Down the Page

School Districts and Staff Assignments Project Plan Introduction and Background Information Network Assessment Audit Problem Definition Requirement Specifications and Scope of Work Options and Recommended Solutions Project Milestones Project Tools

CONNECT LAN Assessment

Project Brief

The CONNECT LAN Assessment Project provides guidance to school districts on current network design and implementation and proposes changes to increase the effectiveness of the district's network. The project team consists of staff from the DESE Technology Project and MOREnet's Network Consulting department.

Project Sponsor/Manager: Eric Nicklas
Network Consulting Coordinator: Albert Foo
Consulting Team: Erik Montemer; Cynthia Scheiner; Jim Seals; Charley Steinhaus

School Districts and Staff Assignments

These school districts were selected with consultants assigned to individual sites for the duration of the project:

Project Plan

The project plan provides documentation from each of the following phases:

1. Introduction and Background Information
2. Network Assessment Audit
3. Problem Definition
4. Requirement Specifications and Scope of Work
5. Options and Recommendations for Solutions

The consultant(s) assigned to the respective sites completes each phase.

Introduction and Background Information

This section provides general information about the school district, its support personnel, current technology plan, current LAN/WAN needs and future expectations.

Network Assessment Audit

The Network Assessment Audit phase starts the process of gathering information from the sites. Its purpose is to provide adequate documentation and support for the activities in the next three phases. The following information should be collected from each site:

• Network diagrams (physical and logical topologies of networking equipment, including cabling structure, servers, workstations, hubs, switches, routers and any devices that form a data communication network within the district)
• Computers (both workstations and servers, including types of OS, RAM, DiskSpace and speed)
• Devices: hubs, switches, routers, gateways
• Protocols
• Cabling/media types
• Applications and types of services on network
• LAN and WAN bandwidth and subnets
• Network support personnel
• Number of personnel, titles and job responsibilities
• Outside contractors, services provided

Problem Definition

The problem definition phase defines networking problems experienced by individual sites. Types of problems and patterns of problems related to sites may be compiled from the following sources:

• Number of Remedy tickets and types of requests
• Verbal or written interviews from site contacts regarding their daily tasks of managing the network, including a description of performance issues, troubleshooting efforts, users' complaints and problems and other network management tasks
• MOREnet Internet Utilization Usage reports from radar.more.net (for WAN connectivity bandwidth report)

Requirement Specifications and Scope of Work

The requirement specifications phase specifies critical and essential problems and needs to be addressed and solved. The scope of work phase specifies the work required to solve the problems identified and the effort required to perform the tasks.

The scope of work may include the following tasks or services provided at each site:

1. Network Documentation
• Gather and organize information collected from Network Assessment Audit into a single cohesive site documentation
• Help site administrators perform on site network diagramming


2. Analyze Problems
• Identify problem areas by studying network diagrams/documentation gathered and applying comparative analysis with good network design strategies.
• Verify physical existent of problems by:
• Baseline analysis of network using packet sniffing/network analyzers tools
• Cable testing of problem areas
• Data capture of problem areas-set up probe and remote reporting capability and leave at site for extended period of time


3. Data Analysis
• In-depth analysis of data collected from individual sites
• Report actual problems and identify causes


4. Effort Estimation
• Estimated effort for individual tasks
• Timeline for completion

Options and Recommended Solutions

This phase provides possible remedies and recommended solutions to the problems found by MOREnet staff. The options or choices may include network design plans, strategies and network improvement plans as well as the ramifications and costs associated with various choices.

A recommended solution will be presented to the school district based on budget, personnel and other resource constraints.

Project Milestones

Project Tools

The following tools are available and requested for the duration of the project:

• Omni/Penta Scanner from MicroTest Inc.
• RadCom Hardware Packet Analyzer
• SDU (Service Delivery Unit) from ADC Kentrox Inc.
• Distributed Observer and Remote Probe from Network Instruments
• IBM PC laptops with promiscuous drivers and software
• LAN continuity testers and cable kit