The purpose of this paper is to develop a plan for establishing an addressing and naming system for ten departments in a company with 1,000 employees. Furthermore, it seeks to create an efficient network solution that will enhance the organization’s worldwide operations. In modern networks, different devices including intersections, workstations, printers, servers, switches, and routers are given specific names.
A well-signed naming model should allow users to access these devices by their names. The name of the resource shows our intention, while the address indicates where it is located. In most network protocols, each device usually requires a network address, and the user’s system must associate this address with a name. Various techniques can be used to map the network address to a network name, ranging from static host files to Dynamic DNS. Dynamic methods of name resolution generally provide the best solution. To improve usability, names should be brief, meaningful, unambiguous, and distinct.
Users need to be able to recognize which names belong to specific devices. These names contain information about the type and location of each device. It is suggested that the name includes an indicator of its type, such as adding “art” before or after router names, “SW” for switches, “savor” for servers, etc. Using meaningful prefixes or suffixes helps avoid confusion among users and makes it easier for managers to extract device names from network management tools.
The IT department of Corporation has outlined a plan to develop an addressing and naming model for the ten departments in a 1,000-employee organization. Each department will have its own LAN with equal geographical operations, and each LAN can accommodate more than 50 computers. Through this plan, each department will be accessible through specific address names when connecting to the internet.
This organization utilizes a shared data center consisting of twenty powerful enterprise servers. The primary data center operation is established. Naming conventions may incorporate location codes to aid our network designers in model labeling. For instance, all entities located in San Francisco are denoted with a “SF” prefix, those in Oakland with “OAK,” and so forth. Although a numerical code could be utilized, letters are generally easier for individuals to recall. In the case of a device possessing multiple interfaces and addresses, it is essential to map all addresses to a single unified name.
For instance, when using a multipart router with multiple IP addresses, it is recommended to assign the same name to all of the router’s IP addresses. By doing so, network management software will not mistakenly identify the multipart device as multiple devices. As an illustration, suppose there is a router situated at a branch office in Louisville, KY. In this case, it could be labeled as “stauncher”. Here, “sad” represents the Louisville airport code, “branch” denotes the location, and “art” indicates that this device is a router. To streamline the process, a central authority can adhere to a hierarchical system and allocate blocks of addresses and names to various departments and branch offices.
A topology map of the network is beneficial as it allows for a visual representation of the network’s hierarchy and the identification of address boundaries. The planning, management, and documentation of network layer addresses are essential. This step is part of the overall methodology for the top-down network design process, preceding the selection of routing and switching protocols. While an end system can dynamically learn its address, there are no mechanisms in place for assigning network or subnet numbers dynamically. Therefore, careful planning and administration of these numbers are necessary.
The subdivision of subnets in each region or branch office relies on the enterprise’s organizational structure. IP addresses are categorized into two types: public and private. Public addresses are globally unique and registered with a numbering authority, while private addresses are not accessible on the worldwide Internet and are assigned from a specific range. Provider-independent address space pertains to addresses directly allocated by one of the regional registries. However, the majority of enterprises do not utilize addresses from the provider-independent address space.
Most enterprises collaborate with an Internet service provider (ISP) to acquire public addresses. In this scenario, their addresses are included in the address space assigned by the provider. As long as the enterprise remains a subscriber of the provider, it utilizes these addresses. Naming in an IP environment is achieved through configuration of hosts files, DNS servers, or Network Information Service (INS) servers. DNS is widely used on the Internet and has become popular for managing names in enterprise networks. It is the recommended naming system for contemporary networks.
The use of the Appellate system allows for assigning a cable range to each network segment, such as a building number or floor number. At the network layer, the address consists of a 16-bit network number and an 8-bit node ID. Once an address is chosen at this layer, it is stored in battery-backed-up RAM to avoid needing a new address every time the system boots. The Appellate station communicates with a router to determine the cable range for its own network segment. The network manager configures routers and servers on a network with a 4-byte network number assigned to each segment, such as 172.16.0.0.
We have 10 Lana, each of which will be its own subnet. Our goal is to divide the network into subnets, with each subnet allowing for 100 nodes. We need to determine the address that a node would use to send data to all devices on its subnet. However, there are some functional problems with sending packets to different departments, as it can be time-consuming. To address this, we’re considering implementing a caching system where all the servers in the organization store one name. Despite the benefits of this plan, there are limitations such as insufficient funds to support the entire implementation. The high cost of networking devices is also a challenge.
Having a considerable workforce of 1,000 individuals in our organization presents challenges in managing their names within the system. The implementation process of our plan may consume significant time as it involves entering all employee names into the system. Additionally, numerous employees may face difficulties in adjusting to new policies related to the system. To address these issues, our plan incorporates the use of Domain Name System (DNS) which converts user-defined domain names into IP addresses.
