Create The Network And Hardware Portion Of Your Real Or Fict ✓ Solved

Create the network and hardware portion of your real or fict

Create the network and hardware portion of your real or fictitious company strategic plan. Include information about computers that will house the information and devices that will be used to access the information. Discuss contingency plan for what happens if there is a hardware failure. Mention what should be done to keep this section of the plan up to date.

Paper For Above Instructions

Executive Summary

This document presents the network and hardware portion of a strategic plan for a mid-sized fictitious company, "EcoData Solutions." The plan defines the physical and logical network architecture, server and endpoint hardware, user access devices, redundancy and contingency strategies for hardware failure, and procedures to keep this section of the strategic plan current. The recommended design balances performance, security, scalability, and cost-effectiveness for a 250-employee organization operating across two regional offices and a cloud presence (Oppenheimer, 2010; Tanenbaum & Wetherall, 2011).

Network Architecture

EcoData Solutions will implement a hybrid network using a layered design: core, distribution, and access layers in each office, connected via encrypted VPN or MPLS to the cloud environment (Oppenheimer, 2010). The core will consist of redundant high-throughput switches (10 Gbps or higher) with dynamic routing (OSPF/EIGRP) to support resilience and load balancing (Stallings, 2013). Distribution switches will provide VLAN segmentation for departments (HR, Finance, Engineering) to enforce security and QoS policies (ISO/IEC, 2013).

Internet edge devices include redundant next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) to provide perimeter defense. Wireless LAN controllers and access points will support secure 802.1X authentication for corporate Wi‑Fi, with separate guest networks segmented from internal resources (Whitman & Mattord, 2012).

Hardware Inventory: Servers, Storage, and Endpoints

Primary compute resources will be a mixed on-premises and cloud model. On-premises servers (two-node virtualized cluster using enterprise-grade x86 servers with ECC memory and RAIDed local storage) will host latency-sensitive applications and directory services. Virtualization (hypervisor-based) enables rapid failover and efficient resource utilization (Tanenbaum & Wetherall, 2011). Production storage will use a SAN with snapshot and replication features to the cloud for off-site redundancy.

Cloud services (IaaS/PaaS) will host public-facing applications and non-latency-critical workloads, leveraging provider redundancy and geographic distribution. Endpoint hardware includes standardized business-class laptops (Intel i5/ i7 or equivalent), desktop workstations for engineering teams with higher CPU/GPU resources, and mobile tablets for field staff. All endpoints will run centrally managed OS images and endpoint protection tools (Kim & Solomon, 2015).

Devices for Accessing Information

Employees will access information via managed endpoints (laptops/desktops), thin clients for call-center style deployments, and mobile devices where appropriate. Remote access will be through company-managed VPNs with multifactor authentication (MFA) and conditional access policies. Administrative access to infrastructure will require jump servers and strict role-based access control (RBAC) to minimize risk (Whitman & Mattord, 2012).

Contingency Plan for Hardware Failure

The contingency plan includes prevention, detection, and recovery elements. Prevention: proactive monitoring (SNMP, Syslog, telemetry), scheduled predictive maintenance, and firmware updates reduce unexpected failures (Stallings, 2013). Detection: centralized logging and automated alerts allow rapid detection of degrading components.

Recovery: the strategy defines RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective) per system class. For critical systems (authentication, ERP), RTO targets are under 1 hour with synchronous replication between clustered nodes; for less critical systems, RTO may be 8–24 hours (NIST, 2010). The architecture includes:

  • High-availability clustering and automated failover for servers (virtual machine migration).
  • Redundant network paths and devices (dual-homed connections, redundant switches and routers).
  • On-site hot-spare hardware for the most critical components, with vendor-maintained spare pools and advance replacement SLAs.
  • Cloud-based DR failover for entire applications when on-premises recovery is not feasible within RTO.

In case of a hardware failure, runbooks outline step-by-step recovery: identify failed component, isolate affected services, initiate failover to redundant hardware or cloud instances, and, if necessary, activate vendor RMA and part replacement procedures. Regular DR exercises and tabletop simulations ensure staff readiness (NIST, 2010).

Data Protection and Integrity

Backups are performed daily with transactional logs for critical databases replicated continuously. Backups are stored on immutable storage and replicated off-site to the cloud. Integrity checks and periodic restore tests validate backup usability (Kim & Solomon, 2015). For hardware failures that cause data corruption, versioned snapshots and point-in-time recovery reduce potential data loss (Tanenbaum & Wetherall, 2011).

Maintenance, Updates, and Keeping the Plan Current

To keep the network and hardware section up to date, implement a formal review cycle: quarterly operational reviews and an annual strategic review aligned with the organization's budgeting cycle. Maintenance processes include:

  • Asset inventory and lifecycle management: track warranty and end-of-life dates to plan replacements before failures (Laudon & Laudon, 2016).
  • Change management: require documented change requests, impact analysis, and rollback plans for firmware, configuration, or hardware changes (ISO/IEC, 2013).
  • Patch management: scheduled security and firmware patch windows with quick-response capability for zero-day vulnerabilities (Whitman & Mattord, 2012).
  • Continuous monitoring and KPIs: uptime, mean-time-to-repair (MTTR), incident frequency, and patch compliance metrics to guide updates (Stallings, 2013).

Governance, Roles, and Training

Define clear roles and responsibilities for network administrators, system administrators, and incident response teams. Maintain documentation—network diagrams, device configurations, IP addressing schemes, and contact trees—and secure them with version control. Regular staff training and DR exercises ensure proficiency with recovery procedures and tools (NIST, 2010).

Conclusion

This network and hardware strategic plan provides EcoData Solutions with a resilient, scalable, and secure foundation. By combining layered network design, virtualization, on-premises redundancy, and cloud-based DR, the company can meet uptime and data protection objectives. Regular reviews, proactive maintenance, documented runbooks, and periodic testing ensure the hardware and network plan stays current and effective against evolving operational and security risks (Oppenheimer, 2010; ISO/IEC, 2013).

References

  • Tanenbaum, A. S., & Wetherall, D. J. (2011). Computer Networks (5th ed.). Pearson.
  • Stallings, W. (2013). Data and Computer Communications (10th ed.). Pearson.
  • Oppenheimer, P. (2010). Top-Down Network Design (3rd ed.). Cisco Press.
  • National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). (2010). Contingency Planning Guide for Federal Information Systems (NIST SP 800-34 Rev. 1). Gaithersburg, MD: NIST.
  • Whitman, M. E., & Mattord, H. J. (2012). Principles of Information Security (4th ed.). Cengage Learning.
  • ISO/IEC. (2013). ISO/IEC 27001:2013 Information technology — Security techniques — Information security management systems — Requirements. International Organization for Standardization.
  • Kim, W., & Solomon, M. G. (2015). Fundamentals of Information Systems Security (2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
  • Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2016). Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm (14th ed.). Pearson.
  • Ross, J. W., Weill, P., & Robertson, D. C. (2006). Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution. Harvard Business Review Press.
  • Cisco Systems. (2019). Cisco Validated Design: Enterprise Campus. https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise/design-zone-campus/index.html

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