Pennsylvania Correctional System Network Project
Daniel Stanley
Strayer University

Pennsylvania Correctional System Network Project

This proposal is for a data communication network to serve the Pennsylvania Correctional system. The Pennsylvania legislature recently approved funding sufficient to pay for the development of this proposal. Pending proposal acceptance by the Pennsylvania State Correctional Office of Technology (a department within the state Office of Corrections), funding will be sought to implement the proposal.
The proposed network is designed to serve the state Office of Corrections and two of its local district offices. The state office, located in Pennsylvania, contains five departments to be served by this network. Each correctional office contains four departments to be served. The Correctional facilities located in York, 50 miles from the state office. The Correctional facilities located in Harrisburg, about 75 miles from the state office. This network is for administrative purposes and is specifically designed to be independent of officers computing facilities.

Objectives of the Network

The network is designed to achieve several specific business/operational objectives: 1. Secure Service: The main objective of this network is to provide secure administrative computing service to the State Office and two districts. It is designed to be functionally and physically isolated from access by people not employed by Pennsylvania Correctional system so as to minimize the risk of unauthorized use. 2. Integration and Update: Presently there are many LANs in the Pennsylvania Correctional system, but much of the equipment is out of date, many of the LANs are incompatible with each other, and not connected in a system-wide network. This proposal describes a WAN that integrates and updates these LANs to support productive collaboration across the system. 3. Versatile Information Processing: The network will enable users to retrieve, process, and store ASCII and non-ASCII text, still graphics, audio, and video from any connected computer. 4. Collaboration: The network will combine the power and capabilities of diverse equipment across the state to provide a collaborative medium that helps users combine their skills regardless of their physical location. A network for this correctional community will enable people to share information and ideas easily so they can work more efficiently and productively. 5. Scalability: The design is scaleable so that more district offices can be added as funding becomes available without having to redo the installed network.

Intended Users

The primary users of the network at the state level will be the three administrators, three secretaries, ten members of the Deputies Department, eight members of the Human Resource Department, six members of the Finance/Accounting Department, and three members of the Computer Services Department. At the district level the primary users will be four administrators, four secretaries, four members of the Computer Services Department, sixteen members of the Human Resource Department, and two members of the Finance/Accounting Department. Contractors with clearances are secondary users of the network in that they will receive information produced on the network, but they will not directly use the network.
Data Types
The types of data served by the network will be reports, bulletins, accounting information, personnel profiles, and web pages. The majority of the data will be text (ASCII and non-ASCII), but there will be some still graphics and possibly a small amount of voice and video (primarily for PC-based teleconferencing). Data will be created and used at all end stations on the network. The data will be produced by software applications in Windows Server 2003, primarily Office 2010 Professional (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, and Outlook). Other data sources to be supported on at least a limited basis will Windows Server 2003 Accessories (Paint, Notepad, etc.), NetMeeting. Note that the network will be not be accessible from outside. Numbers of Users and Priority Levels

At the state level, the users will be administrators, secretaries, and members of four departments. At the district levels, the users will be administrators, secretaries, and members of three departments. The maximum estimated number of users on the network at any given time is 100: 33 regular users in the State Office, 30 regular users in the North District Office, 30 regular users in the South District Office, and seven otherwise unanticipated users.

Three priority levels will be supported: management (top priority), user (medium priority), and background (low priority). Note that these designations do not correspond to administrative levels in the Pennsylvania Correctional system; rather, they are network service levels. Network management processes will receive top-priority service; most network processes will receive medium-priority service; a few processes (e.g., e-mail transfers, backup, etc.) will be given low-priority service. It should be noted that network management will usually consume a small amount of the available bandwidth; this means that management and user processes will usually enjoy identical support. Background processes will also usually receive more than adequate service, but they will be delayed as needed to maintain support for management and user services. The network is to be transparent to the users. Thus, remotely executed applications, file transfers, and so forth should ideally appear to operate as quickly as processes executed within an end-station. Interviews with users to ascertain their needs and expectations indicate that an average throughput of 20 mbps per user within each LAN and 10 mbps per user between LANs will more than support the needed performance in most cases (teleconferencing being the possible exception).
Storage Requirements
Storage requirements need to be large enough to store all Deputies, administrators and contractors data. Interviews and observations of users’ present and anticipated storage requirements indicate that each user will need an average of 100 MB of server space (in addition to secondary storage on local PCs); the maximum estimated server-side storage requirement per user is about 1 GB. Additionally, the network operating system will occupy about 500 MB on each LAN server. Taking price-performance issues into account, each PC will have a minimum storage capacity of 10 GB, each LAN server will have a minimum storage capacity of 20 GB. A main data server in the State Office will have a 36 GB capacity.
Security Requirements A firewall will be used so unauthorized users will be restricted. Part of the security will be Users accounts and passwords that will give limited access. There will be different access capabilities for network managers and users. Interviews with users and observation of LAN use at the three locations yielded data on hourly average and peak loads from January to March, 2012. The data indicate that the highest average traffic volume will occur from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. The peak network traffic volume is expected at two times during the day: 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. At night and on weekends the network traffic is minimal except for the daily backups of the PCs to the LAN servers in the districts and several batch data transfers anticipated from the districts to the State Office.

