Huffman Trucking Network

Network topology refers to the shape of a network, or the network's layout. How different nodes in a network are connected to each other and how they communicate is determined by the network's topology. Topologies are either physical or logical. Physical topology refers to the cables and physical equipment required for the network. Logical topology refers to the path data travels between computers. The five most common topologies include the following: Star, Bus, Mesh, Ring, and the Tree topology.

Huffman trucking has four different locations with problems in their networks. They are running old versions of Windows and using outdated means of communication. The California location is currently on a Bus network topology. The office internet connection is through AOL and the plant is using a frame relay connection. They are running Windows 98 with CAT 3 cabling. The California office has a 28.8 modem, PBX telephone system with no voice mail or call waiting and a stand alone web server.

There are many different updates that need to be made to make Huffman Trucking operate more efficiently. The Bus topology will remain intact, but the AOL connection and the frame relay will be replaced with full T-1 lines. A T-1 line is a dedicated phone connection supporting data rates of 1.544Mbits per second. A T-1 line actually consists of 24 individual channels, each of which supports 64Kbits per second. Each 64Kbit/second channel can be configured to carry voice or data traffic. There will also be the introduction of switches which will be covered later in the paper. California will also have their cabling updated to CAT-5 and have their fax machines networked to the other three locations.

At all locations other updates will include updating all computers to Windows XP, initializing a centralized e-mail service which would be routed through the exchange server located in Ohio. GroupWise by Novell will be the software of choice. GroupWise have many capabilities that include: emailing, instant messaging, calendaring, and task management. There will be a centralized web server routed through the Ohio location. There will be firewalls installed at all locations. Currently, California and New Jersey are operating without a firewall. This is very dangerous since private and protected information could be accessed by hackers. All internet traffic will be routed through the Ohio location where the main firewall will be located.

The New Jersey location has a similar network setup as does California. The New Jersey office is currently utilizing an ISDN internet connection. This in turn, will be replaced with a T-1 line. The office is using AOL which will be replaced with a T-1 line also. There are three dumb terminals that will be kept. The New Jersey location uses a Bus topology which will also be kept in tact.

The Missouri location currently has a Token Ring network with a multi station access unit also known as an MAU. A multi station access unit (MSAU) is a hub or concentrator that connects a group of computers ("nodes" in network terminology) to a Token Ring local area network. Missouri will be changed over to a Bus network. By doing this, the MAU in the plant will be replaced by a switch. The Ohio network is also on a Token Ring network which will be switched over to a Bus. They also have a MAU which will be replaced by a switch. The changes described in the aforementioned paragraphs will help Huffman Trucking become a smoother operating business.

The Huffman Trucking California location front office does not utilize any type of switching. The plant area in the California location follows suit although we believe it would be beneficial to the company to go in another direction. The plant's current configuration is Shared Ethernet consisting of approximately forty-seven nodes. There could be some serious issues with packet collisions and network utilization percentage. If the users at this location need a consistent level of data transfer the current configuration is suitable, yet prone for failure.

It would be beneficial for a switch to be inserted into the network architecture of the plant area in the Huffman's California location. As stated earlier, the risk of network congestion is very high at this location. With shared Ethernet the likelihood of collisions increases as more nodes and/or more traffic is added to the shared collision domain. For example, if two nodes are transmitting a packet to the network at the same time a collision will happen. In result of the collision the packets are retransmitted and hence, network congestion.

Switches alleviate the network of the aforementioned difficulties because they allow a dedicated path for data transmission. These linking devices also serve a data filterers and placeholders.

Additionally, switches prevent bad or misaligned packets from spreading by not forwarding them.

Filtering of packets and the regeneration of forwarded packets enables switching technology to split a network into separate collision domains. Regeneration of packets allows for greater distances and more nodes to be used in the total network design, and dramatically lowers the overall collision rates.

Switches are not always advantageous to networks and sometime can slow them depending on the particular use and/or placement in the structure.

Huffman's Missouri and Ohio locations front office areas are token ring network topology with all nodes connected to a hub. What is troubling to our group is the reasoning behind having a having a switch paired with the hub connected to the nodes in the marketing departments at each location. To increase the throughput the hubs can be replace with switches, a worthy enhancement to the networks. The plant areas would be directly affected by these changes since the scanner docking stations connect to the current hubs.

To enhance data flow in the New Jersey office are it would be a valuable decision to add a switch. Currently the office functions within a bus topology with approximately twenty users. If the network utilization is not adequate enough to implement the switch, we understand the current configuration. It is logical in a sense, although it is also logical to think about expansion. The plant area in New Jersey echoes the same what ifs as the front office area. Consisting of three dumb terminals and network pc, all connected through a patch panel, we conclude that this location is not operations intensive.

The types of switches to utilize in our recommendations generally depend on preference. Store-an-Forward and Cut-through switches almost mirror one another in performance with the latter with the current advantage.

LAN switches come in two basic