ICT120 EZY-Books is a specialised publisher for customised book publication services

Case Study: Network Design For EZY-Books

EZY-Books is a specialised publisher for customised book publication services. The company’s main office is in Sydney, and its branch offices are in Melbourne and Brisbane.

The operation of the business is still quite old fashioned that all customer services rely on paper-based forms. For example, if a writer wants to publish a book, he/she has to talk with a sales representative by phone or face-to-face to receive a paper order form, and then send the paper manuscript together with the completed form back to the company. The sales representatives travel around the country to meet customers, but the only communication channel to the company is via telephone.

The customers complain that the processing cycles of orders are too long, and frequently paper-based forms get lost. Moreover, customers expect to submit their orders form and manuscripts electronically, as well as an online order status tracking capability.

The sales representatives also complain that it is not easy for them to get the latest updates from the company about the promotions or discounts. They have laptops with all working documents stored locally, but they hope there could be a file server that they can access anytime with any device, and sometimes they can share their working documents with the administration team.

The company is very concerned about these complaints, and decided to rebuild its IT infrastructure that would help it maintain its reputation for providing an elevated customer experience.

After comprehensive consultation with technical experts and business partners, EZY-Books decided to dump its current IT infrastructure because the patching changes may be more expensive and less likely to satisfy the business needs.

A fresh design for its IT infrastructure, especially the networking, is required. The design is vital to support and enable the future growth of the company. It should enable the connection of all devices, offices, branches, and staff. 

Assignment Task

You are a member of the network planning team, and need to write a formal business management report to explain your solutions and recommendations about the future network infrastructure for EZY-Books.

Your target audience is executive business people, who have extensive business experience but limited ICT knowledge. They would like to be informed as to how your solutions may be beneficial to their business. Therefore, the report needs to recommend the telecommunications and networking technologies to be used in terms of business benefit.

You may need to compare your recommendation with other available technologies.

Specifically, you should discuss possible solutions for the following 3 topics in the report.

1. NetworkInfrastructure
   • Network convergence and unifiedcommunications
   • LANtypes
   • Cabling plan for the head office and branches, including transmission media and connectingdevices
   • WAN connection for the head office andbranches
2. NetworkedServices

Propose to deploy 4 types of network services. Candidates can be, but not limited to, VOIP, WWW, Intranet, Extranet, and Email.

3. Data Processing Facilities
   • 1 Data storage solution. Candidates can be, but not limited to, data centre, SAN, Cloud, and distributeddatabase.
   • 2 Data processing model. Candidates can be, but not limited to, C/S and P2P.

When you provide solutions to each topic, remember to explain their benefits to some of the following items:

• The operation of the head office and/orbranches
• The collaborations between the head office and branches
• The operation of thebusiness
• The satisfaction ofcustomers

Introduction To Network Infrastructure

This report discusses about the current systems at EZY-Books center and the problems that being faced by the current business operation of the sector. The use of network infrastructure within the systems would be of a major use within the sector and would be able to serve the purpose of connecting with their branch office and thus bring efficiency within their work processes.

Network Convergence And Unified Communications

With the shift of EZY-Books to re-implement their existing IT infrastructure, the convergence of the network should be migrated to the IP telephony and VoIP form of service platforms. The network infrastructure should be performed based on the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This new form of architecture should be able to meet with the varying needs of the business and thus be able to satisfy the requirements of the customers. With the aid of the IP based network services, the customers of the book store would not have to remain associated with specific form of devices or certain network connections (Kyusakov et al. 2013). The entire industry would be shifting towards a rich-voice, packet-based form of service that would be referred to as the VoIP. This form of service would be able to bring the full rich form of voice services that would include integrated form of presence and sharing of multimedia content during the processes of video based telephonic and voice call conversations. The use of VoWiFi and VoLTE form of services could be helpful for enabling the operators in order to offer their rich desired services and thus would be able to create better and improved revenue opportunities for the business of EZY-Books (Lee and Kim 2016).   

LAN Types

There are different kinds of LAN services, which could be suggested for the organisation. These includes a WAN, which is a kind of Local Area Network. A LAN forms a part of the private network that would be typically in a form of well connection, fast and reliable network connection. Some of the other alternatives of LAN include MANs and CANs. The proposed form of LAN type connection that could be proposed for the EZY-Books center would include the WAN. As EZY-Books have their branches situated over a wide number of cities, hence the use of WAN would be highly useful for the creation of multi-location LAN or WAN (Mahalingam et al. 2014). With the implementation of the WAN form of connection within the network infrastructure, the telephonic companies and the service providers would get connected with each other and also with the EZY-Books center. This form of connection would entirely depend on the form of routing protocol for the purpose of dealing with the changing form of link states and availability of the high form of network.

