Report On Campus Measurement

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Abstract

The aim of this assignment is to design a campus network on the existing network design. The campus network is a complex network in which there are many interconnections between the buildings, departments and hostels in the campus connected via network equipments such as WLAN, routers, and switches. In this assignment the network is measured and studied how it can be improved on performance, security and scalability issues. What kind of network failures affects the network and how it can be solved. As network consultant for the university the infrastructure of the campus network is studied and detailed report on the topologies used in the building successful campus network is reported. The tools used for measuring the traffic flow in the network. The usage of the bandwidth details which can be used to increase the bandwidth efficiency. The network performance can be analyzed by using network measurement tools. The network is monitored for intruder attacks. Therefore the infrastructure of the campus network is redesigned for the increasing need of the Internet by the End users.

Campus Network

The campus network is that portion of computing infrastructure which provides network communication services when accessed and resources to students, staff and faculty. It also provides services for devices spread over a geographical location. It is spread over buildings, or group of buildings within the geographical area. The campus network acts as the core or backbone which provides interconnectivity between other parts of overall network within the campus. There can be multiple campus sites distributed worldwide which provides user access to its local backbone network. The backbone network often interconnects the network access, data center and Local Area Network (LAN) portions of the campus network.

The campus backbone connects buildings within the network. Centralized server is connected to the campus backbone. It provides server resources to the end users such as print, file, e-mail, application, and so on. The campus backbone should support network monitoring, security, logging, troubleshooting and other function. Therefore network management is one of the important components of the campus backbone network.

The data center is a facility used to keep Servers, computing systems and its components of the network. Examples servers are used to keep database, house mail etc of the campus network.

The LANs of the network contains switches, routers, and others equipments used to interconnect a main building to other branch buildings and interconnect multiple sites. In large networks, connecting data centers requires higher bandwidth links. LAN technologies, such as Token Ring, Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, and Gigabit Ethernet are utilized for connecting the campus buildings.

A large Campus network with group of buildings can use Wide Area Network (WAN) technology to interconnect the buildings.

Internet Edge is part of the network that comprises of switches, routers, firewalls, and network devices which interconnect the network of the campus to the Internet.

Hierarchical Campus Network

The network designer uses the hierarchical network model which provides the framework that is used by the designer to ensure the network is flexible, easily implemented and troubleshoot.

Hierarchical network model consists of three layers shown in the figure:

Access Layer: The campus network is accessed by local and remote users through access layer. It provides connectivity for hosts and devices.

Distribution Layer: It interconnects the local networks. A distribution layer is a boundary between access and core layers.

Core Layer: The backbone or core layer provides with high speed network connectivity and transportation of distribution layer devices.

Access Layer

The end user’s device connectivity is provided by the access layer in the campus network. These devices includes IP phones, personal computers, laptops, printers and CCTV cameras located around the campus through wired Local Area Network or Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) access points. The switches of access layer are found mainly in wiring closets located in each floor of buildings in the campus.

The network designers of campus will consider following attributes for communications at access layer.

Scalability

QoS

Port density

Segmentation

High availability

Flexibility

Power over Ethernet (PoE)

Security

One of the aspects of connectivity of devices in access layer is the port density.

Core Layer

The core layer of the network provides switching between multiple devices to transfer high speed packets. The WAN edges of all modules are connected in the network where core layer acts as the gateway. In the campus network high speed connection between building, servers and departments is done by core layer.

The core layer considers the following attributes:

High availability

High performance

High throughput

Design of Campus Network

Local area network has been enhanced due to its vast use of LAN switching at data link layer to increase performance. It also provides with more bandwidth requirement to meet networking applications. LAN switches are implemented in campus networks which provide increasing bandwidth for better performance and better throughput for local servers. LAN switches are deployed toward the network’s edge in the wiring closets. By this design shared concentrator hubs are replaced by switches where the end users are provided with higher bandwidth connections.

