IT System for A Small Business This discussion deals with the feedback for one of the paper by my classmates. The best feedback takes a three-stage approac
IT System for A Small Business This discussion deals with the feedback for one of the paper by my classmates. The best feedback takes a three-stage approach to identify what was done well, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.Please provide feedback as positively as possible. IT System for A Small Business
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IT System for A Small Business
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Table of Contents
1. Project Outline …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 4
1.1 Description of The Small Business ………………………………………………………………… 4
1.2 Problem Statement ………………………………………………………………………………………. 4
2. Problem Identification ………………………………………………………………………………………. 5
2.1 Problem Overview ………………………………………………………………………………………. 5
2.2 Research Plan ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 6
2.3 Courses Utilize ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 6
3. Project Plan ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 8
3.1 Hypotheses …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8
3.2 Hypothesis and research plans ………………………………………………………………………. 9
3.3 Data Collection …………………………………………………………………………………………. 10
4. Project Execution ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 12
4.1 Research Execution ……………………………………………………………………………………. 12
4.1.1 Database …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 12
4.1.2 Servers……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 12
4.1.3 Switches …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 13
4.2 Research Results Summary…………………………………………………………………………. 14
4.2.1 Summary ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 14
4.2.2 Discussion of objectives ………………………………………………………………………. 14
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4.2.3 Tangible and Intangible measures …………………………………………………………. 14
4.2.4 Improvement for future research …………………………………………………………… 15
5. Proposed solution ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 16
6. Current and Future Technology Trends ……………………………………………………………… 17
References …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 18
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1. Project Outline
1.1 Description of The Small Business
As we know, in United States, people like to buy used cars, because the used cars have
affordable price and acceptable condition. For the same reason, some people like to buy used or
refurbished desktops and laptops. For example, a student wants to buy a cheap laptop which
he/she can use it for this class. If he/she wants to buy a new laptop, because of the budget he/she
has, he/she only can buy a low performance laptop that he/she only can use to browse websites
and write papers. In contrast, if he/she buys a used laptop, he/she will get a laptop with better
performance and better price, but he/she get a worse condition laptop which will work fine. In
this case, many people and companies will buy the used laptop. Amazon and Newegg are selling
this kind of laptops and desktops. In past year, Walmart started to enter this market. “ABC”
company is one of the vendor selling used refurbished desktops and laptops in Amazon, Newegg,
and Walmart websites.
1.2 Problem Statement
The market is increasing, this company is increasing, but the IT system did not get
improvement. It caused and will cause many problems. For example, the database system is not
effective enough that employee can easily reach the data they want, and employer can control the
access to the sensitive data.
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2. Problem Identification
2.1 Problem Overview
Because this company grew so fast that there are many problems in the IT area. For
example, they are still using online excel documents to store and share data. Excel is an excellent
software for the small size data to organize, calculate, and store, but it is not effective for the
bigger size data, such as the database this company has. When this company founded, the
database is small. During this company grew, the database increased quickly. At this time, a
database system is needed for now; in addition, a database warehouse will be needed in the
future.
Their network is not effective. Their switches are not managed. It means they cannot
control the data flow in the network. On the other hand, because the network is not controlled,
devices can unlimitedly use the internet. For example, an employee can watch HD movie during
working. If the network speed is not fast enough, for example this company only has 300MPS in
total. This movie needs 100MPS. There is another person is using 100MPS. There is only 100
MPS left for all 20 employees. Do you think this speed is enough? No. So, the internet should be
under control.
On the other hand, in the network system, there is no a server that is only as a firewall. In
other words, they don’t have separated firewall to protect their network. in addition, their
documents are share in google documents. They didn’t have backup system for their data. It
means, if the documents are deleted, they will not have any opportunity to recovery the data.
However, they didn’t protect sensitive data in a higher security level.
Based on the problem description, we can separate the problem into three different fields:
security, database, and network.
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2.2 Research Plan
At first, I will research documents and articles to find the new technologies and concept I
may using in this project. There are many need technologies coming out every year. I need to
learn and understand the new technologies and consider if the new technologies can be used in
the project. On the other hand, there are many proposes or examples on the internet, some of
them may have same or similar situation. Their decisions can be examples for us when we
compare different options.
Second, based on the need of this companies. I will find out the best option by using the
resources from researching. For example, I need a 24 ports managed switch. It is impossible that
I try every single switch in the market to find out which one is the best one for this network. In
this case, I need to search online, read many reviews, and compare the specs, to find 3-5 high
rated switches which can fit the needs of this network. By consider the budget and the growth in
a few years, finally I can find out the best solution.
