Design and implementation of small-scale computer network
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Date
2026
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NHCE
Abstract
This internship focused on the design, implementation, and security configuration of a small-scale computer network in a simulated office environment. Conducted at the Brillio Centre of Excellence (CoE) at New Horizon College of Engineering (NHCE) under the Networking and Cybersecurity Track, the internship provided comprehensive practical exposure to core networking concepts and industry-standard tools.
The primary objective was to design a logically structured, scalable network topology for a simulated small office with two departments, a server zone, and a management VLAN. The implementation included IP addressing and subnetting using Variable Length Subnet Masking (VLSM), Layer 2 VLAN configuration on Cisco Catalyst 2960 switches, and inter-VLAN routing using the router-on-a-stick method on a Cisco 2911 router. OSPF was configured as the dynamic routing protocol, and network services including DHCP, DNS, and NAT (PAT) were enabled and verified.
Network security was implemented following a defence-in-depth approach. At Layer 2, switch port security and DHCP snooping were configured to prevent MAC flooding, ARP poisoning, and rogue DHCP server attacks. At Layer 3, named extended Access Control Lists (ACLs) were applied on router sub-interfaces to enforce inter-VLAN traffic policies and restrict unauthorised access to server resources.
The implementation was carried out using Cisco Packet Tracer as the primary simulation environment, with GNS3 for advanced emulation scenarios and Wireshark for protocol-level packet analysis. All design objectives were tested and verified, demonstrating correct VLAN segmentation, inter-VLAN routing, dynamic IP assignment, DNS resolution, NAT functionality, and security policy enforcement.