Email and Network Problem Faced by Corporate World of Hong Kong and China - Research Proposal Example

Details – diablosv.k@gmail.com Cohort Started December 2006 (Word Count = 2158) Short Literature Review Since Hong Kong corporate move the IT production line into China in these ten years, most of them have not planned well in the IT segment. Due to lack of technology and technical staff from the beginning of new plant setup in China, some companies just form a small group of network system to fulfil forepart of business need, without future upgrade planning (Walker, 200). There is a problem on the network traffic congestion in the intranet, which directly affect both data flow between Hong Kong office and China plant (Leong, Lee & Li, 1999). A good network infrastructure enables a smooth communication process. Both Hong Kong and China plants have setup intranet since a very long time. The Internet Protocol, technical staff and computers quantities may not be well establish for future expansion and the network just can have 256 pieces of Internet Protocol at one segment. As router, setting does not give access into two or more segments, which is the first problem to make intranet work and email delivery failure. Later VLAN infrastructure was adopted in plant A and enabled every computer to send and receive email from different location of plant B and Hong Kong email servers, but some email still have delay and lose problem after rearrangement. Email has now become a most important tool of communication; it is not only use for entertainment purposes but also for professional purposes as well. Both student and working group make use of it for efficient and quick exchange of information. Most of people think email-writing skills are very important for the effectiveness of doing their jobs. Otherwise, they will spend one to three hours everyday reading and writing emails. Efficient writing techniques can minimise the time spent on writing and proof reading the emails; may also result in inconveniences. It depends on the urgency of exchanging the information (Greg & Genesco, 1997). On the server level, Microsoft Exchange server is famous for not only messaging but also support virus scanner support spam filter. Although it limits the process of all actives inside network and makes it slow, it is very helpful in protecting the system from getting virus infected. From the logs of servers and email activities to the lost of email problem everything has affected the inside of Hong Kong office’s network system. There is an 2MB International Private Line Connection (IPLC) to connect with two plants in China; while all ERP real time database data, FTP, VoIP, Video Conference, filing sharing and email will transfer through this wire. Both Hong Kong and China staff have faced problems like loss of email, but Internet Service Providers very effectively have handled the problem and has overcome it. Network traffic can be monitor by load balancing machine and get access to the data from routers in different location, but some unknown media is still a hurdle between the communication in Hong Kong and Dong Guang plants, which still needs to find out (Mulet & Mullet, 2000). To avoid the inconveniences on the client side and to maximise performance and security, whole network is wired not wireless. Every sort of people are working in the organization, some are unfamiliar while other use facilities and internet service for their personal use, as the internet service become popular to the mass. Internet services include, using e-mail, corresponding through discussion groups, using remote services such as telnet and ftp, browsing the World Wide Web using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and video conferencing. The network performance get affected when there is an unauthorised use of receiving and transferring of data, for example, use of BT software. Company can also use different software and tools to handle and control staff’s behaviour (Hai & Jin, 2004). Intention – no customers will be involved and a questionnaire from the employees will be taken. The project results will be used to produce a research paper. Project Title – Email and Network Problem faced by Corporate World of Hong Kong & China Project Topic Area Overview Since trading activities have become frequent in China, our Hong Kong Company have built two plants in Dong Guang, China. Most of communication related to orders and confirmations are being sent through a wire and have legal binding force. Unfortunately, due to some impulsive reasons, some important emails, sent from plants or Hong Kong office, get delayed or sometimes is unable to receive by recipient directly. Internet Service Providers prove their network with 99.9% success rates and setup private network (IPLC) connect with the plant A and B of Hong Kong office. The IPLC have 1MB bandwidth to process the ERP system, VoIP phone and Video Conference but not all email will deliver through IPLC. Situation Overview The research is set in a production firm that is located in Hong Kong and