Small Office Network

A 90-minute, 4-round basic Express simulation on designing, securing and handing over a small office network, for high-school Career and Technical Education in network systems and IT support, dual-credit networking courses and courses preparing the Cisco CCST Networking and CompTIA Network+ credentials.

Imani Quarterman, 19, the fictional junior tech at Sedgefield Network Services in Charlotte, North Carolina, builds the network of a suite shared by a dental practice and an insurance agency, fourteen people, on a fixed budget of $10,800, and lives with its first month of tickets after go-live on Monday 28 June 2027.

Round by round you choose the equipment and the cabling, how clinical, office and guest traffic is separated and what happens to the admin passwords, how the dentist reaches the practice from home and how the network is tested before go-live, and what the office receives at handover and how the first month of tickets is supported; at each decision point the job is projected again with the decisions taken so far.

Each round is scored on job profit, office hours lost, security exposure, tickets and client confidence; patient data on one network with the waiting room or factory-default admin passwords (HIPAA Security Rule, 45 CFR 164.312) caps the score. English with Spanish.

An introductory simulation that assumes no prior knowledge of the subject, designed for undergraduate courses. It also works in vocational and high-school programmes and in onboarding sessions.