RICHFIELD GRADUATE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (PTY)
LTD
FACULTY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
SERVER TECHNOLOGY 600
2ND SEMESTER ASSIGNMENT
Name & Surname: Karabo Mdluli ICAS No: 98625
Qualification: BSc Articulation Semester: 2 Module Name: SERVER TECHNOLOGY 600
Date Submitted: 2018/09/25
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Table of Contents
RICHFIELD GRADUATE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (PTY) LTD...............................................1
2ND SEMESTER ASSIGNMENT.................................................................................................1
Question 1..................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Do you think the problems faced by Richfield Institute of Technology are unique?
Why or why not?....................................................................................................................3
1.2 One of the suggestions proposed by Richfield Institute of Technology’s IS department
is the use of intra net web technology. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using
intra net web technology.......................................................................................................5
1.3 Do you think the popularity of intranets and the Internet pose threats to traditional
Client/Server systems?...........................................................................................................5
Question 2..................................................................................................................................6
2.1 As the capacity and power of personal computers improved, the need to share the
processing demands between the host server and the client workstation increased. This
need for greater computing control and more computing value led to the evolution of
client/server technology. Discuss how the tasks or workload is partitioned in the
client/server architecture......................................................................................................6
2.2 Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of client server computing..........................6
References..................................................................................................................................6
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Question 1
1.1 Do you think the problems faced by Richfield Institute of Technology are unique?
Why or why not?
Firstly, the problems that Richfield faced in the Information System department are not
unique, secondly here’s why:
The Role of Management Information Systems in Decision-Making
Definition
Management information systems can help you make valid decisions by providing accurate
and up-to-date information and performing analytic functions. You have to make sure the
management information system you choose can work with the information formats
available in your company and has the features you need. Suitable management
information systems can structure the basic data available from your company operations
and records into reports to present you with guidance for your decisions.
Information
When you base your decisions on data available from management information systems,
they reflect information that comes from the operations of your company. Management
information systems take data generated by the working level and organize it into useful
formats. Management information systems typically contain sales figures, expenses,
investments and workforce data. If you need to know how much profit your company has
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made each year for the past five years to make a decision, management information
systems can provide accurate reports giving you that information.
Scenarios
The capability to run scenarios is a key decision-making tool. Some management
information systems have this feature built in, while others can provide the information
required for running scenarios on other applications, such as spreadsheets. Your decision is
influenced by what happens if you decide a certain way. What-if scenarios show you how
different variables change when you make a decision. You can enter reduced staff levels or
increased promotion budgets and see what happens to revenue, expenses and profit for
different levels of cuts or increases. Management information systems play a critical role in
making realistic scenarios possible.
Projections
Any decisions you make result in changes in the projected company results and may require
modifications to your business strategy and overall goals. Management information systems
either have trend analysis built in or can provide information that lets you carry out such an
analysis. Typical business strategies include projections for all fundamental operating
results. A trend analysis allows you to show what these results would be in the current
situation and how they will change once you have implemented the decisions you have
taken. The new values form the basis of your strategic approach going forward.
Implementation
While you make your decisions with specific goals in mind and have the documentation
from management information systems and trend analysis to support your expectations,
you have to track company results to make sure they develop as planned. Management
information systems give you the data you need to determine whether your decisions have
had the desired effect, or whether you have to take corrective action to reach your goals. If
specific results are not on track, you can use management information systems to evaluate
the situation and decide to take additional measures if necessary.
Problems in information system development
Though information has become one of the most valuable assets of modern corporations,
development of information systems (IS) faces many problems. Among the most important
are low productivity, a large number of failures, and an inadequate alignment of ISs with
business needs.
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The first problem, low productivity, has been recognized in the term “software crisis”, as
indicated by the development backlog and maintenance problems (cf. Brooks 1975, Boehm
and Papaccio 1988, Jeffrey 1987). Simply, demands for building new or improved ISs have
increased faster than our ability to develop them. Some reasons are: the increasing cost of
software development (especially when compared to the decreasing cost of hardware), the
limited supply of personnel and funding, and only moderate productivity improvements.
Second, IS development (ISD) efforts have resulted in a large number of outright failures (cf.