China. In that context, it will focus on the loss of email from both location and the network solution. Presenting Problem Definition From way back, both Hong Kong and China plants have intranet setup. The Internet Protocol, technical staff and computers quantities may not well establish for future expansion. A VLAN infrastructure is adopted in plant A and to make sending and receiving from different location email servers effective, but some emails are still getting delayed and there is also a loss even after rearrangement. Real-World Target To Design an error free system to avoid losing any orders, instructions, and invoice and it will help in reducing misunderstandings of vendors and customers. Research Question To find out how the infrastructure of email system can be made stable and to control the factor(s) which are creating problem? Personal Theory Network traffic can be monitor by load balancing machine and get access to the data from routers in different location, but some unknown media is still a hurdle between the communication in Hong Kong and Dong Guang plants, which still needs to find out. This topic seems difficult because the problems are not easily identified as there are few solutions available, which can be adopted. However, the quality of data communication between China Plants and Hong Kong Office can be palliative by load balancing facilities. Since expensive network, equipments and internet service cannot make problem of lost email completely disappear. It is suggested that by using simple method we can find out the solution of the problems directly. Intended Project Outcome It is expected to find out the problems caused by loss of email and then to find a possible solution to avoid problems in future. My expected outcome will be to come up with possible and affordable solution to setup a stable network inside company, even though for the future expansion to other districts. The result might help in getting nearer to the solution of the problem. Strategic IT Value Email is an important item in the role of network communication and can give less than 70% of guarantee of delivering email to the receiver. For efficient service, company has also installed private as well as independent email server group to handle emails; it shows that email is the primary and most essential email service for the company. Ethical Overview In corporate world, network utilisation and email management are of high privacy and at the same time controlled by administration. Every staff and user may only need to discover the ingredients of email to understand the working process. Unfortunately, the nature of internet is open to the masses, so has threats of hackers from anywhere, and no body can deny the importance of protection against those threats. Sometime a broadcast email rotates around both the customer and staff. However, this process is very timely to circulate few messages, as the list of the recipient is long. Aim The research is aiming to fully understand the network infrastructure and problem facing by Hong Kong Office and plants in China. This will help us in giving us a better understanding of how to stable, control, eliminate or solve the problem factors in email receiving and sending. Expected outcome are to find out a possible and affordable solution to setup a stable network inside company, which will help in future expansion to other districts. Objectives (i) Find out the problems faced due to loss of email. (ii) To find out the solution to those problems. (iii) Find out solution to solve the loss of email problem. (iv) How to control the damage caused by loss of email. (v) Find out the suitable Internet Service Provider for the company. (vi) The setting and network infrastructure will help in getting the smooth flow of data. Research Design – Research Method The research method will be focus on users computer usage; servers, routers, firewall’s logs; and report on Internet Service Provider. Questionnaires will be given to the employees to find out the exact problem faced by them. Research Design – Phase 1: Primary Data Collection Process Basic Activity for Generating Data The basic idea is to find in the router, distribute questionnaire to staff to check the status of spam messages and find out whether their working procedures is regular or not. Searching networking traffics, email servers and ISP investigation report, users, vendors and customer’s experience everything will be taken notice of to find out how often and email is facing frequent problem. Primary Data The primary data can be study in different level. It can be define in server network layer and user application layer. In the server network layer, data flow records can be find in routers, firewall logs, workload of email server and its delivery in or out queues, security level, capacity and free space of server hard drives, network utilise load balancing machine report, Information Technology staff and Internet service provider investigation black & write list reports. In the user application layer, check the status of email