The Domain Name System plays a crucial role in the Internet infrastructure. Without it, locating resources on the Internet would be challenging. Likewise, others would struggle to find you. DNS acts as a phone book, converting names like www.Alpha.com into IP addresses like 199.239.136.245 and vice versa (Ambler, S.W. 1988). By designating authoritative name servers for each domain, the Domain Name System distributes the responsibility of assigning domain names and linking them to IP addresses (Oppenheim, 2005).
Without proper name resolution, users are unable to find resources on the network. It is crucial to design the DNS namespace in alignment with Active Directory, ensuring that the organization’s internal namespace does not clash with the one existing on the Internet (Silvereyes, L., & Agene, P. 2011). Each computer can have its DNS names set up using one of two methods: employing a primary DNS domain name as the default fully qualified DNS name for the computer and all its network connections.
A connection-specific DNS domain can be set up as an alternate DNS domain name that is specific to a single network adapter installed and configured on the computer. This allows for the use of different internal and external namespace. Each location can be identified with a unique sub domain. It is recommended to host internal and external names on separate servers. The external server should only include names that need to be accessible on the Internet, while the internal server should contain names for internal use. In case any requests cannot be resolved internally, you can configure your internal DNS servers to forward those requests to external servers for resolution.
Various clients have varying name resolution needs. For example, web proxy clients do not require external name resolution as their requests are handled by the proxy server (Silvereyes, L., & Agene, P. 2011). Our company consists of 10 departments and is likely to have 10 domains. Here are some alternative domain structures to consider for our company. To demonstrate how these concepts integrate, let’s examine an example. The subsequent network showcases the implementation and setup of DNS servers for a company employing anywhere from 2 to 1,000 workers.
Each Wide Area Network (WAN) link between offices should have a corresponding site link in Active Directory. Additionally, computers within a physical office should be placed in a shared Active Directory site. It is ideal for each location to have its own subnet, as a single subnet cannot extend across multiple Active Directory sites (Napier, R. & Unguent K. (2012)). Below, the figure illustrates a multi-homed server computer named “host-A” that can be identified by its primary and connection-specific DNS domain names.
In this example, the server computer host-A is connected to two separate subnets, Subnet 1 and Subnet 2, which are also connected using two routers to provide additional paths between each subnet. With this configuration, host-A offers access through its two separately named local area network (LANA) connections: One is named “host-A. Public. Example. Alpha. Com” and uses LANA connection 1 over Subnet 1, which is a lower-speed (10 megabit) Ethernet LANA, for regular access to users with typical file and print service needs. The other is named “host-a. Backup. Example. Alpha. Com” and uses LANA connection 2 over Subnet 2, a higher-speed (100 megabit) Ethernet CAN, for reserved access by server applications and administrators with special needs, such as troubleshooting server networking problems, performing network-based backup, or replicating zone data between servers. This hierarchy represents the root that a name server goes through when looking up an address. A DNS server always knows the location of the root servers that can provide information about servers that handle top-level domains like com, net, and org.
Due to its distributed and hierarchical nature, the process of looking up a domain name in DNS involves sending the query to servers located around the world that have the necessary information. The main authoritative name server has at least one subordinate server in each physical location. This subordinate server is a caching and recursive name server that serves as the primary name server for all non-Windows systems and indirectly for Windows workstations. It is strategically placed in close proximity to its clients, ideally on the same subnet.
If the caching name server fails, the internal authoritative name server acts as a backup, although queries need to go through the firewall, leading to increased latency in requests. The organization’s size, subnet locations, performance importance, and potential presence of slave authoritative servers will determine whether they are provided. In summary, this report aims to design a contemporary and efficient network solution for the Company’s worldwide enterprise operations. The Company comprises ten departments and employs 1,000 individuals.
The IT department of Corporation plans to design and create a cost efficient network that will extend to 10 geographic locations within the organization. The development includes an addressing and naming model for the ten departments in a 1,000-employee organization, which can be accessed through internet connections. This organization has a common data center consisting of twenty backbend enterprise servers, with one primary data center operation. The network design utilizes this common data center with twenty (20) backbend enterprise servers.
The company intends to enhance its network and fix any security vulnerabilities in its infrastructure as part of this initiative. This networking facility will enable employees and customers to access information about the company’s products and services. The IT department of Corporation aims to internally design and establish a cost-effective nationwide network. This system will provide the company with capabilities for point-of-sale invoicing, sales management, revenue reporting, commission tracking for sales representatives, and inventory management.
As internal staff within Alpha Corporation, we have a thorough understanding of the current networking setup and have onsite management to minimize initial work. In this report, we will offer recommendations for the long-term success of the company. It is essential to have effective name resolution so that users can find network resources. The Domain Name System (DNS) has a crucial role in distributing the responsibility of assigning domain names and mapping them to IP addresses by designating authoritative name servers for each domain.
The DNS namespace design should be established using Active Directory to prevent any conflict between the organization’s internal namespace and the Internet’s namespace.
