What software and hardware would I use for setting up a LAN centre?

As part of a school assignment I have to do a report on setting up a lan centre, namely Hardware, Software, Networking configuration, network communication, and how a centre actually works. I've done some research but any info would be appreciated, sources useful but not required.What software and hardware would I use for setting up a LAN centre?Why do these school assignments use terms that no-one in the real world use??!



Jokes aside, you will need a switch for inter-connecting all your systems together. These will comprise of a server which will do one or more of the following; file sharing, web intranet, email (as the basics to an office network). Also computers to access these services. Printers can also be networked devices and shared from a server.



More than likely you will need an Internet connection to retrieve emails as well as go online generally. This will require a firewall for added security.



These really are the high-level details to comprise of the network. More technical details will be IP addresses, defined as a subnet - search for "RFC 1918" for internal IP network addresses. You may be used to seeing 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1 as a router on your home network already. This will be an RFC 1918 address and part of a larger 192.168.1.0-to-192.168.1.255 range.



Historically the first IP, 192.168.1.1 is the router (or firewall) that leads to the Internet. Perhaps you could assign your server or servers to 192.168.1.10, 11, 12, 13, etc. then allow the desktops to use 192.168.1.20, 21, 22, 23 up to a maximum of 254. Zero and 255 are special purpose IP addresses and cannot be assigned.



Ideally the computers will be given their IP address through a DHCP system. Printers too can be done this way using their MAC address to fix the IP.



To be really technical the IP range is called a "subnet" is is entered as 192.168.1.x / 255.255.255.0, the latter being the subnet mask. If you look up RFC 1918 you could use 172.16.x.y or even bigger 10.x.y.z given you choices over the planned size of your organisation.