University of Central Lancashire

BSc (Hons) Business Computing and Information

Systems

Corporate Communication Systems Management

Assignment
Spring 2021

Words: 1600
Weighting: 40%
Learning Outcomes assessed: 1,4,5
Submission date: 07 May 2021 (11.59pm UK time)
Module Leader: Chitra Balakrishna
Important notes

• Please refer to the Assignment Presentation Requirements for advice on how

to set out your assignment.
• You must familiarise yourself with the Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism
Policy relating to this programme and ensure that you acknowledge all the
sources which you use in your work. The policy is available to access though
your programme handbook.
• You must complete the Statement and Confirmation of Own Work found at the
back of this assignment.
• Please make a note of the recommended word count. You could lose marks if
you write 10% more or less than this and additional words may not be marked.
• You must submit a digital copy of this assignment through the CN virtual
learning environment. Media containing viruses, corrupted media, or media
which cannot be run directly, will result in a fail grade being awarded for this
module.
• All electronic media will be checked for plagiarism.
Assignment Guidance
The learning outcomes assessed in this assignment are as follows:

Module Description
Learning
Outcome
LO 1 Critically analyse current and future networking services

LO 4 Select and justify the use of a variety of systems and tools for network
management

LO 5 Evaluate and analyse alternative technologies in relation to the solution

of a practical problem

• It is the student’s responsibility to familiarise themselves with the Academic Dishonesty

and Plagiarism policy contained in the Programme Handbook.

• Any assignment submitted after the submission deadline, without prior approval, will be
given 0% and the student will be referred.

• The late assignment submission may be marked as a referral attempt, but only a
maximum mark of 40% can be awarded for that particular assessment.

• If a student requests an extension to the official submission date this must be done in
writing to the Course Director at least five full UK working days before the official
submission date. This request must be accompanied by supporting evidence.

• This assignment is worth 40% of the overall final mark for the module.

• Students should write no more than 1600 words (+/- 10%) for this assignment.
Additional words may not be marked.

• Students are encouraged to read widely in preparing for the assignment, making
reference to articles in academic journals and other relevant sources.

• All references should be cited in text and included in a reference section at the end of
the report using the Harvard Referencing Scheme.

• The Statement and Confirmation of Own Work must be completed and submitted with
the assignment.

• This assignment must be submitted by the due date and time as given on the front of
this assignment.

• Please refer to the Assessment Criteria contained in the Programme Handbook which
shows how the level of marking relates to your standard of work.

Corporate Communication Systems Management © NCC Education Limited 2021

Submission Requirements
You must read and understand NCC Education’s policy on ‘Academic Dishonesty and
Plagiarism’. You must complete the attached form ‘Statement and Confirmation of Own
Work’ and attach your completed form to your assignment.

Scenario
You are a sought-after technical consultant known for your excellent solutions that tailor-fit
a project’s requirements, utilising minimal spend, and a quick return on investment (RoI).
The board has asked you to attend a meeting regarding restructuring their IT infrastructure
and services, given the changing needs during the pandemic and the lockdowns.

The board intend to contract you to advise them on a re-design of their online infrastructure.
They would like you to suggest a state-of-the-art design that includes new communications
technologies and services available from providers. The system must support voice, data,
images, video and audio streaming. The associated costs are required, to allocate a budget
which will need to be sanctioned by the management team. The costing accuracy is required
to be within ±15%.

The Chief Information Officer will be chairing the meeting, it will also be attended by the
management team. On the video conference call, you are told:

“XX & Co.” is a fast-growing online consumer electronics company with an annual turnover
of £4 million and a gross profit of 20%. We are growing and aim for our turnover to be £8m
the following year and expect to retain the same gross profits. We are looking to restructure
following the changes to business due to the pandemic. Presently, we have an in-house
networking and computing infrastructure. The company is known for its excellent customer
interaction and support – a USP that has seen their business grow exponentially in the last
few years.

