a. As a consultant for the First National Bank of Monroe, you have been asked to solve a problem on the bank's network that began on Monday. According to the bank manager, at the beginning of each day two of the 16 tellers have been unable to log on to the network. Two other tellers occasionally experience problems at the beginning of the day, but not if they get to work before everyone else. They receive an error that says something like "another machine is using that name". When you arrive at the bank, the college intern who has been setting up the machines tells you that he is using a program called Ghost to clone all PCs from a single disk image. In other words, an exact copy of one machine's software, operating system, and its properties has been copied to all of the computers. All of the PCs are brand new are running Windows 7, and use the same hardware and software. First National Bank's network consists of two Windows 2008 servers and runs both TCP/IP and NetBIOS/NetBEUI protocols. It uses DHCP to allocate TCP/IP addresses. What might be preventing the two tellers from logging on to the network in the morning?
b. First National Bank's president congratulates you on quickly solving the problem. She then shares the information that she's about to make an offer to buy Monroe other bank, Metropolitan Savings. She's worried that the two banks' networks won't integrate easily. She isn't sure what kinds of severs or workstations are used by the other bank, but Metropolitan Savings' manager mentioned something about a network that relies on the Internet. What can you tell her about integrating the two systems? What protocols would you recommend that she use or continue to use to facilitate the integration process?
c. Six months later, First National Bank has successfully consolidated the networks at its original location and at its new acquisition. Business is booming, and the bank is investigating the possibility of allowing customers to check their account balances from the Web. However, the bank's president tells you the bank doesn't have its own connection to the Internet at this time. She understands that she needs to obtain IP addresses for all of her machines. But, she says, they are already using IP addresses internally and they work well without having to pay ICANN for new IP addresses.
Would you recommend leaving the bank's IP addressing as is or changing it? How do you suggest that the bank obtain Internet access? What concerns would you bring up with regard to allowing customers access to their account information off the Web? How might Internet access affect the ban's internal LAN?