Cabling Plan For The Head Offices And Branches Of EZY-Books

With the designing of the cabling systems and network infrastructure of EZY-Books center, it could be suggested that the concept of structured cabling network should be implemented by the EZY-Books systems. With this form of plan of cabling of the networks, the designed networks would be able to deal with the changing requests based on demand of integrated form of data, image and voice based systems (Valilai and Houshmand 2013). The use of structured systems of cabling would prove to be useful for the reduction of several high costs of the changing of the systems. These form of structure cabling process would consist of wide range of adapters, which would allow for the continuity of using the older equipment and thus adding of latest technologies based on communication whenever they would be available within the market (Huang and Xiao 2015.).

The use of new forms of cabling plan and improved systems would help in connecting within the network and thus generate vast amount of information. These information patterns would be transmitted and should be considered as highly important in the choosing of the proper form of cables for the EZY-Books center.

The design of the network infrastructure based on structured design of cables and their installation would be governed by a set of standards. They would help in the process of wiring of data centers within the organisational prospective. This would also make use of modular sockets.

WAN Connection For The Head Office And Branches

As the EZY-Books centers would be based in several cities within Australia, hence there would be a wide base use of WAN connection (Valilai and Houshmand 2013). This form of connection helps in establishing of high form of connection between multiple physical located sites. The bandwidth requirements of WAN have continued to rise with the increasing form of capacity based on several kinds of distributed applications and the vast form of impact based on video based traffic (Dees and Rahman 2015). The WAN based connections would prove to be helpful for those kinds of connections where they would require a huge form of network base of connection (Mahalingam et al. 2014).

Security is also a major form of concern for the EZY-Books center as they would contain various kinds of database systems within their organisation. Hence the organization should be able to adapt to the increased form of bandwidth requirements of WAN. The primary form of ability for securing the vast array of databases of the EZY-Books center with low cost of Internet links is a much critical aspect.

Another form of WAN related technology is SD-WAN, which is helpful for enhancing the connection of WAN. This kind of technology would prove to be helpful after their deployment as they would be able to improve the QoS, lower latency and increase the form of security based on the Internet links (Gamundani, Nambili and Bere 2014).

Networked Services

Although there could be several kinds of network based services, which could be suitable for the EZY-Books center, but some of the huge forms of benefits for the organisation based on their new designed architecture are:

1. VoIP– These refer to the various forms of transmission capabilities, which would be helpful for the communication based on the Internet connection. The use of VoIP services could be helpful for the business of the sector as they would help in increasing mobility and flexibility within the center. The VoIP enabled users would be able to integrate many software products with the help of the telephone (Faggiani et al.2014). These users would be provided with the options of portability of their adapters, which would eventually be helpful for holding the telephonic conversations at different venues that are able to hold the connection of Internet. The long distanced calls based on VoIP would be comparatively cheaper than the traditional method of cell phone calls. These form of telephonic conversations would also be able to increase the overall productivity of EZY-Books as they would be helping the employees for performing multi-tasks without any form of interruption (Reichl, Tuffin and Schatz 2013).
2. Intranet– This is a kind of network of computers, which would have some form of restricted access within a company. They make use of protocols and high form of softwares that have been developed for the use within the Internet framework (Mahalingam et al.2014). The intranet would be helpful for securing the local network in which the various employees would be collaborating, relate the information of the company, creation of contents by the writers and thus help in managing of events and tasks. This kind of connection is mainly been used for internal based communication that would be limited to the concerned organization of EZY-Books (Cubo, Nieto and Pimentel, 2014). Some of the primary form of benefits that could be possible with the help of Intranet are based on increasing and improving of productivity within the workplace, streamlining of processes and also support the use of knowledge management. With the help of intranet services, they would be able to document the important processes within the EZY-Books center. They would also be able to use the tools based on intranet for automating the simple processes of the business of the sector.
3. Email– This form of networked based services is being mostly used within the information and communication based technologies. It could also be very much helpful for the streamlining of the various processes and thus empower various kinds of strengths within the EZY-Books center. The email based network service would also help in strengthening of the relationship with the stakeholders of the company. The use of email is a low cost form of business implementation. Information is extremely vital for the organisation. The different kinds of business processes of EZY-Books require the transmission of information from one center to another. This would help in the fundamental form of processes based on the exchange of ideas, influences, experiences and vast form of knowledge that would be helpful for the supporting of teamwork, which would be highly vital for the EZY-Books center (Jang et al.2014).
4. Cloud Computing– The use of cloud based networking services would be very much helpful for EZY-Books.  The use of cloud computing technologies have been a major factor of shift within the organization (Castiglione et al. 2015). Cloud based solutions and the various offered products help in resolving of various kinds of business related problems. This is an extreme critical segment based on the services of the cloud based platform. They would be able to represent a shift in the IT based networking services for the organization. The interfaces of cloud computing within the infrastructural design of EZY-Books center would be able to provide deploy, operation and thus be able to manage the distributed form of enterprise based networks (Valilai and Houshmand 2013). Some of the high form of benefits that have been provided by cloud networking strategies are: They have lower costs of implementation. The process of the deployment of the cloud based model is extremely fast, which helps in easy use of services. The cloud networking platform also helps in increase the level of productivity within the workforce. With the aid of cloud networking solutions for the business, they could provide higher forms of mobility within the platform for the business organization and hence satisfy the needs of the business and the customers (Mezgár and Rauschecker 2014).

