ICT in Organisations Essay

doorIn the Graduate School of teaching method they theatrical role m some(prenominal) contrary types of estimators for m both diverse things. Some faculty im office use their information processing systems for write long documents or allowters separates may use them for creating PowerPoint presentations for lectures. In well-nigh organisations people will use their computers for similar things, but this isnt the font in a university.Server Hardw atomic number 18There argon a number of hordes, and these all do different jobs. Each waiter is allocated a name, and this is unique everyplace the whole campus. Most of the main file servers ar held within the computer centre. This allows them to rectify any problems that may arise if a server fails. All of the main servers work on dual rockyw ar, and argon hot swappable. This means that if ane processor fails, or if one haphazard Access Memory slot fails, they argon able to step in it, without any complicate time. The only time the server would go down would be in the case of a Power Supply Unit failing, and this deal be fixed in a matter of minutes. In the computer centre all the computers ar committed to a UPS and surge protection, in the form of sockets around the centre. The surge protection will s line of longitude computer components being damaged due to a spike on the discipline grid, and the UPS will take over if at that place is a power cut. The UPS tummy provide power to the servers in the computer centre for a grand amount of time.The smaller servers all stand a small UPS, and these atomic number 18 configured to shut the server down if the power is off for any longer than 10 minutes. This means that all un saved files are saved to the hard disk.In the Graduate School of Education thither are 4 small servers, and these all do different jobs. There are 2 humanity controllers. The primary one is called Charlie and the backup is called Bravo. There are also 2 Macintosh databa se servers. One is a Mac G3 and the other is a PowerMac.In the main computer centre there are too many servers to mention here, and they are not all related to the Graduate School of Education. The ones they would use are the Student record server and the Library server. Both of these servers run on a telnet server (on port wine 23), and this allows secure access to them from inside the campus.Domain ControllersAll subdivisions in the university authenticize their own theater of operations controllers. Domain controllers are unremarkably rented or let to people by domain name hosting companies. This sometimes has an advantage, if anything goes wrong, their technical obtain staff will rectify the problem, but in a university there are plenty of qualified people that can work with domain controllers.Because all the domain controllers are kept on campus, if JANET was to go down for some flat coat, for example, the cable was dug up all the university domains would serene work. So, a clumsy fore person does not check that the area they will be digging in is clear of cables, and they begin work. They hit the break optic cable and the universitys Internet connection goes down. They will still be able to go to any of the university domains, for example, http//www.edu.qub.ac.uk or http//www.qub.ac.uk. The university cyberspace is fair self reliant in this way.A domain controller does not have to be a very fast or healthy machine, but it is ordinarily just a normal server. Here is a rough idea of the hardware and price utilise in the domain controllerHardware NameCostFull Description tear Server Case125.00Top of doLian Li PC 71 Aluminium Full-TowerBottom of turnPower Supply (High Power Output)83.90Top of breedAntec TruePower 550W PSUBottom of complianceMotherboard36.50Top of motleyAsus P4S533-MX (Socket 478) Micro ATX MotherboardBottom of FormUPS314.75Top of FormAPC Smart-UPS 1500 USB/RS-232Bottom of FormRAM 512MB74.00Top of FormCrucial 512MB DDR PC 2700 CAS 2.5Bottom of Form2 Case Fans12.00Top of FormDelta 60mm FanBottom of Form mainframe change Sink and Fan24.50Top of FormSalman CNPS7000-AlCu Ultra Quiet CPU CoolerBottom of Form40GB High Speed Hard Disk36.00Top of FormIBM/Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 40GBBottom of FormUltrium Backup System3,416.79Hewlett Packard StorageWorks Ultrium 460iPentium 4 Processor625.00Top of FormIntel Pentium 4 3.2GHz (800FSB) with HT Technology Extreme EditionBottom of FormHeat Sink fuse (High Quality)3.90Top of FormArctic Silver III Thermal multiform (3g)Bottom of FormTotal4,752.34Graphics card, monitor and other peripherals can be salvaged from older machinesAs you can retrieve from the about table, even the simplest server can cost a lot of money, the most expensive part of the server is the Uninterruptible Power Supply, but this would not need to be purchased each time a new server is bought.selective informationbase ServersThe database servers hold information on different things in the divisi on. The graduate school of education use them for dimension information on educatees and staff, like addresses and telephone numbers. It is much much trenchant than using paper to hold data. The database servers are Macintosh. They are a great deal seen as expensive, useless machines, but the Macintosh computers are much more than regnant than a conventional PC, and their main drawback is that it is difficult to obtain software for them, and no pc software is compatible with them.NetworkingThe university web is quite a defective system, and could belike be described as a Wide domain Network, because of its size, although it is really just a very large Local airfield Network. Here is a small network diagram showing how the queen Network works.Hopefully from this very simple diagram you can see how big the university really is, and how much it costs for electricity alone both year. surrounded by all the universities in the United Kingdom there is a shared Internet con nection. This is a roughage optic system. There is a slight difference between using a fiber and using copper