To me there are a few important issues that need to be addressed. The first issue that needs to be fixed is from John Fischer. He states that his laptop operates at 10 megabits. That is really slow especially since it should have been running at 100 megabits. I would fix this by using a Category 6 UTP 1000 Base F Ethernet because it increases the maximum data transfer rate a hundredfold. For example it will take it from 10 megabits to 1 gigabyte per second! This type of transfer rate would definitely clear up congestion on the network, so there would not be issues in the morning when everyone is online doing attendance and checking emails. Even with the 23 other classrooms added to the network which will solve the principles issues with the slow network and the connection of all the classrooms. This type of bandwidth would make John happy because he is a HVAC Technician, and this will be usefull fort the remote access to his devices from home.
This solution should make it easier for network accessories and peripherals such as printers and print servers. By working with such cabling with a built in CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection) contention-based media access control technique, help address and solve the problem of collisions. To continue on, by assigning each network interface card (NIC) on each personal computer, it will minimize collisions to a number that users will not even see.
Seeing that the school is growing, that means that the network is growing also. With this growing network I would make the backbone fiber optic. This allows room for adding voice over IP (VoIP) to network services and overrides the problem of congestion when the new area backbone is turned on which will assist Alfred Wingfield problems concerning the VoIP and the backbone. Upgrading the network cables will also help.
The next issue I want to address is the one with Helen Ross who is the network technician. Her problem is that printing is a problem because there are over 50 network printers and this makes printing problematic. I would build a server farm to install dedicated print server in order to clear out the long queues. A server farm is a collection of computer servers usually maintained by an enterprise to accomplish server needs far beyond the capability of one machine. Next I would use a few 24-port hubs that will link the print server and the existing printers under the Ethernet bus topology.
More planning is needed for the completion of this network. What NEEDS to be done is a lot of work and a lot of connecting to physical media, physical media such as a few 24-port switches, besides the ones in the new area and a switched 100 Base-T adjacent to the main server farm. The server room will house the print server, the Internet access, the firewall, the administrative data server, the student data server and a network administrative server that will perform backups. I would also suggest housing the switches in locked closets. Also making sure that the network can grow with the school in the future by installing wireless access points everywhere where line of sight is broken in anticipation of more wireless ready devices such as cell phones. With the above suggestions and ideas, I think that the school will be able to function on a more professional level.
