Discuss about the IT Infrastructure Management for Customer Relationship Management.
Infrastructural development is a key resolution that AusEd Inc. should focus on to enhance its services. Since AusEd Inc main goal is to enhance its services as well as expand the growth of profits by capturing large market share, reaching all potential customers should be a priority. To meet its goals, the organization need to set up robust technology services to facilitate efficient service delivery. In this regard, Eichorn 2(p 1) argues the setup has to focus on changing IT infrastructure to align it with market demand. The IT infrastructure need to cater for all users of the system in the organization. Student access to organizational study materials need to be efficient, interactive tools should enable students to communicate and share ideas in a more diverse way. Consequently, staff and students are required to communicate and share resources in order to facilitate desired mode of service delivery. As the organization targets to improve on service delivery, both the staff and students needs have to be met sufficiently. Organizational IT infrastructure need to be up to date and compatibility of the devices and customers tools be very diverse to minimize conflict of interest among system users9 (p 624). Taking in consideration different types of connection to be made to the organizational IT resource centers, data security should be given the highest priority. All authentication to the organizational system should be filtered to meet required security parameters4 (p 180). Finally to avoid data loss and interruptions, data replication and server virtualization will be quite useful.
The main goal of the project would be to come up with scalable IT infrastructure that AusEd Inc. can implement to support its robust growth in service delivery. To achieve its goals the following aspects should be considered;
The project would mainly cover the analysis of the current AusEd Inc. system in order to determine the success capabilities and limitations that the current system offers to its users. In the analysis of the current system, there are some features that cannot be abscond because they are quite important. Some of these features would be evaluated to determine their success capability when carried forward in the implementation of the proposed system. Additionally, the project would focus on the security parameters that organization should implement to limit unauthorized data access from either external or internal entities. Similarly, an extensive and intensive analysis of both software and hardware requirements would be done to make sure the proposed system would be compatible and has high fault tolerance 16(p 40). Consequently, with main goal of making services more scalable to both students and tutors, the aspect of efficient communication would be very important. Finally, the project would not factor communication with other business entities because the main goal of the project revolves around service delivery to students as well as profit generation maximization.
The proposed system is required to be very robust to accommodate diverse groups of users, scalable such that its functions are not limited in any way and efficient in order to offer quality services3(p 229). The proposed system would be designed in such a way that students are able to collaborate with their tutors and other students in a dynamic manner. Similarly, tutors should be able to communicate to students and share required documents without any limitations as this is the main service delivery goal. At some instances, students would require online support and guidance on carrier matters. In this case, the system should offer online support either by connecting direct to student through tools such as Skype or Gmail video communication. These services should be integrated in such a way that, all communication and document sharing are linked to the main system without switching to the third party applications. Anderson et al1(p 12-13) states that system focus on communication should be give highest priority in order to make sure business communication is not limited in any way. To minimize communication barriers between students and tutors, organization should implement tools that offer collaborative communication to all parties. The tools adopted by AusEd Inc. as means of communication need to be tolerance to various aspects such as whether conditions.
As the AusEd Inc. considers to set up hubs for organizational users, the setting and technology to be implemented is of great importance. The system security implementation requirements need to consider access capability from all users such as students and tutors. Heshan10(p 462) states that security consideration involves setting up firewalls to filter all unregistered Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in order to limit their access to AusEd Inc. system and study materials. Despite organizational requirements to have high compatible systems, all system users should be given minimum requirements that access devices should meet. The main goal of meeting these requirements would be to maintain high security measures to prevent system from being compromised. A good example could be that, all personal computers to have a specific anti-malware and be running on a minimum of windows 7. With range of these specification to all devices, IT department in the organization would be able to evaluate access vulnerability points and security measures to be implemented 14(p 24). Finally, system communication and sharing of network by all branches should be coordinated from the head office. Network sharing require very strong protection to make sure all transmitted data is secure and free from intrusion. With unique nature of services, losing data to unauthorized users would be very dangerous. All personal data collected from customers require very advanced security measures in order to guarantee users that organizational services and implementation are up to date 15(p 42). To make sure no authorized network access, any device that require AusEd Inc. network connection should be authorized by network administrator. In this regard, all machines required port access authentication which is granted only once when the user meets all criterion set by the organization.
