Hello everyone..
I have been a little lazy in posting on the Forum. But I have now a

couple of questions regarding the network design stuff. I know that this might not be

the right place to post, since antionline is a network security forum, not a network

design discussion forum (And since I'll always consider myself a newbie so I 'll post my

question here in Newbies Question ). But antionline has played such a massive role in

my learning, that I want to share these questions as well with antionline community.

People like MsMittens, Memory, HTRegz,The3ntropy, NullDevice, gore, Cybr1d and nihil

have been such a great source of learning and inspiration. Now wont make my text more

lengthy and boring, coming to the issue.


Scenario is that I have a gigabit backbone,and I have tologically divide it in three

sections. And everything has to be in a LAN, connected to each othr

i) MainFrame Apps
ii) Unix OS for scientific apps
iii) Novell Netware and Microsoft Windows hybrid environment for commercial

apps.

Well here goes the questions for network design.

1) I have to incorporate an IBM mainframe OS OS390 that is being used for legacy

customer applications (SAP, General Ledger accounting, etc.) Now many confusions.One

issue is that how would I interface an individual computer (running Windows/Linux) to

IBM mainframe. I have been able to figure out some controllers, but not clear with the

issue yet.Please let me know how can I interface computers (not dumb terminals) with

Mainframe. And how would I then interface all the traffic coming from the MainFrame to

my backbone of the network. Would there be something in-between main frame and

Gigabit backbone (any special switch or intermediary device).

2) Second issue is Remote storage and Manipulation of Applications in a Centralised

way. All applications used in-house and remotely are provided by and supported from

headquarters through the pvt. Network. Now this is replication and coherency issue. The

other region which would be manipulating applications and storing it in a centralised

way, would be countries apart but in the same continent. What solution should be

provided in order to have a centralised application servers, with clients in far away

countries. Another Confusion????

3) Third issue is to provide the travelling employers remote connectivity to the

headquarter's network for corporate email server and remote logon facility. How would I

do that. Should I be lookin for RAS(remote access server) and VPN thing? I am looking

over this closely. Any suggestions??

4) Another important issue is providing internet connectivity to the organisation,

considering the fact that they would like to have VOIP, Video Confrencing, Centralised

application server (accessed by clients in many countries), remote logons etc. Do you

guys think that T-1 lines would do the trick? What type of routers would I require for

VOIP and video confrencing. Any Recomendations??

5) They are using Frame Relay at the moment with FRAD's, Do you guys think that they

should be upgraded to ATM for cost affective and effcient improvement,since ATM with

VBR(variable Bit Rate ) seems to be good choice for vedio confrencing and audio

Confrencing?

6) What issues at Client's end should be considered keeping all the scenario in mind?

7) For remote administration I am looking into Telnet and SSH Servers and I guess it

would be good enough?

8) Security is something which I really learned from Antionline? I have considered

following things for security that I am going to deploy in this network design..
Intrusion Detection System, HoneyPots, Sniffers, AntiViruses ,FireWalls and use of

cryptography for important messages. did I left anything else.Any other

recommendations would be appreciated.

9) I am working on Disaster Recovery Planning? Maybe coming up with more confusions



I guess its apretty lengthy post and I must terminate it. A word of thanx for all those

who read this thread. I already appreciate their effort and expect a reply with helpful

links and piece of advice.
Thank you antionliner's
Please help me out with these confusions, so that I might be able to contribute to the

community with all my knowledge that I gathered from Gurus.
Ommy