2.3 Courses Utilize
Based on the different fields, much knowledge from the courses can be using to finish
this project.
For security field, I had “computer system security foundations”, “security management”,
and “network security” courses. For example, from “computer system security foundation”, I
learned how to security database. In this project, we have to consider the database security, so
this knowledge will be useful.
For database field, I had “database system” and “data warehouse” courses. As I described
above, the database is an important field will need to improve. The knowledge I learned from the
database courses will help me design the database system for this small business.
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For network, I had “networking and telecommunications”, and “network security”
courses. The courses brought me the knowledge about the network, how to make the network be
more effective, and how to make the network be more secured.
In addition, “project management process in Organizations” can help me to design this
project. However, this is a project, even though this paper is only about the design of this project.
The knowledge of the project management still can be the guide for me to lead me design an
affordable project process.
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3. Project Plan
3.1 Hypotheses
Before people start a project, they usually will prepare some hypotheses. “Create a
hypothesis that gives the possible answers to the questions you formulated from your research
and reading more. You will use your hypothesis to experiment to find out if the hypothesis
statement you draw is not containing null hypothesis.” (hypotheses, 2018) The hypothesis can be
the expectation for the result of the project; in addition, it can be the guide for people leading
people to finish the project. For example, an IT administrator wants to solve a problem reported
form a staff in Accounting department. The staff described that his desktop randomly get “blue
screen”. In this case, the IT administrator prepared two hypotheses which have high possibility to
match the situation. One is that one or more ram memory sticks have issue. If ram memory stick
is dying, it may cause “Blue screen”. By the way, if the stick is completely dead, the desktop will
not boot up, or the desktop will ignore it. Another hypothesis is that the hard drive (which has
OS in) has issue. By the way, the hard drive which does not have OS in will not cause “blue
scree” even though it is crashed. The IT administrator collect more information to prove his
hypotheses, in order to find out the solution to solve the problems.
In this project, there are two possibilities based on the defined problems. One is that the
whole system will only include physical equipment. It means that all data storage will be located
at local office. Another one is the cloud-based system. As we know, the main problem is the
whole IT system is too old and slow. To solve this problem, we need to set a system with a
balance between the cost and the performance. All other things are same, because we just need to
find out a choice which is close to the balance point; but, only data store has extra option, which
is cloud. Network system cannot be cloud, because people are working in the local office. People
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should have local network system. In contrast, the database system is able to be cloud, because it
is not necessary to hold the data in the local office. In this case, the hypotheses are about
database decisions. For other parts of the IT system, will compare the result of research to find
out the solution. The hypothesis is that cloud computer is the best solution for database system of
this small company. How to use the result of research to prove the hypotheses will be describe in
next part.
3.2 Hypothesis and research plans
Because the research plans are described in the first section, in this part, I will focus on
how I will use the research plan to prove my hypothesis. In addition, for the local system, I also
will describe how to use the result to help me make the decision.
At first, for the hypothesis (or the two possibilities), to prove which is the right solution,
we need to know the cost and performance. To know the information to make the decision, we
should know the size of database, the increase of the size for every month, the frequency of
usage for the database. We need to know the size, because we need to know the size of the
database we need for now. In addition, we need to know the increase, because we need extra
space for the increase in a few months. We need to know the frequency of usage, because if
people use the database very often, the speed of the local internet and the global internet may
limit the speed of reading and writing data into the database system.
Quantitative research method is about the variables with comparing numbers (Grand
Canyon University, 2018). Because the result of the result will include many numbers, the
quantitative method will be the better option than qualitative method. However, the reason that
quantitative method is the better choice is not only that the result will includes numbers. One
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reason is that qualitative method needs to collect mass data to analyze, it means it needs to cost
too much time and money. Because this system is for a small company, the cost is limited in a
small amount. Qualitative will not be a right choice. Another reason is that it is not necessary.
Because qualitative method analyzes details, the result and the analysis process will have many
details, IT manager needs more time to explain it to his boss. On the other hand, the boss only
need to know which is better with a short explanation. The extra details are not needed, so the
qualitative is not necessary.
However, for other parts of the IT system, we need to know which device is better for
this small company. Through the research plan, we should know the performance needs. For
example, the employees need to download image from the servers. We need to know what the
lowest download speeds is if download speed will not affect the work of employees. Based on
the information, we may find out the best solution about, the reading and writing speed of hard
drive, the CPU and Ram requirement, and so on.