client software, connection condition and speed between computers and switch boxes, computer hardware configure. Defining the problems at serious level, the set ups of IT services, requesting reports and calculating the frequency of which period will suffer the most. All staff is required to take part in this project and need to fill in the IT service request form every time when computer failure matters occur. Location The sample frame is all offices of Hong Kong and two plants of China. This is around 80 staff members in Hong Kong and more than 600 computer operation staff people in China plants. All staff must use IT service request form to report the failure matters, and there are IT department to collect with the data. However, the problems occur in Hong Kong side more frequently and the sample size will be 600 and mainly focus on Hong Kong staff. Collection Protocols Users are the first media to get message in real situation, so there is an “IT service request report application form” fill by users in each of failure and error occur. Every record stored in a suitable electronic file and each case have a case number for trace process condition; it must be show the item of (i) Report date, (ii) department & staff’s name, (iii) problem details, (iv) why the problem occur, (v) Action of IT staff taken, and (vi) Processing time of the case. This procedure will help in getting the record of all information and in reflect the problems truly. In the meantime, an anti spam questionnaire is needed to be distribute to Hong Kong and China staff. They will have one week to fill up the form and will be collected and process by IT department. Furthermore, company will contact Internet Service Provider in both Hong Kong and China side; to generate the hold picture, report of network data flow, utilisation of traffic, router real time information, and consult solution to solve with weakness point of network connection. Primary Data Collection Presentation - Design for Collecting Primary Data Primary data will be shown on an electronic file sorted by month and with the details of Report date, Department & staff’s name, Problem details, Reasons of problems, Action of IT staff took in those scenarios, and Total Processing time of the case. Research Design – Phase 2: Processing and Presentation The following research plan is the main thing in getting the whole collection of primary data, in order to get the expected outcome form. The processing is in three steps: manipulate the raw primary data from IT Service Request Report, questionnaire, consultants and Internet Service Provider; Presenting the processed data in graphical form and extracting it from the graphs features by manual inspection. Design of Pre-Processing for Primary Data Collection - Design for Processing Primary Data Once the logs and advice are connected, it is needed to classify to technical type, application type and generate a list of problem. In order to find out the possible results, there will be charts associate to different kinds of problems and compare them with technical sheet from internet service provider report. Sort IT Service Request Report in monthly basic, to find out the problem will be seasonal effect or not, level of routine job affected, how long to recover, and predict the next error period. Design for Results Presentation Generate half year IT service request report, anti spam questionnaire and report from Internet Service Providers. Point out the weakness point of the network. Design for Generating the Intended Project Outcome Once the charts are available, it will be used to explain the relationship between network setting problems, internet traffic problems and email communication errors. It is hope to find out suitable firewall settings, user habits of handle spam message, use of internet and shared data correctly. Logistics and Tools – Resources Required Site visit to China office is required, there will be network monitor machinery and software provided by Internet Service Provider and products vendor. References Andrew S. Tanenbaum (2002) Computer Networks, Fourth Edition, Prentice Hall PTR. Doug Lowe (November 4, 2002) Networking for Dummies, Sixth Edition. For Dummies Elsevier John Locke (2004) Open Source Solutions For Small Business Problems (Networking Series), Charles River Media Greg W Scragg, Genesco Suny (1997) Problem Solving with Computers, Jones and Bartlett Publishers Gillian Lewando Hundt (2001) The Business of Research: issues of policy and practice, Blackwell Publishing Hai & Jin (2004) Network and Parallel Computing, Springer Inc. Jawin Technologies (2005) Network Protocols Handbook, Tsinghau University, China Jimme A. Keizer, Piet M. Kempen (2006) Business Research Projects: A Solution-Oriented Approach, Leong H. V., Lee W. C., Li B. (1999) Mobile Data Access: First International Conference, MDA99, Hong Kong, China, (December 16-17, 1999) Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science), Springer Michael Jay Polonsky, David Scott Waller (2004) Designing and Managing a Research Project: A Business