network LAN design help!!

i am just about finnished getting my ccna and we have a tcs ( threaded case study) and basicly i have to design a lan for 11 schools from the gound up , and tie them together

now i was wondering actually thinkin of going mainframe for security reasons and the overall save in labor and cost associated with standard workstations over terminals

basicly i am in need of ideas pro and con tward mainframe teminal commputing and lan and network set up

i was thinkin of usin a 10 gig foundry ( web page accelerator) and a thin client and maybe 3 com audry

also i was leaning twards linux se or openBSD to ease the cost of licencing depending on the terms this will help make my proposal more appealing :-D

dunno i figure maybe i can get a few tips and a lil support all ideas and veiws welcome thanks

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now i was wondering actually thinkin of going mainframe for security reasons and the overall save in labor and cost associated with standard workstations over terminals

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Just a quick questions regarding this. What are the security reasons for you choosing a Mainframe? Are you under the impression that Mainframes provide greater security?

I think that you will find that large companies are moving away from Mainframes due to financial reasons. I thin kthat current trend uis for companies to "web-enable" all their in-house applications.

This way you dont need a variety of different teams with different expertise to support them etc...

yes security becaue a kid cannot put a disk in the terminal lol

ok well here is the stuff i read and ok so what do u suggest i would like to implement something that can provide the best of both worlds
basicly to have terminals and policy based routing applied secure as it can be
thanks


due to the range of disparate legacy systems (mainframes, databases, etc ... solutions are successfully operating in 90% of the Fortune 500 companies

extending legacy applications
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Well, if the fortune 500 companies jumped off a bridge, would you? :)

How many Fortune 500 companies are schools?
How many schools do you know of that have Mainframes?
Have you had a look at the cost of purchasing Mainframe Technology, as well as support and maintenance costs?

Mainframes do have a purpose in large companies, but choosing to use them because the Fortune 500 companies have them seems a little unjustified, and personally, I dont see the benefits from a security perspective over any alternatives. I would like to hear your reasoning about why a mainframe is a better alternative from purely a security perspective.

I have heard that a reason why people still use mainframes is cause kiddies dont know the technology, so they wouldnt know what to do. In my opinion, this isnt a security minded statement.

Contrary to the popular opinion, a mainframe is not a bad idea. Look at IBMs'
Z processors. They are relatively inexpensive , powerful and flexable. But the
mainframe is not the total answer. It is simply the central data repository. Each
school might want their own data store which is not connected to the main data
store. The main data could be on a mainframe and schools could have their own
simpler LANs.

I haven't seen a virus or worm written for a mainframe. They are secure and there are
security measures that can enhance them. The cost of programming is propblbly the
same as it would be for a LAN. And I know of schools that use the mainframe as a
central data source.

Ive helped design a school Lan before and it was insisted upon that it consisted of Microsoft Operating systems. So I set up two servers at each site. One as the Highschool domain and the other as the middle school domain. I set up trusts between them because the highschool needed access to the files on the middleschool domain. Used dhcp server at each site to lease ip's to the workstations. It all depends on what kind of school you are doing this for and what they would like.

Hey I’m in the same CCNA course as you and I know what you’re going though. I have worked on similar projects in the pass and I’ll tell you I’ve enjoyed every moment.

I do have one tip that I learned long ago that has always helped me: Keep It Simple.

I have always had a hard time following this advice. I like to find new toys to play with, and love to show it off to others. BUT, this is the real word. You are learning to become an Admin or design consultant and have to look at the big picture. I am an Admin for a school district and I know what type of money they have. My department tried to push for a grant to hire 6 new network admins last year, but we didn’t get the money! Right now the average tech in this district maintains about 1,300 to 1,500 PCs. We need more Admins and techs but we just don’t have the money.

My point is that you have to come up with a solution that not only fits the security, resource, and web needs, but also come in under a budget that gives you no room for air.

I think your idea about the mainframe would be fun, and I would love to play with it. But as was brought out early, a mainframe system would:

1. Cost more to build.
I know the price is coming down, but you also have to hire Specialists to come in and install the system.