C:\Users\Akshay\Desktop\Campus network.jpg

Figure 1: Design of the campus network. (Reference at the end of the report)

The network in the Layer 3 uses switches to interconnect workgroups and to provide services such as security, traffic management and quality of service (QoS). Switched networks are integrated by routing which provides stability, security and control to build scalable network.

In Layer 2 switching is done by LAN switches, whereas in Layer 3 routers are used for networking. These two functions of networking are integrated to common platforms. One example is multilayer switches which provide both Layer 2 and Layer 3 functionality.

To build good campus network various LAN technologies used are:

Routing: LANs in campus network are interconnected through routing. It is done either by switching in Layer 3 or routing Layer 3 switches.

Gigabit Ethernet: Gigabit Ethernet belongs to Ethernet family of networking which has data transfer rate of 1 Gigabit per second. It provides increased speed over Fast Ethernet. The network backbone is supported with high bandwidth capacity through Gigabit Ethernet.

LAN switching: There are two switching technologies implemented:

Ethernet switching: The Ethernet segment in the network for each connection is provided by Ethernet switching. It is done through Layer 2 Ethernet switching. This provides the base of the network.

Token Ring: The Token Ring technology is implemented here, but it offers the same functionalities of Ethernet switching. Token Ring is used has source route bridge.

ATM switching: Asynchronous Transfer Mode switching offers higher bandwidth. Voice, video and data are obtained by high speed switching.

Routing Protocols

Routers control the broadcasting of information to other nodes in a network. The information exchange of network destinations takes place by several routing protocol. Routers are used to forward the packets from one destination to other. This information is exchanged by routers. The lists of routing protocols are given below:

For TCP/IP routing:

Routing Information Protocol (RIP)

Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (ISIS)

Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)

Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM)

For AppleTalk routing:

Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)

Routing Table Maintenance Protocol (RTMP)

Criteria

The network design of the campus is done bases of the following properties:

The processing speed of the various devices used in the network.

The number of ports connected in various network devices such as routers, switches and so on.

The amount of memory needed for operating successful campus network.

Throughput of packets in the network measured per second.

The various technologies of LAN and WAN used in building the network.

Amount of latency measured when the data is relayed from the device.

Media support. (Cabling of the campus network)

Configuration of the network should be easy.

Network should support for superior speed for connectivity.

Network should provide use of technologies like MPLS.

Network management and Security.

The time measured when failure of a system which occurs during some operation is called Mean time between failures (MTBF).

The time required to recovery from the system failure is called Mean time to recovery (MTTR).

Packet filtering.

QoS features supported to enhance the network.

Power supply should be redundant.

Now criteria for bridges and switches used in the network design:

Support for bridging technologies in the network such as remote and transparent bridging, and so on.

Number of MAC addresses.

Port security.

Support for Adaptive switching in the network.

Support for VLAN technologies.

Multicast application supported. (Example Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) used to handle multicast management on the network.)

The switching and routing tables require memory.

Criteria for routers used in the network design:

Support for routing protocols in the network.

Multicast application support within the network.

Support for network layer protocols.

Encryption of data.

Advanced switching and queuing system.

Features for routers optimization.

Criteria for wireless points used in the network design:

Virtual LAN support.

Ethernet ports uplink speed.

Speed of the wireless devices.

Support services such as Network Address Translation (NAT), IP routing and various other services.

The range of the wireless antenna.

Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) used for security enhancement.

Implementation of Robust Security Network (RSN).

Support for encryption.

Each user is given a dynamic key and unique key and support for Message integrity check (MIC).

User authentication.

One-time password support.

Publicly Secure Packet Forwarding (PSPF) within the network has to be supported.

Optimization Features of Campus network devices

The need for optimization of campus network devices where QoS feature is important in the network design. The bandwidth available is lower when compared to the campus; QoS is required to increase the bandwidth in Wide area network. The requirement of QoS in LAN is driven by low delay and jitter in the switches and routers. Usually situation occurs where the demand for bandwidth sometimes exceeds the available bandwidth of the campus network. The consideration of the QoS features for campus network is one of the important tasks in selecting the internetworking campus devices.

