Ebook Managing information, technology (7th edition) Part 2

(BQ) Part 2 book Managing information, technology has contents Basic systems concepts and tools, methodologies for custom software development, methodologies for purchased software packages, IT project management, leading the information systems function,...and other contents.

CHAPTER Basic Systems Concepts and Tools “It’s the SYSTEM’s fault!” “The SYSTEM is down.” “My SYSTEM can’t be beat!” “Don’t buck the SYSTEM.” Phrases such as these remind us that the term system can be used to refer to an information system with hardware, software, and telecommunications components (discussed in Part I) or that the term system can be used to refer to something much broader than an information system For example, a systems perspective helps us to understand the complex relationships between different business units and different types of events within an organization so that when we change one aspect of a business we can anticipate the impact on the entire business The ability to manage organizations as systems with interrelated processes is crucial for success in today’s fast-changing business environments Today’s business managers are being asked to play major roles in systems project teams with internal information systems (IS) specialists and/or outside vendors and consultants, and one of their key roles will be to help provide a high-level systems perspective on the business Business and information technology (IT) managers must work together to determine the best scope for a systems project to meet the business’s needs, as well as the business’s requirements for financial returns on its IT investments With IS personnel, business managers will also help develop and review graphical diagrams of the ways in which the organization currently works, as well as new ways This chapter will therefore familiarize you with some of the specific methods and techniques that software developers use to describe both current (As-Is) and future (To-Be) systems in the abstract In other words, this chapter is about design, whereas the next few chapters are about construction Today there is also a heightened sensitivity to system security and reliability At the end of this chapter, we describe a variety of controls that are associated with best practices for system development and implementation in particular In Chapter 11, we will more fully discuss how a project manager needs to manage the business risks associated with a systems project THE SYSTEMS VIEW Peter Senge and other management gurus have argued that more holistic systems thinking is needed to enable organizations to more quickly adapt to today’s complex, fast-changing environments According to Senge (1990), systems thinking is • a discipline for seeing wholes • a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things • an antidote to the sense of helplessness one feels when confronted with complexity 329 330 Part III • Acquiring Information Systems This section provides some templates for analyzing, describing, and redesigning systems The systems concepts we discuss are general ones, although we will use many information systems examples What Is a System? A system is a set of interrelated components that must work together to achieve some common purpose This is simply said but more difficult to apply An example of what happens when system components not work together appears in Figure 8.1 This house has all the components (e.g., rooms, doors, windows, plumbing, electrical wiring) necessary for a functioning home, but the components just not fit together For example, the outside steps not lead to a door The lesson here is that even when a given component is well-designed, simple, and efficient to operate, the system will malfunction if the components not work together Further, a change in one component could affect other components For example, if the marketing group (one component part of a business) sells more of some FIGURE 8.1 An Example of Poor Design product than expected, the production group (another component) would have to special-order materials or pay overtime to produce more than the planned amount If the interrelationships between these functions (components) are not well managed, an unanticipated result might be a rise in the costs of goods sold, leading to the company actually losing money from increased sales An information system (IS) can be defined in a very broad way as the collection of IT, procedures, and people responsible for the capture, movement, management, and distribution of data and information As with other systems, it is crucial that the components of an IS work well together That is, the components must be consistent, minimally redundant, complete, and well connected with one another Seven Key System Elements Systems share the seven general elements; it is one or more of these elements that change or are created when we redesign or design a new (information) system These seven general system elements are briefly defined as follows: Chapter • Basic Systems Concepts and Tools 331 Environment Output Interface Input Interface Input Component Component Component Storage Interface System Boundary FIGURE 8.2 General Structure of a System Boundary The delineation of which elements (such as components and storage) are within the system being analyzed and which are outside; it is assumed that elements within the boundary are more easily changed and controlled than those outside Environment Everything outside the system; the environment provides assumptions, constraints, and inputs to the system Inputs The resources (i.e., data, materials, supplies, energy) from the environment that are consumed and manipulated within the system Outputs The resources or products (i.e., information, reports, documents, screen displays, materials) provided to the environment by the activities within the system Components The activities or processes within the system that transform inputs into intermediate forms or that generate system outputs; components may also be considered systems themselves, in which case they are called subsystems, or modules Interfaces The place where two components or the system and its environment meet or interact; systems often need special subcomponents at interfaces to filter, translate, store, and correct whatever flows through the interface Storage Holding areas used for the temporary and permanent storage of information, energy, materials, and so on; storage provides a buffer between system components to allow them to work at different rates or at different times and to allow different components to share the same data resources Storage is especially important in IS because data are not consumed with usage; the organization of storage is crucial to handle the potentially large volume of data maintained there Figure 8.2 graphically illustrates how these seven elements interrelate in a system These elements can also be used to describe specific computer applications For example, in Figure 8.3 a payroll application and a sales-tracking application are described in terms of five system elements, excluding boundary and environment Another important system characteristic is the difference between formal versus informal systems within organizational contexts The formal system is the way an organization was designed to work When there are flaws in the formal system, or when the formal system has not been adapted to changes in business situations, an informal system develops Recognizing that an organization’s formal system is not necessarily equivalent to the real system is crucial when analyzing a business situation or process For example, if workers continue to reference a bill-of-materials list that contains handwritten changes rather than a computer-printed list for a new shop order, an informal system has replaced the formal information system In this case, the real system is actually the informal system or some combination of the formal and informal systems 332 Part III • Acquiring Information Systems System Inputs Outputs Payroll Time cards Vouchers Paychecks W-2 forms Sales Tracking Customer orders Customer returns of goods Monthly sales by product Monthly sales by territory Components Calculate total pay Subtract deductions Accumulate sales by product and compare to forecast Interfaces Match time cards to employees Sort paychecks by department Translate customer zip code into territory code Storage Employee benefits Pay rates Product list Sales history Sales forecasts FIGURE 8.3 System Component Examples Three system characteristics that are especially important for analyzing and designing information systems are the following: determining the system boundary, breaking down a system into modules (decomposition), and designing interfaces between old and new systems The system boundary delineates what is inside and what is outside a system A boundary segregates the environment from the system or delineates subsystems from each other A boundary in the systems world is often arbitrary That is, we can often choose to include or exclude any component in the system The choice of where to draw the boundary depends on factors such as these: SYSTEM BOUNDARY What can be controlled Recognizing you can’t control everything Elements outside the control of the project