Activity 2.1: Adding Redundancy to a Network Topology

Your company is a medium-sized retailer that sells children’s clothes at storefront locations throughout Oregon and Washington. The company also mails out a printed catalog from which customers can place orders by phone or mail. Last year, you implemented a Web site whose sole purpose was to provide an online catalog to supplement the printed catalog. No transactions are conducted online. The network topology for the site is shown in Figure 2.11.

Figure 2.11 - Web site serving as online catalog for retail operation

Your company now wants to implement an e-commerce site that supports online ordering and payments, so you must design a network topology that supports the availability, scalability, manageability, and security required to operate the site. You want to design a topology that uses redundancy to ensure that there are no single points of failure. You plan to add another subnet to support a middle tier and to use switches rather than hubs. Your site will be located in only one geographical location.

1. How should you design the network topology for the e-commerce site?