--Networking: Looking for a Solution--

Hi,

I have been given the present scenario and I have to suggest a possible networking solution for this company (University assignment:Final year) A bit long winded but here is the present scenario:

Information on the A. A. Builder's HQ is as follows:

The A. A. Builder has a main site on the outskirts of the city with an area of 25 acres. It also has a small
design office out of the city, about 5 miles away. In addition they have 10 subsidiary firms within the
country which treat A. A. Builder’s main site as their headquarter (HQ).

There are some PCs throughout the main site, but the database for the stock control etc, is at present on
a mainframe computer. The mainframe is used in a very limited (stand-alone) manner and it will be
wrong to assume that the mainframe is connected in a network environment. It will be also wrong to
assume that any other type of network setup exists. Although the company is going for a new network,
but it does not wish to discard the mainframe from the new design.

The office block has 50 people with a variety of admin duties, including accounts, typing centre, a pay
dept and credit control. There are no computers in this block and new computers are required for this
block.
The executive block has 11 offices with their own PC (stand-alone) and each office has 3 PCs.

There are also 11 secretary's terminals in this block which are connected with the mainframe. But more
computers are needed for this block. There are 20 remote point of sales (POS) terminals which will
require access to the data base for prices, stock control and transactions. At this point the POS terminals
are used in a stand-alone fashion in the subsidiary firms.

The subsidiary firms are hoping to use these
POS terminals to access the database for all their daily transactions. They are also hoping to increase
the number of the POS terminals if necessary. The subsidiary firms will rely on communications with
the HQ for accountancy facilities and the data base for prices and stock records.
The supply department
has 20 PCs which do all the stock control at present. It accesses the information manually from the
stock buildings. The stocks are held in 4 separate stock buildings (plumbing, wood, etc). There are also
4 different workshops (e.g. making double glazing and kitchen units) which have no computer facilities.
However, the firm is hoping that the new network design will take this into account and it will bring the
workshops in line with the rest of the organisation.
There are six teams of designers who have their own
office and they use advanced CAD packages to design and develop products for kitchens, glazing and
building extensions.
The team of designers are based at the design office and each team has 6 designers.
The designers use stand-alone PCs at the moment. These PCs need to be updated for the new network
setup.
The design office also does not have any network communication link with the main site at the
moment but they are hoping that the new proposed network design will provide a suitable solution to
establish a good communication link with the main site. All the communication between various
departments at present are via normal mode, i.e., via telephone, fax, etc. As a side issue, the firm has
four security video cameras in the main site and as they have proved a success, they intend to have
more cameras throughout the site to view/record the daily events. Although they do not intend to
integrate the security cameras within their new network system at the moment but they are keen to get
some advise in setting up their security camera systems.

TASK
Design a suitable network system for the A. A. Builder’s to suit their present and future needs. Justify
and explain all decisions you make and you can propose alternatives giving the benefits/drawbacks of
each. Give as much details of your system design as it is possible and appropriate. Give a brief outline
on how the security camera systems could be set up.

So there is the main site that contains different blocks e.g. office block with 50 workers (so assume it will need 50 computers).

For the network, would a bus network with a central server work for the office computers?

What work better, routers or bridges? reliability?

Any advice will be appreciated as I am not from a specific network background but I am still learning from basics and beyond.

Thank you......

I will help you out with some hints.

Routers yes
remote sites - wan topology
main site - campus topology
mega backbone ethernet switch at main campus assuming terminals/mainframe/pos systems can all use ethernet.
web enabled cameras going to a monitoring server via the network.