team are part of the environment, and the environment often places a constraint on the system scope For example, if a preexisting billing system is treated as part of the environment of a new product management system, the product management system would be limited to devising products that can be priced and billed in ways already supported What scope is manageable within a given time period Make progress and move on to the next job Complex systems often take so long to design and develop that the envisioned systems solution could no longer be the best choice by the time the project is complete The impact of a boundary change While you were gone over the weekend, we decided to As the business changes or new information about the organization is uncovered, a different system boundary can appear to be beneficial This decision requires careful analysis of the impact of such a change A system, like an assembled product, is a set of interrelated components A component of a system that is itself viewed as a system (or a set of interrelated components) is called a subsystem (module) The components of a subsystem can be further broken down into more subsystems The process of breaking down a system into successive levels of subsystems, each of which shows more detail, is called hierarchical (or functional) decomposition An example is provided in Figure 8.4 Figure 8.4 (A) shows a high-level view of the system with two subsystems Figure 8.4 (B) shows details about one of these subsystems, Produce Sales Summary One important relationship between the two views of the Produce Sales Summary subsystem is that there are two inputs to each view and the consolidated output in (A) matches with the detailed outputs in (B) Five important goals of hierarchical decomposition of a system are the following: COMPONENT DECOMPOSITION To cope with the complexity of a system Decomposition of a complex system allows us to break the system down into understandable pieces To analyze or change only part of the system Decomposition results in specific components at just the right level of detail for the job To design and build each subsystem at different times Decomposition allows us to respond to new business needs as resources permit while keeping unaffected components intact To direct the attention of a target audience Decomposition allows us to focus on a subset of components of importance to a subset of the total user population To allow system components to operate more independently Decomposition allows problem components to be isolated and components to be changed, moved, or replaced with minimal impact on other components An interface is the point of contact between a system and its environment or between two subsystems In an information system, the functions of an interface are generally as follows: INTERFACES Chapter • Basic Systems Concepts and Tools 333 (A) Sales Summary System Re jec Or ted de rs Verify Customer Orders Customer Orders Valid Customer Orders t duc Pro t Lis Sales ries umma Produce Sales Summaries Sales History S (B) Produce Sales Summary Subsystem Val id C usto Ord ers mer Sort orders by month Sorted orders by month Calculate total dollar sales by month Sorted orders by month Sort orders within month by product Sale s Histo ry Sorted orders by month & product Calculate total dollar sales by product and compare to history lar ly Dol Month ary Summ Sales s ct Sale Produ arison Comp FIGURE 8.4 Sales Summary Reporting System and Subsystem Filtering Disposing of useless data (or noise) Coding/decoding Translating data from one format into another (e.g., switching between two-part numbering schemes, one used by marketing and another used by engineering) Error detection and correction Checking for compliance to standards and for consistency; by isolating this task in interfaces, other components can concentrate on their more essential responsibilities 334 Part III • Acquiring Information Systems Buffer Allowing two subsystems to work together without being tightly synchronized, as by having the interface collect data until the next component is ready to accept the data Security Rejecting unauthorized requests for data and providing other protection mechanisms Summarizing Condensing a large volume of input into aggregate statistics or even mathematical parameters to reduce the amount of work needed by subsequent subsystems Interfaces also can be built between preexisting independent systems For example, a company might contract with an outside organization (possibly a bank) to process payroll checks or with a market research firm to capture competitor sales data In each case, an interface is built that allows the external system to communicate with the company’s internal systems Different formats for data, different identifications for customers or employees, and various other differences in definitions and coding need to be translated to support this type of interface Sometimes these interfaces are called bridges because they connect two “island” systems Bridge programs are relatively common Bridges are expedient ways to accomplish the goal of expanding the capabilities of any one system Rather than take the time to redesign two systems into one (e.g., to reduce redundant steps, to share common data, and to discontinue duplicate processing and calculations), the two systems are simply interfaced In fact, many methods for integrating two or more information systems are really different ways to build interfaces You may hear or read the term federated systems; a federation is simply multiple systems coupled by interfaces Another important objective of an interface is system decoupling Two highly coupled system components require frequent and rapid communication, thus creating a dependence and bottleneck in the system If one of the components fails, the other cannot function; if one is modified, the other might also have to be modified Appropriately designed interfaces result in the decoupling of system components The principal methods of system decoupling are these: Slack and flexible resources Providing alternative paths to follow when one component breaks down or slows down, such as having an interface reroute data transmissions to public carriers if the company’s private data communications network becomes busy Buffers Storing data in a temporary location as a buffer or waiting line that can be depleted as the data are handled by the next component, as in collecting customer orders over the complete day and allowing an order-filling batch program to allocate scarce inventory to highest-need jobs Sharing resources Creating shared data stores with only one program (part of the interface component) maintaining the data, thus avoiding the need to synchronize multiple step updating or to operate with inconsistent multiple copies of data Standards Enforcing standards that reduce the need for two components to communicate, as in adopting a business policy that requires all interunit transfer of information about customers to be done using the company standard customer identification code Decoupling allows one subsystem to remain relatively stable while other subsystems change By clustering components into subsystems and by applying various decoupling techniques, the amount of design and maintenance effort can be significantly reduced Because business is constantly changing, decoupling can significantly reduce an organization’s systems maintenance burdens Decoupling can also make it easier for an organization to engage in mergers and acquisitions, or business unit spinoffs On the other hand, decoupling often re-creates redundancy, as well as different cultures and views or understandings and, hence, can make shared perspectives on organizational directions more difficult to achieve Organizations as Systems Several useful frameworks exist to conceptualize how information systems fit into organizational systems The framework in Figure 8.5, based on the Leavitt diamond, graphically depicts four fundamental components in an organization that must work in concert for the whole organization to be effective: people, information technology, business processes, and organization structure Figure 8.5 also suggests that if a People Organization Structure Information Technology Business Processes FIGURE 8.5 Fundamental Components of an Organization Chapter • Basic Systems Concepts and Tools 335 change in IT is made in an organization—such as the introduction of a new software application—this change is likely to affect the other three components For example, people will have to be retrained, methods of work (business processes) will have to be redesigned, and old reporting relationships (organization structure) will have to be modified The important principle here is that: Each time we change characteristics of one or more of these four components, we must consider compensating changes in the others This raises an interesting question: With which of the four components we start? There is no universal answer to this question, and organizational politics can play a key role in this decision For example, organization theorists have argued that changes in technology can lead to organizational changes (technological imperative); that organizational factors can drive changes in technology (organizational imperative); and