Managing IT Infrastructure and Management Solution - Assignment Example

Management Information System Name: Course: Lecturer: Date: Q1: What are the challenges of managing IT infrastructure and management solution? One of the challenges of managing IT infrastructure is management and governance, the solution to this challenge is that IT department should be organized in a centralized manner, central IT department make decisions, and the decentralized IT department makes its decisions. The second challenge is making wise infrastructure investments; the amount to be spent by an organization on IT is very critical, the solution to this challenge is outsourcing. Another solution is the use of the total cost of ownership (TCO) model which help in analyzing indirect and direct costs, assist in establishing the cost of installation, support, training, maintenance and downtime. TCO can be reduced by use of cloud services, greater standardization and centralization of software and hardware resources. Q2: Define and describe the following: security policy, acceptable use and authorization policy? Security policy is a document that identifies acceptable security goals, ranks information risks, and identifies the mechanisms for achieving the organizations goals and drives other policies. Acceptable use policy (AUP) is a document that defines acceptable computing equipment and information resources. These policies are very instrumental in managing a service, website, network or large computer systems that restrict how the website, system or network that can be used. Authorization policies are rules that determine different levels that can be accessed by users to information assets. The system uses authorization policies during operation to decide whether authenticated users access requests shall be rejected or granted. Q3: Describe the tools and capabilities of customer relationship management software for sales, marketing and customer service? Customer relationship management systems provide information that can be used in coordinating all business processes dealing with the customers. A customer relationship management system helps the firms in attracting, identifying and retaining most of its profitable customers. A knowledge management system (KMS) supports the processes for expertise, capturing, managing and applying knowledge in a firm. It also supports creation, storage and information dissemination. Knowledge management systems enable the firm’s workers readily to access the firms documented source of information, facts, and solutions. The tools of customer relationship management marketing, sales, and customer service include. Instant messaging and email, virtual worlds, wikis, virtual meeting systems, Google apps, Lotus Notes, cyberlockers, enterprise social networking tool, Microsoft Share Point and social business and collaboration platforms. Q4: Name and describe the principle electronic payment system used on the internet? E-commerce is an electronic payment system that is used on the internet. E-commerce is the subset of e-business. E-commerce is used in the selling and buying of services and goods through the internet. It uses the web and the internet to transact business. Ecommerce begun in the mid-90s and has grown exponentially. There are three types of e-commerce; the first is Business-to-business (B2B), and a good example is Reconnect. The second is Business-to-Consumer (B2C), and an example is Barnes and Noble.com. And the third is Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) for example the eBay. E-commerce can be categorized as follows by platform. Mobile commerce, sale of digital content, retail sales for example eBay, Amazon, etc., and local search for museums, stores and restaurants. The e-commerce business model includes transaction broker, e-tailer, content broker, service provider and the portal. Q5: why are information systems so essential for running and messaging a business today? Information systems are very important for managing and running a business because they help in the collection, processing, storage and the distribution of the information. They also support decision making, control, and coordination. Information systems have three activities that produce information needed by the organization. One of them is the input, it captures raw data from the external environment or the organization. The second activity is processing; the systems convert the raw data into meaningful information. The third activity is output; this is the transfer of the processed information to the activities or people that use it. Enterprise systems help in resolving the problem of fragmented data, coordination of daily activities, and efficient response to the orders of the customer. Investment in information systems results in an increase in productivity, increase in revenue, and long term strategic positioning that is strategic. Q6: Identify and describe six ethical principals? The first ethical principal is the Descartes’ Rule of Change; it states that if an action is not taken rapidly, then it is not right for anyone. The second principal is the Utilitarian Principle; this means that one has to take an action that will help in achieving the greater or higher value. The third is the Risk Aversion Principle; it means that an action that produces potential cost or least harm should be taken. The forth principle is Ethical “No Lunch” Rule; this principle takes an assumption that virtually all intangible and tangible objects are owned by an individual unless there is a particular declaration. The firth principle is the Golden Rule principle; this principle states that you should do to others what you would want them do to you. The sixth principle is Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative, this means that if an action is not right to be taken by everyone, and then it is, therefore, not right for anyone. Q7: Explain why data quality audits and data cleansing are essential? Data quality audit is the structured survey of the level of completeness and accuracy of completeness of the data in an information system. Data quality audit survey end users or data file are samples for perceptions