COMP1609 (25/26) Network and Internet Technology and Design Coursework

Coursework Submission Requirements

An electronic copy of your work for this coursework must be fully uploaded by the Deadline Date of Monday 01/12/2025 using the link on the coursework Moodle page for COMP1609.

For this coursework, you must submit a single PDF document. In general, any text in the document must not be an image (i.e., must not be scanned) and would normally be generated from other documents (e.g., MS Office using "Save As. PDF"). An exception to this is the handwritten mathematical notation (e.g., subnetting), but when scanning does ensure the file size is not excessive. There are limits on the file size (see the relevant course Moodle page).

Make sure that any files you upload are virus-free and not protected by a password or corrupted otherwise they will be treated as null submissions.

Your work will not be printed in colour. Please ensure that any pages with colour are acceptable when printed in Black and White.

You must NOT submit a paper copy of this coursework.

All coursework must be submitted as above. Under no circumstances can they be accepted by academic staff.

The University website has details of the current Coursework Regulations, including details of penalties for late submission, procedures for Extenuating Circumstances, and penalties for Assessment Offences. See https://docs.gre.ac.uk/rep/sas/academic-misconduct-policy-and-procedure-taught-awards

The coursework detailed specification:

This is an individual assessment. Your investigation should not be shared among other students.

The objective of the coursework is to simulate a client-server model communication over an IP network and to investigate an application and network performance in multiple provided scenarios.

This assessment requires to use Tetcos NetSim simulator.

The network architecture overview:
The company’s headquarters are in Cape Town (South African business hub). They have recently opened regional offices in Singapore (Southeast Asian financial centre) and Buenos Aires (Argentina – South American business hub). The main service provided by the Singapore and Argentina offices will be gathered and distributed monthly and annual reports describing sales managed by the headquarters in Cape Town (South Africa). The company has decided to perform a simulation to investigate the feasibility of expanding to an additional call centre.

Cape Town (South Africa) LAN: The network is undefined and needs to be designed by the student with justifications, this implies justification of several nodes, users, and applications.

Singapore (Southeast Asian) LAN: This site consists of 5 users connected to a core switch, Local printer, and email. They are connected to the Internet via a backbone link. Some applications, run by users including printers and databases, are local and others like web browsing and MS OneDrive are supported including remote desktops, in Cape Town. Additionally, 10 users work from home using MS Teams and Zoom with all supported services.

Buenos Aires (Argentina) Office LAN: This site consists of 5 users connected to a core switch, Local printer, and email. They are connected to the Internet via a backbone link. Some applications, run by users including printers and databases, are local and others like web browsing and MS OneDrive are supported remotely, in Cape Town. Additionally, 5 users work from home using MS Teams and Zoom for voice and video calls.

Network Operations Centre (NOC): This site consists of 5 users connected to a core switch, Local printer, and email. They are connected to the Internet via a backbone link. Some applications run by users including printers and databases are local and others like web browsing and MS OneDrive are supported remotely, in Cape Town.  All users run MS Teams and Zoom conferencing applications with Buenos Aires Office.

The tasks:

The objective is to perform group literature review, individually build a Tetcos NetSim simulation model based on the network architecture given and evaluate the behaviour of network parameters gained by simulating the use cases. The design, implementation and simulation discussion imply the inclusion of graphs and justification of made decisions or the results achieved through the simulation.

The tasks:
1.    The objective is to perform group literature review. 
Perform literature review on the technologies that are used in a modern network.

CHOOSE 3 from the following list of network technologies: -
i.    5G and WiFi 6 technology
ii.    Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
iii.    Augmented reality and virtual reality
iv.    Cloud computing 
v.    DevOps 
vi.    Digital transformation
vii.    Intent-based networking (IBN)
viii.    Internet of Things (IoT)
ix.    Data Security
x.    SD-WAN 

There are multiple providers of such services, some examples, are Amazon AWS, CrowdStrike and CISCO (BUT NOT LIMITED TO). Critically discuss these technologies concerning the scalability and transparency of communication, providing examples. Identify two or more commercial risks arising due to the failure of such cloud services. The discussion should be documented and should be approximately seven hundred (700) words.

The group should consist of two roles:

Risk assessor: The risk assessor evaluates the potential threats.
Upgrade engineer: The upgrade engineer must review the technologies from a benefit point of view. [GROUP TASK] 10%

2. Design, implement and simulate your model in the Tetcos NETSIM simulator guided by the given network architecture overview. The design requires detailed documentation on the application and performance settings in the Tetcos NETSIM simulator for each user and these settings justifications. Following the implementation, you are required to simulate your scenario. [INDIVIDUAL TASK] 15%

3. The documentation must contain a table of your subnetting schemes for each LAN/WAN/MAN. Note: You should configure Tetcos NetSim to use these subnets and show evidence of this. You must provide the following: Network Address, Broadcast Address, Usable Addresses, and IP Address assignments to hosts. You must use at least two classes from the Private Address Space. [INDIVIDUAL TASK] 15%

4.  Conduct an analysis of the behaviour of the network performance in a variety of cases. The analysis must be done regarding your expectations. Discuss the scenario and hypothesize on the possible outcomes of provided use cases followed by the analysis of the results that were received from the simulation.  [INDIVIDUAL TASK] 20%

5.    For additional marks include analysis on each of the following  [INDIVIDUAL TASK] 20%:

i.    Utilization of the backbone link.
ii.    Cloud Storage (OneDrive) average file download time
iii.    Web Server page response time.
iv.    The behaviour of MS Teams/Zoom applications.
v.    Ethernet delay on the network (bottlenecks)

6. Simulate the following expansion use case: The new NOC will communicate with the Singapore and Argentina offices. It is planned that 4 new users will communicate with the Argentina office, and 3 new users will communicate with the Singapore office. All offices will communicate via MS Teams or Zoom. Investigate the behaviour of the MS Teams vs Zoom in the given scenario.  [INDIVIDUAL TASK] 5%

7.   Evaluate the network performance, where you introduce improvements based on what you have identified.   [INDIVIDUAL TASK] 5%

8.  Provide a critical reflection on the tasks you carried out. [INDIVIDUAL TASK] 5%

9.  The document must include your concluding comments.   [INDIVIDUAL TASK] 5%