Assignment: VLAN Troubleshooting

XYZ Company is a very large retail chain in the Midwest United States. This company operates with a single corporate campus location and 25 regional distribution centers that support 3,000 retail locations. XYZ Company recently deployed a new switching environment using Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) and Spanning Tree technology. The new switching environment includes redundant connections between each switch and includes the HR and Finance VLANs as shown below. Devices plugged into the HR VLAN on any switch require access to the HR VLANs across all switches. Devices plugged into the Finance VLAN require access to the Finance VLANs across all switches.

There have been multiple problems reported with the VLAN and Spanning Tree switching environment.

The new switching environment has exhibited the following problems:

• Switch 1 HR VLAN communication cannot take place with Switch 2 HR VLAN
• Switch 2 Finance VLAN cannot communicate with Switch 4 Finance VLAN
• Switch 4 has both trunk ports to switch 3 continuously going from blocking to forwarding
• Root bridge election is occurring every minute

You were brought in based on your troubleshooting knowledge to address the issues.

Write a two to four page paper in which you:

1. Decide the troubleshooting methodology that you would use for each issue. Provide a rationale to support your response.

2. Provide the main steps that you would use to troubleshoot each of these issues and determine the tools that you would require to complete your troubleshooting. Provide a rationale to support your response.

3. Speculate on the main cause(s) of each of the four problems. Provide a rationale to support your response.

4. Use at least two quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.

• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student's name, the professor's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

• Describe and develop maintenance methods and processes and procedures through the use of networking tools, resources, and techniques.

• Summarize and develop troubleshooting processes for enterprise networks.

• Use technology and information resources to research issues in internetworking troubleshooting.

• Write clearly and concisely about internetworking troubleshooting using proper writing mechanics.