The most appropriate network that F&F should utilize is a Star Network. This is because for a Small Medium Enterprise (SME) it ensures the network can be centrally managed and if one cable breaks it only affects the one node utilizing that cable. This will ensure that there is less network downtime if only the one machine is off the network instead of every machine in the event of a failure in the cable. Moreover, if F&F decide they want to add or remove a device on the network then this can be achieved without disturbing the network.
The first and most important component that F&F will require is a Router. The router will be used to connect F&F office to their Internet Service Provider (ISP). The router I recommend is a Netgear Nighthawk X4S D78001[AC2600] which costs £199.992[D7800]. This router has 5 Gigabit Ethernet ports which allows for speeds of up to 2.53Gbps demonstrating its speed and capability to handle large amounts of data being sent over the internet. The next component that will be required is a Switch. The switch will be connected to the Router to ensure more devices can connect to the internet via the extra Gigabit Ethernet ports. The switch I recommend F&F buy is a TP-LINK TL-SG1008D 8-Port Ethernet Switch3[Switch] which costs £16.994[TP-LINK]. This switch has 8 additional ports that will be used by a hard wired network enabled device. The switch has another major benefit of also transferring data at gigabit speeds like the router.
Another key component that ensures the machine you want to connect to the network can send data through the network is a Network Interface Card (NIC). Laptops and Desktop have NIC built into them however some Desktops and laptops don’t have these installed. For a desktop machine I would recommend a TP-Link Gigabit PCI Express PCI-E Network Interface Card5[PCI-E] which costs £9.99 and is Gigabit PCI Express network adapter. This network card is smaller than some others thus saving chassis space inside your machine. On the other hand, if you have a laptop then I would recommend a Gigabit 1000 Ethernet PCMCIA Laptop Card6[PCMCIA] which costs £14.99. These NIC will only be compatible with a machine that have either a PCI-E or PCMCIA port to install.
Now for each laptop/desktop machine to connect to the network they will need Cat 6 cabling which is a standardized twisted pair cable for Gigabit Ethernet connections. Cat 6 will ensure the connection between the machine and the switch/router is fast and has a maximum length of 55 metres to send the signal through the cable. The cable I recommend buying for F&F SME is a Sandstrom SCAT61517 Gigabit Ethernet Cable7 [Cat 6]. This is because it has transfer speeds of up to 10 Gbps and has 3 layers of Shielding protecting the cable from any damage. This cable costs £19.99 for 15metres. F&F will need a certain amount of this cable to connect all of their machines to the network depending on how far away each machine is from the Switch. I recommend 1 cable between the Router and the Switch. And then a further 5 cables to connect each employee machine to the Switch. Total of 6 cables costs £119.94.
For the 2 mobile sales people they will be able to connect their laptop over Wi-Fi to the F&F network via a VPN which is a secure private network ensuring and data sent between the laptop and the network are encrypted. The proposed solution will cost £416.85 to implement, Appendix A shows an example map of the network architecture. This includes:
1) 1 x Netgear Nighthawk X4S D7800 Router = £199.99
2) 1 x TP-LINK TL-SG1008D 8-Port Ethernet Switch = £16.99
3) 5 x TP-Link Gigabit PCI Express PCI-E NIC for Desktop = £49.95
4) 2 x Gigabit 1000 Ethernet PCMCIA Laptop Card = £29.98
5) 6 x Sandstrom SCAT61517 Gigabit Ethernet Cable = £119.94
1ii) The Netgear D7800 router is a very reliable router with excellent coverage for Wi-Fi and Ethernet enabled devices. This router can also support IEEE 802.11ac8 [IEEE 802.11ac] which is the latest standard for 5 GHz band throughput demonstrating it will be able to support all devices. Furthermore, this router has supports VPN which will be useful for mobile employees at F&F. However, in the future when IEEE releases a new standard then this router won’t be able to support that standard which will mean F&F will have to upgrade the router but each new standard is backwards compatible so will still work using older standards like IEEE 802.11 b/g/n/a/n/ac9 [IEEE 802.11].
