INTRODUCTION

WANS (Wide area Networks) are multiple LANS (Local area

Networks) spread across a geographical area, which will allow
buildings to connect with each other, allowing information to be
sent and received from one to another. (i.e.,
any telecommunications network that links across metropolitan,
regional, national or international boundaries) using leased
telecommunication lines. Business and government entities use
WANs to relay data among employees, clients, buyers, and
suppliers from various geographical locations. In essence, this
mode of telecommunication allows a business to effectively
carry out its daily function regardless of location. The Internet
can be considered a WAN as well, and is used by businesses,
governments, organizations, and individuals for almost any
purpose imaginable.[1]
We are going to create a WAN infrastructure for the following
local schools in Ballyfermot, Dublin 10,
Caritas College; (f)
10 Drumfinn Road
Dublin 10
(01) 626 5927
St. Dominic's Secondary School; (b)
Kylemore Road
Ballyfermot, Dublin
(01) 626 6493

Kylemore College; (e)

Kylemore Road
Dublin 10
St Gabriels National School; (c)
Ballyfermot Rd
Dublin
(01) 626 5958
St. John's College, De La Salle;
10 Le Fanu Road
Dublin
(01) 626 4943

(a)

The headquarters for these schools are

Ballyfermot College of Further Education. (d)
Ballyfermot Road
Ballyfermot, Dublin 10
(01) 626 9421

As you can see from google maps these are spread across a
large area of the map-and we are to create a network which will
connect all of these together using one of the viable WAN
concepts available to us as you will witness further on in the
project.

We will look at the following types of WAN technologies

including,
Packet Switching

Packet-switched describes the type of network in which

relatively small units of data called packets are routed through
a network based on the destination address contained within
each packet.

Circuit Switching

Network such as the regular voice telephone network in which

the communication circuit (path) for the call is set up and
dedicated to the participants in that call. For the duration of the
connection, all resources on that circuit are unavailable for
other users.
Point to Point Links

For large companies operating in a much larger scale in

many areas, offi ce to offi ce transactions and
communications could be much critical but the Point to
Point WAN technology is the best solution for this
dilemma. In fact, a lot of business owners now consider
this technology to enhance company communications and
delivery of basic transactions between their branches
anywhere in the country.

The Implementation of WAN

When designing a Wan you need to take into consideration all
the viable routes, this being said there are multiple to choose
from.

Each has various pros and cons which make each one unique
i.e
Frame Relay

"Frame relay has a lot of advantages for data only usage--cost

savings, ease of connectivity, the ability to attach multiple
devices to a single frame stream, prioritization of traffic,
congestion management. But it's a data-only situation still.
MPLS

Allows for inter-connectivity growth of your network with

minimal addition of hardware. An MPLS network uses
communications via a cloud based network with each node
connecting to the network providers MPLS cloud. One potential
drawback of MPLS is the carrier has to play a role in
configuration of the overall network. If you are using static
routing on your network your provider will be responsible for
the routing of data within their MPLS cloud.
PPP (Point to Point)

uses a CRC code in each frame header for error detection and
can monitor link quality by testing the links before datagram
transmissions take place also it has full duplex control. The
negative is it is slower for sending packets with the constant
CRC checks.
Virtual VPN

Virtual private networks offer more flexibility for business

partners to communicate over a secure connection. A VPN will
also create more ease of communication with remote workers
and enable them to check in at the office without sacrificing
security. The downside is the use of mobile devices to initiate
connectivity to the virtual private network can cause security
issues especially if the connection is wireless. For this reason,
an added solution is sometimes needed to tighten up security
when logging on to the VPN with a mobile device.

WAN OF CHOICE
I have chosen to implement MPLS to connect all sites to one
another, Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) has been a
huge success with the major service providers due to its
ability to provide the guaranteed QOS, fl exibility, and
VPNs needed for supporting both large and small
enterprises.
Evaluating the merits of a given approach should be based on,
but not necessarily restricted to, the following aspects of the
approach:

Type of traffic supported

VPN connectivity scenarios that could be offered to the
customer using this approach
Scalability
Deployment complexity
Service provisioning complexity
Complexity of management and troubleshooting
Deployment cost
Management and maintenance costs

Possible Connectivity Scenarios

Several connectivity scenarios for customer sites could be implemented using both
approaches. Both approaches could be used to implement the following connectivity
scenarios:
Point-to-Point.
Hub and Spoke.
Partial Mesh.
Full Mesh.
Overlapping VPNs.