3.3 Data Collection
Data collection techniques includes interview, servey, observation, recordings,
documents, etc. (University of Mineesota, 2018) To collect data for this small business, because
the current system is too old, so we cannot use more “modern” method to collect data, we have
to use the manual method to collect it. For example, we want to know the frequency that one
employee use image server to transfer image of the OS, the best method to collect this data to
print a sheet for the technician to check every time when they used the image servers. To collect
network data, a software, called Wireshark, is the best choice. It can collect much data. In
addition, it is a free software. It is the best choice for this small business to collect network data.
To collect data for database servers, it does not only include the sheets to collect the size and the
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increase of the database system, but it also should include an interview with the boss about the
expectation. Indeed, the interview will include all parts of system. However, the result of
interview will be one factor to consider, but it will not be the only factor to make decision.
To analyze data, because this is a small business, the collected data will not be so big that
we have to hire third-part company to analyze the data. We only need several sheets to fill the
data and compare the needs, cost and performance to find out a few options. In addition, for the
selected options, we list an order with our opinion. In the end, we shall hand in our report to the
boss; and he will make the decision.
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4. Project Execution
4.1 Research Execution
Based on data needed and the research plan, I researched three different types of data.
They are for database, servers, and switches improvement.
4.1.1 Database
The data or research result is related to database. The data includes the frequency of
using, database size, etc.
Products
Inventory
Financing
Management
Frequency of Using (per
day)
25
24
34
8
Average Loading Time
(Seconds per use)
40
60
80
100
Hours of Using (per day)
4
6
7
3
N/A
50G
80G
20G
Database needed (size)
Table 1
Local
Cloud
Back up
Yes
Yes
Safety
Based on Firewall
High
Capacity
Enough
Enough
Flexibility
Low
High
APP Support
N/A
Yes
Performance
Based on local system
High
Cost
High
Low
Table 2
4.1.2 Servers
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Even though we need some servers to build a completely IT system, so far, this company
only has one server. The data of server can be collected for this exist server. The needs for other
servers will be collected from the interview with owner and management of this business.
Image
Frequency of using (per day)
Average Size
50
180 G
Amount
100
Table 3
Based on the results of the interviews, this is the conclusion: each server should not cost
over 3000 dollars; servers should include firewall, active directory, document, and imaging.
Based on the result of this research project, the database server may or may not locate in the
office.
4.1.3 Switches
Switches are important, because we need them to transport data from one device to
another device. They also are not important, because a high-end switch will not provide
increasing of performance for this company. In this case, the switches only need to reach the
need. In other words, switches should not limit the performance is the only goal.
Needs
PoE
No
SFP
No
Non-blocking throughput (MAX)
70 G
Switching Capacity
140 G
Management UI
Yes
5 Ports
15
8 Ports
8
24 Ports
2
48 Ports
1
Table 4
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4.2 Research Results Summary
4.2.1 Summary
According to the results of research and interviews, this is the brief summary. By the
way, in this summary, I won’t repeat the numbers showing in the tables. For this company, we
need to at lease four servers to reach daily needs for the whole business process. Based on the
sizes of data or document, we need to find out enough space for hard drives. In addition, based
on the needs of raid, we need to consider extra hard drives for mirror hard drives. The goal of
setting up switches and network is to not limit the performance of the network, which should be
enough for the needs of transporting packages. We already have the information about the needs
of database. Based on the result, we made a table to compare local and cloud database.
4.2.2 Discussion of objectives
There are two objectives I’d like to discuss: performance and cost. The performance is
the reason we started this research project. Because of the low performance of current system, it
cannot reach the needs of the business process, we started this project to improve or create an IT
system to reach the current goal. In addition, this system should reach the needs for the future 5
years. To finish this project, we should understand the current performance and the needs. By
collecting data and interviews, we finished researching for performance. On the other hand,
performance is unlimited. In fact, the technology is improving every day, so the maximum of
performance is increasing every data. We should consider having a right performance, not a high
performance. The cost is the one limitation we use for performance. In this small business, cost
is important factor we have to consider. However, we need to find out the balance point between
cost and performance.
4.2.3 Tangible and Intangible measures
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For performance, we have both tangible and intangible measures. For example, we
measured the using of data, so we can get numbers. This is a tangible measure. It helps us
understand the process is too slow or not. Based on the numbers, we can get the time people
spend on loading, if it is too long, we need to increase the performance. On the other hand, the
level of performance we increase to is intangible measures. It is hard to say how much
performance is enough, so we need to interview owner and management how they feel. For same
reason, for cost, the measure is intangible, because it is hard to say how much cost is enough. For
this small b…
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