The TP-LINK switch is another reliable component because it can save up to 80% in power consumption with its innovative energy-efficient technology. This works by automatically detecting the link status of each port and reduce the power consumption of any ports that are idle. In addition, because this switch has a plug and play installation it is very easy to set-up and connect new machines too via an Ethernet cable. NIC can have reliability issues because depending on whether it’s a wired or wireless will have different data transfer speeds. For example, the antenna in a wireless card might get interference from other electronic equipment in the office preventing it from getting a strong connection to the router. Moreover, if the device is too far away from the router then it might lose connection because walls can degrade the signal quality. However, these issues can be resolved with additional Access Points10 [Access Point] boosting the signal across the workplace. If it is a wired card, then the main issue would be compatibility with the ports in your machine. For example, certain machine might not except PCI-E cards so will need a different NIC for that machine.
The final component in the network is the Ethernet Cable. The Sandstrom SCAT61517 Gigabit Ethernet Cable is a very high quality cable which had Gold plated RJ45 connectors ensuring the signal transferred through doesn’t become degraded. In addition, this cable has a lifetime manufactures guarantee so if anything with the quality of the component has an issue then it will be replaced under the guarantee. Another advantage of this cable is because it can operate at up to 10 Gbps, it is future proof as data transfer rates through a network can mainly handle up to 1Gbps.
1iii) The SME network will connect to the BT data centre in Cardiff Bay via a Wide Area Network11 (WAN)[WAN]. This means that the LAN in F&F office will connect to a WAN hosted by the ISP which will then connect into the LAN of BTs data centre. This connection path will be used to send data from any SME network to the server operated by BT and provided by F&F. The benefit of this connection is that because F&F has outsourced their hosting space to BT they don’t have a cost of maintaining these servers and can instead utilize the fast network to enable companies to host and develop their websites easily through BTs data centre.
Additionally, the WAN is a larger network hosted by an ISP like Openreach who will look after all the components in the WAN. E.g. this means the connection from the SME to the BT data centre. This means they are responsible for ensuring the packets that are sent through this connection are delivered fast and to the right receiver. Also if any faults occur in this part of the network then they will have the cost of repairing the fault not the SME. This again highlights the benefits of utilizing the WAN to connect to the data centre as it is a connection that is highly secure and has minimal cost to an SME.
2) One of the most important mail protocols is the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol12 (SMTP)[SMTP] which effectively transfers text-based electronic message emails from the F&F mail server to the recipient’s mail server. For example, from the perspective of an F&F client, let say employee A logs into her email and inserts employee B address. Employee A would then compose that email with text and then click send. Once send has been clicked, the message would then be sent from employee A to the mail server which is hosted by BT. This mail server will have a queue system which holds all the emails that are being processed. Now when the message is first in the queue it will be sent via a TCP13[TCP] connection to to the SMTP server of employee B. Once the mail is in employee B server, the server will place it in employee B mail box for the employee to view at any time.
This is an example which shows the steps involved in the SMTP protocol. All the steps that happen with the server are a server side process and the steps on the employees own machine are client side. So put simply the employee sends from the client side to the server side before it reaches the client side of the recipient.
Furthermore, if any of the mail servers are down then the mail will be queued at the sender’s server until the recipient mail server comes online again at which point it will then be sent to the recipient server and then delivered to the receiving person. Another protocol that is used between the receiving mail server and the recipient is known as POP314[POP] (Post Office Protocol version 3) and IMAP15[IMAP] (Internet Message Access Protocol).
POP3 is a very simple protocol that allows many different applications like Yahoo, Gmail or Outlook to use it. This standard is used to ensure users can access a mail server by creating a TCP connection on port 110 between their machine and the mail server. Once they have a connection in place the user will have to enter login details etc. to authenticate they are the email holder and are authorized to view the emails from the mail server. Once logged in, they will be able to view/delete any messages in the inbox until the session is ended at which point the user would have logged out.
IMAP is another more advanced email retrieval protocol designed to give users the ability to archive mail into folders so that they can access the mail as if they were local. IMAP uses port 143 to listen for any messages being retrieved from the mail server and sent to the recipient mailbox. This protocol also ensures that the client can easily manage their mailbox and view all emails in the one inbox until the client explicitly deletes them.
