A Secure Internet Banking Information System in Distributed and Heterogeneous Computing Environment - Research Paper Example

Applied Research Methods Assignment On A secure Internet banking information system in distributed and heterogeneous computing environment Contents page Abstract 3 1. Introduction 4 2. Review of Relevant Literature 4 4. Methodology 7 4.1 Research Approach & Perspective 7 4.2 Types of Data to be used 8 4.3 Data Requirements 8 4.4 Research Methods 9 4.5 Methods of Data Analysis 9 4.6 Organisation of Results 10 5. Conclusion 10 Bibliography 10 11 Appendix 12 Abstract This research study is aimed at evaluating the importance of Information security in the online banking information system. It is essential for banks and financial institutions to make sure the security of information of organisation and clients. With the increasing number of banking institutions implementing the information architectures for the ease of data exchange and to gain economies of scale, the importance of information security has been increased. The focus of the research study is to find out how the internet banking can be accomplished being least vulnerable to the intrusion from hackers and other unauthorised sources. The first part of the paper provides an introduction of the research. It explains the secure online banking information system in distributed and heterogeneous computing environment. The second part comprises of the literature review of previously written research papers, journal articles and books etc. The third part provides the description of research method to be used in undertaking the research study. It will provide information regarding theinvestigation approach, method of data collection and analytical approach to be used in the study. While the fourth part is conclusion which provides an over view of the research proposal. 1. Introduction In today's volatile environment banking and financial institutions are implementing information systems in order to achieve growth, and increased market share. The implementation of Information Technology provides the benefits of increased reliability and accuracy by reducing the chances of failures in the business system. The interdependencies in the business can be managed better through the implementation of information system. With provision of economies of scale, implementation of Information Systems in a banking organisation also leads to several other problems, which should be addressed for the maximisation of benefits attached. It is important to develop deeper understanding of the importance of security issues related to the implementation of secure online banking information system in distributed and heterogeneous computing environment. 2. Review of Relevant Literature Previous research in the field provides a recognised conceptualisation regarding the information system as an important source of competitive advantage for service organisations. The organisations should take necessary steps in order to save the technology from being copied by other organisations (Barney, 1991). The open nature of information technology and the ability of competitors to gain access to same technology do not allow the hard aspect of ecommerce to become a source of competitive advantage. The implementation of information system in a bank leads to customer benefit by reducing the transaction costs and providing the customers with increased bargaining power. With the increasing awareness in the industry players regarding the information technology, it has become inevitable for the firms to find competitive advantage in soft aspect of information management (Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 2000). Even if hard elements are easily accessible, two possible sources of competitive advantage remain: effective utilization of these hard technologies within the wider organization of the firm, and unique combinations of the soft organizational and hard systemic aspects of the e-commerce revolution. Organizations need to change to make optimal use of new technologies (Penrose, 1959). This stimulus can lead organizations to develop new approaches to dealing with information flows. Firms that have capabilities and experience in working together are likely to be able to respond more quickly to the demands of a changed environment. There may be some danger of being trapped in the old routines of the organization (Nelson & Winter, 1982), but these same organizational routines may be helpful in finding ways to make optimal use of the kind of technological change that the e-commerce revolution has to offer. When a firm does make use of these organizational skills, the resulting information flows are more likely to be an invisible asset than those based purely on information technology or information systems. These flows can be from the firm to its environment, from customers to the firm, and internally in the firm. Competitors cannot easily duplicate the "experiences of working together." These assets are not easily purchased in the market, and even when created within the firm, take time to develop. A firm that responds quickly to the challenge of new technologies and systems has an organization with an advantage in dealing with technological change. Combinations of assets can often be used to set a firm's strategy apart from competitors' strategies (Itami & Roehl, 1987). Firms that might not have a single outstanding technology may still be able to create a portfolio of invisible assets that allows them to be competitive. International business literature also addresses this issue. Matthews (2002) argues that firms from developing countries can still become multinationals by combining the skills and relationships available globally with a dynamic internal company organization. In the case of e-commerce, it is the combination of hard and soft elements that can produce a portfolio of assets