that changes are difficult to predict because of variations in purpose, processes, and organizational settings (Markus and Robey, 1988) In the 1990s many large U.S companies chose to make largescale changes in the way they conducted business by replacing custom information systems with a large software package (such as an enterprise resource planning [ERP] system) in which a vendor embedded the “best practices” for a business function or even an industry Systems Analysis and Design A major process used in developing a new information system is called systems analysis and design (SA&D) SA&D processes are based on a systems approach to problem solving Here we describe several fundamental principles associated with good SA&D techniques that stem from the key system characteristics described previously The first two principles are these: • Choose an appropriate scope Selecting the boundary for the information system greatly influences the complexity and potential success of an IS project • Logical before physical You must know what an information system is to before you can specify how a system is to operate SYSTEM SCOPE Often the fatal flaw in conceiving and designing a system centers on choosing an inappropriate system scope Apparently the designer of the house in Figure 8.1 outlined each component separately, keeping the boundaries narrow and manageable, and did not see all the necessary interrelationships among the components Turning to a business situation, when a salesperson sells a cheaper version of a product to underbid a competitor, that salesperson has focused only on this one sale However, the costs of handling customer complaints about inadequacy of the product, repeated trips to install upgrades, and other possible problems make this scope inadequate The system boundary indicates the system scope As discussed earlier under the topic of system boundary, defining the boundary is crucial to designing any system or solving any problem Too narrow a scope could cause you to miss a really good solution to a problem Too wide a scope could be too complex to handle Choosing an appropriate scope is difficult but crucial in problem solving in general and in IS projects in particular LOGICAL BEFORE PHYSICAL Any description of a system is abstract because the description is not the system itself, but different system descriptions can emphasize different aspects of the system Two important general kinds of system descriptions are logical and physical descriptions Logical descriptions concentrate on what the system does, and physical descriptions concentrate on how the system operates Another way to say this is “function before form.” Returning to our example of a house as a system, as an architect knows, function precedes form with the design of a new house Before the house is designed, we must determine how many people will live in it, how each room will be used, the lifestyle of the family, and so on These requirements comprise a functional, or logical, specification for the house It would be premature to choose the type of materials, color of plumbing fixtures, and other physical characteristics before we determine the purpose of these aspects (Even though a recent TV commercial in the United States has a woman telling an architect “Design my house around this” as she presents a faucet to him, this is not how systems should be designed.) We are often anxious to hurry into designing the physical form before we determine the needed functionality The penalty for violating the function-before-form principle is increased costs—the cost and efforts to fix a functional specification error grow exponentially as you progress to the physical We must get the logical or functional specifications right to understand how to choose among alternate physical implementations As an example of the difference between a logical and a physical information system, consider a class registration system A logical system description would show such steps as submitting a request for classes, checking class requests against degree requirements and prerequisites, and generating class registration lists A physical system description would show whether the 336 Part III • Acquiring Information Systems submission of a request for classes is via a computer terminal or a touch-tone telephone, whether the prerequisite checking is done manually or by electronic comparison of transcript with course descriptions, and so on Some people find logical system descriptions to be too abstract to confirm what functionality is really needed and if business requirements will be met To overcome this disconnect, a physical system can be used to communicate the logical system Some systems development methods (which we describe in Chapter under the general category of prototyping) intermix logical and physical design In these methods, building a physical, working prototype of an information system is done for the purpose of developing, communicating, and testing ideas about the functionality (logical system) The prototype is very likely NOT the physical design that will be used for the information system that goes into production The final prototype is interpreted as a concrete logical system to inform the actual physical design process For very small information systems, the final prototype may have evolved into a workable physical design The three following principles, or problem-solving steps, have also been associated with good SA&D processes In fact, they are recommended as good principles for problem solvers in general PROBLEM-SOLVING STEPS • A problem (or system) is actually a set of problems; thus, an appropriate strategy is to keep breaking a problem down into smaller and smaller problems, which are more manageable than the whole problem • A single solution to a problem is not usually obvious to all interested parties, so alternative solutions representing different perspectives or which make different trade-offs among desired outcomes should be generated and compared before a final solution is selected • The problem and your understanding of it could change while you are analyzing it, so you should take a staged approach that incorporates reassessments; this allows an incremental commitment to a particular solution, with a “go” or “no-go” decision after each stage Later in this chapter, we will introduce a generic lifecycle process for developing new systems, as well as some specific techniques used by SA&D professionals First, however, let us develop a shared understanding of the “what” that is driving many IS development and implementation projects today: systems to support crossfunctional business processes BUSINESS PROCESSES In the 1990s, many organizations began to transform their businesses in an effort to sense and respond more quickly to global threats and demands for cost cutting Many of these transformation efforts were directed at moving away from a functional “silo” approach to a more process-oriented approach Organizing work and work structures around business processes—rather than business functions or business products—requires a new mind-set in which basic assumptions are challenged and change is embraced A business process is the chain of activities required to achieve an outcome such as order fulfillment or materials acquisition Information systems are used to facilitate radical restructuring from silos to true core business processes Identifying Business Processes According to Peter Keen (1997), the identification of a firm’s core processes is a key analytical task For example, a typical manufacturing firm may have six core processes: sensing the market, developing product, sourcing of materials, manufacturing product, selling product, and fulfilling customer order A firm’s core processes should not be viewed just as its workflows Rather, these business processes should be viewed as the firm’s assets and liabilities By evaluating the worth of a given process to a firm’s competitiveness, managers should be able to identify a small number of processes that need their attention the most These are the processes where improvements, including “best practice” information processing, can yield the greatest value Figure 8.6 shows one way in which managers can evaluate the importance of a given business process Folklore processes are those processes that are carried out only because they have been in the past; they are often difficult to identify because they are so embedded in an organization’s tasks When they are identified, they should be abandoned because they create no economic value Keen also warns that the importance (salience) of a given process is not necessarily the same in different companies in the same industry or even in the same company under different circumstances Business Process Redesign In a seminal article published in the Harvard Business Review, reengineering expert Michael Hammer urged companies to start with a “clean slate” and use IT to radically change the way they did business: “Don’t automate; obliterate!” By the early 1990s, consulting firms had developed expertise in what came to be referred to as business process reengineering (BPR): radical business redesign initiatives that attempt to achieve dramatic Chapter • Basic Systems Concepts and Tools 337 EVALUATING THE PROCESS PORTFOLIO Does