Systems Design

Systems Design Skills People skill (25%) - Listening, understanding others, understanding between two lines, conflict resolution, handling the communications gaps, reporting, walk through, reviews. Communication Skills (20%) – Oral / Written communication Documentation skills (30%): Knowledge capturing, diagrams, charts (structure charts, Gantt charts, Business knowledge (business processes, business management knowledge) Technical skill (25%) - Database design, programming, web design etc.

Stakeholders of the system Proposed System: Web based Stakeholders of the system System users (key players), Chief Analyst/Chief Project Manager Project Oversight Committee, Project team – Project managers, Team leads, Business Systems Analysts Management, executives, customers, distributors Employees, Clients, External help (say consultants)

System design activities Determining what changes will be needed to the existing system Forming design teams Choosing software system/ applications software to support web services Database design- Decide how to store and access data- Integrate the database Changes to company network- Design and integrate the network Choose hardware to support new system Decide on operating system, programming languages, tools Determining compatibility of above and existing system Architectural Design, Division of Labor, Develop Strategies for proceeding, working in parallel Design the application architecture (Process design) Design the user interfaces Design the system interfaces Design Web-supported services Design Prototype Design and implement system controls Monitoring the progress of the project / Controlling the project issues & risks etc.

Systems Design Decision Hardware Operating Systems Database Programming Language User interface System Interface Network Interface Others

Hardware Options Existing hardware New hardware- Mainframe, Client/server architecture, virtual server, clustered, etc. Brands: Lenovo, Dell, CISCO, IBM, HP, 3COM, DLINK, LINKSYS

Options for Operating systems Windows, Linux, Mac/OS, Linux or UNIX for the web server and database, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows NT, Windows Server, Linux, Unix OS AIX, BSD etc.

Database Options Oracle, DB2, Access, mySQL, SQLite, CouchDB, depends on the load, (Consider existing and future requirements)

Options for Programming Languages Java, Java Scripting (for user interaction), Java2 Web services, J2EE, C, C#, Pearl, COBOL, ABAP, Microsoft.NET, SOAP, AJAX, PHP, embedded SQL, COM+, CORBA, SOAP, Pythan, Ruby, Haskell, Smalltalk, Erlang, BASIC, Visual Basic, D, LISP, and others.

The outputs of design activities Diagrams that describe architecture of new/ proposed system and detailed logic of programming components. Architectural Design:A plan for the design of the system Division of Labor:Who to do what (Gantt chart) Develop Strategies:Critical Path and/or Pert chart. Ways of monitoring the budget, time, and the project resources. Process Design Data flow diagrams, Structure charts, Class diagrams, Interaction Diagrams Interface Design User interface design, Dialogues, Forms, Reports – GUI, Sound, Video, Voice, story boarding Integration between new and existing databases Prototype (Working)

The outputs of design activities Determining what changes will be needed to the network – A list of changes – Modified network – Nodes- location diagram Designing the database – A database How we will store and access data – List of database options Deciding system security & control Forming design teams – A design team and their tasks – Assigning specific tasks to employees Deciding what hardware will support the new system – List of hardware needed to support the system Deciding what operating system will be used – List of operating systems Deciding what languages and tools we will use List of programming languages

The documents generated out of systems design Database Design: Entity Relationship Diagrams, Query Report Design. Process Design: Functional Decomposition Diagram, Event Table, Structure Charts, Flowcharts, Context Diagrams, Data Flow Diagram, Decision Charts, Gantt Charts Software Design: Module Diagram, pseudo-code. A plan for the design of the system:Blueprint Who to do what (Gantt chart):Gantt chart Critical Path and/or Pert chart:Pert Chart, CPM chart Doing the work on budget and on time:Tracking Gantt RFP for Software packages, RFP for hardware support Object oriented design documents: Activity diagrams, Use-case diagrams, Event tables, Software Design (Structured/ conditional/ Iterative), Design class diagrams, Object database schema

Project management activities during systems design Prevent, anticipate and/or overcome problems to complete the project scope on schedule, within budget, and to the customer’s satisfaction Activities: planning, meeting with steering committee, deciding and delegating tasks, meeting with project teams, Tracking, organizing people and resources. Manage changing requirements Coordinate design elements Coordinate project teams Oversee decisions Coordinate Information Keeping client up to date with progress Oversees project teams Keeps project on budget Monitor progress of the project Manage the project-scope, people, cost, time, resources etc.

The teams involved during systems design Oversight committee, hardware team, application software team, interface design team, operating system team, Network Specialists, web support services team, database design team, Project Management Team, Process Design Team, Project Support Team End Users Evaluation Group, Integration Team, Support Team, Development teams, Change management teams.

How do the teams collaborate? Meetings, group discussions (explore options), , phone, Conference calls, shared network drives, inter-office documents/memos. NetMeeting, Fax, Instant Messaging, Face-to-face Meeting (periodic), interviews JAD