that is hard for competitors to copy easily. Firms that combine the hard elements of e-commerce technology and systems effectively are likely to find themselves strongly positioned in the marketplace (see Globerman, Roehl, & Standifird, 2001, for examples from electronic brokerage). Systems for knowledge development work best when the firm has created an atmosphere in which organizational innovation can easily take place (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). Thus, a firm that has taken the first step of establishing an organization that is able to create soft elements is also able to create new combinations of assets that further strengthen its position (Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 2000; Itami & Roehl, 1987). The RBV school has shed light on the hidden side of the competitive assets: the soft, invisible, or intangible assets. They are at the heart of the key capabilities of the innovative firm (Christensen & Overdorf, 2000): for example, leadership and change management as resources, new knowledge creation as processes, and reciprocity and information sharing as values. Ideally, these assets should be created in the course of regular operations, since doing so reduces the cost of acquiring the assets and tests them against the day-to-day issues faced by all employees of the firm. What Itami and Roehl call invisible assets are assets that have these characteristics. Hard resources alone are often easily available to competitors, as Globerman et al. (2001) have shown in the case of the electronic brokerage industry. By focusing on flows, we focus on those outcomes of a new technology that are more likely to lead to the kind of characteristics that have invisible asset advantages. To achieve the improved level of efficiency, banks are adopting new technologies. But only those banks are successful, who are not only implementing information technology but also transforming it into an invisible asset. This transformation can be successful by ensuring the safety of information and adopting new strategy. The banking institutions should provide an exclusive and interactive service for each customer rather than providing a 'one size fits all' service to all the customers. Lloyds TSB needed to change the structure of its Business Banking data to incorporate the new customer hierarchy. They had also identified additional analysis and reporting requirements that their existing paperbased reporting systems did not support. These combined factors led Lloyds TSB to the decision that a new Management Information system would be the best way forward. The specific requirements for the system fall into the following categories: Key Performance Indicators - The MI must be available on a monthly basis to monitor the KPIs identified as being vital to running the business. Key Analysis - The MI must also support the next level of detail down from the KPIs. Hierarchies - The structure of the data must be such that it will be possible to analyse the information in various aggregations. Reports - The system must be capable of delivering highly formatted performance monitoring reports via the corporate intranet. Business Planning & Incentives - The data will be used to assist in business planning in order to set team level targets. Customer Base Monitoring - The system must allow the reporting of customer recruitment and attrition. Ad-hoc Analysis - The capability must exist for interrogation of the data to provide answers to questions raised at all levels throughout the business. Security - Users should only have access to view selected reports and data based on their level of responsibility. Resource performance monitoring is among the most active research topics in distributed computing. In this paper, we propose an adaptive resource monitoring method for applications in heterogeneous computing environment. According to the operating environment of distributed heterogeneous system and the changes of system resource workload, the method combines periodic pull mode with event-driven push mode to adaptively publish and retrieve system resource information. Preliminary experiments reveal that, by using our adaptive monitoring method, the efficiency of system monitoring is improved over that accrued by using regular monitoring approaches (Yang et. al, 40-44) . This also led to the focus of studies on the various areas of research on secure banking information system. 3. Research Question The research study is aimed at finding the solutions to the problem of securing information in internet banking information system in distributed and heterogeneous computing environment. Answers to the problems would elucidate the process of transforming different aspects of information technology in 4. Methodology 4.1 Research Approach & Perspective The approach of the research process is positivism because the intention of the study is to derive explanatory knowledge of a phenomenon through an analytical process. The mode of inquiry also assumes an objective reality. (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill 2003) This fit the aim of study of investigation the causes and consequences of mergers and acquisitions as an objective reality. The perspective of the study follows an inductive to deductive perspective. The deductive perspective occurs in the early part of the study by considering general principles or theories to derive a framework and implications for the primary data collection. The inductive perspective emerges in the latter part of the study as conclusions and generalisation are derived from the results of the survey. 