2. Costs more to maintain.
You will have to hire specialists and or train new employees to maintain the system.

One more thing to think about: the more complex you make this project; the more time it will take for you to complete it. And as we all know time is money.

I would just keep it easy, nice and simple. I would go with Active Directory (yeah I know its M$ , but hey, it’s simple and it works.). You can set what is called Group Police Objects at the Site, Domain, OU, or even local level to maintain security. Using GPOs you can lock down any PC that logs on to your domain. The great thing is that you don’t need to buy any software to implement GPOs. Built right in to the AD and will work almost as good as Deep Freeze or Foolproof.

Any way, that’s my $.02. Just trying to help. :rolleyes: If you want any advice about AD, I may not be a CCNA, but I am MCSA and MCSE certified and would be happy to help. I am right now in semester 4 of Cisco.

Cheers!

I say go for it. There is no right answer to the case study you just need a good justification of your design. As long as you do the work and put some effort in you should get a good mark even if you design is a little out of the ordinary. I also got a TCS coming up and I’ve decided to go heavy into wireless. It may not be the most economical option but its more interesting then doing the plain old cat5 to patch panel. A class mate of mine decided he’d like to build a token ring network. If nothing else your TCS will stand out and you’ll learn something new.

Might want to take a look at these links
http://www.mainframes.com/index.html
http://www.mainframeweek.com/extra/dinosaur.html
http://www.computerworld.com/hardwar...frames?from=yn
http://www.geocities.com/vasudevanvr...s/mfdienot.htm
http://www.mainframeweek.com/journals/show.php/0055/1

I am not sure what type of schools you are supposed to be doing this with, elementary, high, middle, univeristy, all the above or a combination. But I would reccommend that you take a look at what type of connection you want between all of them first, how many users are going to be taking advantage? bandwidth out? over all budget? Os you plan on running?

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also i was leaning twards linux se or openBSD to ease the cost of licencing depending on the terms this will help make my proposal more appealing :-D

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Obviously you like the idea of linux but the problem is most children are brought up and used to windows in their school systems. If not windows others are running macintosh ( i can see most of you cringing but its true). If you go windows a 2000 Active directory setup would be a good setup, not sure if you need failsafe servers or how much storage space you need but I ran across a thin client server that was called a blade. they are cheap and small, about the size a pcmcia card and about 1.5-2 feet deep.

Desktops, not sure how many you need but probably one for each teacher, library and computer labs. Check out dell they offer a great deal and comes with like a 3 year service agreement. Dont rely on the base website costs, schools and corps get a huge discount. Also remember to take all taxes out of your prices (schools are exempt).

Network, router for each place, switches, cables storage rack. you have the choice of a server at each school or maybe 2 or 3 servers to allow for failures. I would recommend you drop a d mark into each school and have someone like sprint keep them all connected through one office and then have that main school with the full bandwidth going outwards. You will then be able to monitor all the outgoing traffic and limit however you want. you can then choose if you want fractional T lines from the schools to the main source and whatever out of there.

I think you should just throw it all together grab one big piece of paper a pencil and start drawing it out. then you can implement prices and different ideas.

Let us know what you end up choosing
Spy

well i think i can tell you how my collage was set up.. we have workstations on winXP.. all of them connected to Servers which runs DHCP, DNS and Active Directory. its a Windows 2000 Advanced Server.. each branch is set up thesame. theres a PDC and a BDC. and a Gateway which connects all branches together.. we have about 3 servers. 2 runs DNS, DHCP and AD for backup purposes.. they also have 2 HDD each. the primary HDD (which has smaller space) is used for administration and the 2ndary HDD (which has a bigger space than the primary) is used to also make the servers as File Servers. Files which only faculty uses. and the gateway is on a switch. the swicth is connected to a patch pannel where the workstations are connected.. the gateway then is connected or linked to the institute's main Internet Servers. Downside of it is if the internet server incharge of our branch goes down, no one on our branch can access the net. i dunno.. too many details.. ill probably type it up in a doc file and send it to u.

