Week 14 Enterprise Computing: Clear

This week's lectures were interesting. I could tell that Professor Olsen really liked the subject as well. It built upon the storage knowledge from weeks 2 and 3 and gave some specific hardware  and software examples of ways to meet computing needs for business.

Regarding thin client virtualization, I believe our company uses a form of this for our funeral directing software. All of the data and software is kept on servers in our main offices in Houston, Texas. We log into client computers with our personal login to access the system. If there is any loss of connectivity to the Internet we lose all functionality with the program, which happens very rarely. Other than the client machines used specially for video and sound production, there is very little memory needed locally to run the system.

I really got a lot out of Professor Olson's descriptions of how hardware would be setup for Hierarchical Storage Management, and Storage Area Networks to insure redundancy and safe and efficient data storage.

I also think that in many businesses thin client virtualization could be the answer for the efficient use of data storage. Purchasing storage as needed and being able to divide the space needed for clients in more exact quantities sounds ideal.

Email Security Project

 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20013451-266.html?tag=mncol;txt

http://sify.com/finance/rim-confident-of-resolving-security-concerns-news-technology-klvakeehbjc.html

One difficulty international companies face is complying the different laws and regulations in the countries in which they do business. Recently Research In Motion, the developer of the popular Blackberry smartphones, has had trouble in India regarding their communication security.

India threatened to ban RIM's email and messenger unless the government could gain access to the encryption of these services. India claimed that unmonitored communications posed a security threat in their country. RIM's enterprise service has global security policies, and does not have custom encryption policies for individual corporate or government clients.

The threat of the proposed ban was avoided and according to RIM in a customer statement a mutual agreement is in the works. India is the fasting growing market in mobile communications.

Week 12: Communication and Networks

This week’s lectures were totally unexpected. The difference between the material in the textbook and the greater depth of the lectures shows that Professor Olsen has a passion for networking. I enjoyed comparing the concepts from the material to my limited knowledge of the network at work.

This week at work we switched around the layout of our office. I had to run new cable for one workstation and a printer that was previously connected to a workstation by USB. This also required manually configuring IP addresses to the printer under the direction of our network administrator. At the time I was just following the instructions of the administrator at the time. I wish I had been through this material before I did the move I think I would have a better understanding.

I also wish I had checked the cables before I ran them! I ran them over a drop ceiling per my manager’s instructions. Who knows how old they are and of what bandwidth they will support. First thing tomorrow I'm going to check and make sure it is at least CAT5e. I'm guessing not. 

Week 11: So-so on Systems Management

This week’s lectures and material were relatively new to me compared to the rest of the course up to this point. I feel that I have a better understanding on what systems management is about and can relate many of the terms and the roles of people to the systems i use at work.

The system we use for managing the finances and other aspects of our funeral home is called CFSS (Carriage Funeral Service System). Our parent company, Carriage Services, Inc. operates 144 funeral homes nationwide. CFSS is used to generate purchase contracts, manage inventory, and print documents.

As an end user of such a comprehensive system, it's easy to point out the system's short comings. After this module of the class I have a deeper respect for those that manage the system. Developing a system with thousands of users at different security levels,  must account for differences in laws from state to state, and securely handle sensitive information must be an enormous task.

The third generation of CFSS is increasing integration with other programs such as the software that we print stationery for services and update our website. We also have the ability to add pre-arrangement contracts in the system when they are purchased. These features reduce the time we spend entering data and save us a lot of time.

Carriage Services Website

Database Project

I am proud of myself for getting this project done early. Especially since It looks like I will be installing a garage door on my house instead of working on school this weekend.

I was introduced to Microsoft Access in the Intro to computers class I took as a prerequisite for the Online Business Program. I learned more about what a powerful tool this could be in business, especially in the hands of a database specialist. I learned about the different delimiters and text qualifiers of text files and how to import them to Access. I had been familiar with the Query, Form and Report Wizards from the last class. During the database project I familiarized myself with manipulating these objects in Design View. I found that it was not very intuitive, but with some trial and error I improved.

As for how the database could be made more functional, Iwould use lookup fields for all of the data that has a specified number of responses. In my project I formatted the Gender and Membership types only, but the State Field could be done as well. This would enable new records to be entered with less keystrokes.