Technical Supplement for Network Control

Networking in computer science is the connection of two or more computers electronically with the sole aim of data or peripheral sharing. As the computers and peripherals connected to a network increases, using routers and switches alone is no longer reliable to contain broadcast traffic. Therefore this research employed VLAN technology to improve the performance of an extended star network topology by dividing a single switching network into a number of overlaying virtual networks called VLANs that can accommodate various functionalities, security needs and easy administration. For Inter-VLAN routing, a layer 3 switch that support 802.1Q trunking on a fast Ethernet or GigabitEthernet interface was used. This study is conducted using a white-box approach and the waterfall methodology to design, simulate and compare. After configuration, it was seen that the presence of failure in the main network is abstracted from the network users as the VLANS is configured logically to access and share resource with systems on all blocks. Subsequently, A ring topology can be introduced to the system were each block will have a backup switch and can serve as a backup for the block nearest to it. Also a Dual ISP can be introduced to provide steady internet access.