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CIS 345 – Formal Writing Assignment Topics                                                                              Fall 2019

      I.        You have just begun working as a networking consultant for a company called Infomatics Inc. One of your first tasks is to help troubleshoot a small Ethernet network at a Life Insurance office within the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania called Penn Life Insurance Co.

The backbone of this local network consists of five switches connected in a bus fashion.

Four of these switches service workgroups of 48 workstations each. The last switch services two file servers and two shared printers. Because of continuous growth and in anticipation of a heavier workload, this organization recently upgraded its network from 10Base-T to 100Base-T.

 However, they have not seen any of the performance increases they expected. 

Write a detailed letter to the President of Penn Life Insurance Co. explaining in non-technical terms why they may not be seeing any performance improvements on their network (even after they upgraded their network speed by a factor of ten). Your letter should include an appendix (or attachment) where you will specify the network modifications necessary for a 100Base-T operating environment. These network modifications should be very detailed and are intended for the Network Administrator at Penn Life Insurance Co.

The appendix to your letter (for the Network Administrator) should include: (1) A network diagram of the components in a star topology; (2) Details on the updated NICs for the 100 Base-T network; (3) Details on the updated data cables (10 Base-T typically runs on CAT-3 (telephone cable) and they need CAT-5 or better Ethernet cable); Details on the maximum number of connecting devices, as well as the maximum number of network segments in a 100base-T networking environment.

The network managers at the Penn Life Insurance Co. followed your advice on reconfiguring the network, and as a result, the network is now running more smoothly. However, they have learned that their firm will be merging with another equally sized Life Insurance Company across town (but also in the city of Scranton). They now need a WAN to connect the two offices. They have also realized that their Internet and voice over IP connections are too slow. They have been using a Frame Relay data provider. They will need a faster transmission method with fairly good security and a guarantee of adequate throughput during the daytime hours but they are not willing to spend the extra money for an extremely fault tolerant network.

Determining the right technology and equipment is crucial to developing a promising and scalable network. You will write a four page narrative where you will compare Frame Relay, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technologies. You will examine their throughput, equipment, cost, and the like, to achieve the most desirable results. Then you will recommend the technology which can offer the best quality of service, meet their bandwidth requirements, and has the right scalability potential for the current and future needs of the Penn Life Insurance Co.