4.2 Types of Data to be used The study will use both quantitative and qualitative data. Qualitative data will be collected to answer the questions such as how and why (Gill & Johnson 1997; Creswell 2003). The qualitative data will supports the objectives of the study to derive an in-depth understanding of the causes and consequences of mergers and acquisitions. Quantitative data refers to the information subject to quantification or measurement (Kervin 1992; Gill & Johnson 1997) to answer what, who, when , where and how much but limited in providing answers to how and why. In addition, the research would also involve statistical data in determining connections of variables in the study as well as comparing the answers of respondents. 4.3 Data Requirements Both Secondary and Primary data will be used in order to find out the answer of the research question. The data will help in the elaboration of the role of information security and other factors in the implementation of secure information system in distributed and heterogeneous computing environment. Secondary data provides have been used for the purpose in which it was collected and presented in books, journal studies, articles, papers and commentaries. Secondary data provides the framework for the study by pointing to business issues that require investigation and concepts or theories to start-off empirical studies. Primary data comes from data collection methods conducted for the original purpose of the study. This type of data gives direct answers to the research question. Considering secondary and primary data together would yield conclusions on the issue studied and support generalisations on the implications for business firms and practice. 4.4 Research Methods There are two data collection methods in the study. One is secondary research or desk research to support the derivation of secondary data and the other is survey guided by a semi-structured questionnaire to derive primary data. Desk research is a method of collecting data that relies on secondary sources to answer the research questions and achieve the research objectives. This is done by consulting a wide range of studies already done on the subject being studied and analysing as well as integrating data collected to achieve the purpose of the study. This applies in investigations involving a well-researched area of study but is limited in studies involving new phenomena or research gaps. (Saunders et al. 2003) The study utilises secondary research in collecting background information to provide a framework for the study. 4.5 Methods of Data Analysis Results of the secondary research and the qualitative survey would be presented and analysed together. Answers to the closed questions would be ranked from 1 to 5 with 1 representing Strongly Disagree and 5 representing Strongly Agree. The higher the total value, the more that the firm not only encountered but also accorded importance to these causes and consequences. To support the results, the answers to the open-ended questions would be transcribed and classified into themes based on the context of the firm before being compared to determine security issues related to the implementation of secure information system in banking sector. These would then serve as support for conclusions on the research question, generalisations implementation of secure information system as a strategy, and recommendations for future research. 4.6 Organisation of Results The study is organised in different sections and sub-sections. Deductive reasoning will be undertaken as the study will work from the more general to the more specific approach. The conclusion of the study will follow inductive to deductive flow. The findings of the primary data will be presented in tables, graphs and charts. 5. Conclusion The process of research should be based on reasonable validation. The research planning is based on the identification of research approaches and methods, preparation of data collection, and identification of methods of data analysis. In order to plan a research process a large number of factors should be considered. The purpose and the justification of the study are to investigate the importance of data security in the online banking information system in distributed and heterogeneous computing environment. The study framework has been formulated through the review of previous research in the field. The proposal also considered the research approach and methods. The feasibility of commencement and continuation of the exploratory process in the field has been validated. Bibliography Albert Lejeune, and Tom Roehl, "Hard and Soft Ways to Create Value from Information Flows: Lessons from the Canadian Financial Services Industry," Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences 20.1 (2003), Questia, Web, 26 Oct. 2010. Bo Hong, Viktor K. Prasanna, "Distributed Adaptive Task Allocation in Heterogeneous Computing Environments to Maximize Throughput," ipdps, vol. 1, pp.52b, 18th International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS'04) - Papers, 2004 Gang Yang, Kaibo Wang, Xingshe Zhou, Parallel and Distributed Processing with Applications, 2009 IEEE International Symposium on 10-12 Aug. 2009, pp. 40 - 44 Nicolas Hammond, Banking on a Secure Internet, Security Management. Volume: 42. Issue: 2. Publication Date: February 1998. Pp. 69 Barba-Navaretti, G. & Venables, A.J., 2004. Multinational firms in the world economy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Creswell, J.W., 2003. Research design. Qualitative and quantitative approaches, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Gill, J. & Johnson, P., 1997. Research methods for manager, 2nd ed., Paul Chapman, London. Kervin, J.B., 1992. Methods for business research, New York: Harper Collins. Saunders, M., Lewis, P. & Thornhill, A., 2003. Research method for business students. 3rd ed., Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Appendix Survey Questionnaire Questionnaire I. Preliminary Information Name: Position in the Company: Years of Employment: Instructions: Please place a check mark on your answer based on the experiences of the company with mergers and acquisitions. Read More