XYZ Corporation employs 40,00 people with their own associated IP addresses, and operates over 400 servers, including e-mail (SMTP and POP3), FTP, Web, and DHCP at two locations: one in Muncie, Indiana, the other about 20 miles away in Hartford City. Dual T1 lines, for total aggregate bandwidth of 3.088 Mbps, link the two sites, and each site contains roughly half the employees and servers. Perforce, each site operates on multiple, separate subnets inside a single Class B address that the company owns. Make a case for setting up a single DNS server at each location, explaining how each might back up the other, and what benefits this might provide for XYZ Corporation users. Explain how the relative speed of the 100BaseT LANs used at each location compares to accessing the WAN link between the two sites

Question

XYZ Corporation employs 40,00 people with their own associated IP addresses, and operates over 400 servers, including e-mail (SMTP and POP3), FTP, Web, and DHCP at two locations: one in Muncie, Indiana, the other about 20 miles away in Hartford City. Dual T1 lines, for total aggregate bandwidth of 3.088 Mbps, link the two sites, and each site contains roughly half the employees and servers. Perforce, each site operates on multiple, separate subnets inside a single Class B address that the company owns. Make a case for setting up a single DNS server at each location, explaining how each might back up the other, and what benefits this might provide for XYZ Corporation users. Explain how the relative speed of the 100BaseT LANs used at each location compares to accessing the WAN link between the two sites

Answer 1

Setting up a single DNS (Domain Name System) server at each location for XYZ Corporation can offer several benefits and enhance the network's reliability.

First, let's understand what a DNS server does. A DNS server is responsible for translating domain names (like www.example.com) into their corresponding IP addresses (like 192.0.2.1). This translation is crucial for computers and applications to access resources on the network using user-friendly domain names instead of remembering and typing IP addresses.

By installing a DNS server at both locations (Muncie and Hartford City), XYZ Corporation can achieve redundancy and fault tolerance. Each DNS server can act as a backup for the other in case of failure or network disruptions. If one of the DNS servers becomes unavailable, the other DNS server can continue to provide DNS resolution services, ensuring uninterrupted access to network resources.

Furthermore, having a DNS server at each location allows for faster response times for users in each location. When a user requests a domain name resolution, the local DNS server can quickly respond with the corresponding IP address since it is closer to the user. This reduces latency and improves overall network performance.

In terms of the LAN speed, the use of 100BaseT LANs at each location implies that the local area networks are capable of transmitting data at a maximum speed of 100 Mbps. This speed refers to the communication between devices within each location, such as computers, servers, and other network resources.

Comparing the LAN speed (100 Mbps) to accessing the WAN link between the two sites (dual T1 lines with total aggregate bandwidth of 3.088 Mbps), it becomes apparent that the LAN speed is significantly faster. Therefore, accessing resources within the local LAN environment will be much quicker than accessing resources over the WAN link.

In summary, setting up a single DNS server at each location for XYZ Corporation would provide redundancy, fault tolerance, and improved response times for domain name resolution. The LAN speed within each location (100 Mbps) is much faster compared to the WAN link, enabling faster access to resources within the LAN environment.