ICT in Organisations Essay

IntroductionIn the Graduate school day of Education they subprogram umpteen diametric types of estimators for many divers(prenominal) things. Some round will use their reckoners for typing long documents or letters others whitethorn use them for creating motivePoint presentations for lectures. In most organisations people will use their computers for similar things, but this isnt the part in a university.Server punishingwargonThere argon a number of servers, and these e very do different jobs. Each server is allocated a hit, and this is unique over the whole campus. Most of the primary(prenominal) file servers ar held within the computer centre. This allows them to rectify any problems that whitethorn arise if a server fails. whole of the main servers work on dual hardware, and are hot swappable. This means that if one processor fails, or if one Random Access Memory slot fails, they are able to replace it, without any smooth time.The only time the server would go d knowledge would be in the case of a Power Supply Unit failing, and this sack up be fixed in a matter of minutes. In the computer centre all the computers are machine-accessible to a UPS and whizz protection, in the form of sockets around the centre. The surge protection will stop computer components being damaged due to a spike on the national grid, and the UPS will take over if thither is a world power cut. The UPS give the axe provide power to the servers in the computer centre for a considerable amount of time.The down(p)er servers all provoke a small UPS, and these are configured to shut the server down if the power is off for any interminable than 10 minutes. This means that all unsaved files are saved to the hard dish antenna.In the Graduate schooling of Education on that point are 4 small servers, and these all do different jobs. There are 2 domain controllers. The primary one is called Charlie and the backup is called Bravo. There are also 2 mac database servers. One is a Mac G3 and the other is a PowerMac.In the main computer centre there are also 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 23), and this allows secure access to them from inside the campus.Domain Controllers all departments in the university pee-pee their own domain controllers. Domain controllers are usually rented or let to people by domain name hosting companies. This close totimes has an advantage, if anything goes wrong, their technical support 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 reason, for example, the cable was dug up all the university domains would exempt work. So, a clumsy fore person does not check that the area they will be shot in is clear of cables, and they begin work. They hit the fibre optic cable and the universitys Internet friendship 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 network is fairly self reliant in this way.A domain controller does not have to be a very loyal or powerful machine, but it is usually notwithstanding a normal server. Here is a rough idea of the hardware and price utilize in the domain controllerHardware touchCostFull DescriptionFile Server Case125.00 pass away of classLian Li PC 71 Aluminium Full-TowerBottom of scorePower Supply (High Power Output)83.90Top of FormAntec TruePower 550W PSUBottom of FormMotherboard36.50Top of FormAsus P4S533-MX (Socket 478) Micro ATX MotherboardBottom of FormUPS314.75Top of FormAPC Smart-UPS one hundred fifty0 USB/RS-232Bottom of FormRAM 512MB74.00Top of FormCrucial 512MB DDR PC2700 CAS 2.5Bottom of F orm2 Case Fans12.00Top of FormDelta 60mm FanBottom of FormCPU Heat steady down 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 Compound (High Quality)3.90Top of Form synthetic rubber Silver III Thermal Compound (3g)Bottom of FormTotal4,752.34Graphics card, monitor and other peripherals can be salvaged from older machinesAs you can see from the about table, even the simplest server can embody a lot of money, the most expensive part of the server is the Uninterruptible Power Supply, but this would not contain to be purchased every time a new server is bought.Database ServersThe database servers hold information on different things in the department. The graduate school of e ducation use them for holding information on students and staff, like addresses and hollo numbers. It is much more(prenominal) effective than using paper to hold data. The database servers are Macintosh. They are often seen as expensive, useless machines, but the Macintosh computers are much more powerful 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 network is quite a macror system, and could plausibly be described as a Wide Area Network, because of its size, although it is authoritatively just a very large Local Area Network. Here is a small network plat showing how the Queens 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 every year. Between all the universities in the linked Kingdom there is a shared Internet connection. This is a fibre optic system. Ther e is a slight difference between using a fibre 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 exploiters in the University will have very fast Internet access, and between other universities, it can be possible to download a full CDs worth 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 subscribe into a department the fibre is brought into a hub, and from the hub to severally computer you have a copper cable. This is maybe 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 diagram above you will see that th e Graduate School of Education is a small part of the university network. Here is a slightly more detailed 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 com puters using the public 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 departments, as these are not part of the campus agreement as a whole. They also have a copy of Symantec Antivirus, which is updated through the Symantec server, and this provides up to date virus protection. cater have access to adobe brick PageMaker 6.5 and Macromedia Dreamweaver.Software SpecificationHere is a more detailed feeling 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 deskt op publishing ability or for typing up coursework/essays.* Microsoft Excel This is Microsofts spreadsheet software and is used in many ways also. Some staff may use it to keep track of students progress some may use it to keep track of coming(a) and incoming money students may use it to create graphs.* Microsoft PowerPoint This can be used for many things as well. Some lecturers would use it for creating transparencies for lectures, but in this high-tech age it would be more likely for them to use it in conjunction with a digital projector. There are a number of these available 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 schoolmaster designers, but does not really have a use in the education department.* Mic rosoft 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 button you can enter large amounts of data into a database or delete old records. The macros are easy to program using Microsoft Visual BASIC.* Macromedia Dreamweaver This is professional 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 Style Sheet and Hyper Text Mark-up Language capabilities.* Adobe PageMaker This is professional desktop publishing software. Many 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 Northbrook Technologies write these programs especially for them. It can cost thousands to get that kind 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 on the dot 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(a) 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 available, usually mono colour laser printers and colour ink jets, but there are some colour laser printers available. Printe r 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.