Harriet’s Fruit And Chocolate Company Case Study

Investigation to be done

The investigation to be carried out concerning the physical infrastructure of the orchard, orchard shacks and the cold storage include the maximum number of personal computers (PCs) that each cold storage warehouse can hold in addition to the printers. The data capture methods and devices used and the average response time for updating the inventory data about fruits and other products should also be assessed. The space available in the orchard, orchard shacks and the cold storage is also be investigated in relation to the number of computers, printers and other internet devices to be installed in the process of network installation. Others include the type of computes currently available, their specifications and if they are suitable for use in the new network to be installed. The nearness to any internet service provider (ISP), the requirements needed to network all computers and printers in the orchard shacks, cold storage and the corresponding cost. Last but not least is the most suitable network layout or topology to be used for the company local area network (LAN) and the most appropriate network technology for reaching the orchards and the cold storage.

Business goals and limitations

The main goal here will be to maximize profits by increasing market share for fruits, chocolates and baked products. This is also dependent on another goal of ensuring that a reliable e-commerce application is available that can precisely specify the availability of fruits and other products when hosted on the network to be designed and installed. Other goals include minimizing costs and losses by adopting the affordable budgets in network installation and for other operational costs of the network. There are also a number of constraints which includes the presence of fruit trees and tall leafy trees which absorbs wireless radio frequency, making wireless option an issue if considered. Another constraint is that the cold storage buildings have ice hazards that make the installation of network equipment hard. The functional T1 link is a good option but is also limited by cost issues.

Technical goals

The technical goals include designing a network that is scalable, usable, and secure, manageable and is available all the time for customers. These goals can be affected by constraints such as low computer specifications, which may limit the speed of operations and performance. Achieving the most desired speed of network operation as well as availability may not be easy especially when wireless medium is used. This is because this kind of medium already has the effect of RF absorption as mentioned in the case study. In practice, wireless medium is also slower as compare to guided mediums (Intini, 20140).

The use of wireless solution support

The wireless solution will not effectively support the low delay that will be needed to meet the needs of the applications. Low delay in this case translates to saying that the network will be busy most of the time. However, wireless networks are generally slow as compared to wired network. In addition, wireless networks are affected by several interference and data transmission impairments such as noise, rain and others. All these factors put together will make it difficult for wireless solution to support low delay (Faulkner, 2012, Intini, 2014).

Security concerns in the network design

Some of the security concerns in this case may include hacking, virus infection and file corruption. Given that this is a business company network, either internal of external hackers might be interested to get unauthorized access to the company files for their own selfish gain. Viruses may also be introduced through injection of foreign programs in to the network system the cyber criminals. If all the employees in the marketing department are allowed to access inventory data for the fruit in the orchard and in cold storage as mentioned in the case study, then this might result to file corruption at some point due to some non-satisfied staff using the application to modify some company files illegally (Cole 2011).

References

Cole, E. (2011). Network security bible (Vol. 768). John Wiley & Sons.
Faulkner, C., FitzGerald, J., Dennis, A., Groth, D., & Skandier, T. (2012).Introduction to Networking Basics. John Wiley & Sons.
Intini, A. L. (2014). Performance of wireless networks in highly reflective rooms with variable absorption (Doctoral dissertation, Monterey, California: Naval Postgraduate School).