Case Project 1-1: Choosing a New Operating System

Cutting Edge is a company with 122 employees who make cutting boards and a full line of knives and knife sets for home and commercial kitchens. The company is divided into several departments, including Development, Marketing, Business, Manufacturing, Information Systems (IS), and Inventory and Shipping. There is also a management team consisting of the company president, vice president, chief financial officer, and the managers of each department. The company is housed in one building that is fully networked. All employees have access to a desktop or laptop computer. These computers are a mixture of Windows 2000, Windows XP, and seven Windows Vista machines. At this point, there is a Windows 2000 Server in each department, and the company is planning to gradually upgrade each server to Windows Server 2008. The IS Department is the smallest department, consisting of four very overworked employees. Considering the IS workload, the IS manager hires you to help assess the server needs of the company and make recommendations for the future.

1. The Marketing Department uses large name and address databases for catalog and other promotions. Some of the databases are ones they own and others are purchased from other catalog sales companies and from Internet companies. The databases are currently on a standard Windows 2000 Server computer, which is overloaded. When they perform sorts and queries of addresses, the computer operates extremely slowly. Which Windows Server 2008 system do you recommend for them? Provide a justification for your recommendation.

2. The Marketing Department wants to establish an Internet business to supplement Cutting Edges catalog and outlet businesses. Which Windows Server 2008 system would work for the Internet portion of the business? Be sure to justify your recommendation.

3. The Business Department has a Windows 2000 Server system and is concerned about security and reliability. To which Windows Server 2008 edition do you recommend they upgrade? Note some features that would be important for the Business Department

Case Project 1-4: IP Addressing Issues

Cutting Edge has been using static IP addressing for all computer systems on their network. One of the difficulties is that because the IS Department is understaffed, they give written NIC configuration instructions to employees, so that employees do their own network configurations. Often employees make mistakes that cause conflicts on the network, and the IS staff has to check out many connections anyway. Further, if the company decides on a wholesale upgrade to Windows 7, this means all employees will be reconfiguring their computers at the same time. In this context, do you recommend staying with the practice of static addressing? How might an alternative method save time for the IS staff? Create a short report of your recommendations for the IS manager