Project Background

Please reference Figure 1. Friendly Care Hospital is one of the biggest hospitals in DC. You have recently bought the hospital, naming it [Your Firstname Lastname] Hospital. For example, Jane Doe Hospital. Jane Doe Hospital owns a 5-story building and houses many departments that span multiple floors. Its Radiology department is spread across the first and second floors, connected by a dedicated local area network (LAN). The department has recently deployed a new “Radiology Images” application as part of their initiative to digitize patient records. However, the department staff sometimes faces long application delays during busy hours. It also experiences regular delays in Internet connectivity, FTPS services, web services, and email services.

Their original design, depicted in Figure 1, was categorized as a small network, providing services for up to 200-500 devices. They have well surpassed this. You, as their senior network administrator, are tasked with the job of a complete re-design. This design must support a medium to large sized network for over 1,000 devices. Thus, it should surpass the current capabilities.

Project Overview

In this project, you will study performance improvements in a congested, wired LAN/WAN environment that can be solved to varying degrees by a new IT infrastructure design and fully functional implementation in Packet Tracer. To learn more about Packet Tracer please read the Cisco Packet Tracer DS PDF. Later, in Phase II of the project, you will scale this design to a larger enterprise IT infrastructure.

To begin the projects, you will complete a review of related literature to identify what is appropriate to improve system feasibility, RAS (reliability, availability, serviceability), security, and disaster recovery of the existing IT infrastructure and model of your hospital. Once this review of literature is complete, you will use the outcomes and research results to advance and improve the IT infrastructure. Proper data analysis, comparison, and contrast will be summarized within in-text tables and figures as well as appendixes to explain the results of the IT infrastructure re-design and improvement.

Packet Tracer is limited given it is a simulator. Be creative! For instance, if Packet Tracer does not have a file sharing service for a file sharing server, turn on any other related and relevant services that are available. As another example, use LAN and WAN protocols that are optimal given what the version of Packet Tracer allows. You will be assessed based upon optimal configurations in the version of Packet Tracer used. Thus, assure this is well studied. Research will outline new opportunities for future IT infrastructure designs, and this should be discussed accordingly in the written paper even if not configured in Packet Tracer. Often, new technologies are not implemented in industry immediately due to limitations such as hardware architecture.

Please verify all requirements are met by reviewing the grading rubric. Below is an outline of minimum requirements with examples and ideas.

Minimum Project Requirements

• Submit a working Packet Tracer lab, typically this file has a .pkt file extension.

o This will include the fully operational new IT infrastructure design

o All devices in the lab must be named with your first name and last name

▪ Example: Jane_Doe_Router_1

o All hardware and software should be configured properly and should be able to communicate using optimized networking designs, configurations, and protocols

o No devices should have passwords for assessment purposes

• Minimum IT Infrastructure Design and Packet Tracer Requirements

o You must start with a blank/new Packet Tracer file, existing labs or modified labs of existing solutions will receive a zero without exception

o Design a medium-size hospital IT infrastructure for well over 1,000 devices, and scalable beyond the Figure 1 example

▪ For example, a design that goes beyond traditional N-Tier designs

▪ Design proper addressing via IPv4 and/or IPv6 that scales

▪ Add appropriate routers and switches to support this new design

▪ Configure at least one appropriate networking protocol, operational across the entire infrastructure

▪ Use proper network address translation (NAT)

▪ Implement private and public IP address spaces correctly

▪ Assure network traffic is organized, efficient, and secured properly (e.g. limit broadcast domains, do not allow marketing employees to access accounting systems, etc)

o Add an Internet Service Provider (ISP) into the design

o Add enough modularity, resiliency, and flexibility into the design

o Design and implement the following new services and servers

▪ A Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server that automatically assigns working IP addresses to new workstations

▪ A name server that manages the Domain Name System (DNS) for all servers in the hospital

▪ A web server hosted on the Internet

▪ Two new user workstations located at each level of the building that can use the new services properly

• Show these services working on each workstation in your project (e.g. a website from the web server, DHCP, etc)

• Provide a few hospital departments as examples beyond radiology

• Minimum Written Requirements (Introduction, Literature Review, and Conclusion)

o Submit a properly formatted APA paper in Microsoft Word

o Here are example templates to follow:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/18/

https://apastyle.apa.org/manual/related/sample-experiment-paper-1.pdf

o If the links break, search for “APA Example Papers” to assist

o Table of Contents that automatically adjusts page numbers of the main headings

o Introduction

▪ Introduce the primary goals and objectives of the project

o Review of literature that supports the new system simulation, model, and design

▪ Include appropriate IT frameworks and standards in which to design the new system

▪ Address system feasibility, RAS (reliability, availability, serviceability), security, and disaster recovery

▪ Include at least 10 scholarly journal articles focusing on relevant research on the problems being addressed

▪ Recommend new design additions based upon current literature

o Packet Tracer design explanation

▪ Explain each of the additions and improvements

▪ Use alternative protocols and services where necessary to emulate the best possible working infrastructure for the hospital within Packet Tracer

▪ Reference the primary configurations and how these were developed

▪ Include running configurations from routers/switches as appendices

o Conclusion

▪ Highlight any limitations, managerial implications, and conclusions of the project deliverables and outcomes