ICT120
Introduction to Computer Networks
Task 2
Semester 3, 2019
Assessment and Submission Details
Marks: 30% of the Total Assessment for the Course
Due Date: 11:59pm Wednesday, Week 12 5th February.
Submit your assignment to Blackboard Task 2. Please follow the submission instructions in Blackboard.
The assignment will be marked out of a total of 100 marks and forms 30% of the total assessment for the course. ALL assignments will be checked for plagiarism by SafeAssign system provided by Blackboard automatically.
Refer to your Course Outline or the Course Web Site for a copy of the “Student Misconduct, Plagiarism and Collusion” guidelines.
Note: Each student MUST retain a copy of the assignment and this copy MUST be produced within 24 hours of it being requested by the Course Co-ordinator. Failure to produce the second copy of the assignment when requested may result in loss of marks or a fail grade for the assignment.
Late submission will be penalised according to the policy in the course outline. Please note Saturday and Sunday are included in the count of days late.
Requests for an extension to an assignment MUST be made to the course coordinator prior to the date of submission and requests made on the day of submission or after the submission date will only be considered in exceptional circumstances. Assignment submission extensions
will only be made using the official University guidelines.
Case Study: Network Design for Safety Supplies
Safety Supplies is a wholesaler who supplies safety supplies to companies in Australia and New Zealand. They buy goods branded with their logo from overseas and Australia. They have two key departments the logistics/ warehousing department and sales. The company has its Head Office in Melbourne which occupies one building in a row of warehouses, hosting about 25 employees from the 2 key business departments and another 5 in office administration roles.
In addition, it has a secondary warehouse in Sydney which has a team of 5 local employees in a leased warehouse.
Each staff member is equipped with a desktop computer however, the warehouse has two shared computers between 5 staff in Melbourne and there are about 10 laptops available for loan in the Head Office.
The company also runs 4 servers in its Head Office. 2 of them run services to support various internal business functions, including file sharing, job tracking, Payroll, etc. All staff apart from warehouse staff frequently need to visit these servers during their daily work. The other 2 servers host the website for customers. Safety Supplies plan to implement an online shopping platform open to the public and customers, potentially on these two servers. Please include this in your planning.
Please help to design the network for the company. The aim is to enable the easy and efficient connection of all devices, offices, staff, and customers.
End of Case Study
Assignment Task
You are a member of the network planning team and need to write a technical report to explain your solutions and recommendations about the network plan for the company.
Your target audience also includes executive business people who have extensive business experience but limited ICT knowledge. Therefore, besides the technical design for the network, the report needs to explain why the recommended networking technologies/solutions are the most appropriate and how they will benefit their business. You may need to compare your recommendations with other available technologies.
Specifically, you should discuss possible solutions for the following 3 topics in the report. The distribution of marks is suggested in the marking sheet at the end of this file.
Topic 1: Network topology design
Please describe the topology of your solution with the discussion on the recommended devices and types of cables. The topology discussed here should be used to form the basis of your discussion in Topic 2 & 3.
It should be noted that the manager hopes to have devices of each department isolated because they have different roles.
Topic 2: Network planning
With regard to your network topology design in topic one and the Safety Supplies case study, please write a discussion and recommendations for your plan for the below topics. Please include a justification for your plan based upon the course materials and your research. Please note this must be referenced. This section should be approximately 600 words.
1. For this network, would subnets be required and if so where? Justify your recommendation.
2. Please discuss the IP addressing plan, would you need to use public and private IP addresses. Would some devices need static IP addresses while others would use dynamic IP addressing, please reference your plan developed in topic one. The company gets from ISP one public IP address for each office site:
Topic 3: Essential network services
You also need to recommend some key network related services, addressing the following requirements:
1. User accounts: The warehouse machines will be shared. Please discuss your solution for shared machines and account and password solutions for all machines.
2. Network reliability is important to Safety Solutions. Please discuss how you would recommend fault tolerance and backups be planned.
Report Format
The assignment will be assessed according to the marking rubric which is viewable in the submission area on the Blackboard.
