Systems Analysis, Design and Development (Object Oriented using UML) - Term Paper Example

? Web Security Submitted to, Submitted By, of the Submitted on, [June 19th, Terms of Reference Scope The proposed system revolves around a scenario in which the auction of cars and motorcycles is being held online. The domain of the system would span from the seller of the vehicles to the buyer of the vehicles to the vehicles themselves and to the payment transaction that would eventually take place. The scope of the system is limited by time restrictions that bind each vehicle permitting it to remain available for auction only for a certain period of time. Objectives The objective of the systems is to create an interactive automate environment that would provide the provision of facilitating the processing related to an online auction system. The system is proposed to act as a central place where the main happening of the vehicle auction scenario would be taking place. It would enable the sellers to register their vehicles for being auctioned out. Similarly the interested buyers would be able to register themselves as proposed buyers if they are intending to bid for a vehicle from the vehicle auction company. The management of bids and the increase of their respective bid costs at the introduction of every new bid for a specific vehicle is also one of the objectives of the proposed. Thus, it may be said that it aims at providing a fluent means of interaction between the buyers and the sellers of the system taking heed of the time and cost requirements/restrictions that bind the system. Constraints Constraints that bind the vehicle auction system are requirements that a specific vehicle can be made available for auction only for a certain period of time which is maximum 30 days with respect to the current scenario. The minimum number of days that a vehicle needs to stay available for auction is ten days. It cannot be taken off from its ‘available for auction’ status before that. Another constraint that the system would be bound by is that at each subsequent bid for a specific car the cost of the bid would be incremented by $100. Similarly the cost of a motorcycle would be increased by $50 at each subsequent bid for it. The system is constrained by the action of either the seller or the buyer of the vehicles. Resources The resources that need to be made available to the analyst are a separate secluded environment with an up-to-date computing system that is connected to the rest of the computing devices of the organization. The computing system needs to be equipped with the latest and most comprehensive analytical software that would enable the provision of precise and timely analytical assessment as and when required. The time given to the analyst for conducting his assessment should be ample so that the process gets done in its due time thus guaranteeing its error freeness. 1 SUMMARY The current report is intended to be a feasibility report for the development of the online auction system for vehicle selling and purchase. The vehicles purchase/selling system will work on the basis of online auctions. Bidders of the vehicles will gradually increase the bid cost for a specific time period. The system will monitor the auction end time. At the end of auction period highest bidder will be the winner of the bid. Subsequent notifications to the respective seller and highest bidder will be generated by the system automatically. Since it would be online and less cumbersome than a real world vehicle auction scenario, the online auction management system will attract both purchasers and sellers to use it. The system would, in turn, get benefited from both the participants. The proposed system will not only provide an operational platform for such convenient buying, but would also maintain the bidder and seller profiles in order to produce future follow ups. The system will comprise of the following core modules a brief summary of which is provided as follows: Customer (Seller/Bidder) Profiling: This module maintains and manages the details of each purchaser (bidder) and seller. The storage is helpful in discriminating the regular and new users in order to hit the target customers for future promotions. Credible sellers would be a kind of an asset for company’s reputation. Online Auction: This module is the core of the whole system. It will comprise of the bidding mechanism i.e. the proper increments in bid values with each respective new bid is managed by this module. The module will keep the system consistent. Moreover, it is required for the system to be robust enough in order to maintain the reliability of the entire portal. Bidding Evaluation Mechanism: Once the bidding seizes (due to the expiry of auction duration), this module decides success and failure of respective auction. Following to the decision process the same module notifies the highest bidder (in case of success) and the seller (in both cases) accordingly. The proposed system is a bespoke because the system demands specific features within it. Moreover there are chances of future extensions in the auction mechanism due to the customer retention and offering strategies. With packages installed incorporation of extended business model will be a challenge. 