Final Project
Bianca Quinones
Southern New Hampshire University
IT 212: Intro to Computer Networks
Professor James Crivello
October 19, 2021
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As the IT consultant hired to work for the new office in Fayetteville, NC I have come up with
some recommendations for the setup of the network infrastructure. I will be going over the best
LAN topologies for everyone who works in the office, the best hardware and software for the
office, and how we can ensure remote employees can connect to the office with no issues.
First, we will go over the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model. This model allows
us to see problems that are going wrong with a system without having to go through things one
by one. Instead of wasting time doing this, we can easily physically see what it is wrong and
where exactly it is coming from. There are seven layers to this model:
7. Application: Human-computer interaction layer, this allows software to send and receive
important information and present needed data to users.
6. Presentation: Prepares data for application layer. This ensures all components have been
encoded and encrypted properly so it is received without fault on the other end.
5. Session: Creates communication channels between devices. This will ensure sessions are open
and fully functional to send data and then close when communication ends.
4. Transport: Data in session now gets turned into segments. Data gets sent out at a speed that
matches the connection speed on the device.
3. Network: Network addresses route packets to destination
2. Data Link: Breaks up packets into frames. Composed of LLC and MAC
1. Physical Layer: Responsible for physical cable or connection between nodes
As previously mentioned, we will need to decide on a topology for the office so all the
computers, printers, and other hardware devices can run on one system. For this I suggest we use
the star topology. A star topology is when each individual piece of network is attached to a
central node. Although this would require more cable than most other topologies, the upside will
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be if one cable fails, we will not have to worry about all systems going down. This will also
ensure data is transmitted safely before being sent from one device to another. Data gets sent
from the device to the hub and the hub transmits that data on to the next device. If we come
across an issue where we need to remove or add another device this can be easily done without
disrupting the network. Technology can be extremely unpredictable so we do have to make sure
the hub is always working because if it goes down so will everything else.
The IP range for a small office like ours is important. The office will consist of 50
computers for each employee, plus the wireless printer we will install and a couple more
hardware devices so the recommended IP range will be between 192.168.25.050 to
192.168.25.255. We must ensure that we stay