In hierarchical campus network the uplink mainly requires QoS features where it is covered from distribution layer to core layer in the design. Sometimes uplinks require QoS from access to distribution layer. When there are many ports in the network the speed at the ports are also greater. The speed of the uplink port is low when compared to summation of all the port speed of a switch where the devices connected in the network. The congestion is unavoidable when the access ports are fully utilized in the uplink port.

The switches in the access layer will decide the QoS based on traffic in the input port. In uplink port the particular port with traffic can be declared as high priority. Traffic in access layer at output port are served first, this is accomplished using scheduling mechanism. The input traffic is monitored and can be marked which passes switches of distribution layer and core layer. This is performed to ensure required services when passing through layers within the network.

The Layer 3 data is utilized to provide QoS for distribution layer and core layer switches. Layer 3 contains information such as port numbers, source IP address and destination IP address. It also contains data on QoS of bits in IP packet. The flow of traffic takes place both directions in distribution layer and core layer switches which are provided by QoS.

Background Information of the Campus

Lancaster University is one of the top colleges in the United Kingdom that has enrollment of approximately over 12,000 students from 120 countries each year, 2500 faculty and staff. There are nine colleges in which 8 are undergraduate colleges, and one postgraduate college. There are courses taught such as business, computing, communication, finance and engineering.The main campus has several buildings with a network point of presence. The network provides 6,625 residents with high-speed broadband. Daily it serves 5050 university workstations across the campus.

The increase in enrollment of students and faculty each year has made network designer to develop the campus network which meets the performance and reliability problems of the network. This may cause problems such as students unable to submit the coursework within the given deadline; faculty and staff cannot upload grades of the students properly, and so on. If such network problem occurs in the campus than the students have to submit the coursework in person to the faculty. Students have to be informed each time if there is any announcement made by the faculty.

The campus network should also provide for student services by allowing students to register online, requesting the transcript, appointment to meet the staff or faculty and e-forms submission for any work. The students and faculty who are staying off-campus should be allowed to use the internet to access the university sties which helps in maintaining close links with the university.

Reasons to increase the campus network:

Increase in the student enrollment each year.

By enhancing campus network the participation of students and faculty in research field will improve.

This resolves the problem of student coursework submission.

Enhanced security. (Prevents attack from intruders)

It should allow parents and visitors to easily access the internet facilities in the campus.

Technical Details

The network designer listed the following elements based on the network improvement structure which will enhance the performance of the campus network design.

The IP address scheme has to be redesigned.

Network should provide security.

Students are allowed to access the internet and network in campus with the private wireless network points.

The response times for interactive applications have to be approximately 1/10th second or even less.

Internet connections bandwidth has to be increased. This will support for new application to run smoothly in the campus network and also help current applications to be expanded.

Efficiency of the network is increased by using management tools in the network.

Management tools help to improve department’s effectiveness in the network.

Open wireless network has to be provided for accessing the network facilities for the visitors.

The campus network should be available all the time which should be 99.90 %.

The network should be enhanced in such a way that it should support extended use of multimedia applications.

It should provide security for internet connections and from attacks from malware or intruders.

Network Applications of the campus network design

The campus network provides various applications purposes for students, staff and faculty of the university. They are:

Firstly writing coursework, assignments and saving them in the computers located in labs. Students can take print out of their coursework or assignments in the department buildings and other buildings.

Students, staff and faculty use network in campus for sending e-mails.

One Search Library facility for students, staff and faculty where they can access for vast information found online on various topics. It also allows for IEEE papers to be accessed from university account.

One of the main applications of campus network is for distance learning. University can participate in competitions with other universities.

Student, staff and faculty access information from Internet, chat with friends, social-media used to exchange information, play games and other useful services.

College keeps the attendance records of the students and student information.

