Network Administration

Throughout this course, you will be working with a scenario in which some basic background information is provided about a company. This information could apply to any company that provides customer services in general. Your goal is to select a small to medium-sized company of your choice, making sure that it is in an industry with which you are familiar or perhaps want to know more about. Each assignment that you complete in this course will be based on your selected company, using the scenario company as an example or model. You may use any additional information that you discover during your exploration and problem-solving process. Be sure to refer back to the Individual Project in Unit 1 as you progress through the problem-based learning (PBL) process. You may also want to print the outline that is provided in the Unit 1 Individual Project as a guide for you to follow throughout the course.

Problem-Based Learning Scenario

Education Community Services Group (ECSG) began as a small company of 30 employees, which has its origin from originally providing educational services to adult learners. Initial projects were small like reading literacy to General Educational Development (GED) programs. Dreams expanded, new problems were solved, and the number of employees, faculty, and staff soared to over 1,000 people. ECSG has evolved into a very successful and highly respected business that is branded as a leader with education services solutions for businesses and the community. The future is extremely bright, not just because of the current market demand for education services, but also because of the information technology infrastructure investments ECSG has made in areas such as education Internet services; e-mail; enterprise resource planning (Banner); instant messaging; Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP); SharePoint repository and document management services; virtual private network; wireless services; and distance learning. The future might bring lucrative endeavors for education and certification with these technologies. For sure, the demands from the corporate and community sectors will continue to explode.

ECSG is a public company based in Dallas, TX. ECSG provides education Internet services; e-mail; enterprise resource planning (Banner); instant messaging; Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP); SharePoint repository and document management services; virtual private network; wireless services; and distance learning to an educational environment consisting of 60,000 students, 6,000 faculty, 18,000 network nodes, and 24 networked locations across the Dallas and Ft Worth Metroplex. Charles is the chief information officer (CIO) of ECSG, and his peers consider him a highly capable and conservative leader. The mission of ECSG is to empower the diverse communities that they serve for success. The goals of ECSG are to provide access, success, completion, pathways to success, performance excellence, and organizational communication. ECSG objectives include providing the highest quality technology-based solutions and services in the most cost-effective manner to facilitate student success and performance excellence. ECSG currently services students, faculty, staff, and administrators for five community colleges; the board of trustees, administrators, and employees for the group offices; and taxpayers, education partners, K-12 students, alumni, and corporate partners for the greater Dallas and Ft. Worth communities.

Arnold is the ECSG network manager, a highly skilled worker whose best attribute is problem solving in a resource-constrained environment. His counterpart Randy, the information technology (IT) manager, gets the work done and as a counterbalance to Arnold, can be dogmatic and rigid in providing solution recommendations. ECSG provides secure access to internal and external systems and networks; accurate and reliable data and information to support decision making, resource allocation and policy construction; training and support services to effectively use technology and information; stewardship of the ECSG technology investment; and continuous review of internal and external solutions in search of emerging technologies supporting student success. Functionally, ECSG supports applications in the areas of instructional technology; e-learning; enterprise systems; networking; applications systems development; metrics reporting; security; training and professional development; and client services.

The ECSG infrastructure hardware platform consists of 21,000 desktops, 4,230 laptops; 581 file servers; 1,455 network switches and routers; 1,821 projectors; 1,560 printers; 62 storage arrays and controllers; 672 tablets; 186 monitors; 201 document cameras; 80 smart noards; 62 network racks; 9 copying machines; and 5 fax machines.

ECSG’s strengths lie in its ability to provide educational services to a large student population and its good reputation for providing quality education. Because ECSG receives public funding, it frequently faces budget challenges in attempting to eliminate resource and capability constraints. One approach to addressing these constraints has been to add satellite locations and new campuses to increase the tax revenue from these new jurisdictions. However, with education being a key industry and competition arising from both face-to-face and online delivery environments, ECSG has determined the need to streamline operations to gain better efficiencies. ECSG is focusing on four areas where it believes improvements will yield the best results: documenting and improving network administration processes from a technical perspective and a business perspective; better utilization of an organizational network domain structure and implementation strategy using a directory structure such as Active Directory; development and usage of network security policies and procedures in use on the ECSG computer networks; and the application of IT infrastructure library (ITIL) concepts within ECSG.

ECSG has contracted with you to evaluate and recommend specific IT infrastructure processes and current best practices in ITIL focus areas such as network configuration, user management, high reliability configuration, backup management, system security, and network design. You have been asked to include recommendations for network protocols, transport, and process sections and deliver them as components of the network administration procedures and processes guide.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats

The following is a brief description of the strengths and weakness of the company:

· Strengths: It provides educational services to over 60,000 students and has a good reputation for providing quality education.

· Weaknesses: Public funding creates resource and capability constraints.

· Opportunities: Public funding creates resource and capability constraints.

· Threats: Education is a key industry, so competition from both face-to-face and online delivery environments is ongoing.

Leaders

The leaders of the company are as follows:

· Charles, CIO: He is a highly driven professional with a long track record of success in IT leadership. With over 25 years experience in education and technology, he has held CIO positions in the education, defense, health, and financial services industries. He holds a Ph.D in computer science.

· Arnold, network manager: He is a highly skilled worker whose best attribute is problem solving in a resource-constrained environment.

· Randy, IT manager: He gets the work done, and as a counterbalance to Arnold, he can be dogmatic and rigid in providing solution recommendations.