2 BACKGROUND An online auction mechanism is intended which attracts sellers and buyers of vehicles. The system will be a reliable e-commerce system and will provide opportunity for online sales through auctions. Both the seller and the buyers will be the customers of the system. The system will maintain the personal information of both participants. After registering a vehicle by a seller the bidder will be able to bid on it until the bidding time expires. All bidders will have equal opportunity to increase the bid with equal rate, that is, 100 $ for car and 50 $ for motorcycle. After ending the bidding process, the bids will be evaluated and decision will be made accordingly. The bidder with highest bid among all the other bidders will win the vehicle auction; however, the biding price must be greater than the base price as provided by the seller. The successful bidder will be notified by the system automatically then he has to perform personal visit to the vehicle and payment will be made. In case of the failure of the auction i.e. the highest bid could not cross the minimum price of the vehicle or in case of no bid, the system will automatically notify the seller about the situation and the vehicle information will be removed in both cases. Such system will allow purchasers to have a fair market survey and will provide ample vehicle selection opportunities. Due to the effectiveness of system both the purchaser and seller would not be able to acquire undue benefits in any case. With the optimized vehicle price (as desired by the seller) the bidder will not have to pay exorbitantly. 3 METHOD OF INVESTIGATION The proposed system and all its development strategy is solely based on the provided details. Therefore, all the operational details completely depend upon the accuracy and completeness of the provided case. The feasibility report is developed on the basis of given requirements. The proposed development strategy is based on detailed analysis of the currently available systems. The feasibility report is prepared after comparison of existing online auction system and the requirements of new system. 4 Outline of Existing System (in line with Task 1): The Rich Picture of the Online Auction Service for Cars and Motor Cycles is presented in Figure 1 below. Figure 1: The Rich Picture Issues and primary tasks extracted from Rich Picture are as follows: ISSUES 1 Customer and vehicle profiling 2 Allocation of bidding monitoring system Primary Tasks 1 Primarily the online auction service of cars/vehicles with the involvement of bidder and sellers 2 Bid initiation, bid monitoring and bid evaluation system. Task1a. i Two Problems In the given case we found two interesting problem themes. The first is regarding registration or profiling of bidders and sellers with vehicle registration. The second one is the operational management of auction process. This online auction process involves the allocation of bidding monitoring system. Bidding process ends as soon as the time defined by seller expires. The allowed range of time for auction duration is 10-30 days. The system will continuously monitor the auction duration for expiry. Upon completion of auction duration system stops the auction promptly. ii. Relevant System The systems that are “Auction Profiling”, “Bidding Monitoring System” and “Bid Evaluation and Acknowledgement Systems” are highly relevant. These systems are effectively connected to manage customers’ (seller and bidder) requests and to respond to these actors accordingly. Following text highlights the functioning of each system in detail. Task 1b. Root Definition The root definition of the system is as follows: “This is an online vehicle selling/purchasing system which first maintains the sellers/bidder profiles and then offers an online bidding mechanism for a defined time. The system works on highest bid mechanism and bids can be increased subsequently with a fixed distance”. CATWOE TEST C: Both bidders and sellers are the customers of the proposed online auction system A: Profile registration, Bidding process and the bidding evaluation mechanism T: It is maintained in its database, track the bid ending process online as set by seller and finally evaluate the highest bidder W: Because of bidding mechanism and online sale O: Bidding engine, and bidding evaluation system E: Bidder/Seller profile, vehicle info, bidding criteria, bids from bidders 5 REQUIREMENTS (in line with task 2) Following are the figured out use cases presented in Figures 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 with brief details. Figure 1.2: Use Case 1: Online Auction Services Profiling Highlights the two actors of system namely ‘seller’ and ‘bidder’ and their respective primary interactions with the profiling and vehicle registration systems. Figure 1.3 Use Case 2: Auction Discriminates the interactions of both the actors in order to participate in the online auction activity. Seller asks for vehicle offer placement with minimum bid value and auction duration. Whereas the bidder does bidding for the required vehicles. Figure 1.4 Use Case 3: Bidding Engine and Evaluation Paints the overall picture of flow of interactions and responses to and from the system to respective actors. 6 Options for Solution and Recommendations (in line with Task 3): There are several ready-made online auction systems (software packages) that are available in the market. However, the scenario of “Online Auction Services for Automobiles” demands a “right from scratch” development scheme. A Bespoke or Tailored software system seems recommended due to following reasons, Business Process Re-engineering: An online auction services system remains exposed to emerging requirements. This calls for an ongoing requirement analysis and designing routine called as Business Process Re-engineering. For example in this scenario the system currently seizes auction upon expiry of allowed time duration along with letting the seller know about the status of bid in both cases (that are successful auction or unsuccessful auction). Before cancellation of auction the seller should be given a chance to offer vehicle on minimum bid value for a shorter duration like 2-3 days. This would allow a higher rate of success and extended business activity. Indigenous Maintenance: The software system can easily be maintained when designed to cater the customized needs of the organization indigenously. The cost of maintenance remains lower with the provision of instant maintenance. Future enhancements: Bespoke allows room for future enhancements as well. For example the organization may ask for business expansion via introduction of new products other than automobiles for online auction. In this case it would be easy to design an integrated system with Bespoke. 