Assignment:
Electrical and Computer Engineering > Communication System > Networking
SELL-DIRECT CORPORATION
Sell-Direct Products, Inc. representatives are being modernized. In addition to carrying sample medical equipment in their hospital
visits, sales representatives now seek to dial-in remotely on their sales trips to radically reduce paper from the ordering process.
After the order data is sent, the system will send error messages and confirm the order. The salesperson would then upload the data to Sell-Direct's host computer on-site. Sell-Direct's 45 salespeople are intended users of the system, with top sellers being offered the new system first. Right now, sales reps prepare a paper-based purchase order on a booklet-length form. They then mail or fax the purchase order to their local Sell-Direct branch, where it is scanned into the network and processed. The new system will eliminate the mailing entirely and allows sales representatives to sell for two or three more days in a two-week sales cycle, rather than stopping early to file the written orders. Sell-Direct needs a quick turnaround and an answer to their problems. There are approximately 40 orders sent in per day by each salesperson. Each sales order is about 250KB large on average.
In the main office there are 25 users of scattered PCs connected to a Windows NT LAN running 10BaseT over Category 3 twisted pair. They are unhappy with the NT-based LAN and want to upgrade both the network and the RDBMS being used-namely Access 2.0. There is only one server-a Dell PIII-800Mhz Server with a 100GB drive, whose limits and capacity are close to being reached. The departments at Sell-Direct are Marketing/Sales, Personnel, Accounting/Finance, MIS, and Operations/Purchasing. None of the current 25 PCs will be retained as they are mainly Pentium III-333s. They also have no retail value. Of the 25 users, 3 are managers.
In addition, Sell-Direct has four new branch offices with 22 employees each in DC, Newark, Silver Spring, and Boston, MA (the main office is in Philadelphia). There are 2 managers at each site, but there are no PCs yet at these recently-created branch locations. All branches
should be fully computerized within a budget of $700,000. An extra $90,000 is available for automating the sales reps. One imperative of the design is to provide a data mart for each location to enable managers to perform sales and market analysis for their location
sales. Philadelphia should be able to perform enterprise-wide analyses (not just local), therefore a comprehensive warehouse/mart
architecture should be designed.
Finally, Sell-Direct wants a new website to allow medical personnel customers to order online from the company. Development costs cannot be passed onto the MIS department of Sell Direct (assume web expertise is lacking), it must be paid for out of the project budget. Any new cabling must also be paid for out of the budget.
You are also not allowed to increase your budget by firing people or selling equipment. Assume the equipment has no resale value.
WAN
costs for leased lines etc. must be paid for out of the budget for one year and then absorbed by recurrent budgets.
GUIDELINES FOR THE DESIGN PROJECT
A profile of the organization you will be dealing with is given above.
It describes the general requirements analysis for the problem faced by the organization, as well as the organization's major objectives
and strategies.
1. Propose the computing and data communications elements needed to satisfy the system requirements defined in the given case. You must specify the criteria for evaluating the hardware, software and data communications requirements of your system.
Describe your proposed configuration in terms of:
(a) Client and Server profiles-type, numbers, and configuration.
(b) Network Operating System (NOS) components for clients and servers.
(c) Topologies and protocols used in the system. Map these against the OSI reference model.
The software used for transaction processing.
The data warehouse architecture used for analyses and managerial reporting at local and enterprise levels.
(e) The data communications devices used in the network, such as hubs, routers, switches etc.
(f) The hardware and software used for dial-in access by remote users.
(g) The type, protocol, and format of the system's Wide Area Network and the types of devices used.
The structure of the system's database and DBMS-clarifying whether the system has a centralized or distributed database.
The new website's development and structure.
2. Show your comprehensive system budget.
3. Perform a thorough cost-benefit analysis of your system. All intangible benefits must be quantified.