Lyytinen and Hirschheim 1987, Charette 1989). These failures are sometimes due to
economical mismatches, such as budget and schedule overruns, but surprisingly often due
to poor product quality and insufficient user satisfaction. For example, one survey (Gladden
1982) estimates that 75% of IS developments undertaken are never completed, or the
resulting system is never used. According to the Standish Group (1995) only 16% of all
projects are delivered on time and within their budget. This study, conducted as a survey
among 365 information technology managers, also reveals that 31% of ISD projects were
canceled prior to completion and the majority, 53%, are completed but over budget and
offer less functionality than originally specified. Unfortunately this area has not been
studied in enough detail to find general reasons for failures. As a result, we must mostly rely
on cases and reports on ISD failures (e.g. Oz 1994).
Third, from the business point of view, there has been growing criticism of the poor
alignment of ISs and business needs (cf. Earl 1989). While an increasing part of
organizations’ resources are spent on recording, searching, refining and analyzing
information, the link between ISs and organizational performance and strategies has been
shown to be dubious (Smith and McKeen 1993). For example, most managers and users are
still facing situations where they cannot get information they need to run their units
(Davenport et al. 1992, Rockart and Hofman 1992). Hence, ISD is continually challenged by
the dynamic nature of business together with the ways that business activities are organized
and supported by ISs.
All the above problems are further aggravated by the increasing complexity and size of
software products. Each generation has brought new application areas as well as extended
functionality leading to larger systems, which are harder to design, construct and maintain.
Moreover, because of a large number of new technical options and innovations available -
like client/server architectures, object-oriented approaches, and electronic commerce -
novel technical aspects are transforming the practice of ISD. All in all, it seems to be
commonly recognized that ISD is not satisfying organizations’ needs, whether they are
technical, economical, or behavioural. Consequently, companies world-wide are facing
challenges in developing new strategies for ISD as well as in finding supporting tools and
ways of working (Rockart and Hofman 1992, Benjamin and Blunt 1992).
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Changes In Client Needs
An important management information system characteristic is the ability to adapt to
changes in your company. The available information may change, the reports you want may
vary and often the personnel using the system changes. The system you put in place has to
allow for revisions in the inputs and outputs, either easily enough through your own IT staff,
or at agreed rates by the supplier. There has to be a simple method of adding and deleting
user accounts that you can handle internally, because old, active accounts can be a security
problem.
Importance of Information Systems in an Organization
Communication Systems
Part of management is gathering and distributing information, and information systems can
make this process more efficient by allowing managers to communicate rapidly. Email is
quick and effective, but managers can use information systems even more efficiently by
storing documents in folders that they share with the employees who need the information.
This type of communication lets employees collaborate in a systematic way. Each employee
can communicate additional information by making changes that the system tracks. The
manager collects the inputs and sends the newly revised document to his target audience.
Operations Management
How you manage your company's operations depends on the information you have.
Information systems can offer more complete and more recent information, allowing you to
operate your company more efficiently. You can use information systems to gain a cost
advantage over competitors or to differentiate yourself by offering better customer service.
Sales data give you insights about what customers are buying and let you stock or produce
items that are selling well. With guidance from the information system, you can streamline
your operations.
Decision-Making
The company information system can help you make better decisions by delivering all the
information you need and by modelling the results of your decisions. A decision involves
choosing a course of action from several alternatives and carrying out the corresponding
tasks. When you have accurate, up-to-date information, you can make the choice with
confidence. If more than one choice looks appealing, you can use the information system to
run different scenarios. For each possibility, the system can calculate key indicators such as
sales, costs and profits to help you determine which alternative gives the most beneficial
result.
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Record-Keeping
Your company needs records of its activities for financial and regulatory purposes as well as
for finding the causes of problems and taking corrective action. The information system
stores documents and revision histories, communication records and operational data. The
trick to exploiting this recording capability is organizing the data and using the system to
process and present it as useful historical information. You can use such information to
prepare cost estimates and forecasts and to analyse how your actions affected the key
company indicators.
Types of Information Systems in an Organization
Transaction Processing Systems
Transaction processing systems meet the data collection, storage, processing and outputting
functionalities for the core operations of a business. TPS information systems collect data
from user inputs and then generate outputs based on the data collected. An example of TPS
system could be an online air ticket booking system. In such a system, travellers select their
flight schedule and favourite seats (the input), and the system updates the seats available
list, removing those selected by the traveller (the processing). The system then generates a
bill and a copy of the ticket (the output). TPS information systems can be based on real-time
or batch processing, and can help business owners meet demand without acquiring
additional personnel.
Customer Relationship Management Systems
Business owners use customer relationship systems to synchronize sales and marketing
efforts. CRM systems accumulate and track customer activities, including purchasing trends,
product defects and customer inquiries. The capabilities of typically CRM information
systems allow customers to interact with companies for service or product feedback and
problem resolutions. Businesses may also use CRM systems internally as a component of
their collaboration strategies. As such, CRM information systems allow business partners to
interact with each other as they develop ideas and products. Collaboration can occur in real
time even when business partners are in remote locations.
