Introducing Patterns into Organizations - Assignment Example

Patterns are set of solutions for a problem. These problems are applied with the new set of patterns or solutions based on the context of the problems. In addition, the patterns define the consequences and impact over the problem. There are many reasons as to why patterns are introduced in an organisation they are 1. Patterns reflect experience, knowledge and insights of the developers who have successfully applied them in their previous works. 2. Patterns are reusable; they will provide readymade solutions that can express large solutions succinctly. 3. Expressiveness: Patterns provide large solutions succinctly. Appleton [2000] observes, “The goal of patterns within the software community is to create a body of literature to help software developers resolve recurring problems encountered throughout all of software development. Patterns help create a shared language for communicating insight and experience about these problems and their solutions” Apart from that.” In all but the simplest cases, requirements will always change no matter how well we do the initial analysis, rather than complaining about changing requirements, we can address change more effectively” observes Trott.R, James and Alan Shalloway. [2001] p- 4. Trott 2001 also adds that “Design patterns provides quality solutions, which might not require a revision, gives a common set of terminology to be used among team members, improves the team wide equality of design, gives a different perspective of the working style and helps in identifying the objects and pacing them together” Introduction to Patterns: The patterns redundancy in Acme Enterprise’s Data Net Work is set by well-established and flexible designs introduced with the intension to provide high availability solutions for network infrastructures. The computing network infrastructure has become critical to the sales force and headquarters employees, remote offices and connectivity to external partners. In order to expand the sales force and to give additional capability to the infrastructure network connectivity has been suggested to be provided with 100% availability in network connectivity. Redundancy deployment. However, these multiple patterns have been implemented with the specific goal to achieve deployment of full redundancy and 100% availability in the network areas. Reasons to Introduce Patterns into the Organisation: Patterns are used in organisations in order to “provide potential for capturing best practises and communicating them between people in organisations and through out the software industry .Manns. [2000] As a change is always required for an organisation to sustain the industry, new ideas have to be implemented either like introducing patterns or like strategies. However, the threat remains there that implementing a set of new things might end up in uncertainty. The patterns are to be analysed in such a way that its application is understood, received and benefited by all. Organisations require patterns in order to keep the working environment move equally with the latest trends of the development in the field. Patterns would help the employees of an organisation to revise their knowledge with the recent technological innovations so as to set a working standard which would help the organisation to cope up with the technological improvements. Patterns will also help in developing interrelationship between the employees of all category in terms of sharing their experiences and ideas. Common Threats to introduce Patterns: There are some common forces, which require changes like introducing patterns. Delano and Rising 1997 observes the following forces as leading to application of patterns. They are “1. Management does not trust new technology since many promises made in the past have been broken 2. People are resistant to change 3. Change is necessary fro an organisation 4. Working with new technology is exciting 5. New technology can introduce uncertainty 6. New Technology often replaces people” However, patterns are introduced in language forms, which will contain elements explaining the context of the problem area, expected result of the patterns after application and a detailed explanation of implementation plans in written form. This would help to have a clear understanding of new technology. Problems Faced By the ACME Enterprise Organisation: Based on the above discussions the problems identified with the ACME enterprise that requires a pattern are Possibility of Chassis, power supply and back pane resulting in failure of the core of the entire network, which connects the floors, internet connectivity and connectivity to business partners. Chances of failure for the already existing single server failure with single point at the core network Presence of fault broadcast domains and affectation of the connectivity between business partners and access layer switches. The utilization of an outdated firewall software called Cyber Guard, which results in failure of security standards. Analysis of Pattern 1. Redundant path in the core LAN and WAN Infrastructure The Pattern chosen to solve failure of core network is due to power supply chassis and back pane is Redundant Path in the Core LAN and WAN Infrastructure. This has been selected with the expected result of providing availability of multi-network applications with the additional application of redundancy technique, which enables failovers. These patterns also assist in harmonising the traffic loads, which interferes the multi-network supplies. The force, which leads to the core problem, is from the WAN side. The presence of a single Cisco router often reports module failure and power supply failure leading to the core network failure. By introducing them a full time or 100% connectivity could be obtained. This pattern would act as a successful solution to the core network failure by enabling multiple paths of Local network Area, routing engines and generating primary and secondary paths to allow for load and sharing between multiple primary paths by distributing the incoming load traffic. This in turn would give a 100% connectivity for remote business partners and mobile sales force. Some of the options in introducing this pattern would be using the following plans 1. Dual switches and supervisors 2. First Hop Gate way Routing Protocol 3. Utilizing Cisco Spanning Tree Protocol 4. Create a change control and Validation process 5. Training new review and 6. WAN Redundancy. The result of pattern 1: 1. This plan would be responsible for individuals to understand the new environment and training of the current staff to a traffic map. 2. The employees will acquire an up to date knowledge of traffic map Threats for the Pattern 1: 1. Any future change must be tested and validated in a laboratory setting, since the Network will have multiple paths 2. An untested change might lead fic loop in the environment leaving the Network disabled and unstable. Analysis of Pattern 2: Redundant server Infrastructure: This pattern has been chosen to solve the failure of a single point core network. Any organisation requires a 100% availability server infra structure. It was estimated that a fully distributed architecture of Network Load Balancing enables delivery of very high performance, fail over protection and 100% availability servers for applications, files and database servers. By providing teamed servers and redundant server components TCP/IP –based services to balance storage services a 100% redundancy could be established. This patterns includes the following applications 1. Implementation of Teamed servers to enable multiple load balancing. 