Process X define your firm to customers, employees and investors? Yes No IDENTITY Is excelling at Process X critically important to business and performance? Yes No PRIORITY Does X provide necessary support to other Processes? Yes No BACKGROUND Does the firm carry this process out only because it is legally required? Yes MANDATED No FOLKLORE ABANDON FIGURE 8.6 Evaluating Business Processes (Keen, 1997) improvements in business processes by questioning the assumptions, or business rules, that underlie the organization’s structures and procedures, some of which could have been in place for decades New, disruptive, technologies can be the catalyst for such radical redesigns (e.g., telecommunications, in general, and group meeting tools such as WebEx, in particular, have changed the way meetings among geographically dispersed employees are conducted) Simple questions like “why,” “what if,” “who says so,” and “what our customers think” can lead to breakthrough insights that result in totally new business processes The goal is to achieve an order of magnitude improvement, rather than incremental gains Two BPR success stories described by Hammer (1990) have now become classic examples documents, and invoices are inevitable The proposed new system would help prevent the document mismatches Ford’s managers were reasonably proud of their plans until the designers discovered that Mazda Motor Corp accomplished the same function with just five people The difference was that Ford based its initial system solution on the old business assumptions In particular, Ford had not questioned its assumption that it could not pay a vendor without an invoice When Ford questioned its assumptions, a truly reengineered solution was identified, as follows: Capture the receipt of goods at the loading dock using computer scanners and use the negotiated price to pay the vendor based on a validated receipt of goods—instead of an invoice When Ford took a “clean slate” approach, the company achieved a 75 percent improvement gain—not the original projected 20 percent ACCOUNTS PAYABLE AT FORD MOTOR COMPANY MUTUAL BENEFIT LIFE INSURANCE During an initial redesign of its accounts payable process, Ford concluded that it could reduce head count by 20 percent in this department The initial solution was to develop a new accounts payable system to help clerks resolve document mismatches This solution was based on the assumption that problems with coordinating purchase orders, shipment Mutual Benefit Life’s old insurance application processing was a 30-step process that involved 19 people in departments Rather than automating the old workflows across multiple people in multiple departments, the process was radically redesigned Under the reengineered process, an individual case manager is empowered to handle the entire loan application process 338 Part III • Acquiring Information Systems Old Ways to Work Information Technology New Ways to Work Field personnel (such as sales and customer support staff) need to physically be located in an office to transmit and receive customer and product data Portable computers with communications software and secure networks that allow remote access to company data Field personnel access data and respond to messages wherever they are working Client data is collected in different databases to support different points of contact with the client Centralized databases that capture transactions from different parts of the business and are accessible via a network Client data can be accessed simultaneously by employees working in different business units Only experts can a complex task (see Mutual Benefit Life Insurance example) Expert systems that have knowledge rules used by company experts when they this task Generalists can a complex task previously only done by an expert FIGURE 8.7 How IT Enables New Ways to Work This was accomplished by supporting the case manager with an advanced PC-based workstation, expert system software, and access to a range of automated systems Time to issue a policy dropped from three weeks to about three hours IT as an Enabler of BPR In both of these examples, IT played a key role as an enabler of radical business process redesign Hammer and Champy (1993) encourage managers to go through exercises that help them think about how IT can be used to break old assumptions and rules Three examples of rule-breaking IT are provided in Figure 8.7 Hammer (1990) advocated the use of key principles for redesigning business processes A consolidated list of six principles is presented next Organize business processes around outcomes, not tasks This principle implies that one person should perform all the steps in a given process, as in the case of Mutual Benefit Life, where one manager handles the whole application approval process IT is used to bring together all the information and decisionmaking resources needed by this one person Often this principle also means organizing processes around customer needs, not the product Assign those who use the output to perform the process The intent of this principle is to make those most interested in a result accountable for the production of that result For example, Hammer reports the case of an electronics equipment manufacturer that reengineered its field service function to have customers perform simple repairs themselves This principle reduces nonproductive overhead jobs, including liaison positions Principles and yield a compression of linear steps into one step, greatly reducing delays, miscommunication, and wasted coordination efforts Information technologies, like expert systems and databases, allow every manager to perform functions traditionally done by specialty managers Integrate information processing into the work that produces the information This principle states that information should be processed at its source For example, at Ford this means that the receiving department, which produces information on goods received, should also enter this data, rather than sending it to accounts payable for processing This puts data capture closest to the place where data entry errors can be detected and corrected, thus minimizing extra reconciliation steps This principle also implies that data should be captured once at the primary source, thus avoiding transmittal and transcription errors All who need these data work from a common and consistent source For example, the true power of electronic data interchange (EDI) comes when all information processing related to an EDI transaction works from a common, integrated database This principle also implies that process design should begin early in the information systems development process, when enabling technologies can influence breaking long-standing business rules before they are perpetuated by new information processing Create a virtual enterprise by treating geographically distributed resources as though they were centralized This principle implies that the distinction between centralization and decentralization is artificial with IT Technologies such as 706 Index mesh topology, 71 message passing, 352 metadata, 97–8, 346 metadata repository, 105 MetaFrame software from Citrix Systems, 194 Metcalfe’s Law, 253 Methodologies for acquiring systems See agile development approach, make-or-buy decision, prototyping process, purchased software packages, systems development life cycle (SDLC) microcomputers, 2, 29–30 Micro Focus, 54 Microsoft, 55–6, 68, 70, 80, 89, 90, 198, 206, 209, 238, 255, 351, 406, 541, 562, 565, 572, 587 Access, 39, 53 Active Server Pages (ASP, ASP.NET), 52 ASP, 101 Azure, 91 Bing, 82 C++, 49, 351 Dynamics CRM, 206 Excel, 38, 39, 40, 224, 235, 237, 361 Exchange, 209, 210, 214 Hotmail, 209 Internet Explorer, 40, 82, 254, 259 Mail, 209 MapPoint Web Service, 232 NET, 50 Office, 27, 40, 207, 392, 406, 545 Office Communications Server, 210 Office Project, 41, 421 Office Publisher, 40 Office SharePoint Server, 210, 215, 229 Office suite, Office Web Apps, 40 Outlook, 40, 209, 210 PowerPoint, 39, 40 SQL Server, 47, 53, 203 Trustworthy Computing program, 354 Visio, 39 Windows, 2, 30, 194, 195, 565 Windows 7, 27, 42, 545 Windows Live, 83 Windows Mobile, 31 Windows NT Terminal Server Edition, 194 Windows Server, 32, 43, 68, 88, 193 Windows Vista, 42, 545 Word, 38–9, 40 MicroStrategy, 47, 100, 203, 204, 361 Intelligence Server, 235 microwave, 68 middleware, 193 midrange systems, 30–2 Midsouth Chamber of Commerce (MSCC), the role of the operating manager in information systems, 10–16 Midsouth Chamber of Commerce (MSCC), cleaning up an information systems debacle, 18, 177–85 Millennium Village Project, 243 minicomputers, 30 Mininova, 588 MIPS (millions of instructions per second), 27 mitigation strategies, 424 mixed on-site-offshore projects, 428 mobile computing, 2, 31, 243, 256, 544 See also e-business systems, smartphones mobile expert systems, 243 model/modeling See business processes, data modeling modems, 64 Modern Materials, Inc., a troubled project, 328, 498–505 modified SDLC approach, for purchasing, 392 modular architecture, 525 Monkeytown, Inc., 231 Mosaic browser, 254 Mossberg, Walter, 272 MOTIS, 87 Motorola, 31, 68, 69, 90 Mozilla Foundation, 40 MP3 files, 588 MRO (materials, repair, and operations) supplies, 261 MSN, 90 multilevel data resource management, 101–2 multiple