I have decided that full mesh scenario would be the best step i.e

Fully Meshed Topology

In a fully meshed topology, each routing node on the periphery

of a given packet-switching network has a direct path to every
other node on the cloud. The key rationale for creating a fully
meshed environment is to provide a high level of redundancy. It
is not viable in large packet-switched networks. The following
are key issues for a fully meshed topology:
A large number of virtual circuits are required (one for
every connection between routers).
Problems are associated with the requirement for large
numbers of packet and broadcast replications.
Configuration is complex for routers without routing
protocol multicast support in nonbroadcast environments.

WAN Backup Strategy Design

WAN links are relatively unreliable compared to LAN links, and
often are much slower than the LANs that they connect. The
combination of uncertain reliability, lack of speed, and high
importance makes the WAN link a good candidate for
redundancy.
Each enterprise edge solution requires a WAN backup to
provide high availability between sites. Branch offices should

experience minimum downtime in the event of primary link

failure. Backup connections can be established using either
dialup or permanent connections.
The primary WAN backup options are as follows:
Dial backup routing:

Dial backup routing uses dialup services such as ISDN. The

switched circuit provides the backup service for another
type of circuit, such as point-to-point or Frame Relay. The
router initiates the dial backup line based on object
tracking parameters or when a failure is detected on the
primary circuit. The dial backup line provides WAN
connectivity until the primary circuit is restored and then
terminates.
Permanent secondary WAN link:

The deployment of an additional permanent WAN link

between each remote office and the central office (CO)
makes the network more fault-tolerant. This capability
offers two advantages:
Backup link:

If a connection between any remote office and the

CO fails, the backup link is used. The Reliable Static
Routing Backup Using Object Tracking feature can
ensure reliable backup in the case of several
catastrophic events. If the connection to the main
office is lost, the status of the tracked object changes
from up to down. When the state of the tracked
object changes to down, the routing table entry for
the primary interface is removed. Traffic is then
forwarded to the preconfigured destination from the
secondary interface. This ability allows applications
to proceed in the event of a WAN link failure and thus
improves application availability.

Increased bandwidth:

This additional bandwidth decreases response times

when the router connected supports load balancing
between two parallel links of equal cost. In this case,
load balancing is performed automatically through
routing protocol.
IPsec:

Using an IPsec VPN, the WAN traffic can be directed back

to the corporate headquarters through the Internet when a
failure is detected.

IMPLEMENTATION
All schools and Headquarters will be connected together
through the MPLS as for the internet, all traffic will be sent to
the Ballyfermot College of further education headquarters, so it
can filter the traffic and only allow various sites to be viewed as
well as become blocked. This will allow the Administration office
to monitor and be in complete control of the college network
from one building.

Service provider
Data networking is an integral part of every business operating
today. The business needs to know that the people who
manage the service are capable of delivering to the highest
standards. At UPC Business, UPC have been operating in the
Irish market for over a decade and with a growing client base
year-on-year, they have proven time and again that they can
cater to every clients specific networking requirement.

Wide Area Network (WAN) Solutions

High bandwidth available on uncontended service. A state of
the art network that engineers traffic flow to maximize
availability, bandwidth and service delivery.

Overview
Transparent layer 2 connectivity across metropolitan areas as a
standard product
Dedicated 100Mb to 10G bandwidth available delivered on
minimum of a GigE port
Delivered on UPC Business owned fibre from door-to-door
Point-to-point and point-to-multpoint services available
Presence in all data centres and carrier hotels
Fibre networks in Dublin, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Cork
Support is always available with locally based support
engineers

Benefits
The Metro Ethernet network has recently been upgraded to
reach to every corner of the business community in Irelands
Metro regions. With our extensive fibre reach we can deliver
point-to-point or point-to-multipoint services with short lead
times.

Setting Up Network with ISP WAN and Public IP Block subnets

running NAT

In dedicated Internet connection (i.e. T1/E1 or DS3/E3) and

some xDSL plans, you may receive two different subnets from
your ISP. One is for the WAN connection between your network
and ISP, typically the WAN subnet is in the form of /30 network
since the circuit you have is point-to-point type.
Another subnet you receive from ISP is your Public IP Block. This
block could be in the form of /29, /28, or /27 network;
depending on which plan or subnet you choose to have. There
will be a router that connects to your ISP. This router has two
Layer-3 interfaces. One interface should face your ISP and
another interface should face your network. You plan to have a
Private network that uses Private IP addresses (i.e. 10.0.0.0/24,
172.16.1.0/24, or 192.168.4.0/24). Therefore there must be
NAT/PAT in place within your network between the Private IP
addresses and the Public IP Block assigned by your ISP.
NAT is situated only on routers to convert a public address into
a private address. If you have loads of ip addresses on the the
LAN side of the network, which are private to free up space and
keep costs down and it will convert/translate it to a public ip
address for the WAN to communicate with other locations on a
geographical map.

