As part of the formal assessment for the HNC/D programme you are required to submit an assignment for each module. Full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments are given below.

After completing the module you should be able to:

1. Understand the principles of network infrastructure management.

2. Design complex network infrastructure systems

3. Implement complex network infrastructure systems

4. Test complex network infrastructure systems.\\

Scenario

Edinburgh Zoo is a major tourist attraction based in the capital city of Scotland and run by The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. As well as allowing visitors to see a wide range of animals (including endangered species such as Giant Pandas), the zoo works with many partners around the world in conservation, research and breeding programmes. The zoo is located on the western side of the city. Further details can be found at http://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/.

This assignment is about the infrastructure needed to run the zoo business. The entire network is built on Microsoft?s Windows servers running Active Directory. All employees have AD user names and passwords which give access to the required services at the zoo.

Note: Edinburgh Zoo is a real establishment and is run by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. However, the remainder of the material in this assignment is fictitious, being designed to provide a suitable scenario for the tasks. Do not contact the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland or the zoo about this assignment as they will not know what you are talking about!

Assignment Task

Task 1 -Guideline length 500 words

As a visitor to the zoo, I wish to use their web site to find information about how to get there. To do this, I type in the URL: http://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/visiting/getting-here/.

Assuming the YOU are doing this from you own computer where you normally do your RDI studies, provide a detailed description of how the zoo?s Domain Name Service (DNS) name (www.edinburghzoo.org.uk) is resolved into an IP address so that the request can be sent to the server. You should include a description of how the DNS lookup works, using this particular case as an ex. Your answer must be detailed and specific, mentioning as appropriate: the zoo, its DNS server, its web site and your own Internet Service Provider?s DNS service as well as any other DNS servers used. Assume that the zoo runs its own DNS server. Also include the full result of doing a DNS lookup on this particular address together with an explanation of all the items in this result. Note that there are many DNS lookup tools available either to use directly from web pages or to download and use locally.

Briefly describe the purpose of the following components in the organisations network:

§  Primary Domain Controller (PDC)

§  Router

§  Wireless access point

Outline how the organisation would use a firewall to protect its network. 

Task 2 -Guideline length diagrams (notional 600 words) plus 600 words 

The zoo business has a number of departments including Guest Services (running catering, cleaning etc.), Corporate Events (running evening visits for private groups such as company parties etc.) and various animal departments such as Mammals. Although there are other departments, you only need to consider these three for the assignment.

Each department has a head of department in charge with a number of staff working under them.

For each of the following, you must provide the actual design or structure asked for as a diagram, together with an explanation of your structure describeing how it fulfils the requirements given. You may make reasonable assumptions to cover the lack of detail in the scenario but these must be clearly stated and justified.

For the organisational structure given, draw an organisation diagram to be used in developing the required directory structure and using your organisation structure, devise a directory structure using Microsoft Active Directory as the target.

Within your directory structure, identify the groups that can be used to allocate access rights to zoo staff.

For this Active Directory structure, devise a file storage (i.e. folder) structure that will allow appropriate people to access appropriate files and for this to be controlled using the access rights and groups.

Task 3 -Guideline length 500 words

Outline how you would implement the Active Directory (AD) structure devised in task 2. You should provide the implementation information, explanations and justifications to show how your solution fulfils the requirements of the zoo. You should cover the following:

a) Identify appropriate objects including users, end user computers, printers and servers for one department in the structure. As mentioned in task 2, each department has a head of department in charge with a number of staff working under them.

b) For each of these objects identify the AD attributes of that object in detail, matching against the standard schema for that type of object. Provide an ex set of data that can be used to populate each object. (You can make up appropriate names and other details for each object.)

c) Briefly describe how you would implement the domain controller system, including how many DCs you would have, how they would be related to each other and physically where you would site them.

This task 3 covers the single assessment criterion in this section, 3.1.

Task 4 -Guideline length 800 words

Your newly designed and implemented system must be tested before it becomes the production system at the zoo. This is a "mission critical" system whose operation directly impacts the day to day business of the zoo.

Produce a detailed test plan that will demonstrate that a head of department has access to all the required facilities within the system. Include the tasks to be done during the tests and (made up) appropriate test results together with comments and appropriate actions. A new system never works correctly and completely first time so some of the tests should fail, with appropriate problems and suggested fixes included. This should be in the form of test documentation covering the tests to be done, reason for the test, exact input used, expected results, actual results and any remedial action required.

This should test:

a) logging in

b) access to the head of department?s private files (i.e. only available to this person).

c) access to the department?s records, which should be available to all staff in the department.

d) access to appropriate network resources such as printing.

The tests you discuss cover assessment criterion 4.1.

The documentation of the testing covers assessment criterion 4.2.