After the meeting held on March 13th, 2006, considering the existing LAN is on CAT5e cable, we reached the following conclusions:

• the existing CAT5e wiring supports 1 gbs;
• keeping the actual cabling is cheaper than to lay down new cables;
• the project will use the existing cabling;
• if in the future more bandwidth will be required, just upgrade the backbone;
• using a router with those skills allows to cut off the three switches, one per every floor
• in this way we downgrade the previous estimate to about $23,000-$24,000, from about $37,000, saving around 30-35 %

• NIC: full-duplex, bootable, ROM, EEPROM, chip-on-board, wake-on-lan, 10/100/1000 mb ethernet adapter
• Router: Layer 3, ASIC-based, OSPF, RIP, SAP, 64 ports, gigabit Ethernet, router

Actual opinion is to use:

• 35 NICs "Intel Pro/1000 GT Desktop Adapter";
• 1 router "Compaq 3X-DGRCA-AA" or "Cisco 7600", plus investigating the BlackDiamonds
• However for the hardware, RFP have been sent to 15 router makers and net builders (see Estimate, below)

• March 20
  Step 1 - Project starts
  • Send RFP to 3Com, Bay, Cabletron, Cisco, Compaq Computer Corp., Digital, IBM, Extreme Networks, FORE Systems, Foundry Networks, Hewlett-Packard Co., Lucent Technologies, Nortel Networks, Olicom, Xylan Corp.
• March 27
  (plus/minus 1-2 days) - Step 2 - Dependency Finish-to-Start from Step 1 - After 1 week we have gathered the answers from all the 15 companies RFP (milestone --> mini-party)
• April 3
  (plus/minus 1-2 days) - Step 3 - Dependency Finish-to-Start from Step 2
  • after valuating the answers
  • after contacting the 2-3 best-fit companies to check availability
  • chosen company has been contacted, and order placed (milestone --> mini-party)
• April 10
  (plus/minus 1-2 days) - Step 4 - Dependency Finish-to-Start from Step 3 - hardware arrived. We can start:
  • replacing the NICs: 1.5 day/floor
  • installing the router - NIGHT HOURS !!!
    (milestone --> mini-party)
• April 17
  (plus/minus 1-2 days) - Step 5 - Partial dependency Finish-to-Start from Step 4, single station testing begins at installation of the NIC
  • security
  • begin test
  • troubleshooting
  • performance tuning
  • security review and testing
  • jam test - test the load simultaneously with 35 stations (or whatever personnel is in house) - If the test sucks SCALE the router. Involve the companies !
  • general review
• Project closed - Step 6
  • Best Case: April 18-19
  • Average: April 21
  • Pessimistic: April 24-26
  •  
  • Ask signatures of sponsors for acceptance
  • Type couple paragraphs about Lesson Learned
  • Type couple paragraphs each about Current Maintenance and Future Upgrades
  • Gather all the Project' documents in their folders
  •  
  • BIIIG party

• secretary work, contacting companies, ordering hardware, internal forwarding, payments: Administration and other internal personnel
• 5 days testing: internal personnel
• 35 ( + 3 reserve) = 38 x Intel NICs: $ 1,100 +- 15%
• 1 router Compaq, or Cisco, or BlackDiamond: $15,000 - $19,000
• Technician installing NICs and router:
  • 1 week Mon-Thur = $900
  • 4 days = $900 plus $200 bonus = $1,100
  • 3 days = $900 plus the previous $200 plus another $300 bonus for the 2nd saved day = $1,400
• =================
• Total: $17,000 - $21,000
•  
• plus 50 bucks as tip to Project Manager, Ted Cowan ;-p
•  
• Considering we started from $37,000, it ain't that bad. We going to save at least $15,000 since the Preliminary Scope Statement

• Network is scalable in fiber-optic
• Involve the companies
• Predict a UPS for the router

Signature:
Vincenzo MAGGIO