Network Breakdown
As you can see, I have broken down the private network for
various locations including WAN Links between them for the the
MPLS and another for the Internet
Major Network: 192.168.0.0/18
Available IP addresses in major network: 16382
Number of IP addresses needed: 10514
Available IP addresses in allocated subnets: 12290
About 75% of available major network address space is used
About 86% of subnetted network address space is used
Subnet Name

Needed Allocate
Size
d Size

Address

Mas
k

Dec Mask

Assignable
Range

Broadcast

A Ballyfermot college
of further education

1750

2046

192.168.0.
0

/21

255.255.248.
0

192.168.0.1 192.168.7.254

192.168.7.2
55

B Caritas college

1750

2046

192.168.8.
0

/21

255.255.248.
0

192.168.8.1 192.168.15.254

192.168.15.
255

C st dominics
secondary school

1750

2046

192.168.16
255.255.248.
/21
.0
0

192.168.16.1 192.168.23.254

192.168.23.
255

D Kylemore college

1750

2046

192.168.24
255.255.248.
/21
.0
0

192.168.24.1 192.168.31.254

192.168.31.
255

E St Gabriels national
school

1750

2046

192.168.32
255.255.248.
/21
.0
0

192.168.32.1 192.168.39.254

192.168.39.
255

F st Johns college de
la salle

1750

2046

192.168.40
255.255.248.
/21
.0
0

192.168.40.1 192.168.47.254

192.168.47.
255

G WAN 1

192.168.48
255.255.255.
/30
.0
252

192.168.48.1 192.168.48.2

192.168.48.
3

H WAN 2

192.168.48
255.255.255.
/30
.4
252

192.168.48.5 192.168.48.6

192.168.48.
7

I WAN 3

192.168.48
255.255.255.
/30
.8
252

192.168.48.9 192.168.48.10

192.168.48.
11

J WAN 4

192.168.48
255.255.255.
/30
.12
252

192.168.48.13 192.168.48.14

192.168.48.
15

K WAN 5

192.168.48
255.255.255.
/30
.16
252

192.168.48.17 192.168.48.18

192.168.48.
19

L WAN 6

192.168.48
255.255.255.
/30
.20
252

192.168.48.21 192.168.48.22

192.168.48.
23

M WAN 7

192.168.48
255.255.255.
/30
.24
252

192.168.48.25 192.168.48.26

192.168.48.
27

LAN Design
The local area networks infrastructure which is located at each
sites core area will have:

 Computers
Wireless Access points
Switches
Router
Server
Firewall Filter
And Internet access. All internet access will be provided
through the Ballyfermot college Headquarters- So as it can
monitor all activity and have various sites blocked by the
firewall in which they feel are necessary for day to day
development in the schools environment.

Summary
All branch offices use either Cisco 2911 series ISRs. You will be
updating these routers in several locations. Each branch has its
own ISP requirements to consider.
To update the devices, focus on the following WAN modules
access types:
Ethernet
Broadband
T1/E1 and ISDN PRI
BRI
Serial
T1 and E1 trunk voice and WAN
Wireless LANs and WANs
A business can use private lines or the public network
infrastructure for WAN connections. A public infrastructure
connection can be a cost-effective alternative to a private
connection between LANs, as long as security is also planned.

There is common terminology used to identify the physical

components of WAN connections and who, the service provider
or the customer, is responsible for which components.
Service provider networks are complex and the service
providers backbone networks consist primarily of highbandwidth fiber-optic media. The device used for
interconnection to a customer is specific to the WAN technology
that is implemented.
Permanent, dedicated, point-to-point connections are provided
by using leased lines. Dialup access, although slow, is still
viable for remote areas with limited WAN options. Other private
connection options include ISDN, Frame Relay, ATM, Ethernet
WAN, MPLS, and VSAT.
Public infrastructure connections include DSL, cable, wireless,
and 3G/4G cellular. Security over public infrastructure
connections can be provided by using remote-access or site-tosite virtual private networks (VPNs).