ITSU3008 Project 1

Assignment 3
Systems Analysis Report
Submitted by:

1
Table of Contents
1 Project Scope.................................................................................................................................3
2 Feasibility Analysis.........................................................................................................................3
3 Risk constraint Analysis.................................................................................................................4
4 Use-case diagrams and Description.……………………………………………………………………………………………4
References.............................................................................................................................................5

2
 1. Project Scope

As the world is moving towards a digital era, the devices communication and interaction has been
increased. The digitization can be seen growing with a high pace and network is getting crowded due to
abundant devices connected with each other. This congested environment give rise to major challenges
to the network with respect to security and reliability. The traditional network administration methods
for configuration and security used to be time-consuming, prone to cyberattacks and vulnerabilities
which could be exploited by the bad actors for their malicious purposes. The need therefore is to
eliminate all these overheads by programming the networking infrastructure in such a way that all these
parameters could be handled in an effective way to mitigate the risk of security and time taking
processes [1].

The trend of network automation emerged to enhance the efficiency level in overall operations when it
comes to deal with the software defined networks which are particularly based on standard
programming approaches and also on their scripting methods. Collectively, these are used to control
and monitor the network and its elements in a well-organized, thoughtful and secure way. In this
project, there are some network configuration methods discussed employing python as programming
language.

The advanced innovative solutions and their adoption all over the world to overcome the slow and
dependent processes has been penetrated into the real-world. The automation need and processes are
employed to eliminate the overhead in such a way that it does not compromise on the cost, the
reliability and security aspects of the network. The network automation can help software houses and
network management department of every organization to look into the communication required in an
automated manner while mitigating the overheads efficiently.

By using the network automation techniques and methods, the operational efficiency will be increased,
equipment configuration time will be reduced to substantial level and network maintenance will be
ensured. Moreover, the network automation will enhance the network security by identifying and
mitigating the risk of cyberattacks and security breaches and fixing the vulnerabilities beforehand. The
overall network stability will be increased once based on its configuration the whole network
infrastructure will be automated.

2. Feasibility Analysis

The developments and their rapid adoption in the event driven automated networks have made the
workflows of organizations streamlined. Based on the scenarios that are usual part of the networking
system, the whole infrastructure is defined. The transformation is highly feasible in the rapid advanced
world where every module is getting digitized and totally automated by the intelligent developed APIs.
The feasibility therefore in today’s era is quite at substantial level that can help develop a firm
foundation of the overall automated networking platform that enhances the productivity, security,

3
efficiency and reliability of the operations by eliminating the installation cost and time consuming
operational aspect [6].

The day-to-day realistic operations are moving towards the BGP events that have automated the
security processes against the network hijacking as well as load balancing.

3. Risk Constraint Analysis

In the network automation there are certain risk constraints that sometime correspond to security and
reliability. For instance, there are some threats related to the network automation system that came out
of box and pre-configurations does not align well with the advanced cyberattacks approach. Some
security breaches and buffer overflow attacks in the network system are not handled before and occur
in real time by the fraudulent entities which cannot be handled in the automated system. The standard
security aspects however are all employed based on policies and techniques [5]. Second constraint
correspond to the changing regulatory requirements with respect to network and information security.
The security aspects in the automated system, does not align according to the regulatory obligations due
to which it is crucially important to take them into consideration to mitigate the risk of regulatory fines
and penalties.

Based on these risks, the network automation system will be designed that could mitigate the security
risks and regulatory constraints if they are all build by paying a devoted attention into the compliance
and policies that are required for a secure network to operate. In this way, an abstract view is required
which is studied and based on all these, the automated network using python will be executed. This will
help ensure compliance, data and information security and secure connections in the automated
network.

4. Use-case Diagram and Description

The use case diagram is presented below that cover the major use cases of a network automation
system in which there are operations and common functions in a network infrastructure. The first one is
the network streamlined infrastructure that the network automated operator will be doing by allocating
resources efficiently and performing the automation in an effective manner. The second use-case is
configuration of device and network modules. Based on network policies, rules and standards
configuration is done by the network automation operator in real-time. Looking into the rules and
managing them according to obligations for each incoming connections is part of network automation.
The security protocols and their operations for example in security management like ssh which ensure
authentication of each connection to ensure a controlled access on the network.

The network services which the communication nodes ask for are all managed by the network
automation operator based on the available services, their threshold and density to provide it to nodes
for streamline working. This step would decompose an overall complex security standard and policies
into extremely simple elements. Secondly, the services are Integrated into the network and it is been
deployed into the designed application development process. All these use-cases of an automated

4
network system are been used that describe the overall infrastructure, working and operations within a
network which are automated to provide smooth services to the communicating nodes.

The diagram gives a complete overview of the functions which are considered major when it comes to
automate the network. The responsibilities which were used to manage traditionally before the
advanced automated technology. Now all these operations have become automated that does not
require assistance from the humans to operate them and all time-consuming operations which were
standards and were often prone to human error can now be solved efficiently taking into account all the
necessary modules., attributes, aspects and policies that contribute to the establishment of a complete
networking model.

References
[1] P. Mihăilă, T. Bălan, R. Curpen, and F. Sandu, “Network Automation and Abstraction using
Python Programming Methods,” MACRo 2015, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 95–103, Jan. 2017.
[2] Edelman, Jason, Scott S. Lowe, and Matt Oswalt. Network Programmability and
Automation: Skills for the Next-Generation Network Engineer. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.", 2018.

5
[3] Chou, Eric. Mastering Python Networking: Your one-stop solution to using Python for
network automation, DevOps, and Test-Driven Development. Packt Publishing Ltd, 2018.
[4] Jambunatha, K., 2015, June. Design and implement Automated Procedure to upgrade
remote network devices using Python. In 2015 IEEE International Advance Computing
Conference (IACC) (pp. 217-221). IEEE.
[5] Chen, Haiyan, et al. "Planning for Distributed Generation in Distribution Network with
Short-circuit Current Constraints [J]." Automation of Electric Power Systems 21 (2006).
[6] WANG, Hai-peng, Rong ZENG, and Jin-liang HE. "FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS OF GSM
APPLICATION IN REM OTE DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEM FOR DISTRIBUTION NETWORK [J]." High
Voltage Apparatus 5 (2002).