Business Intelligence Systems
Business intelligence systems can be complex as they identify, extract and analyse data for
various operational needs, particularly for decision-making purposes. BIS information
systems may provide analyses that predict future sales patterns, summarize current costs
and forecast sales revenues. Business intelligence systems collect data from the various data
warehouses in an organization and provide management with analyses according to lines of
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business, department or any breakdown that management desires. For example, financial
institutions use BIS systems to develop credit risk models that analyse the number and
extent of lending or credit given to various sectors. These systems may use various
techniques and formulas to determine the probability of loan defaults.
Knowledge Management Systems
Knowledge management systems organize and dissect knowledge and then redistribute or
share it with individuals of an organization. The purpose of these information systems is to
bring innovation, improve performance, bring integration and retain knowledge within the
organization. Although KMS information systems are typically marketed to larger
enterprises, small businesses can also benefit from harvesting knowledge. KMS information
systems serve as a central repository and retain information in a standard format. These
systems can help business owners maintain consistency and enable speedy responses to
customer and partner inquiries.
1.2 One of the suggestions proposed by Richfield Institute of Technology’s IS
department is the use of intra net web technology. Discuss the advantages and
disadvantages of using intra net web technology.
Benefits of an Intranet System
Productivity: Intranet Systems can assist users to find the information that they
require faster and provide secure access to only the information that they need,
meaning they can deliver their work more quickly & accurately
Fast delivery of information: Intranet systems allow staff to update documentation in
one place, quickly and easily and be sure that they have provided that information to
everybody
Cross Platform: Browsers are available across all computer platforms, Windows,
Mac, Linux, Android, iOS. This makes it easy to deliver information to staff, whatever
device they use
Efficiency: Intranet systems allow information to be stored in a sensible place, rather
than distributed via email. This means that employees aren’t getting distracted by
each and every document that is circulated – they simply visit the intranet site to get
the information they need, when they need it
Inter-team collaboration: Intranet systems allow staff from multiple teams to work
together on common goals, allowing sensible business decisions to be made.
Business Culture: Providing staff with the information they require and allowing
them a forum and/or social system to discuss and develop ideas to improve the
business
Connectivity to data: Your intranet can provide a front end for your accounts,
customer databases and other business systems
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Better decision making: If management have more information, from across more
teams, they are likely to be able to make more informed decisions based on that
information
Detrimental effects of an Intranet System
Security risks: whilst generally intranet systems give more secure access to data, it’s
important to have this on your radar – it would be relatively easy to grant the wrong
person the wrong permissions when company data is collated in one place
Cost: Cost can be a major factor when building an intranet system. It is time-
consuming to develop these systems and therefore costs a lot of money.
Unsuccessful on boarding: If you don’t get employees to ‘buy in’ to the system at the
beginning, it will be difficult to get them to engage later. Content is key here, making
sure that there is some value to the intranet, at the point of launch, means that staff
will want to use it more and more.
1.3 Do you think the popularity of intranets and the Internet pose threats to traditional
Client/Server systems?
Intranet and Internet become popular to some extent because they pose some threats to
the traditional Client/server systems.
It is true that Internet and intranet are both web technologies. A few years ago, the typical
office environment consisted of PCs were connected to a network, with servers providing
file and print services. Remote access was awkward, and profitability was achieved by use of
laptop computers. Terminals attached to mainframes were prevalent at many companies as
well with even fewer remote access and portability options. (Silberschtuz, 2004)
Currently the secure intranets are the fastest-growing segment of the Internet
comparatively much less expensive to build and manage compared to the private networks.
Usually private networks are based on proprietary protocols with mostly client server
architecture. An extranet creates a secure tunnel between two companies over the public
Internet. It is also used to connect remote employees to corporate network by the use of
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
Also intranets are increasingly being used for tools and applications delivery, which facilitate
group work and teleconferencing to an enhanced collaboration within the organizations. In
order to increase productivity of organizations, sophisticated corporate directories, sales
and CRM tools and project management, are all taking advantage of intranet
technology (Robert, et al, 1999).
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Question 2
2.1 As the capacity and power of personal computers improved, the need to share the
processing demands between the host server and the client workstation increased. This
need for greater computing control and more computing value led to the evolution of
client/server technology. Discuss how the tasks or workload is partitioned in the
client/server architecture.