user perspectives, 371 multiplexer, 71 multiprocessing, 42 multiprogramming, 41, 42 multitasking, 42 multithreading, 42 Mutual Benefit Life Insurance, 337–9 MyBase (U.S Air Force), 248 MYCIN, 242 mySAP See SAP MySpace, 82, 259, 270, 271, 274 MySQL database management system, 405 Napster, 587–8 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 228, 230 National Broadband Plan, 84 National Center for Education Statistics, 589 National Health Service (NHS), 426 National Peanut Research Laboratory, 242 National Program for IT (NPfIT), 426 National Science Foundation, 34, 61, 80, 254 natural languages, 48, 241 Nature Conservancy, 231 Navajo Nation, 243–4 Index 707 near-shore outsourcing, 557 See also outsourcing IT NEC, 34 Nestlé Foods, 242, 261 Nestlé USA, 261 NET, 100, 351 netbook, 29 Netezza Corporation, 53 data warehouse appliance, 204 TwinFin, 203 Netflix (www.netflix.com), 187, 263–5 Home Page, 265 Netscape Navigator, 254, 255 NetSuite, 206 NetWeaver platform from SAP, 199 network database architecture, 53 network interface card (NIC), 75 network layer, of OSI reference model, 87 network operating system (NOS) See server operating system network protocols, 86–8 defined, 86 Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Reference Model, 86 OSI reference model, 86, 87–8 Systems Network Architecture (SNA), 86 Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), 88 Network Solutions, Inc., 254 network topologies, 70–2 bus topology, 70 complex, 71–2 mesh topology, 71 ring topology, 71 shared Ethernet topology, 73 star topology, 71 tree topology, 71 Wi-fi local area network, 74 networks/networking, 62–3 See also network protocols, network typologies, telecommunications networks backbone, 60, 76–7 Blue Sky, 69 digital, 64 FordStar VSAT, 78 2G (second generation), 67 3G (third generation), 67 4G WiMAX wireless, 76 Juniper, 77, 90 overlay, 74 packet-switched, 79–80 peer-to-peer (P2P) networking, 588 plain old telephone service (POTS), 62 telecommunications, 60–92, 72, 90–1 value added, 79 Virtual Circuit, Internet2, 85 virtual private, 80 wide area, 77–80 Wi-Fi, 83 WiMAX, 74, 83 neural networks, 241, 244–5 in medicine, 245 uses of, 244 NeuroDimension, Inc., 244, 245 NeuroXL, 245 New York Stock Exchange, 89 NIBCO, vendor-managed inventory at, 187, 279–83 NIBCO’s “big bang,” an SAP implementation, 328, 468–83 Nielsen Norman Group, 214 Nokia, 68, 90, 248 nonprocedural languages See fourth generation languages non-technical skills, for effective IT project management, 413 Norfolk Southern Railway, the business intelligence journey, 187–8, 294–9 normalization, of data, 98 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 228 Northrop Grumman Corporation, 572 Northwest Airlines, 89 notebook PC, 29 See also microcomputers Novell, 271 GroupWise, 210 NSF funding, 80 NSFNET, 80 Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 35 Obama, Barack, My.BarackObama, 274 Object See object-oriented techniques Objectivity/DB, 53 object-oriented database architecture, 53 object-oriented programming (OOP), 49–51 object-oriented techniques, 341, 351 core concepts, 351–3 defined, 351 encapsulation, 352 inheritance, 352 message passing, 352 object, defined, 351 use case diagram, 352–3 object program, 43 object-relational database architecture, 53 object technology, 52 See also object-oriented techniques Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations, 243 office automation, 206–9 defined, 206 electronic mail (e-mail), 208–9 708 Index office automation (continued) unified communications (UC), 206 videoconferencing, 207–8 office suites, as software, 39–40 off-line business channels, 253 offshore IT centers, 428 offshore outsourcing, 381, 557–8 See also outsourcing IT Ohio Supercomputer Center, 246 Oklahoma City bombing, 590 Olympic Games, 273 omission errors, 383 on-demand solution, 205, 406 “one-click ordering,” 263, 587 GbE, 75 100 Base-T cables, 75 100 GbE, 76 OneNote (digital notebook), Microsoft, 40 1000 Base-LX cables, 75 1000 Base-SX cables, 75 1000 Base-T cables, 75 One Touch Systems, 78 online “aggregators,” 259 online analytical processing (OLAP), 226 online intermediary models, 272 online operations, 88–9 online order entry system, 197 online processing, 191–2 onshore outsourcing, 381 See also outsourcing IT on-site contract worker, 428 OpenOffice desktop applications, 39, 587 OpenOffice Calc, 39 OpenOffice Impress, 39 OpenOffice Writer, 39 Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing, 572 open-source project, the Kuali Financial System, 455–67 open-source software, 405–6 open systems, 42 Open Systems Interconnection (OSI), 86–8, 564 Open Text Vignette Portal, 215 operating system, 41–3 See also advanced operating systems concepts, Windows defined, 41 job control language (JCL), 41 Linux, 32 Mac OS X Snow Leopard, 30 Microsoft Windows, 30 PC-DOS, 29 sources of, 42–3 UNIX, 32 operational feasibility, 363, 415 operational IS plan, 532 project portfolio, 533 optical character recognition (OCR), 21 optical disk, 24 optical switches, 85 Oracle, 53, 55, 56, 195, 198, 201, 203, 204, 205, 218, 339, 406 Beehive Collaboration Software, 210 Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus, 47 Business Intelligence Suite, 235 Data Integrator Enterprise Edition, 203 Data Mining, 203, 226 Enterprise Performance Management System, 235 ERP suite, 406 MySQL, 53 Portal, 215 Real Application Clusters (RAC) software, 202 Sun Oracle Database Machine, 203 Tuxedo, 194 Orbitz (www.orbitz.com), 89, 268 order entry system, 196–8 organizational applications, 384 organizational policies See acceptable use policy, information security organizations as systems, 334–5 Osco Drugs, 108 OshKosh B’Gosh Company, 407 OSI See Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) “out-of-the-box” thinking, 379 outsiders, 562 outsourcing IT application projects, 428 See also outsourcing IT outsourcing IT infrastructure at Schaeffer Corporation managing the contract, 634–41 the outsourcing decision, 628–33 outsourcing IT, 428, 556–8 application projects, 556–7 domestic onshore, 381 offshore, 557–8 service delivery, 556 vendor selection, 557 overlay networks, 74 packaged software, 340 See also purchased software packages advantages of, 391 Packard Bell, 29 packet assembly/disassembly device (PAD), 79 packet-switched networks, 79–80 defined, 79 packet assembly/disassembly device (PAD), 79 packet switching, 79 value added network (VAN), 79 PageRank algorithm, 270 palmtop PC, 29 Pano Logic, 195 Pano device (hardware only), 195 Virtual Desktop Solution software, 195 ParAccel Analytic Database, 203 Index 709 parallel conversion strategy, 367 password management policies, 570 password sniffers, 564 patent protection, 586–7 PATRIOT Act, 568, 569, 583 payment (or default) analysis, 227 PayPal, 269 See also dot-com companies, eBay pay-per-click ads, 271 See also e-business systems payroll system, 196 PC See microcomputers PC Magazine, 40 PC World magazine, 27 PC-DOS operating system, 29 PCI-DSS, 563 Peachtree, 37–8 “Business Status Center,” 37 Premium Accounting 2010, 38 Pearce, Terry, Peers, Martin, 269 peer-to-peer (P2P) network, 588 Pegasus e-mail system, 209 PeopleSoft, 198, 407 See also Oracle CRM, 205 Pep Boys, 195 perceptive systems, 241 Perdue Farms, 218, 219 performance management (PM) software, 235–7 performance orientation, 555 performance vs goals, assessment of, 523–4 Perot Systems, 55, 266 personal applications, 384 personal computers (PCs) See microcomputers personal digital assistants (PDAs), 31, 544 See also mobile computing personal productivity software, 38–41 PERT charts, 420 Petro-Canada, 237 phased conversion strategy, 368 Phillips Petroleum, 236 phishing, 584 photodiode, 70 physical data, 102 physical layer, of OSI reference model, 87–8 physical systems, 335–6 defined, 335–6 example, 342 Physical To-Be model, 341, 342, 348–51 check register report, layout with sample data, 350 entity-relationship diagram, for accounts payable, 348 system requirements, 348 PictureTel Corporation, 207 piloting phase See prototyping process pilot conversion strategy, 367–8 See also information systems (IS) processes and techniques Pine e-mail system, 209 Pirate Bay, The, 588 Pitney Bowes, 233 plain old telephone service (POTS) networks, 62 plan function, 106 planning information systems See information systems (IS) planning Platform as a Service (PaaS), 91 Plaxo, 82 point-of-dispensing (POD), 225 point-of-sale (POS) data, 234 terminals, 20, 95 policies acceptable use, 570 access control, 570 “boilerplate” information security, 570 external access, 570 Facebook’s privacy policy, 580 password management, 570 user and physical, 570 political feasibility, 364 Polycom, Inc., 207–8 PVX software, 208 POP See post office protocol (POP) POP-mail, 209 POP-servers, 209 portals, 213–15 Porter, Michael E., 4, 258 portfolio management, of applications, 410–12, 548 portlet, 214 post-installation controls, 355 post office protocol (POP), 209 POP-mail, 209 POP-servers, 209 power distance, 555 Power Systems (formerly RS/6000), 32 pre-installation controls, 355 Premier Pages, 266 presentation graphics, 39 presentation layer, of OSI reference model, 87 Priceline.com, 268–9 PricewaterhouseCoopers, 109, 383 Princeton University, 264 privacy, 579–83 See also information security defined, 579 e-commerce privacy concerns, 580–1 