Web-Based Methodology - Essay Example

?Research repository tool Number: Lecturer: Introduction With the increase in research work in s of higher learning and organizations, managing these researches is becoming increasingly complex. This calls for a web-based alternative which will make use of web-based technologies to manage researches. This paper will focus on the methodology that will be followed in the management of researches. For a long time, management of research papers has been done manually. Web based methodology The implementation of this project will be undertaken using a web based approach. The architecture will employ 3-tier where there will be the user end, business logic end and the server end. The user-end will have a system that will enable the users to access the repository. The server end will have a database which will be used to store the research materials. The database will make use of Oracle 11g. There will be a connection of these applications so that the application connects to the database (Brian, 2007). Access to the application and to the database will be achieved using web interface. The application that is used will be the browser that the users are using. There will be security of the system so that not everybody will access the system. The restriction will be differentiated so that there are restrictions for the outsiders and restrictions for members. The restrictions for outsiders will be that these users will not access the whole system completely. This is because the users will access only the parts that are of interest to them. The system administrators and the IT staff will have the privileges that will enable them to access most of the tools and places in the system. They are tasked with maintaining the system and they need to access the whole system. There will be a user interface that will allow this access to be implemented. From the description, there is the back-end of the system and also the front-end. The back-end represents the database and the server. The back-end will be operated upon by the administrators of the system. There are times that the database will fail. There is therefore a need to ensure that it is restored back to work (Brian, 2007). With the new system, users and researchers will be required to fill in forms that will describe the research work they are interested in and send it to the system. The work that the researcher is interested in will be searched in the database. The research work that will be submitted will be approved by the staff and then approved to be added to the database. The articles that are added to the system will be categorized based on their nature. Detailed analysis of the tool Most of the requests will be made to the server by users. This will mean that the requests will be made through a web based system. There will be an internet connection that will help to connect the users and the server end part of the system. Without this connection, the connection and the access will not be made possible. The application that will handle all the requests will be developed using the C# programming language. This will reside in the server part of the web-based system. There are possibilities to have connections in Visual Studio either to databases or web services. The connection to the end users will be done through web service connection and the services to the back-end part of the system will be done using database connectivity. The database that will be used is Oracle 11g. The architecture in diagram 1 shows that the server and database are running on the server end of the system. Figure 1: Basic architecture The connection of the database and the application will be done using the functionality of the Visual Studio 2010. There is a tool that enables Visual Studio to connect to data that are from any source. When using Visual Studio, there is a tool that is used to create a connection. All connections have the same members. The property that will be used in the connection is that of ConnectionString property. This property has a string which has values that enables a the user to log into the database server and point to any database that they are interested (Smith, & Seifert, 2005). Implementation of the application The implementation of the application will be undertaken in various phases. These phases are underlined below: Hardware/software assembling The hardware will have to be gathered and configured. The hardware that will be required in this case is the server, computers, and networking devices. After they have been acquired, they will need to be configured so that they will be used in the project. The software that will be required to be assembled include things such as operating systems, the system that will be used to manage the research, database that will be used and the utility software like the anti-viruses. There will also be a need to ensure that the hardware is usable and will not be redundant very soon (Graham, 1999). Prepare the network After the hardware and software have been assembled, there will be the need to have the network developed. The network will be developed and prepared so that the connection with the back-end of the system will be made possible. This is for the case where the users are in the same building with the servers. For remote users, the database and the server will be configured so that the access can be made available (Brian, 2007). Install the software The software will be installed when the network is already in place and all the software and hardware have been assembled. The operating system that will be installed will be Microsoft based because most of the researchers edit their work using Microsoft Products. Open source products like Linux are not popular with many researchers. In the field of research, Microsoft products are commonly used. The software that will be used to manage the repository will also be installed. This installation will be done last. This installation will be done on the server. The server will then allow the application to be shared (Brian, 2007). Testing After the applications have been installed, there will also be the testing of the software. The testing will be done to ensure that the system is working well. This will require that the system that has been installed works well. Appropriate testing mechanism for web applications Testing of the web based application is in order so that the defects can be identified. There is no one such stipulated time when the software testing process is to be carried out on the contrary; such a process can be done at any stage of the software development process. This, however, must be done before implementation of the software and possibly its accreditation as being reliable. As it has been happening in the past, software testing as a process is done just after coding has been done and all requirements have been set I place. However, this is not the case in the agile approach to software development. From the above argument it can be stated that the stage at which testing is conducted almost or rather entirely depends on the approach used during the design and implementation of the software (Castells, 2003). Despite the advancement in technology refining reliability in software, it remains fact that almost all software used at least contains risks. The smart thing is that most of such risks are not too complicated, and hence can be moderated, or rather eliminated. This is true especially as regards complexities related to the required specifications, which presents the most dangerous and hard to deal with risks, if not handled early in the development stages. Commonly made mistakes that subjects most projects to risks of failure or stagnation include having requirements that are not clear; failure to involve the customers and other stakeholders in the requirements specification process; having so many malfunctioning and unrealistic requirements that may never be realized and that are not in line with the goal and an utmost focus of the project (Zervaas, 2007). The mechanism that will be used in this scenario is testing session testing management. The application that has been defined in this paper uses session tokens to manage sessions. For this reason, there will be the need to identify the specific data that are used re-identify the users in the system. A page that is usually session-independent is used to verify the items which are used to manage the session. Gannt Chart References Brian, T 2007, The Internet: Online tools and resources, Oxford University Press, London. Castells, M 2003, The galaxy of the internet: reflections on the Internet, business, and society, Oxford University Press, London. Graham, G 1999, The Internet, Routledge, New York. Smith, SM, & Seifert, WJ 2005, The reality of the Internet: an overview of key technology policy issues affecting its use and growth, Nova Publishers. Zervaas, Q 2007, The Future of the Internet and the Semantic web, Springer, Chicago. Read More