Client/server architecture is a producer-consumer computing architecture where the
server acts as the producer and the client as a consumer.
Client/server architecture is a computing model in which the server hosts, delivers
and manages most of the resources and services to be consumed by the client. This
type of architecture has one or more client computers connected to a central server
over a network or Internet connection. This system shares computing resources.
This computing model is especially effective when clients and the server each have
distinct tasks that they routinely perform. For example : In hospital data processing,
a client computer can be running an application program for entering patient
information while the server computer is running another program that manages the
database in which the information is permanently stored.
The client-server model is a distributed application structure that partitions tasks or
workloads between the providers of a resource or service, called servers, and service
requesters, called clients. Often clients and servers communicate over a computer network
on separate hardware, but both client and server may reside in the same system. A server
host runs one or more server programs which share their resources with clients. A client
does not share any of its resources, but requests a server's content or service function.
Clients therefore initiate communication sessions with servers which await incoming
requests. Examples of computer applications that use the client–server model are Email,
network printing and World Wide Web.
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Clients and servers exchange messages in a request - response messaging pattern. The client
sends a request, and the server returns a response. This exchange of messages is an
example of inter-process communication. To communicate, the computers must have a
common language, and they must follow rules so that both the client and the server know
what to expect. The language and rules of communication are defined in a communication
protocols. All client-server protocols operate in the application layer. The application layer
protocol defines the basic patterns of the dialogue.
2.2 Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of client server computing.
Advantages
1) Centralization: Unlike P2P, where there is no central administration, here in this
architecture there is a centralized control. Servers help in administering the whole set-up.
Access rights and resource allocation is done by Servers.
2) Proper Management: All the files are stored at the same place. In this way, management
of files becomes easy. Also it becomes easier to find files.
3) Back-up and Recovery possible: As all the data is stored on server its easy to make a
back-up of it. Also, in case of some break-down if data is lost, it can be recovered easily and
efficiently. While in peer computing we have to take back-up at every workstation.
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4) Scalability in Client-server set-up: Changes can be made easily by just upgrading the
server. Also new resources and systems can be added by making necessary changes in
server.
5) Accessibility: From various platforms in the network, server can be accessed remotely.
6) As new information is uploaded in database, each workstation need not have its own
storage capacities increased (as may be the case in peer-to-peer systems). All the changes
are made only in central computer on which server database exists.
7) Security: Rules defining security and access rights can be defined at the time of set-up of
server.
8) Servers can play different roles for different clients.
Disadvantages
1) Congestion in Network: Too many requests from the clients may lead to congestion,
which rarely takes place in P2P network. Overload can lead to breaking-down of servers. In
peer-to-peer, the total bandwidth of the network increases as the number of peers
increase.
2) Client-Server architecture is not as robust as a P2P and if the server fails, the whole
network goes down. Also, if you are downloading a file from server and it gets abandoned
due to some error, download stops altogether. However, if there would have been peers,
they would have provided the broken parts of file.
3) Cost: It is very expensive to install and manage this type of computing.
4) You need professional IT people to maintain the servers and other technical details of
network.
References
Anon., n.d. Problems in information system development. In: Imcremental Method
Engineering With Modeling Tools. s.l.:s.n.
Anon., n.d. Section 1.4 : The Challenge of Information Systems: Key Management Issues. In:
Management Information Systems - Managing the Digital Firm - Ninth Edition. s.l.:s.n.
Davoren, J., 2018. Types of Information Systems in an Organization. [Online]
Available at: [Link]
[Link]
Essays, U., 2016. Client Server Architecture Information Technology. [Online]
Available at: [Link]
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[Link]
[Accessed 23 September 2018].
Jason Francis, 2017. What is an Intranet and why should my business have one?. [Online]
Available at: [Link]
Markgraf, B., 2018. Common Problems in Management Information Systems. [Online]
Available at: [Link]
[Link]
Markgraf, B., 2018. Importance of Information Systems in an Organization. [Online]
Available at: [Link]
[Link]
Markgraf, B., 2018. The Role of Management Information Systems in Decision-Making.
[Online]
Available at: [Link]
[Link]
Shekhawat, R. S., 2017. Client Server Network : Advantages and Disadvantages. [Online]
Available at: [Link]
client-server-networks
[Accessed 18 June 2017].
Siddiqui, Z., 2017. The Pros and Cons of Intranets. [Online]
Available at: [Link]
intranet
[Link], 2017. Explain Client Server Architecture. [Online]
Available at: [Link]
[Accessed 12 April 2017].
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