Evaluation of IT Architectural Consideration - Term Paper Example

? EVALUATION OF IT ARCHITECTURAL CONSIDERATION EVALUATION OF IT ARCHITECTURAL CONSIDERATION Proposed Technology Solution Much of the fortunes of GER UMUC in achieving sustainable growth and development are in its ability to offer effective and efficient emergency related sales and service to its clients. This is because the service sector of GER UMUC comes under emergency medicine, which often demands that rapid response be dispatched to give emergency service (Bodker, 2006). Against this background, a Salesforce Platform is recommended as a proposed technology solution to address the issue of IT architectural consideration that the company currently faces. With this solution, client or customers will be using a voice over internet protocol to communicate with service providers from the company, who would in turn dispatch emergency service to the clients. This will replace the use of plain old telephone system (POTS) as a medical alert system. IT Architectural Considerations By consideration of the business orientation of GER UMUC and the proposed Salesforce Platform, the customer relationship management is selected as the most useful enterprise solution for the company. According to O’Brien and Marakas (2011), customer relationship management (CRM) involves the use of technology to manage a company’s present and future clients or customers. In effect, CRM requires that the company undertakes specific interactions with its existing and potential clients to ensure that they receive the best of service and sale products. Given the fact that the business orientation of GER UMUC puts them as manufacturers of emergency response products, the use of customer relationship management will ensure that the company’s clients who are often in need of solutions to end emergency situations will receive user-centered and customized attention from the company. The Salesforce Platform will also ensure that customers are offered prompt interaction avenues. IT characteristics Accessibility Because GER UMUC belongs to a specific industry, which identifies itself with emergency response, it is important that the manufacturing and service provision lines of the company become directed towards clients who require and give emergency services. It is for this reason that the characteristic of accessibility must be incorporated into the Salesforce Platform to ensure that access to the system is limited to specific users who require urgent emergency products and services. Indeed the advantage that such need for accessibility will create is that it will relieve the system of unnecessary pressure from people who do not require its usage (Avison, 2007). Availability Disasters and events that bring about emergency situations, requiring the attention and service of GER UMUC have been said to be highly unpredictable (Bodker, 2006). This means that the Salesforce Platform must be make available on a 24/7 basis. Once this is done, efficiency with the system can be guaranteed and enhanced because it will be possible to provide sufficient service within defined time frame, a principle that O’Brien and Marakas (2011) note are necessary for effective management of information systems. Reliability Several studies have been undertaken to compare the functional reliability of the plain old telephone system (POTS) to the voice over internet protocol (VoIP) in terms of provision of quality communication service. In this, it has been noted that whereas the POTS is fast becoming an outmoded technology, VoIP is fast taking its place. To this end, developers have given much attention to the advancement of VoIP to ensure that it provides tailored and advanced service (Bertelsen, 2000). The proposed technology solution is therefore expected to be one that will function accurately and provide correct information. Usability It will be noted that it is not all members of staff of GER UMUC who have background in information and communication technology specializations. Meanwhile, for the system to be highly efficient in usage, it must be available for use at all times. This means that there will be times that ordinary staff would also have to interact with the system when the technical people are not available. To this end, the usability of the system shall be structured in such a way that it is easy to use or learn to use the system. Security aspects of technology solution Authentication & Authorization The system shall be designed to have the capacity of storing very important personal data of clients. For example when clients make request for products and services, they will be required to give details on medical history, type of emergency being experienced, and other demographic data, all of which must be kept confidential. Authentication and authorization is therefore necessary to ensure that the wrong people do not gain access to the system. To achieve this, the developer shall make the system biometric password protected so that only people with authorized identities can be authenticated or cleared for use. Prevention & Resistance Interestingly, the Salesforce platform system shall be enabled to make record of orders and sales that come through to the company. This means that it any nonresistance on the part of the system to prevent wrong entry and unauthorized usage can go a long way to affect the core accounting and sales of the company. To this end, the system shall be made robust enough to prevent and resist all forms of manipulations. The fact that the system shall have biometric password protection is part of the approaches to ensure prevention and resistance. There shall also be an automatic shutdown power in the system to ensure that in cases where the system is not certain about any forms of entry, it would automatically shut itself down. Detection & Response Regardless of the efforts of the developer to ensure that the system is protected and secured from wrong hands and entry, there are tendencies with the advancement of cyber crime, there could be counter efforts to penetrate the security code of the system (Avison, 2007). Because of this, the system shall be equipped to have a detection and response component that makes it possible for wrong users to be detected. After the detection, there shall be a response, which shall be in the form of signal alert, given to the IT engineer of the company through a remote device. The IT engineer will then be enabled with the use of remote device to shut the system down from wherever he may be. Technical Components of Salesforce Outlook Resources Activities People Also known as end users, these shall be made up of staff at the manufacturing and supply department who shall use the Salesforce to connect to customers, partners’ employees and products Input These are raw data that the users shall feed the system with. The input shall include orders for products and services, information about clients, quantities of orders, amounts of sales made Hardware The major hardware to use shall include personal computers, laptops, tablet computers, servers, network cables, printers, facsimile Processes The major processes that will be required in the system shall be the analysis and consideration of orders made so as to give feedback on the availability of stock. Mathematical computations of sales made shall also take place. Software The system shall be incorporated with all business app, non-business app, internet browsers, MS office, voice and data recorder Output The system is expected to produce feedback, which shall come in the form of information. Particularly, the output shall be corresponded directly to the clients in the form of Salesforce contact email so that clients can be updated on the availability of products and services ordered for. Data Voice over internet protocol, broadband internet service Storage There shall be two major storage outlines, the first of which is an internal storage facility, and the second, an external storage facility. The external storage shall also act as a backup system. Network Local area network Control The system shall be controlled by a secure log in mechanism that will be fused with a centralized command and control unit. The solution outlined by the system can be diagrammatically represented as below. . Fig. 1.1 Information Systems as an Activity adapted from Korpela, Mursu and Soriyan (2002) From the diagram, clients of the company are classified as collective actors or group, who shall be requiring the service or products of GER UMUC. The voice over internet protocol with which they will communicate to the company is also identified as means of coordination. The communication shall take place following given rules for the sake of accessibility principles. The staff of the manufacturing and supply department is seen as actors or subjects who shall operate the system. The means of work refers to the input whiles the work process is made up of the specific products to be supplied and the output that the system will make. Reference List Avison, D.E. (2007). The ‘Discipline’ of Information Systems: Teaching, Research and Practice. In J. Mingers and F. Stowell eds.: Information Systems: An Emerging Discipline? Berkshire: McGraw-Hill. Bertelsen, O.W. (2000). Design Artifacts: Towards a Design-Oriented Epistemology. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, vol. 12, pp. 15–28. Bodker, S. (2006). Creating Conditions for Participation: Conflicts and Resources in Systems Development. Human-Computer Interaction, 11(5), pp. 215–236. Korpela, M., H.A. Soriyan and K.C. Olufokunbi (2002). Activity Analysis as a Method for Information Systems Development: General Introduction and Experiments from Nigeria and Finland. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, 12(4), pp. 191–210. O’Brien J. A. and Marakas G. M. (2011). Management Information Systems, 10th edition. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill / Irwin Read More