Hures is a leading human resource service provider. To keep up with growing business demands, it implemented its first information system in 1987 purchasing a mainframe computer that served so-called dumb terminals on the users’ desktops.
To keep pace with changes in both the business and Information System environment, and also to accommodate the demands of Y2K, the company ported the application to a client/server network in 1999. The new client/server system initially resulted in an increase in efficiency of 30%. By the end of second year, the company’s profit grew by 18%; the reduced cost of maintenance of the network and improved data handling capabilities provided by the Client/Server system contributed largely to this improvement.
The company continued to grow rapidly ever since but has noticed that the network has problems such as difficulty in scaling the servers to respond to the increased load in the distributed environment and a continual requirement for increasingly powerful desktop machines.
But the main problem of the company is the difficulty in configuring applications into client-server modules and in modifying the configuration in response to user feedback. Hures’s internal IS staff blame the Client/Server architecture for these problems, whereas the management believes that the problem is largely due the poor design of the service.
Answer all questions:
1. Do you think the problems faced by Hures, both past and present, are unique? Why or why not?
2. Suggest alternative architectures that could be used to overcome the problems faced by Hures’ current Client/Server technology
3. One of the suggestions proposed by Hures’ IS department is the use of intranet web technology. Examine the pros and cons of such an idea.
4. Do you think the popularity of intranet software and the Internet pose threats to traditional Client/Server systems?
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Hures is a leading human resource service provider. To keep up with growing business demands, it implemented its first information system in 1987 purchasing a mainframe computer that served so-called dumb terminals on the users’ desktops. To keep pace with changes in both the business and Information System environment, and also to accommodate the demands of Y2K, the company ported the application to a client/server network in 1999. The new client/server system initially resulted in an increase in efficiency of 30%. By the end of second year, the company’s profit grew by 18%; the reduced cost of maintenance of the network and improved data handling capabilities provided by the Client/Server system contributed largely to this improvement. The company continued to grow rapidly ever since but has noticed that the network has problems such as difficulty in scaling the servers to respond to the increased load in the distributed environment and a continual requirement for increasingly powerful desktop machines. But the main problem of the company is the difficulty in configuring applications into client-server modules and in modifying the configuration in response to user feedback. Hures’s internal IS staff blame the Client/Server architecture for these problems, whereas the management believes that the problem is largely due the poor design of the service. Answer all questions: 1. Do you think the problems faced by Hures, both past and present, are unique? Why or why not? 2. Suggest alternative architectures that could be used to overcome the problems faced by Hures’ current Client/Server technology 3. One of the suggestions proposed by Hures’ IS department is the use of intranet web technology. Examine the pros and cons of such an idea. 4. Do you think the popularity of intranet software and the Internet pose threats to traditional Client/Server systems?