7 DRAFT DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY (in line with Task 4): An operational system designing is a relatively simple task. The accomplishment of this task may be made simpler if certain steps are followed. Requirement analysis: The first and foremost step in any system design is to conduct an analysis of the system requirements. These requirements are actually the foundations of the system to be designed and then developed. The analysis of the requirements at an initial stage of system design/development is proposed to be helpful throughout the design/development phase. An Inadequate analysis or the absence of analyzing the system requirements will leave the system vulnerable and may also jeopardize its functionality. Functional specification: Once the system requirements have been specified, next step should be the determination of functional specifications. After requirement analysis, the next most important task is identification/determination of issues that cannot be compromised upon. There can be several issues on which no compromise can be done. Some of these are mentioned below. Efficiency: The efficiency of a system is an entity over which there can be no compromise as an inefficient system will jeopardize the entire reputation of an organization as well as its credibility amongst consumers/customers. Extendibility: Extendibility of a system is another issue which would be on the “indispensible requirement list” of any system design team as it would enable the system to be expandable, that is, new functionality could be added later on. Consistency: Since the system is online, there will be a very large amount of visitor traffic in terms of buyers and sellers at any given time. The system database will have to be consistent in order to handle the flow of visitors and their dealings as there might be several purchases and bidding’s going on simultaneously. Fault Tolerant: The system might crash due to unforeseen circumstances at any given time therefore a backup plan capable of dealing with the situation ought to be devised beforehand. Prototype: Once the system functionality specification has been completed, a prototype of the system should be prepared which should incorporate all the desired features of the final product. The prototype will be a scaled down, yet working version of the desired system and should address the system requirements specified at the beginning as well as supporting the issues identified during functional specification. Reassessment of System Requirements: The incorporation of system requirements in the prototype might unearth new issues and some or all of the system requirements might have to be reassessed in order to align them with the prototype. Phase wise (Modular) development: Once the system requirements have been reassessed and aligned with the prototype into a working model, it is time for the development of the final product. It is recommended to use the modular approach as it will ensure flexibility of the system, ease in extendibility while reducing cost in terms of development, less learning time and re-usability of the modules. Testing: Each module should be tested individually and after integration with the main system. Tests of the overall system and related modules should be conducted after integration every time the integration is done. Such rigorous testing will highlight any issues concerning the functionality of the modules as well as their compatibility. Instant Integration: The modular approach will reduce the chances of a complete systems failure as compartmentalization of the modules will protect the system from individual level crashes. That is, if a module crashes, the system will not be affected. 8 DRAFTED CLASS DIAGRAM USING UML (in line with Task 5): Figure 1.5 The class diagram of the given case study Wheels Deals (Online Auction Service for Cars and Motor Cycles) is presented in Figure 1.5. REFERENCES Agarwal, R., De, P., & Sinha, A. P. (1999). Comprehending object and process models: an empirical study. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering,25(4), 541-556. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc, 445 Hoes Ln, Piscataway, NJ, 08854-1331, UK,. Retrieved from http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/lpdocs/epic03/wrapper.htm?arnumber=799953 Dennis, A., & Wixom, B. H. (2000). Systems analysis and design. New York: Wiley Top of Form Gomaa, H. (2011). Software modeling and design: UML, use cases, patterns, and software architectures. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressBottom of Form Gemino, A., & Parker, D. (2009). Use case diagrams in support of use case modeling: deriving understanding from the picture. Journal of Database Management, 20(1), 1+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.proxy1.ncu.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA193886943&v=2.1&u=pres1571&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w Hoffer, J. A., George, J. F., & Valacich, J. S. (2011).Modern systems analysis and design. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson Prentice Hall. Nunes, D. N. J. (2001). Object Modeling for User-Centered Development and User Interface Design: The Wisdom Approach. Program. Universidade da Madeira. Retrieved from http://xml.coverpages.org/NunoWisdomThesis.pdf UML Document Set (June 25, 2001), Retrieved from http://www.omg.org/. Wand, Y., and R. Weber (2002) "Research Commentary: Information Systems and Conceptual Modeling -- A Research Agenda," Information Systems Research (33)4, pp 363-376. Wand, Y. & Weber, R. (2002). Information systems and conceptual modeling: A research agenda. Information Systems Research, 203-223. Whitten, J. L., Bentley, L. D., & Dittman, K. C. (2007).Systems analysis and design methods. Boston, Mass: McGraw-Hill. Read More