During system actualization process, the following assumptions would be made. Mainly, these assumptions are made in order to be able to classify all system users into various groups. First, all system users would be able to access network from whatever sources. The range of network use will not be limited in any. Users are free to use any network being; public or Virtual Private Network. Next, being an online service delivery, student access to study material and course content would be subject to dedicated approval that all operational procedures has been followed. The student approval to access course content would be mainly based on the fees payment in order to facilitate service delivery. Additionally, it is highly assumed that AusEd Inc. has enough specialist to facilitate any number of students registering for any course. Finally, it is assumed that system would be up and running without any failure and be able to withstand fault tolerance. Therefore, with these measures in place, organization would be free to implement the system for efficient, robust and scalable service delivery which guarantees profit maximization at short and long run of the business.
To actualize the proposed AusEd Inc. IT infrastructure, experts would require some equipment and devices that system would be run on. The choice should be made in such a way that it meets organizational need. First, according to Luis & Kellermanns6 (p 14), firewalls would be required to filter all incoming and outgoing signals. This would help organization to determine the nature of communication in the organization. The firewall configuration need to be done such that all security parameters are documented to avoid any unnecessary confusion when more security setting are required. Since firewall is the first device that prevents organizational network from access, security checks and testing need to be done frequently. It is very important device because there is no network which can be set without firewall. Its configuration should limit content delivery to unregistered MAC address in the organizational servers8 (246). Next, routers are quite important as they are used to segment organizational network into subnets according to the requirements of the business. With help of routers, AusEd Inc. would be able to segment its network into various subnets which would be based on available branches. Considering the ability of a router to function like an intelligent hub, it can offer additional security layer to the organizational network. This security capability can be achieved by blocking all data packets with unrecognized addresses. Important to note is that routers would add network performance by reducing network traffic exhibited by bridges and hubs. Thorne et al 11(p 968) argues that routers can also be used to distribute network signals in the organization for use by other devices. Since it is not possible to connect all devices in the organization to cable network, routers would be used to reduce operational cost by providing wireless signals.
Additionally, both data and network server would be required to host organizational data as well as share network to its branches. Network server would be used to store all organizational collected data. According to Venkatesh, Thong & Xin 13(p 168), it is through use of data servers that organization would be able to collect, store and retrieve any required information for decision making. On the same note, network servers would be used to provide organization with secured network which would hosted from within the organization 12(p 90). When choosing appropriate servers, it is important to run on up to date server versions because they are designed with added functional capabilities to enforce both data and network security. With both data and network server, it would be possible to achieve server virtualization to reduce system down time when one of the two fails to function as required. Finally, hubs and bridges would be used to extend organizational network. Both bridge and hubs are used to extend network in cases organization adds more departments or offices in same location. All these devices and equipment are very essential because without such tools, proposed network cannot be actualized.
Kasemsap 5(p 78) states that environment is a fundamental aspect that all organizations should take care off when running its business activities. It is very clear that, AusEd Inc. would be disposing some of the devices and equipment that are in the current IT infrastructure. Some of the devices used are made of toxic substances such as lead, lithium and mercury. When planning on the disposal of E-waste, organization should make sure all environmental precautions are followed strictly to avoid health issues. All e-waste materials that are toxic should be dumped deep into the earth and be treated with anti-toxic chemicals to make them environment friendly. Similarly, when procuring the proposed IT equipment and devices, it is important to consider environmental friendly devices6 (p 936). Devices manufacturers are currently focused on designing equipment that do not consume more power in order to reduce energy consumption. In this regard, it is important to opt for up to date devices and equipment because they are designed to be environment friendly and in line with green IT policies. Specifically, green IT would help to cut operational cost in long run.
Conclusion
Currently, technology is unavoidable in any business sector. AusEd Inc. being a service company that aims to deliver its service worldwide cannot work without technology. AusEd Inc. is purely based on technology delivery which makes it the core to its business success. As the company seeks to advance on its services as well as increase on its profit generation, it is a requirement to invest on modern technology. Although organization is running on IT infrastructure, it is not up to date and this makes it unreliable to drive proposed business goals. In this regard, organization should aim to set up new IT infrastructure to facilitate required business operations and make service delivery efficient and reliable by all system users. Security implementation should be given the highest priority when designing the proposed IT infrastructure. To achieve the required operational standards, device selection and policy implementation to guide proposed infrastructure should be considered. When designing and coming up with new IT infrastructure, it is important to have good planning on e-waste disposal and IT environmental responsibilities.
References
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