Your report should be no less than 1,500 words and it would be best to be no longer than 2,500 words long.
The formal technical report usually contains many different sections. The following outline is recommended for this assignment:
Title page
Summary
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Network topology design
3.0 Network planning
4.0 Essential network services
5.0 Conclusion
References
The report MUST be formatted using the following guidelines:
• Paragraph text – 12 point Calibri single line spacing
• Headings – Arial in an appropriate type size
• Margins – 2.5cm on all margins
• Header – Report title
• Footer – page number (including the word “Page”)
• Page numbering – roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv) up to and including the Table of Contents, restart numbering using conventional numerals (1, 2, 3, 4) from the first page after the Table of Contents.
• Title Page – Must not contain headers or footers. Include your name as the report’s author.
• The report is to be created as a single Microsoft Word document (version greater than 2007). No other format is acceptable and doing so will result in the deduction of marks.
Refer to the following references for details on report structures:
Summers, J. & Smith, B., 2014, Communication Skills Handbook, 4th Ed, Wiley, Australia.
Referencing
The report is to include (at least 5) appropriate references and these references should follow the Harvard method of referencing. Note that ALL references should be from journal articles,
conference papers, technical papers, recognized experts in the field or vendors’ and service
providers’ websites. The use of unqualified references will result in the deduction of marks.
Assignment Return and Release of Grades
Assignment grades will be available on the blackboard in two weeks after the submission. Details of marking will also be accessible via online rubrics on the blackboard.
Where an assignment is undergoing investigation for alleged plagiarism or collusion the grade for the assignment and the assignment will be withheld until the investigation has concluded.
Assignment Advice
This assignment will take many weeks to complete and will require a good understanding of computer networks for successful completion. It is imperative that students take heed of the following points in relation to doing this assignment:
1. Ensure that you clearly understand the requirements for the assignment – what must be done and what are the deliverables.
2. If you do not understand any of the assignment requirements – Please ASK the course coordinator or your tutor.
3. Each time you work on any aspect of the assignment reread the assignment requirements to ensure that what is required is clearly understood.
Plagiarism and Collusion Advice
1. All work must be submitted through SafeAssign.
2. SafeAssign will pick up any similarities between work online as well as work from other students (in this semester and previous).
3. Please make sure you reference your work properly. If you are using any material from the internet or any books from the library, you need to cite the work correctly. Failure to do so will result in possible cases of Academic Misconduct.
4. Please do not share your work with other students. Do not give anyone your files to have a look. SafeAssign will pick up collusion, but keep in mind the percentages for Collusion may not report accurately until all student assignments have been submitted. Both the person copying and the person providing will potentially be held accountable.
5. You can submit a draft assignment through SafeAssign before making the actual submission. Keep in mind that draft SafeAssign CANNOT detect the copying between students in the same cohort, but final SafeAssign can.
Criteria High Distinction Distinction Credit Pass Fail
Presentation and organisation of report, including structure, English expression, discipline-based vocabulary, grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Marks: 10/100 * Presents highly professional work that is clearly expressed, grammatically correct and free of spelling and/or punctuation errors. Consistently uses highly appropriate discipline-based vocabulary.
* Ideas flow in a highly logical, well-ordered, clear and coherent manner. Clear and articulate transition statements are used to link ideas. * Presents work of a professional standard with minimal grammatical, English expression, spelling and punctuation errors. Consistently uses appropriate discipline-based vocabulary.
* Ideas flow in a logical, well-ordered and clear manner. Transition statements are competently used to link ideas. * Presents competent work that is mostly free of grammatical, English expression, spelling and punctuation errors. Uses appropriate discipline-based vocabulary.
* Ideas are mostly presented in a logical and well-ordered manner. Transition statements are generally used to link ideas, however could be refined. * Work is adequately presented; however, there are some grammatical, English expression, spelling and punctuation errors. At time uses vocabulary that is not discipline appropriate.
* Ideas are presented but could be more logically structured. Transition statements to link ideas are limited. * Presents work with grammatical, spelling, punctuation and/or English expression errors that interfere with meaning. Non or inconsistent use of discipline-based vocabulary.