2. Implementing Redundant Server Components along with the dual power supplies on separate power circuits, in addition to redundant fans for cooling and redundant multi-processors. 3. Implementing Storage Redundancy such as RAID, Level 5 to connect with the host adapters. 4. Implementing server load balancing a clustering technology to enhance scalability and availability of mission-critical, this will provide running of replication software even at the time of cluster failure. Expected Results of Pattern 2: By implementing this pattern there is 100% possibility of availability of the server infrastructure which in turn deliver excellent performance with failover protection and reliability for applications of files and database servers also in addition to the reliability of network and server supply. Analysis of Pattern 3: Maximization of the Bandwidth: There seems to be problems arising in the area of connectivity between remote offices, business partners and as a result their necessary applications gets affected by the fault broadcast domains which in turn affects the access layer switches. Research over the problem gave way to think of a solution in terms of implementing a pattern, which would reduce the risk of fault broadcast domains. ACME enterprise is currently having a single Gigabit Ethernet link that connects the each link with the core network. Since the entire network is a single broadcast domain, which has absolute possibility of affecting the whole network used by many number users. A design of second layer of switches and multiple broadcasts will reduce fault domains and pave way for connectivity to sustain between core server and Gigabit Ethernet link. The plan involves the following steps 1. Design and implementation of a second layer switches to reduce fault domain. 2. Design and implementation of multiple broadcast domains to produce excessive traffic which will create network congestion and bottleneck. Expected Result of Pattern 3: 1. Balancing of connectivity of the server within single domain to fulfil the requirement for a server within a multi-storeyed office setting fro office and business partners 2. With the provision of a second layer switches would improve connectivity within the domain. 3. Bandwidth could be maximised and multiple broadcasts could be introduced. Analysis of Pattern 4: Firewall security infrastructure design: So far the ACME Enterprise has been using Cyber Guard firewall software to maintain the security standards, but that has become an outdated one. Since the Cyber Guard fails to meet the security standards to protect network resources, a comprehensive security policy is found to be required. The Inspection Technology and the Open Platform for Security [OPSEC tm] delivers a highly scalable solution that is able to integrate and centrally manage all aspects of the network which is in high demand at present. By using a three tire architecture and to ask for Inspection Technology and the Open Platform for Security will provide a reliable security service to protect the network. The steps involved in this pattern are 1. Implementation of firewall to secure external connectivity with a business partners, internet and external connections 2. Implementation of Firewall Cluster 3. Designing of multiple zones behind the firewall cluster so hat each zone will have its own IP address range to serve for different purposes and have a unique function and assist in getting security segregate traffic in all the zones thus a 100% connectivity could be maintained. Expected Result of Pattern 4: 1. High security standards could be achieved for network connectivity 2. Traffic between multiple zones of network could be balanced Methods of Introduction of the patterns to the staff and management: 1. To share the ideas among the staff members regarding the newly written pattern language 2. To make them understand the purpose of the patterns by providing them with the problems and the effects of the problems 3. To train them in the particular problem area and enable them to utilize the new pattern and realize how effective the results are in a practical way 4. To receive the feedback with in a specific intervals of time and make amendments accordingly. 5. To unfold the feedback to the management for further approval. General Threats in implementing Patterns: There are certain drawbacks in implementing patterns into organisations. The foremost would be that they could not guarantee success; it requires lot of experience and exposure. So training the staff members of the organisation is required a lot. Organisational patterns describe a common management technique or a potential organisational structure. The description of a general solution to a common problem or issue from which a detailed solution to a specific problem may be determined .p-4. [Scott W. Ambler 1999] The patterns allowed me to develop better end user training for my system because the patterns predicted the most important features of the system. Reference: Appleton, Brad. “Patterns and Software: Essential Concepts and Terminology” 2000.online available from http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/docs/patterns-intro.html DeLano, E. David and Rising,Linda. “Introducing Technology into Workplace”. 1997. AG Communication Systems 2500 W.Utopia Road Phoenix, AZ 85027-4129 online available from. http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/~plop/plop97/Proceedings/delano.pdf Scott W. Ambler “Patterns Delivering Large-Scale Systems using Object technology”. 1999. Cambridge University Press. Trott.R, James and Alan Shalloway. “Design Patterns Explained: A New perspective on Object-Oriented Design” 2001. Addison-Wesley Professional. Manns, Mary Lynn. “Introducing Patterns [or any new idea ] into Organisations. Octiber 15th 2000. OOPSLA Conference. University of North Carolina at Asheville Linda Rising, Consultant and Editor of The Pattern Almanac Alan O’Callaghan , De Montfort University. Read More