Student’s Guide, Sage Publications Inc Mullet D, Mullet K (2000) Managing IMAP.: Help for Email Administrators, O’ Reilly Office of the Telecommunications Authority (2000) Joint Anti-spam Initiatives Announced, The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.Retrieved December 2006 from http://www.ofta.gov.hk/en/press_rel/2000/feb_2000.html Scott M. Ballew (1997) Managing IP Networks with Cisco Routers, O’Reilly Walker G. (2001) IT Problem Management, Prentice Hall PTR Project Plan Project Plan – Master Schedule expressed in weeks (Assuming completion in 22 to 24 weeks ) Dates are Mondays 2007 January February March Event 8 15 22 29 5 12 19 26 5 12 19 26 Literature Search Identify & extract Instances Interviews / Findings Obtaining PT database Primary Data Analysis Results Processing Dates are Mondays 2007 April May June Event 2 16 23 30 7 14 21 28 4 11 18 25 Literature Search Identify & extract Instances Interviews / Findings Obtaining PT database Primary Data Analysis Results Processing Appendix B – Submission Check List for Assessment 1a Part 3 This form must be included as an appendix to the submission of part 3 of this assessment and it is intended to show you that you have correctly formatted work and included all that is needed. If you are unable to tick every box then your work is not ready for submission. If boxes are ticked and it is subsequently found that the relevant element is not present it will be taken as a deliberate attempt by you to falsify the record and the work will be returned to you unmarked and disciplinary action initiated with the work automatically regarded as a fail. Word Count 2158 The maximum permitted word count is 3,000 excluding project plan and reference list. 1.  I have written down the word count and it does not exceed the permitted value 2.  I have used the correct margins of 2cm top, bottom, right and left 3.  The work presented is in A4, MS .doc format using portrait orientation (project plan may be in landscape) 4.  I have used Ariel narrow font at 12pt size except in the project plan, reading list and page footer where I have used 10pt. 5.  I have used a line spacing of 6 lines/inch 6.  Pages have centred footers in the form - Page 1 of 5 - J.J. Letto HEMIS No. 567543 Submission Date: 2004/05 7.  I have not used page headers 8.  All main text is right and left justified 9.  Headings are NOT followed by a blank line 10.  Headings are in the same font as the main text but are shown in bold 11.  I have used a blank line to separate paragraphs 12.  I have not numbered any paragraphs or sections 13.  I understand that indented sentences can be used where appropriate but bullets are not to be used 14.  The first page uses the assessment heading lines shown on the specification sample in workbook 3 section 3.5.2 15.  I have used the correct format for a specification as found in the sample contained in workbook 3 section 3.5.2 16.  The submission file is named with only my HEMIS No. (if anything else is added your file will be automatically deleted) 17.  I have sent my personal profile to the Research Methods tutor 18.  I have looked up and studied ALL the Workbook references mentioned in this assessment 19.  I have included all citation sources used in my work in my list of references 20.  My short Literature Review is not be made up of just quotes and paraphrase but is an evaluative dialogue 21.  I have cited other peoples work properly using the Harvard APA format 22.  I have included a references list of at least 10 literature sources 23.  My reference list contains no more than thee books covering Research Methods and Statistics 24.  I have only used the citation form (Briggs 1999) for passing references to texts 25.  I have included at least 3 sources covering the core topic area of this research 26.  In the reference list no more that 20% are internet sources 27.  The specification includes a plan to get original data (primary data) and I do not have that data already 28.  I have ensured that the primary data collected can be used to generate a Strategic Business IT outcome of some kind. 29.  My data processing design will generate the stated outcome form and the plan is clear enough to be executed by anyone 30.  The project has a significant learning potential in the IT/computing field 31.  I understand for this degree only the project style known as “Study” is allowed. 32.  I have attached a scanned letter of support from the organization where I intend to collect data (see appendix E) 33.  Plagiarism Declaration - I confirm that the enclosed written work is entirely my own except where explicitly stated otherwise. I further declare that wherever I used copying, paraphrasing, summarisations or other appropriate mechanism related to the use of another authors work it has been properly acknowledged in accordance with normal scholarly conventions. I further understand that wherever 6 or more consecutive words are extracted from a source they must be acknowledged and 10 consecutive words that are unacknowledged will be regarded as proof of plagiarism. Read More