Lab 1: Initial Deployment The company has engaged you as an expert in infrastructure and security to manage the deployment and maintenance of their IT systems. Your responsibilities include

Lab 1: Initial Deployment

The company has engaged you as an expert in infrastructure and security to manage the deployment and maintenance of their IT systems. Your responsibilities include overseeing the development and implementation of the company's critical websites and applications, as well as ensuring the smooth operation of the internal collaboration management system, document sharing platform, and other essential IT resources. The overall architecture is outlined in Figure 1, which illustrates the interconnected components that make up the company's digital landscape. As part of this role, you are free to choose any additional infrastructure services that you deem necessary to support the successful functioning of the organization.

Your goal is to deploy the company infrastructure in the most secure fashion. The infrastructure must be deployed in Security Lab and demonstrate working in the lab environment.

Business critical services:

1. Public Corporative website
2. Public E-commerce website
3. Internal collaboration management system for supporting all critical internal business processes (i.e. HR, ERP )
4. Internal Filesharing storage

Your team can use ip addresses from the following ranges:

• Physical IP Addresses: 192.168.X.128/26
• Virtual IP Addresses: 172.16.X.0/26

Summary of Assessment Requirements

This assessment requires students to deploy a secure, functional IT infrastructure within the Security Lab environment, based on the company’s business-critical needs. The task involves acting as an infrastructure and security expert responsible for setting up, maintaining, and demonstrating key organizational systems. Students must design and configure the infrastructure by referring to the architecture outlined in Figure 1 and selecting any additional services necessary to ensure stable and secure operations.

Key Pointers to Be Covered in the Assessment

• Deployment of the company’s core infrastructure within the lab environment.
• Ensuring security-focused implementation of all components.
• Demonstration of full functionality in a simulated enterprise environment.
• Deployment and configuration of the following business-critical services:
  • Public corporate website
  • Public e-commerce website
  • Internal collaboration management system (HR, ERP, internal workflows)
  • Internal file-sharing storage
• Appropriate use of the designated IP address ranges:
  • Physical IPs: 192.168.X.128/26
  • Virtual IPs: 172.16.X.0/26
• Selection and justification of additional infrastructure (DNS, firewalls, monitoring tools, backups, load balancers, etc.) as needed.
• Demonstration that the deployed infrastructure follows best practices in security, reliability, and availability.

How the Academic Mentor Guided the Student: Step-by-Step Approach

The academic mentor followed a clear instructional path, ensuring the student understood the technical requirements, the security expectations, and the structured workflow needed for successful deployment.

1. Understanding the Problem and Scope

The mentor began by helping the student interpret the company scenario and identify all required components. The student was guided to understand:

• What each business-critical system does
• How these systems interact inside a secure enterprise architecture
• The importance of aligning infrastructure design with security standards

This ensured the student approached the lab work with a clear architectural vision.

2. Reviewing the Existing Architecture (Figure 1)

The mentor guided the student through the architecture diagram, explaining:

• Network segmentation
• Placement of public-facing vs. internal systems
• Use of physical and virtual IP ranges
• Role of additional infrastructure (DNS, DHCP, VLANs, firewalls, reverse proxies, etc.)

This step provided the student with a baseline model on which to build the secure deployment.

3. Planning the Secure Infrastructure

Together, they created a deployment plan that included:

• Network layout and subnet allocation
• Firewall rules and perimeter security
• Server provisioning plan (web servers, database servers, application servers)
• Required supporting services (monitoring, storage, backups, authentication)

The mentor emphasized defense-in-depth and secure configurations at every layer.

4. Deploying Each Business-Critical Service

The mentor then guided the student through the technical deployment process:

• Corporate Website & E-Commerce Website: Configuration of web servers, secure protocols, virtual hosts, and reverse proxies.
• Internal Collaboration System: Setup of the HR/ERP system with correct internal routing and user authentication.
• Internal File-Sharing Storage: Secure file server setup with role-based access and proper network isolation.

This step-by-step approach ensured the student mastered real-world enterprise deployment tasks.

5. Configuring IP Addressing & Network Segmentation

The mentor helped the student apply the given IP ranges correctly:

• Assigning physical IPs for hardware and gateway devices
• Assigning virtual IPs to VM-based services
• Segregating traffic based on function (public, internal, admin)

This strengthened the student’s understanding of network design and segmentation.

6. Testing, Hardening & Demonstration

Finally, the mentor guided the student in:

• Functionality testing of all systems
• Validating public and internal accessibility
• Security hardening measures (patching, firewalls, secure protocols)
• Demonstrating the fully deployed architecture in the Lab environment

This ensured that the final setup met security, reliability, and assessment expectations.

Outcome Achieved

Through the mentor-guided process, the student successfully:

• Deployed all required business-critical services
• Implemented a secure and functional enterprise-grade infrastructure
• Applied correct IP addressing, segmentation, and network policies
• Demonstrated the full setup in the Security Lab
• Selected and justified additional supporting infrastructure
• Showcased strong practical understanding of secure IT system deployment

Learning Objectives Covered

The student effectively met the core learning outcomes, including:

• Infrastructure planning and deployment for real business environments
• Security-centric configuration of critical IT systems
• Interpreting architectural diagrams and translating them into functioning solutions
• Network segmentation, addressing, and service configuration
• Application of industry best practices in designing secure, resilient infrastructure
• Ability to justify technical decisions based on operational needs