Moving Forward Research Paper

Moving Forward; the Acme Corporation
Robert Held
IT/244
March 11th, 2012
Jessica Partin-Sawyers

Moving Forward; the Acme Corporation

Acme Manufacturing plans to vault themselves atop the manufacturing industry by branching out and expanding their manufacturing line as well as their sales and marketing tactics. In order to do that, Acme needs to vamp up their network, streamline the communication between facilities, and make everything more logical and efficient. With locations globally, a WAN is needed to group the entities into one network so data can pass securely from office to office. The diagram indicates what the new WAN should look like. The proposed network needs to be capable of sharing files, connecting handheld devices
The engineering facility for Acme Manufacturing will have 510 possible hosts, leaving plenty of room for future expansion. This department, geographically located right across the street from headquarters, will employ numerous engineers and also house the primary sales staff. The additional hosts were also provided to this facility for wireless devices needed for the sales team. The engineers will need some serious computing power and the servers must be powerful. Edge servers will be used in all locations simply because of their advanced technology, quality of machine, and sheer computing power. The accounting department and administrative VLANs are linked to HQ so information is fast, current, and secure. Engineering is a separate VLAN since it does not need to be linked to any other facility. Any information they need to pass along can be done by email. The sales VLAN will be linked to the three distribution centers in order to control cost an inventory. Human resources for this facility will be handled by HQ since it is so close in
All three distribution centers will be configured identically. As shown on the chart, each center has 254 hosts which are sufficient for a warehouse and distribution facility. Cisco equipment and Edge servers will power the network foundation. The distribution centers will have the same wireless security setup as the rest of the company and VPN logins will require S/Key authentication. Sales is linked not only to HQ, but to the other distribution centers as well. If possible, ordering or receiving product from another distribution center (who may have an abundance) is often times a better option than ordering more. Linking the sales departments will help with inventory control and cost reduction. The accounting VLAN for the distribution centers will be linked to HQ only and not to each other. Administrative VLANs are all linked together so managers and supervisors can communicate freely and solve problems that may be specific or