* Little if any coherent structure to the document. Lacks transition statements to link ideas.
Referencing of sources of information used within the body of the document and in a reference list using Harvard referencing style
Marks: 5/100 5 or more references accurately cite highly relevant sources of information within the body of document and provides a comprehensive and correctly formatted list of all references cited in Harvard Referencing style. * The summary outlines the problem and the solution but does not contain enough detail.
* Introduction provides the reader with mostly comprehensive assignment information with the challenges mostly clearly presented. Shows mostly clearly the purpose of the report.
* States a specific and relevant conclusion. * The summary is too brief or contains paragraphs that have not been well-developed. It is lacking in detail.
* Introduction provides some assignment information with the challenges mostly outlined. Shows somewhat clearly the purpose of the report.
* States a logical conclusion. * The summary lacks clarity. It contains very little detail and does not clearly explain what the problem and the solutions are.
* Introduction provides basic assignment information, but no challenges included. Shows the purpose of the report but not clearly.
* States a broad conclusion. * Summary is missing, or it lacks detail and not well explained.
* Introduction provides little or no assignment information. Does not show the purpose of the report.
* States an ambiguous, illogical or unsupported conclusion..
Summary, Introduction, Conclusion
Marks: 15/100 * The summary has a very detailed coverage of background, problems, recommendation, and conclusion. It extensively and clearly identifies the problem and the solution.
* Introduction provides the reader with comprehensive assignment information with the challenges clearly presented. Shows clearly the purpose of the report.
* States insightful conclusion. Professional: Shows detailed understanding of the interests of all stakeholders and provides evidence demonstrating all interests were taken into consideration in the decision-making process. Good: Shows evidence of recognition of the interests of most stakeholders, provides evidence of appropriate communication channels and uses appropriate language that demonstrates sensitivity to different stakeholders. Satisfactory: Shows basic and satisfactory evidence that the interests of the stakeholders were considered. Demonstrates limited awareness of the need to consider the interests of stakeholders.
Design of computer networks that meet business requirements (Topic 1)
Marks: 25/100 * Demonstrates extensive knowledge of network design and IP management.
* The suggested solutions are appropriate to the problem.
* Demonstrates comprehensive knowledge of network design and IP management, with minor gaps in detail or accuracy.
* The suggested solutions are appropriate to the problem.
* Demonstrates knowledge of network design and IP management, with noticeable gaps in detail or accuracy.
* The suggested solutions are appropriate to the problem.
* The suggested solutions are partly appropriate to the problem, and there is no consistent or sufficient detail to demonstrate accurate comprehension.
* The suggested solutions are either not appropriate or show insufficient details to demonstrate comprehension.
Design of computer networks that meet business requirements (Topic 2)
Marks: 25/100 The response to the problem shows clear and succinct progression of analysis, interpretation and reporting, reflecting the application of knowledge and skills gained in the course. The response to the problem shows clear progression of analysis, interpretation and reporting, reflecting elements of knowledge and skills gained in the course. The response to the problem shows some consistency of analysis, interpretation and reporting, reflecting learning from course topics and discussions (that could be improved). The response to the problem shows an approach to analysis, interpretation and reporting that is not clear with limited evidence of learning from course topics and discussions. The response to the problem is not logical, with major gaps in analysis, interpretation and reporting that is difficult to follow and there is little or no evidence of learning from course topics and discussions.
Design of computer networks that meet business requirements (Topic 3)
Marks: 20/100 The response to the problem shows clear and succinct progression of analysis, interpretation and reporting, reflecting the application of knowledge and skills gained in the course. The response to the problem shows clear progression of analysis, interpretation and reporting, reflecting elements of knowledge and skills gained in the course. The response to the problem shows some consistency of analysis, interpretation and reporting, reflecting learning from course topics and discussions (that could be improved). The response to the problem shows an approach to analysis, interpretation and reporting that is not clear with limited evidence of learning from course topics and discussions. The response to the problem is not logical, with major gaps in analysis, interpretation and reporting that is difficult to follow and there is little or no evidence of learning from course topics and discussions.
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