Local Area Network (LAN) Design Considerations (IT professionals only)

College of Information Systems and Technology 1 College of Information Systems and Technology Unauthorized use, duplication and/or distribution of the content contained in this document are hereby prohibited without the written consent of Apollo Education Group, Inc. ©2015 Apollo Education Group , Inc. Copyrights are retained by their owners. XYZ Systems Consulting: Transcript with Hugh Generi c XYZ SYSTEMS CONSULTING CONSULTATION: XYZ Systems Consulting and Generic Fi nancial Transcript of conversation between Hugh Generic (HG), of Generic Financial Services and Mary Prince (MP) of XYZ Systems Consulting discuss ing the computer network needed for Generic’s planned offices. (MP) Good morning Hugh. Tell me a little about your compa ny.

(HG) Generic Financial Services is going to be the preemin ent provider of low cost mortgage services in its region. We will offer mortga ges to homebuyers, specializing in first time buyers and problem credit clients. We’ll m ake our profits by strictly controlling costs. Rather than having a large staff of brokers and secretaries to sell financing packages to each customer, I will keep the staff smal l and rely upon technology to let the customers sell themselves on the mortgages they want. Customers will need to enter their own mortgage applications online and approval s or denials will be sent electronically. The loan decisions will be made at the ho me office by the lending committee; However, committee members will not alway s be in the office and will need to access the database from wherever they may be o n a daily basis.

(MP) How many offices will there be?

(HG) Eight. The first two will open in Boise, Idaho and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Boise location is the home office.

(MP) Where will the other office be?

(HG) One in Montana, two in Wyoming, two in North Dakota and one more in South Dakota in Rapid City.

(MP) How many people will be in the home office?

(HG) To start, three brokers and two admin assistants to ha ndle administrative issues company wide.

(MP) How many people will be in the other offices?

(HG) Each office will have 2 – 3 brokers. Each of the bro kers will work on commission and will provide their own laptop computers. The company will provide the networks, Internet access, printers, fax and telephones for each o ffice. In addition to the brokers, each location will have an experienced receptionist in the office from 8am – 5pm Monday through Friday to open and close the office, gree t clients, answer the phone and take care of local record keeping. College of Information Systems and Technology 2 College of Information Systems and Technology Unauthorized use, duplication and/or distribution of the content contained in this document are hereby prohibited without the written consent of Apollo Education Group, Inc. ©2015 Apollo Education Group , Inc. Copyrights are retained by their owners. XYZ Systems Consulting: Transcript with Hugh Generi c (MP) How much physical space will the offices occupy?

(HG) They’ll range in size from about 800 square feet to a round 1200 square feet.

(MP) Do you have any idea how the offices will be laid out? (HG) Most of the offices haven’t been leased yet. We’ve ide ntified spaces that we would like to occupy, but the details aren’t finalized . The spaces we’re looking at are located on the ground floor either in office parks on str ip office building in the downtown areas of the selected cities. Being on the grou nd floor has a number of advantages, but, with the right location and lease packag e, we would consider a space on a higher floor of an office building. For exam ple, the Boise office is already leased. As the home office, it needed more space since it will handle the administrative needs of the whole company, and we’ve got just under 1200 square feet.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find that much space on the grou nd floor in the right location in the city. We actually ended up occupying two spaces in the building. On the ground floor, we’ve got an 800 square foot space w here the brokers will meet the customers. The last tenant did a beautiful job in fini shing the space – a lot of oak paneling and hardwood flooring. We don’t want to change a th ing. The administrative people will work up on the 7th floor in a space that is just under 300 square feet. We’ll have to figure out some way to connect the admin staff w ith the brokers so that we’re not running up and down the stairs or calling back and fort h on the telephone to exchange information. (MP) How about the Sioux Falls location?

(HG) We just signed the lease on the Sioux Falls office. I t is 900 square feet on the ground floor in a strip office building. The space is j ust one large room right now. The landlord has given us an allowance for TIs and we’re lo oking for someone to help us with the design layout.

(MP) Do you see any areas in the offices that will be devot ed to specific needs?

(HG) Well, each office will have a file storage area, a c omputer/phone area, and private meeting area for client broker meetings. Depe nding on the office size and the budgets for Tenet Improvements, some of the locations will have private offices, while others will have cubes with one or two private meeting r ooms. Each office will also have a client waiting area, and each of these waiting areas wi ll have self-serve kiosks with computers that can be used by clients to access the com pany’s website and their own personal applications. The customer area will be 200 – 300 square feet, but needs to be designed in such a way to allow clients enough space to maintain their privacy while entering information into the computer.

(MP) Are there any security concerns you feel need to be ad dressed? College of Information Systems and Technology 3 College of Information Systems and Technology Unauthorized use, duplication and/or distribution of the content contained in this document are hereby prohibited without the written consent of Apollo Education Group, Inc. ©2015 Apollo Education Group , Inc. Copyrights are retained by their owners. XYZ Systems Consulting: Transcript with Hugh Generi c (HG) Since we are dealing with personal financial informati on, I am quite concerned about security. I don’t want to face a lawsuit from a disgruntled client because the client’s identity was stolen or even get a letter from a couple telling us that their personal information was posted on the Internet. All the te chnology that will be implemented has to be on the leading edge when it comes to security. We also want to implement some kind of internal security system so that not every employee can access all of the company’s clients’ information. So, se curity is very important. We realize it won’t be cheap to secure our information, b ut we can’t spend all our money on security and not have our other technological needs met. In addition to technical security, I am concerned with physical security of the computer systems, but I don’t really understand how we can protect our information but still provide access to clients in the office. Each office has to have a separate locati on to keep all the computers and other equipment. I am so concerned about the various security issues because I know that the success of the company will be based on the clients’ perceptions of how their personal information is kept private in addition t o how well I can service their mortgage needs. (MP) What are the surrounding neighborhoods like?