CORRECTIONAL OFFICES HIGH-LEVEL NETWORK DESIGN

Top-Level Network Diagram | North District |

South District |

State Office |

State Correctional Network |

Internet |

DS-2
(6.5 Mbps) |

DS-2
(6.5 Mbps) |

DS-2
(6.5 Mbps) |

|
-------------------------------------------------

Correctional State Office Network Diagram(LAN cabling is 100BaseT CAT5) | State Correctional Network |

To District Offices |

DS-2 lines |

Network PrinterHP 8150N |

|

Etherfast 24-port
10/100 Switch |

HP LH 3000File & Print Server for Student/School Data |

Server 36GB |

Cisco 2621 |

Router |

HP LH 3000File & Print Server for State Office internal LAN |

Server |

State OfficeAdministrationLAN |

State OfficeCurriculumLAN |

State OfficeFinance/AccountingLAN |

State OfficeHuman ResourcesLAN |

State OfficeComputer ServicesLAN |

FAX |

IntelliFax-4750 |

|

Correctional State Office Network Sub-DiagramAdministration LAN | Etherfast 8-port
10/100 Mbps Hub |

(LAN cabling is 100BaseT CAT5) |

Network PrinterHP 8150N |

Etherfast 24-port 10/100 Switch |

|

Correctional State Office Network Sub-DiagramFinance/Accounting LAN | Etherfast 8-port
10/100 Mbps Hub |

(LAN cabling is 100BaseT CAT5) |

Etherfast 24-port 10/100 Switch |

|

Correctional State Office Network Sub-DiagramTraining module LAN | Etherfast 12 Port
10/100 Mbps Hub |

Etherfast 24-port 10/100 Switch |

(LAN cabling is 100BaseT CAT5) |

|

Correctional State Office Network Sub-DiagramHuman Resources LAN | (LAN cabling is 100BaseT CAT5) |

Etherfast 12 Port
10/100Mbps Hub |

Etherfast 24-port 10/100 Switch |

|

Correctional State Office Network Sub-DiagramComputer Services LAN | Etherfast 8-port
10/100Mbps Hub |

(LAN cabling is 100BaseT CAT5) |

Etherfast 24-port 10/100 Switch |

|
-------------------------------------------------

North District Network Diagram(LAN cabling is 100BaseT CAT5) | To State Office |

DS-2 |

Network PrinterHP 8150N |

|

Etherfast 24-port
10/100 Switch |

HP LH 3000File & Print Server for Student Data |

Server |

HP LH 3000File & Print Server for District internal LAN |

Server |

DistrictAdministrationLAN |

DistrictFinance/Accounting& Computer ServicesLAN |

DistrictHuman ResourcesLAN |

FAX |

IntelliFax-4750 |

|

Router |

Cisco 2621 |

|

North District Network Sub-DiagramAdministration LAN | (LAN Cabling is 100BaseT CAT5) |

Etherfast 12 Port
10/100Mbps Hub |

Etherfast 24-port 10/100 Switch |

|

North District Network Sub-DiagramFinance/Accounting & Computer Services LAN | Etherfast 8-port
10/100 Mbps Hub |

(LAN Cabling is 100BaseT CAT5) |

Etherfast 24-port 10/100 Switch |

|

North District Network Sub-DiagramHuman Resources LAN | Etherfast 20 Port
10/100 mbps Hub |

Etherfast 24-port 10/100 Switch |

(LAN Cabling is 100baseT CAT5) |

|
-------------------------------------------------

South District Network Diagram(LAN cabling is 100BaseT CAT5) | To State Office |

DS-2 |

Network PrinterHP 8150N |

|

Etherfast 24-port
10/100 Switch |

HP LH 3000File & Print Server for Student Data |

Server |

HP LH 3000File & Print Server for District internal LAN |

Server |

DistrictAdministrationLAN |

DistrictFinance/Accounting& Computer ServicesLAN |

DistrictHuman ResourcesLAN |

FAX |

IntelliFax-4750 |

|

Router |

Cisco 2621 |

|

South District Network Sub-DiagramAdministration LAN | (LAN Cabling is 100baseT CAT5) |

Etherfast 12 Port
10/100Mbps Hub |

Etherfast 24-port 10/100 Switch |

|

South District Network Sub-DiagramFinance/Accounting & Computer Services LAN | Etherfast 8-port
10/100 Mbps Hub |

(LAN Cabling is 100BaseT CAT5) |

Etherfast 24-port 10/100 Switch |

|

South District Network Sub-DiagramHuman Resources LAN | Etherfast 20 Port
10/100 Mbps Hub |

Etherfast 24-port 10/100 Switch |

(LAN Cabling is 100baseT CAT5) |

|

DETAILED DESIGN DOCUMENTATION