A Training Information Management System for SCR - Assignment Example

? System Architecture Tasks Number Web-centri The internet has emerged as a powerful and efficient platform for shifting marketing and sales processes online. It is arguably the environment in which virtually all business operations are operating from. A web-centric organization takes advantage of internets extensive technological power to streamline and integrate marketing and sales department to attain more customers faster and at the same time retain them for the longest time possible. Thus, web centricity is a term used to describe the process of using the internet to empower traditional marketing communications and sales strategies to attain more productivity. The company’s website is the face of its operations in the digital platform. It is the primary point of contact with prospective customers, and since the internet has presented itself as a platform for integrating and automating almost all marketing and sales operations, the web has been elevated from simply a component of marketing mix to being the core of marketing strategies. A web-centric strategy comprises of websites, web portals, and systematic marketing solutions. The motivations behind the development of a web-centric website lie in segmentations, tracking and capturing of leads that improve business performance (Cashman, 2012). PROPOSED SOLUTION SRC desires to develop a Training Management System to manage its new training centre. The development of the system should follow web-centric principles. Specifically, it should integrate three components; web, web portals and systematic virtual marketing tools. The developed system should segment the market to streamline the purchase information decisions. Further, it should add value to the prospects application and automatically recognize and present the prospect with segment-specific information. The system should also track other qualification data associated with the prospect for successful identification of contact information. Prospects give out contact information in order to receive high quality information, services and tools from the website. DEFENSE With web portals the identified prospect can perform a broad range of applications, , information and services such as pricing, orders, technical support and vital business operations. Virtual relationship marketing is the last strategic process for producing the steady stream of high-probability chances the business requires. The training information system will leverage systematic marketing solutions to constantly create and nurture a trusted, long-term relationship with the prospects until business is transacted. SCALABILITY Scalability refers to the ability of an information system to continue functioning well in spite of additional content in size and volume necessitated by business and customer demands. Re-scaling is usually done to a larger size or volume and may entail a product itself or objects movement to a new context. For instance, scaling can be done to storage, RAM or processing speed or a total shift of the object to a new operating system with improved operations and security (Cashman, 2012). Scalability of information systems is the ability of an information system to acquire more resources and continue to perform normally. A business will therefore, invest in an information system with the premise that the resource will grow as the business grows. Scalability is defined as a function of resources it can handle and time. If the system will still be affordable, efficient and practically workable in the next five years, then it is considered scalable and organizations to agree upon this premise. Business have ventured into bigger and better resources such as Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint, or Windows server as a result of the flexibility of expansion it accords. For businesses such as that of SCR, scalability is an important and fundamental aspect. PROPOSED SOLUTION In the case of SCR, a new Training Management System is said to be scalable if it can accommodate expansion to serve new business and customer needs as demand increases without compromising on quality. The development of the system should be done considering future needs such as opening of new training centers, increased data processing and storage. The applications must not only function well in the rescaled environment, but also leverage current needs to derive maximum benefits. The system will, thus, be scalable if it could be moved from a smaller operating system to a larger one and take advantage of it in terms of performance, and the n8umber of users it can accommodate. The system development team must note the systems resources and requirements during the application coding process. DEFENSE The desired system upon being implemented will manage training solutions by focusing on group learning instead of individual learner. Courses will be treated as learning plans and registration will be permanently shifted to the digital platform. Communication will also be enhanced as one-on-one or individual messaging is eliminated. A scalable Training and Management Information System will gather for the current needs of the firm and continually support it as it expands to meet future needs and demands. The system use will not be constraint by the number of users in the future as it can be easily shifted from small operating systems and servers to enormous versions with advanced processing capabilities. A business environment where systems fail to scale up, and computing resources fail to stretch like a tube fail to meet their needs. It means that the organization will be opting for a new system every now and then to meet the demand. Considering the capital investments used to develop or procure such a system, business operations and growth will be unattainable if the scalability factor is missing. The penultimate solution as IT