One of the important applications which are frequently used by students is to solve the assignments given by the faculty which requires many programming software’s.

Management maintains university account from which the resumes of the students can be referred to the companies for internship and jobs.

The throughput of the applications varies from one to other. Applications in the network infrastructure does not require high throughput when the data exchange takes place between users and the workgroup.

Stakeholders of campus network

There are mainly two kinds of stakeholders:

General stakeholders of the campus network are students, faculty and staffs. They use the network for various purposes such as for sending e-mails, assignment submission, exchanging information, solving coursework, publishing notes on subjects taught by faculty and so on.

Key stakeholder is Network strategy planner/designer who designs the network in such a way that the network should be utilized to its full extent by the general stakeholders. Network designer monitors the network for data gathering, verification, documentation of tests performed, analysis of the network and future enhancement.

Users of the campus network

The user’s society in the Lancaster University is shown in Table-1.

University planning to purchase new PC’s for the expansion of the network.

More students, faculty and visitors in the campus can access the network with the PC’s provided by the university or they can use their own devices.

Table-1 Details of users in the campus network of university.

User Society

Society Size (Available resources)

Applications

PC’s in Engineering labs

60, will grow to 90

Used for Coursework, web search, e-mail, chat room.

PC’s in Bakers House Farm

10, will grow to 20

Used for Coursework, web search, e-mail, chat room.

PC’s in Bowland North

26, will grow to 40

Used for Coursework, web search, e-mail, chat room.

PC’s in County Main

24, will grow to 40

Used for Coursework, web search, e-mail, chat room.

PC’s in Faraday

60, will grow to 90

Used for Coursework, web search, e-mail, chat room.

PC’s in Graduate College House

24, will grow to 40

Used for Coursework, web search, e-mail, chat room.

PC’s in Library

214, will grow to 300

Used for Coursework, web search, e-mail, Scan documents, barrow books from library, One search.

PC’s in Lonsdale House

10, will grow to 20

Used for Coursework, web search, e-mail, chat room.

PC’s in Management School

42, will grow to 60

Used for Coursework, web search, e-mail, chat room.

PC’s in Pendle College

6, will grow to 15

Used for Coursework, web search, e-mail, chat room.

Admin PC users in Learning zone

6, will grow to 10

Used for updating of the university provided account for example changing of password.

Visitors

Many

Web search, Internet, e-mail.

Servers

Servers are the computers which provide services to the clients in a network. They are used for storing information which is used as database for the network. It allows for clients software’s to be run from the servers. There are different kinds of servers which are used in the network. Servers in the University are used to store the students information, library card details which is used to barrow books from library and so on.

Web servers: The web servers are used to send commands by the HTTP clients who are connected and receive response of the data content.

Proxy servers: The proxy servers are intermediary agents for clients requesting resources from other servers.

File servers: The file servers are used to store files and allow the clients to remotely access files.

Print servers: The print servers are used to provide printing facilities in the campus network.

Network Management Server: It is used for managing the various networks in the campus.

Traffic of applications in the Campus Network

The analysis of the traffic in the network has to be done regularly so that the performance of the network can be improved. The characteristics of the traffic flow in the network can be known by analysis. The protocol analyzer is one of the methods used in traffic analysis. Other is done by interviewing some of the network users in the campus. They can be asked on their current use of the applications, how they have planned to use the applications and various other factors. The transfer rate of data in the network and its size also matters.

Table-2 The applications transfer rate in the network for different types of objects taken from book ATM: Theory and Applications, by David E. McDysan and Darren L. Spohn.

Type of Object

Size in Kbytes

Terminal screen

4

E-mail message

10

Web page (including simple GIF and JPEG graphics)

50

Spreadsheet

100

Word processing document

200

Graphical computer screen

500

Presentation document

2000

High-resolution image

50,000

Multimedia object

100,000

Database (backup)

1,000,000

The users of the applications such as e-mail, library access, assignment submission, running programs on system for coursework and management of the college have nominal bandwidth. The applications also are not delayed. There are applications which use more bandwidth. The internet will use high percent of Wide Aare Network bandwidth. The application such as e- learning or distance learning is delay sensitive in the campus network.