cables. One small fibre can carry up to 1,900 phone calls. This is quite a big difference compared to 30 over one copper cable. This means that the computer users in the University will have very fast Internet access, and between other universities, it can be possible to download a full CDs outlay of data (700MB) in around 10 seconds, and that isnt with just one user using the network at that time. The speed of JANET is quite hard to measure with complete accuracy, and it is changing in speed every day. Between departments there are also fibre optic cables, as this allows more data to be transferred.Once you get into a department the fibre is brought into a hub, and from the hub to each computer you have a copper cable. This is mayhap not the most efficient way, but it is much cheaper than having a fibre optic system the whole way around the department.Looking at the diag ram above you will see that the Graduate School of Education is a small part of the university network. Here is a slightly more incidented diagram of the network in this particular sectionThe network is too large to show in much more detail than shown above. There are roughly 150 computers in this one department alone, and across campus there is anything between 2000-6000 computers connected to the network. They are all connected centrally at the main Queens hub, so from anywhere on campus you can find a route to anywhere else. Also, if for some reason the main hub failed, departments would still be able to send files to each other, as long as it did not need to leave the department.Workstations and SoftwareBecause the department is large, it may be difficult to find two computers that are the same in hardware specification. Generally they are all normal, domestic computers, although the computer lab has desktop cases instead of ATX, This does not really affect how they work. Data can be shared between all the computers using the universal directories, although only staffs have access to these. All computers are connected to the network using 3Com network cards, running on 10 Mega bits / second. This is the only real speed limitation of the network.All workstations have the Microsoft Office Suite which is part of the Microsoft Office Campus Agreement, and FrontPage and Publisher have a separate license for certain(a) departments, as these are not part of the campus agreement as a whole. They also have a copy of Symantec Antivirus, which is up meetd through the Symantec server, and this provides up to date virus protection. Staff have access to Adobe PageMaker 6.5 and Macromedia Dreamweaver.Software specificationHere is a more detailed look at the different software that the School of Education use.* Microsoft Word This has many uses. Some staff may use it to type letters and notices some may use it for typing assignments or taking minutes from a meeting students may use it for its desktop issue ability or for typing up coursework/essays.* Microsoft Excel This is Microsofts spreadsheet software and is apply in many ways also. Some staff may use it to keep track of students mount some may use it to keep track of outgoing and submission money students may use it to create graphs.* Microsoft PowerPoint This can be employ for many things as well. Some lecturers would use it for creating transparencies for lectures, but in this high technology age it would be more likely for them to use it in concurrence with a digital projector. There are a number of these on hand(predicate) to staff during the day. Students could sometimes use it for revision purposes, or for slide shows in class participation exercises.* Microsoft Publisher This is used for desktop publishing and creating transparencies for lectures.* Microsoft FrontPage This is Microsofts web design software. It is often used by many original designers, but does not rea lly have a use in the education department.* Microsoft Access This is Microsofts database package, and it is very versatile. It can be used to create macros so that on a click of a thrust you can enter large amounts of data into a database or score out old records. The macros are easy to program using Microsoft Visual BASIC.* Macromedia Dreamweaver This is passe-partout web design software used by many top end professionals. It has the capability to write many different programming languages used on web servers. Examples of these are JavaScript and PHP. It also has very good Cascading expressive style Sheet and Hyper Text Mark-up Language capabilities.* Adobe PageMaker This is professional desktop publishing software. umpteen members of staff use it to create professional looking signs and posters, and is often similar to the software used by large businesses to create flyers.many larger businesses may have their own database software written for them. Many companies like No rthbrook Technologies write these programs especially for them. It can cost thousands to get that miscellanea of software written. They often use many different programming languages, usually C++, which is very advanced and can take years to learn. As the university does not have many departments that do exactly the same thing, database software designed just for the university would cost too much, and probably push student fees up quite a considerable amount. Often Microsoft Access is more than enough to fulfil the needs of the departments requiring databases.Other HardwareThere are many different hardware devices in the university. The most expensive would probably be the digital cameras and projectors, and these may take some time to replace if they are damaged. The cheaper devices like mice, keyboards and disk drives are easily replaced, and there are many spares in the university. There are many different types of printers for sale, usually mono colour laser printers and colo ur ink jets, but there are some colour laser printers available. Printer cartridges are replaced when needed, and are purchased with discount, as they are in very large numbers. Scanners are available in computer rooms for student use.