There are four core functional components of the business – Management, Infrastructure
and Operations, Marketing, and Sales & support. All documentation and business
operations are online. The business runs out of a single large building with an adjoining
warehouse. The online business is in the consumer retail sector.

The business fulfils over 150,000 customer orders per day on average and about ten times
the number during the end-of-year sale and the annual Summer sale. The customer
deliveries are handled by delivery companies as per the requirement of the customer orders.

All the employees are located in the four-floor building with the inventory in the adjoining
warehouse. The Management and admin team is on Floor 1, the Infrastructure and
Operations team is on Floor 2, the Sales and Support team are on Floor 3 and the Marketing
team is on Floor 4. One part of the sales team that handles inventory and shipping is in the
adjoining warehouse.

Currently, the online operations are all handled by an internal network that spans across
four floors and the warehouse. A server farm located on floor 2, houses all the servers and
a core switch in a redundant configuration. There are six distribution switches in all – one

Page 3 of 7

Corporate Communication Systems Management © NCC Education Limited 2021

for each floor and two in the warehouse. A WLAN controller and 50 access points provide
WiFi access. An Intrusion protection system is deployed with sensors in each of the network
segments. Each of the distribution switches and WiFi controller are configured as VLAN
segments from the core switch.

The Internet access is via two providers (redundant Internet access, load-balanced) and the
links terminate on Floor 2. A firewall and access router, both in redundant configurations
interconnect the internal network to the Internet. All Internet-facing servers (WWW, email,
VPN, load-balanced proxies for access to the sales, etc.) are in a DMZ with the firewall
regulating access to and from the DMZ, the internal network and the Internet.

The company realises the need to restructure its network and integrate newer technologies
for its operations. The management however specifies that their Enterprise Resource
Systems (ERP) systems must be located on site. It realises the need to use cloud service
providers appropriately. However, it’s primary concern is providing customer interaction and
support. The sales and support team works from home. There are in total 90 personnel that
work across three shifts, round the clock. These are the key people that require to be online
to service customers. Apart from this, all other customer services are online.

Due to the pandemic, the sales & support, marketing personnel and the management work
from home. The infrastructure and operations personnel that comprise of the warehouse
team, the IT operations team, and the physical security team will remain on-site. In the
expected restructuring, the company intends to permanently move the personnel on Floor 3
and Floor 4 to work-from-home. The network restructuring must ensure:
• No compromise in customer interactions – online chats, emails, video calls, requiring
high-bandwidth communications links to support real-time streaming of multimedia
content.
• Reducing on-site equipment and infrastructure
• Minimising the on-site work force
• Identify quality broadband (wired and wireless) providers for work-from-home users

The meeting ends with a request for you to provide the initial documentation addressing a
specific set of questions (listed as tasks below), this is to be packaged as a report. The
report is expected to be circulated to the entire management team as well as the CIO and
his team.

Guidelines for addressing the tasks:

• The company has not provided you any specific inputs in terms of their network
diagrams, functional schematics, etc. Therefore, make assumptions appropriately
and state the list of assumptions made.
• Similarly, you have not received any specific details about their suite of services.
Make appropriate assumptions and state them clearly, upfront.
• When presenting schematics or network diagrams, use landscape orientation on your
pages.
• Attempt to package information into tables and illustrations wherever possible. That
can contribute to reducing word count while increasing the information content.
• Research real-world costs for all network devices and provider services and provide
a web link to the sources used.

The specific tasks are set out on the next pages.

