Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
TEAM ACTIVITIES
1.
With one or two of your classmates, visit a retail store that
employs Radio Frequency Identification chips to track
inventory. Interview an employee involved in inventory
control, and document the advantages and disadvantages
they see in this technology.
2.
With two or three of your classmates, visit a computer retail
store and identify the most popular ultra laptop computers.
Interview members of the sales staff to find out why they
think this particular laptop is popular.
WEB EXERCISES
1.
Do research on the Web to document the current state of
computer hardware disposal. What are some of the issues?
What solutions are there to this problem? Write a brief
report summarizing your findings.
2.
Do research on the Web to identify the current status of
the use of cloud computing. What companies are offering
this service? What companies are exploring use of the ser-
vice? Write a brief report summarizing your findings.
CAREER EXERCISES
1.
Imagine that you are going to buy a single handheld device
to improve your communication and organizational abili-
ties. What tasks do you need it to perform? What features
would you look for in this device? Visit a computer store or
a consumer electronics store and see whether you can pur-
chase such a device for under $400.
team assigned to define users' computer hardware needs.
Who else (role, department) and how many people would
you select to be a member of the team? How would you go
about defining users' needs? Do you think that one hard-
ware configuration (computer, monitor, and printer) will
meet everyone's needs? Should you define multiple config-
urations based on the needs of various classes of end user?
What business justification can you define to substantiate
this expenditure of roughly $50,000?
2.
Your company's finance department plans to acquire 25
new computers and monitors, plus several new printers.
The finance vice president has asked you to lead a project
CASE STUDIES
Advance America used a system in which each center was
equipped with an independent hardware and software envi-
ronment. Installation and maintenance costs were high, and
compiling data for all centers was time consuming and diffi-
cult. Each night the thousands of centers would upload their
data to the main server for consolidation. With the growing
number of centers, there wasn't enough time in the night to
process all of the incoming data. Advance America's system
had run up against a wall. It was time for a change.
Advance America decided to invest in a new system based
on a grid computing architecture. They installed thin client
machines to run in each center, connecting via the Web to a
fault-tolerant server cluster running Oracle database soft-
ware. The server cluster consists of a four-node cluster of
Chances are you have seen places that offer payday loans in
your town. Payday loans are short-term loans designed for
people that run out of money before payday, but can repay the
loan when their paycheck arrives. Advance America is the
leading payday loan company in the United States. It includes
3,000 centers in 37 states, and employs nearly 7,000 people,
according to its Web site. Advance America is big, and growing
bigger every day. Its growth in recent years is straining the
capabilities of its client-server information system infras-
tructure and holding the company back from further growth.
