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Network Overview

Screenshot

The topology chosen is a star mesh, since it was the easiest to implement and it makes the most sense for the given network. I chose this topology because it provides an easy way to encapsulate the different VLANs, whereas with something like a mesh network, it can get a litlte messy.
This topology is appropriate for a retail store because you have different segregated parts of the network, and the star topology makes this easy to manage.

Each switch is for their own section essentially. The main limitation behind this setup was the router not having 3 ethernet ports that were able to be configured for the VLANs, so I had to set up the back office switch as a “core switch” that connected to the guest and the sales VLANs.
This was accomplished by setting the port that connected to the router as a “trunk” and then configuring the VLANs inside the witch and the ip addresses from the router, which ended up working.

For every cable, I used copper straight-through. I had no need for other cables, as I’m not using any serial ports or anything.

Your switches operate at which OSI layer? Explain what happens at this layer when Sales-PC1 sends data to Sales-PC2
- The switches operate in OSI layer 2 (data link). Whenever Sales-PC1 sends data to Sales-PC2, Sales-PC1 ARPs to learn Sales-PC2’s MAC address, the switch floods the ARP request within VLAN 10, learns MAC to port mappings, and then forwards the unicast frames based on the destination MAC only to Sales-PC2’s port (no router involved as 802.1Q tags are carried only on trunk links)

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