Design of a Computer Network for an Accounting Firm

Project Description:You are asked to design a computer network (peer-to-peer or client/server) for an Accountingfirm in the city of Fort Valley, GA. The firm has 6 employees (including the president). Eachemployee has a computer with Windows XP and a low cost ink jet printer. The company has agood color laser jet printer located in the secretary’s office. Currently, the employees need tosubmit their document on a jump drive, or CD to the secretary for quality printouts. Thepresident of the company makes it clear to you that he wants to be the last one to getdisconnected from the color laser printer because of any technical difficulty in the networkor a failure in a networking device. He also makes it clear that he does not want to place thelaser printer in his office. The president also explains it to you that presently they do not have asystem to backup important files in all computers. He would like to see a cost effective way ofdesigning a computer network and doing file backups for his firm.You visit the firm to make the initial evaluation of the site as well as the firm’s hardware andsoftware systems. You notice that the computers are all Pentium machines running at800 MHzwith 512 MB in RAM. You also notice that all computers have 10Mbs network interface card.The color laser printer has 64 MB in RAM (expandable to 256 MB); however, it can not bedirectly connected to the network because it is does not have a network interface port. You drawa map of the site (as shown in Figure 1) and promise the firm’s president to give him yournetwork design and price quotation in three days.

Assignments:1. Write a professional letter to the CEO of the company explaining how you would design anetwork for this firm. In your letter you need to justify why your suggested networkselection (e.g.; peer-to-peer, client/server, or wireless) is suitable for this firm. Also, in theletter you need to address the CEO’s demands as mentioned in the above. In doing real worldprojects, you need to give options to your clients. Thus, provide two methods of designingthis network (e.g.; low cost and premium) and explain the advantages and disadvantages ofeach method.2. Attach to the letter, the drawing (schematic) of a network layout for this project showing thepaths of wires and the location of network-closet (You may use Visio software for this task).3. Attach to the letter, a professional price quotation to implement the design of each network.Use a spreadsheet software system such as Excel that contains price quotation templates tocreate the price quotations. You may need to check with www.cdw.com to find the prices ofnetworking equipment (hubs, switches, and/or routers), various hardware systems (e.g.;wires, wiring cabinet, patch panel, raceways, backup system, etc.) and software systems(e.g.; anti-virus and spyware, operating systems, etc.). Assume that your hourly labor rate is$90.Note that your network design must be in such away that can easily be expanded to meet thefuture growth of the company.Figure 1: The layout of the law firm (attached file)