I am in semester three as well
My group (4 people) have decided to have some fun with it and are going to use lucents wireless giganet, REAL expensive - but good transfer rates- all fidi backbone and a Oc3 wan connection, 125 work stations.
Naturaly cisco routers and switches
and (ICK) an all M$ software suite
Any way should be fun, Good luck and remember, if your not having fun your not doing it right!

ok cool i like the feedback. Im aware of microcost and its familiarity
but also im aware when u deal with kids they like new things and what better way to get them into linux or free or open bsd than haveing it in their schools. its basicly the same it has a GUI and u wouldnt beleive how many people think linux is just command line interfase lol. I was leaning toward mainframe or (mainframe like design) maybe not the traditional mainframe people are familliar with i just like the idea of terminals and habing a central location of the hardware that is a definate idea and topology i would like to implement. ill get my stuff in order to create the whole picture. problemm is we dont have a budget so its totally up to us but i would like to have one to see if i can provide a competitive solution does anyone have an idea of what a typical school district has to spend on this type of thing here ill give criteria

Project Goals

Provide Connectivity via a Wide Area Network (WAN) to the entire school district.

Implement LAN at local schools

Provide Internet Access to all nodes

Provide an Administration and Curriculum LAN

Allow a 7 - 10 year life, with a 100% growth in the Local Area Networks (LANs) at each school

Obtain a minimum of 1.0 Mbps to any host computer in the network and 100Mbps to any server in the network

Implement only Novell IPX and TCP/IP

Provide a series of servers to facilitate online automation of all the districts administrative functions and curriculum functions.

i would like to not use novel if possible but i beleive I may have to get rid of it but not replace it another net OS
lol




then u can lemmie know if u have ideas or additions or just plain think its dumb lol. either way i think we can all learn from this

i made a per say 5 mill alloted for the budget for the network it isnt to big especially for 11 schools and i dont realy know what they have to spend so i deemed 5 mill a fair price but we will see what can be done
at the data center i will be lookin to get a connection. For a base line i have decided to have enough bandwidth for the worst case scenario of each studunt to have at the same time running 4 video streams of 320x200 video x 15 fps x 20k students x 50% growth i know this is extreme but this is the kind of robustness i deem nessesary for a real life test i came up with a bandwidth of 38.4 GIGABytes seems i may have went a lil overboard but we will see this is a brainstorm with further input i may be able to come to a compromise lol or be forced to. lol im goin for a 16 blade server with NAS storage multiplexing at each school site so that is 11 schools.
plus have 5 or 6 blade servers at the data center. I also think i should have RAIC implemented for data integrity. As far as an os for the server i would like to implement Linux SE mainly over open BSD because of the support. also i will try to push for mainly html and java based apps for the thinness of the aps because ill be runnin a thin client such as either 3comm audery or a more expensive Sun Ray thin client.
at the data center im looking at a 10 Gig internal switch such as foundry or comparable
and dual FDDI ring for redundancy this posses the question of say a terroristic disaster takes place and takes out the data center with RAIC i have a way of restoring data but i need to have a redundant path for internet connection. was lookin toward satilite or maybe microwave
dunno yet im just commin up with a rough draft

also for security i will have a firewall that can be configured specificaly for each school at each site and a main firewall at the data center
because say napster comes out with a client that uses pop3 and or http and telnet or somethin each site will need to have a way to policy their access on a school specific
scale i dont want the robustness of my network eaten by the data center firewall
hehe

also i will need to have a networked printer in each room i did have the idea of just having a shared printer or 2 on each floor but the fact teachers will have to leave classes unattended isnt in the best interest .

ok now i have decided for the backbone connection from isp at the data center to go with one of the BigIron jetcore Gig series switches now i need to decide on what router i wanna go with. It would be nice to have matching systems that complement eachother u know i dont wanna go overboard on one device and not enough on another im goin with bigiron by foundry because its brutal lol
from the data center im gonna have it tie in to 100 meg switches at the schools im lookin to
have like 40 to 50 48 port switches with 100 meg ports at each school and routers associated with it to have a uniform system

imput on this would be greatly appreaciated thanks

i was lookin at the cisco 10,000 series routers but may be able to get by with less what do u think also i really should implement ciso routers and maybe switches at the schools bein i am a cisco guy lol