The e-learning application uses Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) where the video streaming takes place only one way. The distance learning web application also uses Real Time Protocol (RTP). Distance learning is a point-point system where 56Kbits/sec is given to stream video by user.

The video streaming in the campus network requires more bandwidth. It depends upon the bandwidth available for the user. In the university network current web page allocates 56Kbits/sec bandwidth for each user.

The network management team analyzed the traffic flow in areas such as data stores, user’s applications and various other applications. Traffic was analyzed inside library where students used one search application and for various other services. The traffic flow inside the library had varying transfer rate.

Performance of campus network at present

The routers, switches and logs are analyzed by the network manager. The Ethernet campus network was using low bandwidth in the department buildings. The following problems caused for the low performance of the network.

The overloading of the routers was one of the problems in low performance of the network. When the CPU utilization in laptops and personal computers are high, power consumed by the CPU is also high. The NAT tasks and access lists in the network utilize much of the CPU.

Fail to connect a device to the network. This happens when DHCP server does not send the IP address when requested by a device during connection. The IP addressing scheme has to be improved.

The overloading of the internet connection will also result in low performance of the network.

Network Redesign of the campus network

The following attributes are considered for the enhancement of campus network where modular approach of campus is used by the network designer.

More wireless access points have to be installed in all campus buildings which will help the users and visitors for better access of the network.

The IP addressing scheme has to be optimized, that interconnects the buildings of campus network backbone. Also routing and switching of the campus backbone has to be optimized which routes Internet traffic and provides access to servers in the network.

Security is improved on the network edge.

Network Failures

In a network there will be some failures which occur. It’s difficult to build a robust architecture network which reduces the failure in the network. The high availability of the network is considered in the network architecture to ensure for any failures that may cause minimal affect on the applications. High resiliency of the network services is also one requirement to be considered in the campus network.

There are different kinds of failures which will affect the network.

Link failures

Device component failures

Network device failures

Network software failures

Link Failure

The links in the network are used to connect the devices to one another in the campus network. The connection in the link ensures for the high availability of the data flow through the resources. The failure usually occurs in the physical link as the traffic flows through the links. Failure should be transparent so that the high availability of the network services can be maintained easily. The high availability can be achieved using multiple links and link aggregation which are used to connect the devices in the network. The links connecting devices in the network should provide high bandwidth, active and uplink connections.

Device Component Failures

The network architecture should support the redundancy at the component level to reduce the component failure on the devices in the network. The component failures which may affect the network are control modules, power supply and switches. Plug and play or hot swappable capabilities will not impact on the campus network services. The redundancy of the components level ensures for the failures in the components does not affect the failure of the whole device.

Network Device Failures

The devices in the network are connected to one another through network links. The load balancing of the traffic in the network takes place between both devices connected by active configuration. One device can be active/passive device which can be hot standby for the other device. Device failure in the network is 1+1 redundant devices which is addressed by deploying in the network. The network designer should consider for the recovery in case of failure of the device in the campus network.

Network Software Failure

The software’s are used in the network for the functional operation of the components. The design of the network should not affect the functionality of other modules when one module fails. Network has to be transparent o the end users when failure occurs. The software in the network should support for nonstop forwarding of packets.

Software

The software used to monitor the flow of the traffic in the network. NetFlow analyzer is one of the software used to monitor the network.

Features of the NetFlow Analyzer:

It’s used to monitor the traffic patterns in the firewalled perimeter. This can be analyzed daily basis.

It’s used to identify faults which occur in the network rapidly.

It is used to predict the traffic requirement in future.

It keeps track on which traffic is using how much bandwidth in the network.

Used to reduce the down time of the network troubleshoot.

Calculates the bandwidth requirement in the network.