ethics of invasion of privacy, 582 laws on privacy, 582–3 Privacy Act, 582 privacy policy, 257–8 privacy problems, 579–80 workplace privacy, 581–2 710 Index private branch exchange (PBX), 65 procedural languages See third generation languages procedural-oriented techniques, 341–3 processor See central processing unit (CPU) processor chips, 26 process modeling See also business processes, business process reengineering (BPR), and information systems (IS) development processes and techniques work process flow diagram, 344 processing, 345 batch, 191–2 data management, 106–10 distributed data, 62 online, 191–2 online analytical, 226 simplified batch, 191 Procter & Gamble, 228, 229 product lifecycle management (PLM), 201 productivity languages See fourth generation languages program, computer, 25 program, defined, 411 program management office (PMO), 410, 411 programmer, 27 Progress ObjectStore, 53 project charter, 415 project “kickoff” event, 421 Project Kickstart Pro, 41 Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), 410 Project Management Institute (PMI), 410 certifications, processes included in, 414 knowledge areas, 411 project management, IT projects, 410–30 budget, 417–18, 422 complex projects, 426–7 defined, 411 project champion, 413–14 project close-out process, 426 project control, 420–2 project execution, 420–2 project initiation phase, 415–16 project phases, 414–23 project planning process, 416–26 roles within, 412–14 of virtual teams, 428–9 project management office (PMO), 549 project management skills, 551 project manager, 370, 400, 412–13 non-technical skills, 413 project milestone, 417 project office See program management office (PMO) project plan, 421 project planning process, 416–26 budgeting project, 417–18 change management, 424–6 control of project, 420–2 document planning, 420–1 execution of project, 420–2 project risks, management of, 422–4 Request for Change Form, 423 scheduling of project, 416–17 staffing for project, 418–19 project portfolio, 411–2, 533 project prioritization, 411–2 See also information systems (IS) planning, project management project risks, management of, 422–4 avoidance strategies, 424 mitigation strategies, 424 risk management tasks, 424 project scheduling, 416–17 project scheduling software, 41 project sponsor, 413–14 project teams, 413, 418–20, 427–9 See also project management, virtual teams for purchasing, 400 mixed on-site-offshore sourcing, 428 Prolog, 242 proprietary software, 42, 400 prototyping process, 373–7 evolutionary development, 373 first-of-a-series prototype, 373 iterative steps of, 374 prototyping life cycle, 374 SDLC with, 376 steps for, 373–4 Public Affairs, 10, 177, 589 pull technology, 40 purchase order (PO), 346, 347 purchased software packages, 36, 390–408 See also methodologies for acquiring systems advantages of, 402 alpha site, 393 application service providers (ASPs), 406–7 beta site, 393 building vs costs of, 393 disadvantages of, 402–3 enterprise system packages, 403–5 make-or-buy decision, 391 management of, 401–2 open source software, 405–6 project team for, 400 purchasing and implementing at Jefferson County School System, 506–15 purchasing steps, 354, 391–403 Index 711 pure-play companies See dot-com companies push technology, 40 Pyra Labs, 271 QQ, 273 quad-core processor, 26 qualitative errors, 383 Qualitech Solutions, 235 Quality assurance (QA), 381 QuarkXPress, 40 query language, 53, 100 Qwest, 80, 90 Mbps High-Speed Internet, 83 Rackable Systems, 34 radio frequency identification (RFID), 67, 99, 230 rank alternatives, 416 rapid application development (RAD), 361, 363, 377–8 advantages of, 379 computer-aided software engineering (CASE), 378 disadvantages of, 379 Integrated-CASE (I-CASE), 378 joint application design (JAD), 377–8 life cycle of, 377 Rapid Insight, Inc., 227 Analytics software, 227 raster-based GIS, 231 rationalized data and process architecture, 525 RealOpt DSS, 225–6 RealOpt-CRC, 226 RealOpt-POD, 225 RealOpt-Regional, 225 RealOpt-RSS (receipt, stage, and storage), 226 Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), 587 records retention, 567–8 See also electronic records management (ERM) recovery plan, for IT, 357–8 See also business continuity planning (BCP) Red Hat (JBoss Enterprise Portal Platform), 215RedPrairie, 218 reduced instruction set computing (RISC), 30 regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs), 90 regulations of information security, compliance with See laws/regulations of information security, compliance with reinventing applications, 383 relational database architecture, 53 Relavis CRM, 206 release management, 369 remote login, 80, 81 representative business managers, 400 Request for Change Form, 423 Request for Proposal (RFP), 394 defined, 395 development and distribution of, 395 table of contents, sample, 395 vendor responses to, 395–8 requirements definition, 364–5 accurate, 371 Definition phase, 394 Requirements Planning step, 377 Research in Motion (RIM), 31 “reserved price,” 269 Resurrection Health Care, 206 Retail Link system (Walmart), 204 return on investment (ROI), 372, 411, 549 reverse auctions, 260 RFP See request for proposal (RFP) RightNow Technologies (RightNow CRM), 205, 206 RIM See Research in Motion (RIM) ring topology, 71 ripple effect, 369 RISC chip See reduced instruction set computing (RISC) risk management See also project management assessment, 566–8 risk identification, 422 risk management tasks, 424 Road Ahead, The (Gates), 85 robotics, 217 Rock Island Chocolate Company, Inc., building a social networking strategy, 188, 321–6 rough order of magnitude (ROM) cost, 411 router, 76 routing function, 63 Roxio software BackOn Track Suite, 41 Creator, 41 VideoWave Movie Creator, 27 RSS, 214 RSS reader, 40 SaaS See software as a service (Saas) SABRE airline reservation system, 62 Sabre Holdings, 89 Sage Software, 37–8, 198, 205 ACT!, 41 ERP, 198 CRM, 205 Premium Accounting 2010, Peachtree, 37–8 SalesLogix, 205 Sainsbury’s, 267 712 Index Salesforce.com, 91, 205, 206, 207, 390, 391, 406, 526, 557 automation capability, 557 Salford Predictive Miner, 226 Sallie Mae merger, FastTrack IT integration, 517, 611–27 SanDisk, 24–5 Cruzer USB flash drive, 24–5 SAP, 55, 198–201, 339, 407 “Big bang” implementation at NIBCO, 468–83 BusinessObjects, 47, 235 BusinessObjects BI Solutions, 235 BusinessObjects Strategy Management, 235 Business Suite, 199, 200, 201 CRM, 205 ERP, 199–201 ERP 6.0, 199 ERP Financials, 201 Forecasting and Replenishment applications, 201 Human Capital Management (HCM), 201 implementing SAP for a strategic transition at BAT Taiwan, 484–97 Merchandise and Assortment Planning, 201 mySAP Financials, 202 mySAP Human Resources, 202 mySAP label, 199 mySAP Product Lifecycle Management, 202 mySAP Supply Chain Management, 202 NetWeaver Developer Studio, 199 NetWeaver Enterprise Portal, 215 NetWeaver platform, 200 SAP for Retail solution, 201 Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), 95, 106, 354, 358, 567–9, 568, 571 Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO), 568–9 defined, 567 IT audit controls, 568 records retention, 567–8 SAS software Business Intelligence, 235, 361 EIS, 235 Enterprise Miner, 203, 226, 227 Text Miner, 226, 228 Visual BI, 203 Warehouse Administrator, 203 satellite communications, 68–70, 78 SBC, 90 Schaeffer Corporation, IT infrastructure outsourcing, managing the contract, 517, 634–41 Schaeffer Corporation, IT infrastructure outsourcing, the outsourcing decision, 517, 628–33 schedule status, 422 See also project management Schlumberger, Ltd., 225, 242 SCM See supply chain management “scope creep,” 416 See also project management Scrum, 380, 381 Scrum Master (SM), 380 Scrum of Scrum meeting, 381 Scrum team work, 380 SDLC See systems development life cycle (SDLC) search engine, 81, 82 Google’s, 271 Sears, 263, 266, 268 secondary memory, 23 Second Life, 248 Secure Electronic Transaction (SET), 255 security, 357, 555 See also information security security cost-benefit analysis, 567 security products, 40–1 security technologies See information security segregation of duties (SOD), 568 selected features prototype, 373 “self-service” applications, 265 semantic data, 102 Senate Bill 1386, U.S., 568 sensitivity analysis, 416 September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, 583 sequential access files, 23–4 Serif PagePlus, 40 Serif PhotoPlus, 41 server operating systems, 43, 193 server virtualization, 190, 194, 195 service delivery, by IS organization See information systems (IS) service delivery service level agreement (SLA), 407, 539, 542 defined, 542 for desktop support, 545 service-oriented architecture (SOA), 190, 194–6, 525, 526 cloud computing and, 526 defined, 194 Web services, 194–5 service-specific software, 193 SES, 78 session layer, of OSI reference model, 87 7Cs model, for Web page design, 272 “shakedown” period, 405 shared applications, 537, 549 shared data, 102 shared databases (Lotus Notes), 212 shared Ethernet topology, 73 Shared Services unit, 538, 539 shared vs local IS resources, 537 Shikoku Electric Power Company, 213 Ship Systems, 571 shop floor control (SFC), 215, 216, 217 ShoreTel, 84 Index 713 Siebel Systems, 201 See also Oracle CRM modules, 407 Siemens, 84 Silicon Graphics International (SGI), 34 simplex transmission, 65 simplicity, 379 simplified