professionals have to realize is the clouds. Cloud computing provides unparallel benefits for expansion and performance. The development team of TIMS should consider cloud as the next front for efficient storage and processing. BATCH PROCESSING Batch processing is a phenomenon where a computer system executes batch jobs on a scheduled basis or when permitted by resources without user interaction. Batch jobs refers to large amounts of information such as database records, log files, billing information and image processing executed on a scheduled basis or under low resource utilization. Data is collected, entered, processed, and finally the patch results are generated. Hadoop is an example of big data and highly scalable system that is focused on batch processing. Examples of batch processed operations are payroll and billing systems where separate programs are used for input, process and output. When contrasted with real time data processing involving continual input, processing and output of data, data is processed in a small time period referred as real or near-real time. Radar systems, customer services and bank ATMs operate on real time data processing. (DataCenter) The figure above displays a real time messaging and event processing and an Hadoop time-delayed batch system. Organizations require batch data processing for some batch data processes and real time processing for other transactions. Real time processing comes a solution s for those actions that anticipate a minute or second response. The call is to obtain insight necessary to respond prudently within an immediate time frame (DataCenter). As stated earlier, organizations adopt either real time or batch processing systems according to the needs and processes. A customer service centre will function efficiently with a real time processing mode to optimize customer experiences. An organization can collect data about customer services and tailor the services offered to meet a specific purpose. Point of Sale terminals use real time processing to update inventory, provide inventory updates and history, and sales analytics of a particular item. Unlike batch processing where the exact amount of inventory cannot be ascertained at a particular time until a scheduled batch is implemented, real time processing records real time analytics and inventory levels. This feature has been exceptionally important for organizations to conduct real time payment transactions and detect errors. For instance, for an assembly line, processing time is significantly reduced when real time systems are implemented saving on cost and reducing error. When a particular action is completed it moves to the next process for the next step. Errors are reduced in this manner and can be exactly pin-pointed and rectified rather than when the product is complete. Java EE, for instance provides a batch processing framework that utilizes batch processing infrastructure common to all batch applications. The batch infrastructure is made up of job execution languages such as XML, batch annotations and application interfaces that implement business logic. It also has a batch container that manages batch job execution processes and supporting classes and containers to support the batch container. Batch processing techniques have been useful in the manufacturing industry deriving value, reducing cost supporting flexible production capabilities. For instance, a batch management solution equips the user with batch control strategies that support batch independent recipes and batch independent equipment control. This way, flexible and agile manufacturing strategies are achieved in addition to improved yield, increased throughput, reduced cost, improved quality and reduced waste. Similar procedures are incorporated into a single strategy to reuse code, recipes, phases and logic and attain simplicity in introducing a new product or equipment. PROPOSED SOLUTION A Training Information Management System proposed for SCR should derive daily, weekly, monthly and yearly reports and analytics as required by the company to foresee expansion and delivery of services. The system need to process learner’s details, financial obligations, attendance and related functionalities on a predetermined period usually monthly or per semester. All the data concerning the learners will be captured and stored until the processing period is due after which reports will be created without user intervention. Therefore, application developers need to configure SCR workstations to automatically execute batch processing at predetermined period when all other operations in executive, project management, systems, network, business solutions, and administrative support groups are idle (Cashman, 2012). Batch processing capability for TIMS should be the underlying factor for the development team. DEFENSE Batch processing is essential in an organization to generate analytics pertaining various business and operational processes without human interaction. These operations could be technically impossible or tedious to produce them manually. In this scenario, the processes and operation at the high tech training centre does not warrant a real time query and response. Operations are scheduled for processing at a fixed period in order to save resources and optimize them at a particular instance. Since the center is new, it may not attract much clients at the moment but the number will increase as expansion proceeds. The motivation behind batch processing is to improve operations and at the same time provide efficient and predictable batches with a consistent margin between them. Data will be seamlessly distributed across the organization to increase throughput. Resources could ultimately be saved as wastages associated with employing a organizational-wide system to process a single instance of activity would be no more. Reference Cashman, S. (2012). System Anysis and Design. John Wiley and Sons. Read More