Data Processing Facilities

Data Storage Solution 

In the recent times, there have been a major form of rise of sharing of data and making use of data. The EZY-Books have decided to implement a newer form of network and IT infrastructure. In order to implement high form of business based solutions for the organisation, there should be some high form of regulatory measures that should be taken in order to push the growth of the economy within EZY-Books center (Helo et al. 2014).

The storage and management of information or data is a vital task for the organization. The EZY-Books center have a wide form of database based on their huge collection of books. The storing of these vital forms of information is extremely vital and thus the proper form of management of information is also critical to the organisation (Wang and Xu 2013). The EZY-Books center should have a proper form of assessment of the needs of their storage. These would be in proper form of association with the several forms of applications, the possessed data and the needs of accessing the data. Based on the proper form of assessment of the data of the organisation, they should be able to think about the kinds of storage options that are made available for the organisation (Mahalingam et al. 2014). Some of the wide forms of storage options for the organisation include external hard drives, which is a highly simple and inexpensive manner of storing of information. The online form of storage has been a major issue, which is highly discussed (Castiglione et al. 2015). These form of services include the usage of cloud computing technological solutions that would provide a secure format of storing of information and data of EZY-Books center.  Data Processing Model 

The processing of a vast form of information about the organizational structures is a very important task. The processing of data within the organisation could be defined as the process of performing of specific operations based on a set of data or database. The processing of data is mainly been performed in the information systems, which could be defined as a broader concept that is able to encompass the computing systems and their various kinds of related devices (Huang, Xing and Wu 2013).

The different forms of model of the processing of data could be defined as:

A network based model could be used within the EZY-Books systems. This kind of model could be defined as the extension of the hierarchical model of database. This kind of network model has a form of owner-member relationship. In this process the member would possess several owners in contrast with one-to-many kinds of relationships (Mahalingam et al. 2014).

The hierarchical model is one kind of database model where the different forms of data would be organized in the form of a top to down or inverted tree like architecture. This kind of model would be mostly suited for the different kinds of situations where the logical kinds of relationships between the data of the organisation could be represented with the help of the one-parent-many-children approach (Zaslavsky, Perera and Georgakopoulos 2013).

The relational form of model would be helpful for describing of the data with the help of the use of a standard format table. Each of the data elements would be placed in the form of two-dimensional kinds of tables that are referred to as relations, which are a form of equivalence of files. The different kinds of enquiries and the various kinds of manipulations that occur within the data would be made into different rows or columns with the help of a given form of specific criteria.

Conclusion And Recommendations

Based on the discussion from the above report it could be conclude that the use of network infrastructure within EZY-Books would be of major help for the sector. They would be able to serve better form of services to their customers and would also be able to connect with their branch offices in a suitable way. From the conclusions drawn from the above report, it could be recommended that they could deploy the cloud computing model within their sector, which would hence enhance the growth of the organisation and also be able to serve their customers in an efficient way.  

References

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Cubo, J., Nieto, A. and Pimentel, E., 2014. A cloud-based Internet of Things platform for ambient assisted living. Sensors, 14(8), pp.14070-14105.

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