batch processing, 191 simplified life-cycle approach, 385 single loss expectancy (SLE), 565 single-system image, 193 Skype, 91, 208, 269 slack and flexible resources, 334 smartphones, 3, 29–31, 67 SMTP, 87, 88 SOA See service-oriented architecture (SOA) social engineering, 564 social issues involving IT, 578–91 freedom of speech, 590 identity theft, 583–5 inaccuracy, hazards of, 590 intellectual property rights, 585–9 privacy, 579–83 technology, access to, 589–90 workers, impact on, 590–1 social media, 260, 274–5 See also Facebook (www facebook.com), social networking applications, Twitter enterprise usage decision at Rock Island Chocolate Company, Inc., 321–6 IBM social networking, political elections, 274 social networking applications, 81–2 social networking applications, 81–2 social networking, building a strategy for Rock Island Chocolate Company, Inc., 321–6 Society for Information Management (SIM), 190 Soft Systems Methodology, 371 software See computer software software as a service (SaaS), 4, 91, 199, 205, 206, 390, 406 software development See methodologies for acquiring systems Software Engineering Institute (SEI), 549 software iceberg, 36 software packages See purchased software packages software piracy, 586 Software Top 100, 56 SONET See Synchronous Optical Network Sonoma Partners, 206 Sony, 29, 55 Sony BMG, 588 source function, 106 source program, 43 Sourcing Interests Group, 381 sourcing of human resources, 551 Southern California Edison, 228 Special Interest Group, Bluetooth, 68 specific DSS, 224 speech, freedom of, 590 speech recognition software, 20 speed of transmission, 64–5, 66 Spiegel Brands, 245 spoofing, 564 spyware/adware, 564 spreadsheets, 39 spreadsheets, errors in, 383 Sprint Nextel, 65, 69, 76, 77, 79, 80, 84, 90 SQL (Structured Query Language), 100 staffing for IT projects, 418–19 See also project management Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), 48 standardization, 86, 520 standardized technology architecture, 524 standards, 334 Standish Group, 410 Stanford University, 242, 270, 271 Staples (www.staples.com), 187, 263, 266–7 Starbucks, 274 star topology, 71 Statement of Work (SOW), 420 StayinFront CRM, 206 stored-program concept, 25–7 instruction, 25 machine language, 25 program, 25 strategic e-business opportunities (and threats), 258–60 competitive forces model, 258 dot-com meltdown, prior to and following, 259 Web 2.0, 259 strategic information systems (SIS), 526–32 See also information systems (IS) planning tools for identification of, 527–32 planning process, 526–7 strategic IS plan, defined, 526 strategies for end-user computing Acceleration, 544 Containment, 544 Controlled Growth, 544 Laissez-Faire, 544 strategies for managing IT project risks, 424 strategies for system conversion, 367–8 See also methodologies for acquiring systems cold turkey, 368 cutover, 368 parallel, 367 714 Index strategies for system conversion (continued) phased, 368 pilot, 367–8 StrategyBUILDER, 226 structured techniques, 340–1 StubHub, 238 subject matter experts (SMEs), 422 subsystem (module), 332, 333 “sunk costs,” 406 Sun Microsystems, 33, 34, 56, 91, 194, 271, 541 See also Oracle Java, 49, 100, 101, 351 Java Enterprise Edition (J2EE), 50, 199 processor chips, 26 Java Server Pages (JSP), 52 Servlets, 52 StarOffice Calc, 39 StarOffice Impress, 39 StarOffice Writer, 39 Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, 195 supercomputers, 34 superminicomputers, 30 supplier relationship management (SRM), 201 supply chain management (SCM), 190, 201, 217–9, 498–505 support services See information system (IS) service delivery support software, 41–54 CASE (computer-aided software engineering) tools, 54 communications interface software, 54 database management systems (DBMS), 52–4 fourth generation languages, 46–8 languages for developing Web applications, 51–2 language translators, 43 markup languages, 48–9 object-oriented programming (OOP), 49–51 operating system, 41–3 third generation languages, 43–6 utility programs, 54 supporting mobile health clinics: The Children’s Health Fund of New York City, 18, 157–165 switch, 76–7 switched Ethernet, 73 SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, 527 example of, 528 Sybase IQ, 203 Sybase PowerDesigner, 54 Symantec, 55 Norton Internet Security, 40 symbologies, 21 symmetric multiprocessor (SMP), 32 Symphony Metreo, 235 SymphonyRPM, 235 Synchronous Optical Network (SONET), 78, 88 system decoupling, 334 system integration IT integration post-merger, Sallie Mae, 611–27 vertical integration of systems, 192 view integration, 98 system scope, 335 system testing, 357, 366 systems concepts 329–58 See also e-business systems, enterprise systems, knowledge management systems, managerial support sytems boundary, 331, 332 building, 366 business processes, 336–9 client/server, 62, 193–4 components of, 331, 332 defined, 329, 330 design, 365–6 development methodology, 341 distributed, 62, 192–3 engineering, 216 environment, 331 expert, 241–4 formal, 331 hierarchical decomposition of, 332 high-quality, 366 informal, 331 interfaces of, 332–4 key elements of, 330–2 legacy, 548 logical, 335–6 mobile computing, 2, 256 order entry, 196–8 organizations as, 334–5 payroll, 196 perceptive, 241 physical, 335–6, 342 requirements of, 348 strategic information systems, 526–32 systems analysis and design (SA&D), 335–6 transaction processing, 196–8 vertical integration of, 192 systems analysis and design (SA&D), 335–6 defined, 335 problem-solving steps to, 336 system scope, 335 systems analyst, 370–1 systems development life cycle (SDLC), 339–40, 361–73, 392 See also methodologies for acquiring systems advantages of, 371–3 Construction phase of, 340, 365–6 cost breakdown of, 363 defined, 339, 362 Index 715 Definition phase of, 339–40, 363–5 disadvantages of, 371–3 example, 339 Implementation phase of, 366–9 initiation of new, 363 life cycle process, defined, 361 management of, 371 phases of, 362–3 projects, 363, 370–1 project team, 370–1 with prototyping, 376 steps of, 362–3 when purchasing systems, phases and steps of, 392 Systems Network Architecture (SNA), 86 systems software See support software systems tools See information system (IS), development processes and techniques tablet PC, 29 See also microcomputers Tactician Corp., 233 Taobao, 273 Target, 263, 264 team-building skills, 413 technical feasibility, 363, 415 technical skills, 379, 551 technology infrastructure, of IT, 5–6 See also information technology (IT) architecture Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), 91 IT infrastructure outsourcing, at Schaeffer Corporation, 628–41, technology trade-off decisions, 540 telecommunications networks, 60–92 analog network, 63–4 analog signals, 63–4 country infrastructure, 555 digital networks, 64 digital signals, 63–4 exploding role of, 88–90 functions of, 63 key elements of, 63–88 modem, 64 needs for, 61–2 overview of, 62–3 protocols, 86–8 telecommunications industry, 90–1 topology, 70–2 transmission, 64–5, 65–70, 66 types of, 72–86 Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996, 90 telecommuters, defined, 547 support of, 547–8 telecommuting programs, 548 Teledesic, 70 teleprocessing, 63 Telesat, 78 Telnet, 80 Ten Commandments of the Hebrew Scriptures, 578 10 GbE, 75 Tencent, 273 Tenrox Online Project Management, 41 Tera Computer Company, 34 Teradata, 53, 203, 204, 218 Data Warehouse Appliance, 203 terminal, as input /output device, 20 Tesco (www.tesco.com), 187, 263, 267 thin server, 193 ThinkSpace, 229 ThinkTank, 228, 229 third generation languages, 43–6 BASIC, 46 COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language), 44–6 compiler, 44 defined, 44 FORTRAN, 46 interpreter, 44 third-party ASP, 406 third-party implementation partner, 400 GL program, 100 3G (third generation) network, 67 three-tier client/server systems, 193 Thrifty PayLess stores, 108 TIBCO Software, 195 PortalBuilder, 215 Spotfire Miner, 226 TIGER team, at NIBCO, 471–2 Time magazine, 259 Time Warner Cable, 84 time zone differences, IS management, 556 timeboxing, 417 TJX Companies, 563, 567 customer data theft, 563 T-1 lines, 78 T-Mobile, 90 To-Be modeling See Logical To-Be model and Physical To-Be model token bus design, 73 token ring design, 73, 74 Tools See also CASE tools, information systems (IS) development processes and techniques, social analysis, of systems, 378 diagramming, 378 for user application development, 384–5 front-end analysis, 378 top-level data flow diagram, 346 716 Index Torrent Spy, 588 TorrentFreak Web site, 588 Torvalds, Linus, 42 Toshiba, 29, 55, 68 total cost of ownership (TCO), 543 Total Rewards loyalty program (Harrah’s), 205 Toyota Motor Corporation, 202 Toyota Motorsport, 201, 202 transaction processing systems, 196–8 defined, 196 order entry system, 196–8 payroll system, 196 transborder data flows, 111 transmission See also transmission media lines, types of, 65 speed of, 64–5, 66 Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), 86, 88, 193 transmission media, 65–70 coaxial cable, 66 fiber optic cabling, 70 satellite communications, 68–70 twisted pair of wires, 65–6 wireless communication, 66–8 transport layer, of OSI reference model, 87 transport stack software, 193 TransUnion LLC, 590 Travelocity (www.travelocity.com), 89, 268 tree topology, 71 trend analysis, data mining, 227 Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), 243–4 truck driVR, 246 TRUSTe, 257, 258, 581 TRW, 590 T-structure, 240 “turnkey” systems, 398 tweets, 82 20th Century Fox, 588 twisted pair of wires, 65–6 Twitter, 81, 82, 188, 207, 208, 274, 570, 575 See also social media 2G (second generation) network, 67 two-tier client/server systems, 193 über-systems perspective, 361 unified communications (UC), 206 Unified Modeling Language (UML), 54, 352 Uniform Resource Locator (URL), 210–11, 254, 564 Unisys, 33 United Airlines, 89 U.S Department of Energy, 35 U.S Air Force, 228, 234, 248 U.S Army, 246 U.S Constitution, 586 U.S Department of Agriculture, 242 U.S Department of Defense, 80 U.S Department of Energy (DOE), 539, 571 U.S Department of Justice, 562, 584, 585 U.S Fair Credit Reporting Act, 585 U.S Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), 573 U.S Internal Revenue Service (IRS), 579 U.S Military, 567 U.S Navy, 248, 378 U.S Patent Office, 587 U.S Pentagon, 563 U.S political elections, social media for, 274 U.S Postal Inspection Service, 585 U.S Postal Service, 203, 263–4, 265, 268 U.S Secret Service, 585 U.S Supreme Court, 587 University Health Care System (UHCS), 237 University Hospital, 237 University of Arizona, 228 University of California at Berkeley, 42 University of Illinois, 254 UNIX operating system, 32, 88, 193, 209 development of, 42–3 UPS (United Parcel Service), 68 Up-to-date & Contact, Now Software, 41 USA Group, 419 USA Today, usage rights, for data access, 105 Use Case diagram, 352 become member use case diagram, 353 Usenet newsgroups, 81 user access policy user acceptance testing, 366 user application development (UAD), 382–6 advantages of, 382–3 disadvantages of, 382–3 risks from, assessment of, 384–5 spreadsheets, errors in, 383 user developers, guidelines for, 385–6 user computing See also user application development (UAD) defined, 543 framework for designing, 543 strategies for, 543–4 support for, 543 total cost of ownership (TCO), 543 U.S.S Enterprise, 246, 248 utility computing, 91 utility programs, 54 Index 717 validation rules/calculations, 356 value added network (VAN), 79 value chain analysis, 529–32 vBNS, 80 vector-based GIS, 232 vendor-managed inventory (VMI) at NIBCO, 279–83 vendor responses to RFP evaluation of, 395–8 forms for, example, 396–7 vendor management See also outsourcing IT, purchased software packages vendor selection, 557 Ventana Corporation, 228 Verizon Communications, 65, 77, 79, 80, 83, 84, 90, 228 Verizon Wireless, 76, 90, 541 Vermont Country Store (VCS), 227 Versant Object Database, 53 Vertica Analytic Database, 53, 203 vertical integration of systems, 192 ViaTalk, 84 video editing products, 41 Video Protection Privacy Act, 582 videoconferencing, 207–8 view integration, 98 Viking king, Bluetooth, 68 Virtual Ability, 248 Virtual Circuit network, Internet2, 85 virtual memory, 42 virtual private networks (VPN), 80 virtual reality (VR), 245–8 virtual teams, 5, 229, 428 IT project management of, 428–9 virtualization, 194–5 Visa, 255 VisiCalc, 38, 39 Visual Basic NET, 49, 55, 351 VMware Infrastructure 3, 195 voice response units, 21 VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), 84 VoIP adoption at Butler University, 18, 144–56 VoIP2.biz, Inc., deciding on the next steps for a VoIP provider, 18, 128–43 Volkswagen, 215 Vonage, 84, 91 VSAT (very small aperture terminal), 78 Walgreens Pharmacy, 78 Walmart, 67, 78, 95, 108, 110, 203–4, 214, 215, 263, 268 Mywalmart.com (Walmart’s intranet), 214 Warner Bros., 588 Waste Diversion Act, 541 Web See World Wide Web (WWW) Web 2.0, 82, 259 Web browser, 40, 254, 267, 406 Web “cookies,” 256 Web log See blogs Web portal, 256 See also Internet, WWW Web services, 49, 194–5 Web site design, for consumers, 272–4 Web sites, 253–76 corporate, 537 defacement of, 564 Google, 271 TorrentFreak, 588 Web surfing, 270 Webcrossing Community, 210 WebEx, 337 WebFOCUS, 47, 203 Webvan, 259 Wellpoint, 228 Wendy’s, 238 Western Union, Weyerhauser, 215 “white-collar” work, 547 whole team approach, 379 wide area networks (WANs), 54, 60, 61, 77–80, 192 defined, 77 Direct Distance Dialing (DDD), 77–8 Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), 78–9 leased lines, 78 packet-switched networks, 79–80 satellite microwave communication, 78 virtual private networks (VPN), 80 Wide Area Telephone Service (WATS), 77–8 Wide Area Telephone Service (WATS), 77–8 Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity), 74, 83 Wiki, 81, 82 Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), 82 WiMAX, 75 networks, 74, 83 wireless design, 73 wired LANs, 73–4 contention bus, 73 CSMA/CD Protocol, 73 Ethernet, 73 Manufacturing Automation Protocol (MAP), 74 shared Ethernet, 73 switched Ethernet, 73 718 Index wired LANs (continued) token bus, 73 token ring, 74 wireless access point (WAP), 74, 75, 76 wireless communication, 66–8 cellular telephone, 67 cordless telephone, 67 defined, 66 microwave, 68 smartphones, 67 wireless LANs, 67 wireless fidelity See Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) wireless LANs, 67, 74–5 CSMA/CA protocol, 74 defined, 74 network interface card (NIC), 75 Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity), 74 WiMAX, 75 wireless access point (WAP), 75 word (in computer memory), 22 word processing, 38–9 WordStar, 38 work breakdown analysis, 416–17 work process flow diagram, for accounts payable, 344 See also business processes workday flexibility, 548 work-life balance, 548 workplace privacy, 581–2 workstation, computer, 30 World Rally Championship program (Toyota Motorsport), 202 World Trade Center, 270 World Wide Web (WWW), 81, 197, 254 See also Internet customization of site, 272 data, sharing of, 62 defacement of Web site, 564 Web site design, for consumers, 272–4 World Wide Web browsers, 40 See also Browsers hypertext, 40 pull technology, 40 push technology, 40 RSS reader, 40 Web browser, defined, 40 World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), 254 Xerox, 55, 73, 194, 227 XLMiner for Windows, 226 XML (eXtensible Markup Language), 48–49, 100–1, 256–7 Yahoo!, 3, 56, 62, 80, 90, 91, 270, 272 Maps, 232 Search, 82 Year 2000 (Y2K), 198, 556 compliance initiatives, 546, 556 Y2K See Year 2000 (Y2K) Youa, 273 Youku, 273 YouTube, 259, 271 ZoneAlarm Extreme Security, 40 Zuckerberg, Mark, 270 See also Facebook (www.facebook.com), social media OTHER MIS TITLES OF INTEREST MIS: Managing Information Technology, 7/e, Brown, DeHayes, Hoffer, Martin & Perkins ©2012 SharePoint for Students, Cole, Fox & Kroenke ©2012 Experiencing MIS, 3/e, Kroenke ©2012 Using MIS, 4/e, Kroenke ©2012 MIS Essentials, 2/e, Kroenke ©2012 Management Information Systems, 12/e, Laudon & Laudon ©2012 Essentials of Management Information Systems, 9/e, Laudon & Laudon ©2011 IT Strategy in Action, McKeen & Smith ©2009 Information Systems Management In Practice, 8/e, McNurlin, Sprague & Bui ©2009 MIS Cases: Decision Making with Application Software, 4/e, Miller ©2009 Information Systems Today, 5/e, Valacich & Schneider ©2012 Database: Hands-on Database, Conger ©2012 Modern Database Management, 10/e, Hoffer, Ramesh & Topi ©2011 Database Concepts, 5/e, Kroenke & Auer ©2011 Database Processing, 11/e, Kroenke & Auer ©2010 Systems Analysis and Design: Object-Oriented Systems Analysis and Design, Ashrafi & Ashrafi ©2009 Modern Systems Analysis and Design, 6/e, Hoffer, George & Valacich ©2011 Systems Analysis and Design, 8/e, Kendall & Kendall ©2011 Essentials of Systems Analysis and Design, 4/e, Valacich, George & Hoffer ©2009 Decision Support Systems: Decision Support and Business Intelligence Systems, 9/e, Turban, Sharda & Delen ©2011 Business Intelligence, 2/e, Turban, Sharda, Delen & King ©2011 Data Communications & Networking: Applied Networking Labs, Boyle ©2011 IT Networking Labs, Cavaiani ©2010 Principles of Computer Networks and Communications, Dumas & Schwartz ©2009 Business Data Networks and Telecommunications, 8/e, Panko & Panko ©2011 Electronic Commerce: E-Commerce: Business, Technology, Society, 7/e, Laudon & Traver ©2011 Electronic Commerce 2010, Turban, King, Lee, Liang & Turban ©2010 Introduction to Electronic Commerce, 3/e, Turban, King & Lang ©2011 Project Management: Methods of IT Project Management, Brewer & Dittman ©2010 Information Systems Project Management: A Process and Team Approach, Fuller, Valacich & George ©2008 Enterprise Resource Planning: Enterprise Systems for Management, Motiwalla & Thompson ©2009 Enterprise Resource Planning, Sumner ©2005 Corporate Security: Applied Information Security, Boyle ©2010 The Management of Network Security, Carr, Snyder & Bailey ©2010 Corporate Computer and Network Security, 2/e, Panko ©2010 ... 104 E000 52 89 C00 323 8/4/10 R1689 4 824 46 8/4/10 M568930 4 824 47 8/4/10 8975 32 4 824 48 8/4/10 C1 527 PaidAmount 1, 925 .50 408. 92 408. 92 7 /23 /10 1,500.00 1 ,20 0.00 7 /24 /10 10, 328 . 72 10, 328 . 72 14,163.14... Number 29 36 CheckNumber CheckDate 4 824 41 8/3/10 C1 523 4 824 42 8/3/10 13987 52 4 824 43 4 824 44 8/3/10 8/3/10 InvoiceNumber VendorID E179 82 1756 32 PONumber InvoiceDate 178 A007 02 7 /20 /10 52 C00 321 7 /24 /10... TOTAL 4 824 45 InvoiceAmount 1, 925 .50 13 B00 824 7 /27 /10 505.17 505.17 97 B00 825 7 /28 /10 12, 327 .18 11,094.46 1 52 A00704 7 /28 /10 765.15 765.15 178 D00376 7/30/10 1,534.83 1,534.83 TOTAL 15,1 32. 33 13,899.61