Page 4 of 7

Corporate Communication Systems Management © NCC Education Limited 2021

Assignment

General (20 marks)

Your submission will be evaluated for these general tasks – Research (sources of
information), references (referencing format and in-text citations), the standard of report
writing (language, continuity, comprehensiveness), its structure (Sections, subsections,
Table of contents, Reference List) and presentation (formatting, captions, and illustrations)

Task 1 (20 marks)

a) Draw a functional schematic indicating the functional sections of the network

infrastructure and their interconnectivity. Indicate the various services provided, their
type (voice, video, data, or multimedia) and the direction of access to them (incoming
or outgoing with respect to the organisation). Specify a list of services provided and
profile the services in terms of their data characteristics such as typical data rates,
response times, etc.
Make appropriate assumptions and state them. This schematic and profile will be the
basis of the rest of the tasks. HINT: Research real-world data traffic statistics.

b) Draw and present the network schematic/s. The primary schematic will be a broadly
labelled schematic of the entire network. Next, prepare a schematic of the network
backbone connectivity (core and distribution switches), indicating their locations.
Follow this up with schematic/s of each of the floors and the warehouse. Make a
listing of all the equipment used and the approximate amount and type of cabling
used. Indicate the make, configuration, and market price of each of the network
components.
Make appropriate assumptions and state them. Remember to orient the schematics
in landscape. Indicate the source from where you quote the price of the equipment.

Task 2 (20 marks)

Use the output of task 1as the basis and address the potential restructuring requested by
the company. Evolve your plan of action using the following steps.

• What factors would you consider when suggesting broadband providers for use by
the work-from-home (WFH) users? Specify the requirements per user connection for
the broadband provider. Use diagrams to illustrate where possible.

• What would you do to minimise the computing infrastructure? How would you
manage the interconnectivity from an Internet provider’s perspective? What fail-over
provisions would you build into the requirements? Recall the company’s USP. Use
diagrams/schematics to illustrate your proposals.

• What modifications would you suggest be made to the infrastructure, on-site, after
the minimisation? Illustrate with a schematic showing the services and access, as
well as a high-level network diagram indicating the components on-site and their

Page 5 of 7

Corporate Communication Systems Management © NCC Education Limited 2021

 interconnectivity. Illustrate the minimisation mentioning a list of equipment and
services removed.

• Summarise overall your plan by listing a set of action points that you would perform
in a sequence.

Guideline: Make appropriate assumptions and state them clearly at the beginning of your
response. Use costs (capital and running) as a basis for your choice of technology or
services. Your technical reasoning must be well supported by evidence (in-text citations)
that should be listed in the references, using the Harvard referencing system. You may make
reasonable assumptions of costs for those that you cannot get from online searches. Focus
on the business needs and how they will be met and not only the technical aspects; the
technology must meet the business needs.

Task 3 (25 marks)

Having drawn up a technical proposal, draw a single network diagram showing the
recommended solution. Include a list of networking devices, accessories, software, and
provider service costs, along with their configurations/services and pricing. Assess the total
cost of ownership of the network which you have proposed.

Task 4 (15 marks)

List out the risks and benefits of your proposal. Include the technical risks (including cyber
security) as well as any business risks that arise due to the technical risks. To end the
proposal, highlight your key selling points for the proposal and include a quick RoI (return
on investment) as one of the primary points.

Total marks for the assignment = 100 marks.

Your report should be 1600 words (+/- 10%) plus diagrams.

References do not count towards this word limit. For your prices you need to show
via references where the prices have come from so that these figures can be
validated. If you use any work which is not yours (for example a picture or a piece of
text which helps you to explain your argument) then this must be correctly and fully
referenced using the Harvard referencing system.

Page 6 of 7

Corporate Communication Systems Management © NCC Education Limited 2021

Statement and Confirmation of Own Work

Programme/Qualification name:

All NCC Education assessed assignments submitted by students must have this statement as the
cover page or it will not be accepted for marking. Please ensure that this statement is either firmly
attached to the cover of the assignment or electronically inserted into the front of the assignment.

Student declaration

I have read and understood NCC Education’s Policy on Academic Dishonesty and
Plagiarism.

I can confirm the following details:

Student ID/Registration number:

Name:

Centre Name:

Module Name:

Module Leader:

Number of words:

I confirm that this is my own work and that I have not plagiarised any part of it. I have also
noted the assessment criteria and pass mark for assignments.

Due Date:

Student Signature:

Submitted Date:

Page 7 of 7

Corporate Communication Systems Management © NCC Education Limited 2021