if no changes have been made, explain how are those addressed in the initial design.

4.4 What are the ethical principles that have guided you throughout your tender document preparation Justify a correlation of the scenario with the Code of Professional Ethics items.

4.5 Good report structure, spelling, and grammar usage throughout the report.

4.6 Clarity of your diagrams and figures.

4.7 Good reference list and proper in-text citations.

5. A final note

Please remember that you are writing documentation to be included in a tender proposal, not doing any implementation. You are analysing the Schools needs, pointing out some security and ethical considerations that you believe should be taken into account, and providing your own suggestions based on concepts you have been exposed to in COMP2250 and the resources you have found and consulted while working on this project. If you use any external sources, then you must cite them as stated in Part 1 of this specification.

The Tender Review Committee may decide to reject your tender; they may request that you amend parts of it and might decide to ignore your recommendations and?considerations.

Good luck!