Week 2: Follow-up Supervisor Meeting

Today I had a follow-up meeting with Hervé alongside my colleague, Tavita Stewart, who is a possible partner with my project. He is looking to do a cloud-based project, and would require a pre-built network in order to showcase how his project works. Hervé is interested in what Tavita has to offer, but suggest that him and I team up in order to cover the basis of Tavita's project, but cover separate topics. Over the course of the following week, Tavita and I will undergo discussions as to how we can accomplish the purpose of our projects whilst being able to jointly create an interconnecting topology.

Week 2: Inital Supervisor Meeting

So today I had my first meeting with my supervisor, Hervé Carpentier, regarding possible options for my degree project. My initial idea was to make a network that imitated an ISP's delivery of services to their residential customers, using technologies such as VOIP, Fibre Optic links and DSLAM. However it became apparent that the idea had no aim or purpose and was not able to prove anything, so it was thrown in the bin.

Next came the idea of a research project which included finding out which of the various Cisco protocols available to us, was better to use in their respective situations. I wasn't so sure about it as access to the lab would be dependant on whether I could find time to spend testing in the labs.

And the final idea for my project was to produce a network according to given specifications that required both building and securing using techniques and technologies available on Cisco networking equipment. This particular scenario required two people as the workload was rather big and it would be a great opportunity to experiment with network penetration testing.

The project of choice is building and securing the network. As this is very similar to what I could experience working as a Network Engineer, this would be the perfect project to showcase my skills. But since it is a two-person project, I will need a partner to assist me with my project unless it is honed down into a single person project.

Week 1: Introduction

Hi guys! I am Nathan, a 22 year old Network Engineering student from New Zealand. I am studying a Bachelor of Engineering Technology at Manukau Institute of Technology, Otara campus and am in my final year. And you know what that means...

FINAL YEAR PROJECT!

Those three words summarize this blog. As I am a Network Engineering student, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out the particular topic that my project and this blog will cover. So bear with me while use the many processes you use in a project such as Project Proposals, Progress Reports and Presentation as well as the skills I have learnt through various Cisco-based papers and churn them in the beater into a working model that can hopefully wind me up in paid employment as a Network Engineer.

To be continued...