Computer Network Assignment: Layers of Open System Interconnection Model
Question
Task: Prepare a computer network assignment critically appraising network design principles to achieve performance, scalability and security at different layers of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model.
Answer
Introduction
This computer network assignment has presented brief information about Open System Interconnection Model. The report has also presented the details about different layers of the Open System Interconnection Model. The main thing that the report has presented is the principles of network design to achieve performance, scalability, and Security at different layers of the Open System Interconnection Model. At the end of the report, a short summary of the complete report has been written. After that, some source has been presented from where the information has been taken.
Open System Interconnection Model
A conceptual model that helps to standardize and characterize the communicating function of a computing or telecommunication system without taking its internal technology and internal structure into consideration is known as the Open System Interconnection model. The only goal of this model is to interoperate the diverse system of communication with standard communication protocols. It is a conceptual structure that is used to explain the different functions of a system based on a network. There are seven layers of the Open System Interconnection model. The name of the seven layers of this model is the physical layer, data link layer, network layer; transport layer, session layer, presentation layer, and application layer (Turay 2019).
Network Design Principles
Network design includes designing logical map of the network, and understanding, scoping, and evaluating the network that is to be implemented. To plan for the implementation of infrastructure of a computer network is known as network design (Belkin 2018). It is designed by a network engineer, designer, or IT administrator. Hence, network design needs experienced personnel.
Network design principles to achieve security at different layers of the Open System Interconnection model are as follows
Prevention of unauthorized third party - To achieve security at the physical layer, there must be the prevention of unauthorized third parties getting to the system. This can be done by the implementation of surveillance or warning systems and by the arrangement of mechanisms and barriers to control the system access by any third party (Dobson et al. 2019).
VLAN - For the achievement of security in this layer, a proper configuration of VLAN is to be done. Its role is very important as it contributes towards network segmentation and traffic separation while designing a network. When a VLAN is paired with an appropriate subnetting scheme, it eases the administration, reduces network overhead, and also improves security.
Design for management and security- another principle of network design to achieve security at different layers of the OSI model is minimizing the network breach risk and simplifying the management of the Land Area Network (Zhao et al. 2018). A secure and robust are network should be created that will make it easy to deploy, manage, configure, and troubleshoot. Convergence flexibility should be ensured by permitting the unification based on the cloud.
Activation of security characteristics- the network design principle to achieve security at this layer of the OSI model is to activate several security characteristics for the prevention of unauthorized control. Correct configuration and strong passwords should be used with the help of encrypted connections. Tunnel modes are used between networks for the secure connection between them. The security concern is related to the data transfer encryption, authentication of involved parties, tampering prevention, and attack avoidance while network designing. The principle to achieve security while network designing is increasing the number of that connection which are not confirmed and decrease the duration of time for which the server wait to get the confirmation.
Avoid the access of cookies- For the protection of the session layer in the OSI model, proper management of the session is very much important. It is necessary to avoid the access of cookies from client-side scripts. These principles are related to the protection of web applications from malicious attacks.
Update Antivirus- The presentation layer mainly deals with data presentation. It presents the data to the application layer. It should be kept in mind that the attacker cannot take the advantage of bad coding practices. Antivirus should be up to date while in the system so that malware can not enter the device and interrupt the security.
Firewalls- To control the network traffic in this layer, high-level firewalls should be implemented. A firewall is regarded as the traffic cop of the networks. It is the one that denies or allows the communication on the basis of so many parameters. It is considered a good way to protect the sensitive data and intellectual property of any system (Tulisi 2017).
Network design principles to achieve performance at different layers of the Open System Interconnection model are as follows:
Requirement of experienced personnel- practical experience is very important to enhance the performance at the layers of the OSI model. Experience is the combination of theoretical knowledge of technologies and their relation with each other. Good performance can't be achieved without an appropriate understanding of its operation.
Keeping it simple- The simple a network is easy it will be to perform. The activity which is easy to perform provides the optimum output (Radosavovic et al. 2020). The additional complexities should be removed from all the layers of the OSI model while designing the network so that one will not have to face difficulty while managing it.
Reduce complexities and maximize efficiency- efficiency can be maximized by the utilization of available technological advancement. If the network complexities are reduced then it will be easy to implement the network and troubleshoot. Performance can be achieved with minimum complexities and maximum efficiency.
Network design principles to achieve scalability at different layers of the Open System Interconnection model are as follows:
Building multi-purpose capabilities- The network that is to be designed should be designed in such a way that it should be capable for multiple purposes and can act as a facilitator for the new requirement at every layer while network designing. The network should be designed in a way that it will be able to accommodate all the changes (Lodi et al. 2019). It will be helpful for the designed framework to cope with the changes that occur in the functioning of the networking system.
Hierarchy- to design the network in tiered design allows the user to scale hardware requirements and also ensure that the network will operate with optimal speed. The hierarchical design scale allows the data to any path whether short or long where efficiency could be gained (Lawson et al. 2019).
Subnetting- Subnet basically correlates with the physical location of the network but it is not needed while the network is being designed with VLANs. Network subnetting can reduce network overhead and ease administration. Identification of secure areas, department, and sites are very easy with the help of coherent subnet scheme. When networks are designed for future growth and if the network is properly subnetting, it can provide a huge amount of scalability.
Conclusion
Hence, it can be concluded that going through the principles while network designing is very much important. Adapting all the principles of network designing can make the computer system able to communicate with each other. Some of the basic principles of network design are building the network capacity for so many purposes, keeping the framework of the network very simple, updating anti-viruses to the system to avoid viruses in the system, reducing complexities, maximizing efficiency, avoiding access of third party to the framework and many more.
References
Belkin, M.E., Bakhvalova, T., Turitsyn, S. and Sigov, A., 2018, November. The design principles of reconfigurable versatile base station for upcoming communication networks. In 2018 26th Telecommunications Forum (TELFOR) (pp. 1-3). IEEE.
Dobson, S., Hutchison, D., Mauthe, A., Schaeffer-Filho, A., Smith, P. and Sterbenz, J.P., 2019. Self-organization and resilience for networked systems: Design principles and open research issues. Proceedings of the IEEE, 107(4), pp.819-834.
Lawson, C.E., Harcombe, W.R., Hatzenpichler, R., Lindemann, S.R., Löffler, F.E., O’Malley, M.A., Martín, H.G., Pfleger, B.F., Raskin, L., Venturelli, O.S. and Weissbrodt, D.G., 2019. Common principles and best practices for engineering microbiomes. Nature Reviews Microbiology, 17(12), pp.725-741.
Lodi, M., Shilnikov, A.L. and Storace, M., 2019. Design principles for central pattern generators with preset rhythms. IEEE transactions on neural networks and learning systems, 31(9), pp.3658-3669.
Radosavovic, I., Kosaraju, R.P., Girshick, R., He, K. and Dollár, P., 2020. Designing network design spaces. In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (pp. 10428-10436).
Tulisi, A., 2017. Urban Green Network Design: Defining green network from an urban planning perspective. TeMA Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, 10(2/2017), pp.179-192.
Turay, B., 2019. Analysis of Seven Layered Architecture of Osi Model. Journal For Innovative Development in Pharmaceutical and Technical Science (JIDPTS) Volume, 2, pp.73-77.
Zhao, J., Bai, J., Zhang, Q., Yang, F., Li, Z., Zhang, X., Zhu, X. and Bai, R., 2018, December. The Discussion about Mechanism of Data Transmission in the OSI Model. In 2018 International Conference on Transportation & Logistics, Information & Communication, Smart City (TLICSC 2018) (pp. 1-4). Atlantis Press.