In addition, the user gains the ability to organise their emails into folders to ensure the mail is sorted and easier to access and know where the email is located in the future. Also IMAP ensures that multiple client applications can identify which emails have been read, flagged for urgency or saved as a draft because the server stores this information. This means that if a user logs onto their email from a different machine then it will be retrieving the information from the server via IMAP protocol which will allow them to view their inbox as if it was on any previous machine that they had accessed it on before. This simplicity is the reason why major organisations utilise IMAP on a daily basis because it advanced email access from POP to store email remotely instead of locally.
Likewise, most client applications can be logged into the email from multiple devices because IMAP allows end users to simultaneously connect to the email server with different devices. For example, this means you could be logged into your work email using Outlook on your desktop as well as the Outlook app on your mobile device.
The MIME16[MIME] (Multipurpose internet mail extension) standard is used to extend the format of SMTP to support content like audio(au), images(jpeg) and videos(mpeg) as an attachment to an email. MIME is an extension that enhances the services that F&F provide for clients because they will now have the ability to incorporate a variety of multimedia content formats within an email which will be sent through F&F mail server. For example, MIME uses the server to insert the content within the header at the beginning of the web transmission. The client then defines the appropriate data type for the application to use, e.g. .jpeg. This allows the web browser to know which format you want the recipient to be able to view the content in.
To secure email being transferred over the internet F&F should use both PGP17[PGP] (Pretty Good Privacy) and S/MIME18[S/MIME] (Secure/MIME). This is because both of these mechanisms will encrypt the data within the email to ensure only the intended employee is able to view its content because when email is sent over a network via SMTP it will be sent in plaintext and be unauthenticated which means that anyone is able to view and read the email because there is no encryption incorporated within the protocol. However, PGP and S/MIME will provide this extra layer of security an ensure that only the intended recipient is allowed to view the content of the email.
PGP is the most commonly used mechanism and uses the RSA public key algorithm to authenticate a message using an encryption key. For example, to set-up this mechanism, employee A will generate a random key which will be used to encrypt the data with. Next the key will be encrypted using the employee B public key which now means the original message is fully encrypted. Now for employee B to be able to view this message they will have to decrypt using the employee B private key and then the original random key. Once this decryption process has completed, employee B will be able to view the content in the email. This example highlights how easy it is for two employees working within an organisation or to another employee in another company are able to send emails securely over F&F mail server. Moreover, “PGP uses a faster encryption algorithm to encrypt the message”19 [Search Security] which is very efficient and less time-consuming.
On the other hand, the second mechanism that F&F should use is to enhance the security on their mail server is S/MIME because it has the “ability to validate the identities of email senders and recipients through digital signatures”20 [Tech Target]. For example, to set this up, when you want to send an email, the digital certificate will be embedded in the email and it will act like a signature from the sender. Once it reaches the receiver, this person will be able to quickly verify that it is a legitimate email that they are receiving from the sender. This shows how easy it is to verify the legitimacy of an email using S/MIME.
This mechanism extends MIME to ensure that extra headers are included to specify the encryption mechanism and authentication method. This ensures that both parties know who they claim to be when sending emails between each other. Furthermore, enhancing the level of encryption in the email also ensure that messages remain confidential, preventing unauthorized people from viewing the data and also increases the integrity so that the data is not altered.
3) The first aspect F&F should consider is ensuring they don’t lose any customer files when making the transition between their current hosting space vendor and the new company e.g. Amazon.com. To prevent this from happening F&F would need to ensure they have ample time to create a back-up copy of the entire hosting space in the event of a failure when moving to the new hosting solution. Moreover, the new hosting solution would need to have the same 100TB of storage or more to ensure F&F have enough space for the current files as well as for future growth.
In addition, F&F will need to ensure that their new hosting provider has the exact same set of features as BT or they may face compatibility issues with their customers. For example, F&F provide a service that gives the customers the ability to choose the amount of storage they require for their backup solution. This means that the new hosting solution needs to have this same level of service in place to ensure F&F customers don’t have any issues with their service after the transition to the new hosting space.
