Situation in which the Project Exists: This proposal is for a data communication network to serve Your organization. The network must have provide substantial benefit to the mission of Your organization in developing marketing strategies and design of advertising campaigns that help in generating sales for their clients. The network must further serve and benefit the company’s employees who are designers and marketing professionals, who strive to find ways to help client’s companies grow through advertising.

Network Scope: The proposed network is designed to serve two locations: Alameda CA and Burbank CA. The distance between these two locations is 650 miles.

Each location has 5 Graphic designers, 5 marketing executives, 2 secretaries, and 2 clerical support staff.

The building facilities are leased in both locations and are 2,500 sq. ft. each.

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 the two locations. It is designed to be functionally and physically isolated from access by people not employed by Your organization.

2. Integration and Update: Presently there are many computer in use at Your organization. This equipment is out of date and not connected in a system-wide network. Existing equipment will be utilized in non critical administrative or logistical area where possible.

3. Versatile Information Processing: The network will enable users to create, retrieve, process, transfer, and store their complex graphics, audio, and video from any connected computer within the LAN or to outside locations via the WAN.

4. Collaboration: The network will combine the power and capabilities of all production equipment at both location to provide a collaborative medium that helps users combine their skills regardless of their physical location. This network for Your organization will enable staff to share information, work, and ideas easily so they can work more efficiently and productively.

5. Scalability: The design is scaleable so that more offices or computers can be added as needed without having to redo the installed network.

Data Types. The types of data served by the network will be huge graphics files, reports, bulletins, accounting information, personnel profiles, and web pages. The majority of the data will be graphics and text (ASCII and non-ASCII) as well as VoIP and video as well as PC-based teleconferencing.

Data Sources. Data will be created and used at all end stations on the network. The data will be produced by software applications in Windows XP, Macintosh, Dream Weaver and Office 2000 Professional (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, and Outlook). Other data sources to be supported on at least a limited basis will Windows 2000 Accessories (Paint, Notepad, etc.), NetMeeting, Media Player, and PhotoShop. The primary marketing and advertising data and files will be created in Adobe, Corel, and Quark. Note that the network will be not be accessible from outside.

Transmission Speed Requirements. 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 (large graphics and audio/video files and teleconferencing being the possible exception).

Storage Requirements. Storage requirements need to be large enough to store all company and client 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 and Macs); 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/Mac 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 will have a 36 GB capacity.

Reliability Requirements. In keeping with user expectations and industry standards, both the LANs and the WAN are expected to operate at 99.9% uptime and an undiscovered error rate of .001%.

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 1stGMC network managers and users.

Global Media & Communications (1stGMC)

1stGMC’s proposal includes the development of a LAN able to meet the requirements of your company's software. The computer network components are included as follows: The selected NOS (Network Operating System) is Windows 2000 Server. This operating system provides great conveniences to the installation, configuration, and maintenance of the network.

Windows 2000 Server provides the enhanced DHCP, DNS and WINS features allow a network administrator to expediently manage all clients on the network. The data communication media for the networks is UTP CAT5.

This cabling follows the Ethernet standards for TCP/IP and ensures decreased propagation and noise.