of quality. If data quality in an organization is poor, then you can take your business in the wrong direction. Data cleansing is a software tool used to detect and correct incomplete, incorrect, redundant, or improperly formatted data. Data cleansing enforces consistency on different sets of data from different information systems. Data cleansing also improves the quality of data hence improving customer insight and adds value to marketing efforts. Q8: Describe the function of risk assessment and explain how it is conducted for information systems? Risk assessment helps in determining the level of risk to a firm if process or a specific activity is not controlled properly. Risk assessment will identify the types of threats that exist, establish the probability of its occurrence during the year, the value of the threat and the potential losses is the threat occurs, and the expected annual losses emanating from the threats. Risk assessment conducted on information systems helps a firm in examining the overall security environment and also controls governing of individual information systems. It also helps in reviewing procedures, technologies, training, documentation, and personnel in the firm. Risk assessment also assesses the organizational and financial impact of each threat. It can also simulate disaster to test technology response, information systems staff and other employees. And helps in listing and ranking all the control weaknesses and estimates its occurrence probability. 9Q: Identify three major new information systems trends? The major information system trends include. Cloud computing, these are computing utility services obtained over the network. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), these are virtual or physical machines and other resources that offer additional resources like raw block storage, object storage, load balancers, firewalls and virtual local area networks. Platform as a service (PaaS), this cloud computing form deliver development environments as a service. Software as a service (SaaS), this cloud computing form delivers a single application via a browser to the thousands of users using an architecture that is multitenant. Cloud computing can be either private or public and allow companies to minimize its IT investments. The second trend is green computing; these are technologies and practices for manufacturing, disposing of computing, using and networking hardware. The third trend is the high performance and power saving processors; this is multi-core processors. Q10: Describe the characteristic of management information system (MIS) and explain how MIS differ from TPS and DSS? The characteristics of information management system are as follows. It increases the efficiency of existing processes, perform and record routine transactions daily necessary for conducting the business, allows the monitoring of relations and operations status with the external environment, and also serve structured, predefined goals and decision making. MIS is used by the managers to gain access to the data of the organization and provides appropriate reports to them while DSS is used by managers daily in developing bids on contracts and on the other hand TPS is used in processing payroll, it captures payment transaction data of the employees. It outputs hard copy and online reports for employee and management paychecks. Q11: Identify and describe the features of the organization that help explain differences on the organization use of information system? The features of the organization include. Use of hierarchical structure, information systems are capable of reducing the number of levels in the company by giving managers information that they can use to supervise many workers by giving more decision-making authority to lower-level-employees. Another feature is the adherence to the principle of efficiency. The third feature is authority and accountability in system a decision making that is impartial. Another feature is a business and routine processes, routines are the precise procedures, practices, and rules developed to cope with all situations virtually. Business processes are the collection of routines. Organizational culture, politics, structures, and environments are other features that explain the difference on the use of information systems by organization. Q12: Name and describe three external sources for software? The first eternal source of software is enterprise software and software packages, they are either from individual application service providers selling or leasing software modules or enterprise software vendors that sell firmwide applications. The providers of enterprise applications are Oracle and SAP. The middleware providers are BEA. The second source of software is software outsourcing; this is contracting a firm to develop software. Mash-ups are the combination of more than one online application such as a combination of mapping software with local content. Apps are small pieces of software that run on your computer, on the internet, or on your cell phone. The third source of software is cloud-based software services, it includes software as a service (SaaS), service level agreements (SLAs) which is the formal agreement with the service providers, and they are accessed with the web browser over the internet. Q13: List and describe the problem of the traditional file environment? The problems of traditional file environment include. Data redundancy, in the traditional filing, duplicate data is present in multiple files. Data inconsistency, inconsistency occurs in a traditional filing system because some attributes have different values. Program data dependence, this is because in an instance when program changes requires that data accessed by the program be changed. Lack of flexibility, traditional filing system is not flexible compared to modern file environment. Poor security, there are no proper security measures in the traditional file environment. Lack of data sharing and availability, in the traditional file environment, it is difficult to share data compare to the modern databases where individuals can share data in a very efficient manner. Read More