Chapter 5: Mini Case 2 - Central University
Central University
Suppose you are the network manager for Central University, a medium-size university with 13,000 students. The university has 10 separate colleges (e.g., business, arts, journalism), 3 of which are relatively large (300 faculty and staff members, 2,000 students, and 3 buildings) and 7 of which are relatively small (200 faculty and staff, 1,000 students, and 1 building). In addition, there are another 2,000 staff members who work in various administration departments (e.g., library, maintenance, and finance) spread over another 10 buildings. There are 4 residence halls that house a total of 2,000 students. Suppose the university has the 128.100.xxx.xxx address range on the Internet. How would you assign the IP addresses to the various subnets? How would you control the process by which IP addresses are assigned to individual computers? You will have to make some assumptions to answer both questions, so be sure to state your assumptions.

As a network manager, I would assign the IP addresses to various subnets by associating a subnet base address with each physical network. Then I would sequentially assign hosts particular IP addresses within the subnet. Determining host addresses is really quite simple, once we know the subnet address. You should be able to substitute the numbers for the host ID bits in the subnet address. Then convert the address to decimal form. By controlling which IP addresses assigned to the individual computer, you must make sure you assign it one of the IP addresses your provider gave you; assign it the netmask your provider gave you; and assign it a gateway, which is the IP address of your router When setting up a router, you: assign it the IP address, in the range, your provider gave you; assign it the netmask your provider gave you; tell it the IP address of your ISP's