Selection Of An IT Platform For IMT Custom Machine Company Essay.

Centralised Computing Environment

Discuss about the Selection of an Information Technology Platform for IMT Custom Machine Company.

The paper presents a report on the case study of IMT Custom Machine Company, Inc regarding choosing an appropriate IT process among four recommended information technology platforms. The advantage and disadvantage of four processes are analysed. Custom Machine Company is a subsidiary of IMT, which manufactures custom machine to be used for making parts such as automobiles. The company faces problem regarding lack of proper strategy for the information system. Current support for information system in this organisation is divided into two groups such as management information system (MIS) and engineering system (ES). Staffs and users of these systems suffer from lack of mainframe software support system (Brown et al., 2012). In order to mitigate technical problems and bringing efficiency in the information technology system, the company identifies four processes. The four processes that are highlighted in the case study are centralised computing environment, workstation computing, shifting to a Linux environment and wait and watch.

As stated by Dhage & Meshram (2012), computing in the organisation is done at a central location. The terminals are attached with a central computer. According to the staff engineer Charles Browing, the company would use mainframe computer in the computing environment. This environment facilitates the use of Linux operating system. The advantages of this system are follows:

• Information system management staffs would be more prepared to use centralised computing environment
• Discontinuation of the use of workstation would free up mainframe
• This system is energy efficient and cost effective. Centralised computer environment can be implemented at a lower cost.
• As the new system can run multiple operating systems such as AS/400, OS/400, AIX and Linux, this system is feasible in long run.

However, this IS system requires a large central mainframe and new applications. The centralised system requires full access of mainframe by all the users effectively in order to better management of information system (Brown et al., 2012). Management tries to install existing AS/400 applications for the convenience of the employees, who are accustomed with the previous system. The company needs to verify the limitations of the system for implement. The goal of the company is to get market leadership in terms of quality, reliability and proper delivery of service. In the view of Li et al. (2012), centralised information system is more secure compared to decentralised system, which is consistent with the objective of IMT.

Although the system has some good features, the company face some troubles during installation, which are discussed below.

• IMT custom machine company needs to invest in new software in order to create centralised computing environment.
• Although the system is cost effective, installation cost is higher. Moreover, the company may incur other costs while moving from one platform to other platform.
• Developed mainframe packages may not be matched with current capacity and requirements existing in the company.
• IMT may incur training cost for the employees who are not familiar with the centralised computing system. This cost is added up with the existing operational cost. Therefore, current cost of operation of the company may increase (Dhage & Meshram, 2012).

As mentioned by Brown et al. (2012), workstation is connected to a local area network. Multiuser operating system is required for this system. The advantages of Workstation computing are discussed as follows:

• All the information required to run the system are spread out and can be connected to a common network.
• As one person can use this computing system at a time, movement to individual workstation is consistent with the business strategy of IMT group.
• Performance of workstation computing is higher than mainstream personal computer in terms of memory capacity, graphics, and multitasking capability.

Manipulation of complex data, 3D mechanical design, and computational fluid dynamics can be done through workstation computing. As pointed out by Gronenschild et al. (2012), the components are reliable, which are consistent with the business objective. Workstation vendors design the hardware and maintain the Unix operating system. The company would invest in Sun Microsystem and IBM for the workstation computing system. 

Workstation Computing

• As one person can use one system at a time, the company may need to hire additional staff, which may incur additional cost
• The system needs additional technical support in order to aid in the distributive environment.
• As discussed by Brown et al. (2012), repairing cost of the workstation computing system is not available easily. Moreover, this system is expensive for installation. Higher cost is inconsistent with the vision of the company.

• One important advantage of this system is Linux is portable and flexible. The system can be run in different machines. As opined by Love (2013), this system is compatible with slower and old hardware.
• Hardware and drivers are easily available. Suppliers such as IBM, speciality Linux companies, in-house programming staffs can provide Linux solution. A Linux solution is effective in quality management, machine management and monitoring production.
• Linux is useful for automobile simulations.

The information system manager of the company thinks this operating system is more aligned with the objective of the company. The characteristic of the Linux system are low-level system components. Linux Kernel provides higher-level functionality. This system is consistent with the strategy of the business group.

• Change of operating system may incur some costs while converting existing platform to the Linux system.
• Linux system is different from the currently employed technology in IMT.

• This is the last option to the company to implement the efficient information management system. Software and technology is developing rapidly. Therefore, IMT may takes time to watch the effectiveness of the above three options deployed by other companies. This may help to take better decision about the computing cloud. It may happen that a specific information technology may not be applicable (Brown et al., 2012). Therefore, the company needs to give time itself the see the usefulness of the system.

• As effectiveness of the operating system may require longer time, waiting for usefulness may hurt the business.
• In longer term waiting may have an opportunity cost, if company fails to implement.

Linux computing environment is feasible for IMT and it minimises operational risk. Linux also brings efficiency. The objective of the company is supporting business process, supporting decision making process and getting competitive advantage through information technology system. Linux operating system is flexible and affordable by the company. Therefore, IMT is recommended to install Linux computing environment as an efficient information system platform that the company required.

Building capacity is prerequisite for installing Linux environment. Employees require training to be accustomed with the new system. It is suggested for Linux on IBM power platform to use nmon and nmon analyser. This system allows the company to track historical data. This function also enables to present data into excel spreadsheet for easy understanding. Capacity management according to organisation budget is needed for IMT. The company needs to collect data at business level and service level, individual components required for the new system. The capacity management department needs to consult with financial management team to determine the cost as per the structure of the organisation. At the initial stage of development, close monitoring at each stage is required. Development of Linux based system is feasible and cost effective as software collaboration is open source and free. The underlying security code can be used or modified by anyone under the terms of respective license. One example of this type of license is GNU General Public License.

Conclusion

The above report describes the requirement for new information system in the IMT Company. The existing information system is inefficient and not effective to manage changing business scenario. Quality improvement of the manufacturing product is the vision of the company. The company fails to deliver on time performance due to inefficient process, where there is lack of collaboration between two departments. In order to improve the information system platform, four techniques have been proposed to the company. Among the four discussed method, the most appropriate method is seemed to be Linux computing environment. The centralised computing environment is effective, however dependent on the performance of the mainframe computer. The system fails when mainframe computer fails. On the other hand, workstation-computing system requires additional cost of changing computing platform. Therefore, the third option that is installing Linux operating system is seemed to be most appropriate among the four techniques.  Linux is cost effective, flexible and easily portable. The application of Linux is consistent with the business goal of IMT.

References

Brown, C. V., DeHayes, D. W., Hoffer, J. A., Martin, W. W., & Perkins, W. C. (2012). Managing information technology (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Dhage, S.N. & Meshram, B.B., (2012). Intrusion detection system in cloud computing environment. International Journal of Cloud Computing, 1(2-3), pp.261-282.

Gronenschild, E. H., Habets, P., Jacobs, H. I., Mengelers, R., Rozendaal, N., Van Os, J., & Marcelis, M. (2012). The effects of FreeSurfer version, workstation type, and Macintosh operating system version on anatomical volume and cortical thickness measurements. PloS one, 7(6), e38234.

Li, J., Li, B., Wo, T., Hu, C., Huai, J., Liu, L. & Lam, K.P., (2012). CyberGuarder: A virtualization security assurance architecture for green cloud computing. Future Generation Computer Systems, 28(2), pp.379-390.

Love, R. (2013). Linux system programming: talking directly to the kernel and C library. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".