Another consideration for F&F is that is the hardware that the new hosting solution using, top-of-the-line or is it old hardware that is patched together. You want your hosting provider to have top-of-the-line equipment because it will mean that your performance on your website will be greatly increased and the time process take between servers and even connecting the server will be much faster. All these benefits will improve ratings for your customers because the quality of your product will be much better for them to use going forward. However, you don’t want to revert back to older equipment with the new provider which is why it is very important for F&F to ask the hosting company for what servers they use to ensure you’re getting the best quality equipment for the money you pay.
Moreover, scalability is an important aspect as does the new hosting solution tie in with F&F future plans. This means, if F&F decide they want to grow their business further, adding more customers who need more storage space or higher speeds from the servers, have the ability to expand and provide F&F with a larger hosting space for their customer to utilize. Or does the new hosting solution, e.g. Virgin Media, have the ability to provide a dedicated server for F&F to use. This would mean that your website is the only site hosted on that machine ensuring 100% access to the server via dedicated connection that is not limited by shared use.
Furthermore, F&F need to ensure that the new hosting solution has the relevant security measures in place before trusting their customer’s data on a third party server. F&F will need concrete proof from the new hosting solution that their infrastructure is secure from hackers and fraudsters who might attempt to try and steal information/confidential data from their clients.
Additionally, the reliability of the new hosting provider is important because F&F customers which are mainly other businesses want to be able to access these servers 24/7 as these business will be utilizing F&F secure online payment system to take money from their customers. If the servers are down it means that these organisations won’t be able to make any sales which in-turn will reduce customer satisfaction for F&F. this is why it is important for the new hosting solution to be reliable as well as being maintained and supported on a daily basis by the hosting company that F&F pay to use.
Another feature that the new host would need to have is the ability for their customers to keep the same domain names as F&F clients won’t want to change any of their domain names because it could affect current customers knowing where to find them as they might be accessing through the old web domain if F&F had to issue new domain names to all their customers. Therefore, it is thoroughly important to consider if the new hosting provider allows you to keep your old domain name.
Referring back to the point I made about backups. It is also important for the hosting solution to have a backup of their system in case they incur a fault which loses all of the data because this would mean that F&F would have no customer backups anymore, which could be costly if F&F customer lose their data at the same time and need their backup copy which would be non-existent. This is a very important consideration that F&F will need to have sorted before they choose to move to a new hosting solution.
If F&F decide to move to another hosting solution, then it is important to schedule a time for everything to transfer over to the new hosting solution. This scheduled time should be when the servers are least in use by all of the organisation to minimise any disruption to F&F clients. Also it is important for F&F to keep their customers informed of any changes that will be happening to the service that F&F provide to ensure their customers don’t risk themselves losing any information they might store on the old hosting solution once the new one is up and running because you don’t want to cause any disruption to your customer’s service. Moreover, it might be a good idea to run both hosting solution simultaneously for a few weeks before deleting your old hosting solution just in case the new one is not good enough and F&F want to return back to their previous hosting solution. These contingencies will be needed to have been all planned for as after the move to the new hosting solution F&F need to ensure all of their services for their client still work to their expectation and that their clients are happy with the new hosting space.
Furthermore, F&F need to ensure that a new hosting solution will still allow their customer to connect from multiple remote locations. For example, so large companies that F&F supply to have multiple office spread out in different locations across the UK, so it is important for these larger companies to still have the access to the new hosting service across their multiple sites. This requires very up-to-date servers that can refresh content on the server that one employee of an organisation might apply for another employee to access from a different location immediately. This level of service is what F&F customers will expect from F&F new hosting solution because they don’t want any downtime in the product because downtime costs organisations money. This is why it is very important that if F&F decide to switch vendors to a new hosting solution that the quality of the equipment of the new host can withstand high traffic volumes from large companies. Whether this be constantly taking payments from customers or backing up over the network this need to be quick and very reliable.
The final consideration that F&F should take into account is does the new host allow F&F to set-up their own mail and web servers on their machines because F&F provide a custom web hosting product for their customers so having that ability to create the own solution on the third party host servers is a key part of the move to the new hosting solution.
Finally, the aspects I have considered above will help F&F decide what they need to check before making the move to a new hosting solution and the considerations I have looked into highlight some of the affects that could occur once F&F have moved which is why it is important for F&F to take all of these aspects into account before they try to upgrade to a new host because the current host provider BT might be just as good or if not better than a new hosting space from a different company.
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