Optimization of Routing and Addressing scheme in the Network

The network designer used hierarchical campus network and mesh topology for the campus network. The high-end switches in the building were introduced with routing module for fixing IP addressing scheme which results in fast routing by switches. The network was subdivided into multiple subnets by the network designer. The network management team considered going for private addressing in the network. The addresses of different ranges were allotted for various departments in the campus network. The students in the hostels used the wireless private network. The visitors are allowed to use the wireless public network.

The Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) can be used for routing protocol in the Layer 3. It provides for quick interaction and load sharing in the network. The configuration and troubleshoot is easy. To get better performance instead of using Spanning Tree protocol in Layer 2, OSPF in Layer 3 can be used for loop avoidance.

Optimizing Wireless Campus Network

The secure access by the end users was one of the main issues in enhancement of wireless network. It should also provide better and fast access to the visitors who want to use the Internet.

The performance of the wireless network can be improved by providing more wireless access points in the campus. This can be done by adding few more wireless access points in all the building of the campus. The wireless access points use IEEE 802.11b standard. The wireless access points must also have security policies. By implementing security policies it will allow for secure access to all the end users. There should be different channels for open access points which avoid interference. By providing different channels it also boosts performance of the wireless network.

The wireless access points should be chosen such that it should support for better security feature. It should have authentication feature and network management tools.

End users must be able to use wireless network when they roam around in the campus. This is possible when there is better IP addressing scheme. There are two subnets used in the network. Private secure WLAN is one and the other is public open Wireless LAN. These are the campus wide subnets.

The authentication of WEP or MAC addresses are not configured in the open access points. The routing switches in the open access points are configured such that it protects the end users. It is provided with access list which are used to forward few protocol. The traffic in the open WLAN are denied except for packets sent to HTTP, DHCP, POP, TCP, UDP, SMTP, and DNS. By applying such restriction on the protocols allowed to access, this will restrict the visitors not to use much bandwidth for applications.

WEP is applied on the clients and access points in the private wireless LAN so that data travelling should be protected. Now the clients and wireless access points are using Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA).

One more security feature implemented on private access points is SSID. The end users such as students, faculty and staff should know the private SSID which may be text string to access the WLAN.

The features such as DHCP snooping should be done time to time, inspection of ARP and limiting of Media Access Control should be implemented which will make strengthen the access layer.

The use of 802.1X is configured in the private access points in the campus network which is used for authenticating the wireless points in order to gain access of the LAN resources. Lightweight Extensible Authentication Protocol (LEAP) must be configured to be used by the wireless points in the campus network. The End-users in the campus are provided with user ID and password which is required in gaining access of the WLAN resources. Authentication of users can be made by using Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS). This acts as a centralized server for authentication.

Firewall

The firewall is used to keep the campus network secure from the various types of attacks. Firewalls inspect the flow of traffic in different network segments. Firewalls should use IPsec to create VPNs for encrypting and authenticating IP packets. The protection against attacks such as Denial of Service (DoS) and other types of attacks are prevented by applying SSL VPN and Transport Layer Security (TLS) to the network. The handling of high traffic flow at the core or perimeter is done by the firewalls. This will not affect the performance of the network during spikes.

Feature of firewall:

Network and system resiliency.

Robust routing.

Interface flexibility of I/O configuration.

Scalable performance in the network which allows for new services to be processed well without compromising with system performance.

Segmentation of the network.

Protection from threat.

Conclusion

The campus network must be designed such that it should provide high-performance, adaptable and scalable to meet the requirements of the network such as security, connectivity and management. As network consultant for a university I have designed the campus network which has better performance, security and other features. These features will result in ever-changing and increasing campus network.

Table of Figures:

Figure 1: http://enterprise.huawei.com/en/solutions/basenet/intranet/en_onenetcampusnetwork.htm

Table 1: Details of users in the campus network of university

Table 2: The applications transfer rate in the network for different types of objects taken from book ATM: Theory and Applications, by David E. McDysan and Darren L. Spohn.