(HG) The Boise office is in a downtown area of Boise domina ted by different banks.

There are a few trendy restaurants and coffee shops near by. The Sioux Falls office is on the edge of a residential neighborhood. It is along two main streets that have a number of insurance companies and mortgage brokers in store f ront offices. There are some coffee shops and a number of fast food restaurants nearb y. There is a hyper market store about a block away. Both offices are fairly cl ose to Interstate highways.

(MP) What kind of technology are you envisioning?

(HG) The plan is to have a company website that can be access ed either from the in- office kiosks or online that customers can use for se lf-service until they can be seen by one of the office brokers. This website will need to hav e access to the latest interest rates, financial calculators and other information that a person applying for a home mortgage might be interested in accessing while waiting f or their broker. Each office’s network should be connected to the home office, but I’m not sure of the best way to accomplish this interoffice connectivity. I want to be able to be in any of the offices and be able to access the data the same way, no matter which office I happen to be in. Another reason that offices’ networks must be connected to each other is that we will create our own client database and I want to be s ure that each mortgage application is stored in a central location so that it c an be reviewed by the committee wherever we might be. However, I’ve read about what hap pened to the companies directly affected by the 9/11 terrorist attacks in Ne w York and am concerned with disaster recovery. We must have some kind of redundanc y in each office. I know that there are several levels of redundancy; That each comput er can have redundant College of Information Systems and Technology 4 College of Information Systems and Technology Unauthorized use, duplication and/or distribution of the content contained in this document are hereby prohibited without the written consent of Apollo Education Group, Inc. ©2015 Apollo Education Group , Inc. Copyrights are retained by their owners. XYZ Systems Consulting: Transcript with Hugh Generi c components to improve its availability; And that each network can have duplicate parts to allow automatic failover should a problem o ccur with a particular component.

I want to be sure that we don’t have a system problem j ust because one piece of equipment failed. Some of the committee members are i nterested in wireless computers, but as I said earlier, security is our c hief concern. I mean, how can I tell my clients that their data is secure when people in other off ices could access my network?

So, unless you can really demonstrate that wireless is secure, I’m not interested in hearing about how great wireless can be. I know a little about databases, so I want to have a powerful one that can help increase the profitabili ty of the company while at the same time be easy for the employees to access the information they need. The database needs to be fast enough so that no one is waiti ng too long for the computer to respond with the information needed to answer a client ’s question. Since the database will contain virtually all the information abou t the company and its clients, we need to have it backed up regularly in case something ha ppens to it. In addition to the database, I’m sure that we will have lots of other fil es and things that need to be backed up. I once had a computer crash and lost all my important files because I didn’t understand that I was responsible for backing up m y data. Someone once told me that there are two kinds of computer users, those tha t have lost data, and those that will. I guess I’m now a ‘have lost’ and don’t want t o have that experience again. I think I want to have a website that is connected somehow t o the database. I was reading on a flight to Boise a few weeks ago just how e asy it can be, but as I continue to research the topic, I begin to wonder if it makes se nse to do that at all. I have a sneaking suspicion that if people that enter the data can l ater retrieve it, that people that didn’t enter it could retrieve it as well. For ins tance, let’s say a couple goes to an Internet café and fills out their application online. Wha t would happen if someone used that same computer immediately afterwards? Another conc ern is hacking. How do we protect our website from being hacked? (MP) We’ll figure out a way to protect you. What about E mail?

(HG) We’ll need Email, but I want to be sure that someone e lse can’t read our messages. We should have our own Email name; You know – Hugh Generic@ GenericFinancial.com and our own server to send and receiv e our Email. I’ve read about spam and viruses, so I want to eliminate as much of that junk as possible, but not be so restrictive that potential clients send us Email that we never receive.

(MP) Do you hand any specific hardware needs?

(HG) Well, we’ll need printers, both black and white and col or. I’d like to be sure that we don’t miss a fax that comes in. I have heard about f ax machines that can be connected to the network, but don’t understand how that woul d work. A guy I golf with sometimes says the he can actually send a fax without pr inting a page and I’m sure that would save us a bunch of money, both in time and in su pplies. I’ve also seen ads College of Information Systems and Technology 5 College of Information Systems and Technology Unauthorized use, duplication and/or distribution of the content contained in this document are hereby prohibited without the written consent of Apollo Education Group, Inc. ©2015 Apollo Education Group , Inc. Copyrights are retained by their owners. XYZ Systems Consulting: Transcript with Hugh Generi c for some copiers can be used as both a printer and a co pier and can scan and even Email a document without having to go to a computer. (MP) Who will support the company’s network?

(HG) I expect that the employees will have basic computer skills and will be able to change toner and ink cartridges and reboot computers when necessary. However, all technical support will be outsourced to you XYZ’s Sy stem Consulting. I know XYZ’s does not have offices in the cities where Generic’s will be lo cated so we’ll have to have some type of remote support. I am not sure how that w ill work, but I have spoken with other people in the mortgage industry back east and they tell me that they have people fix their computers who aren’t even the same city . For instance, one company has its headquarters in Atlanta, and offices in South Car olina. The computer guys in Atlanta can call a user in South Carolina and then make the mouse move and type on the computer so that the user in South Carolina feels lik e a ghost has haunted the computer. That sounds like something that could help us, with the people from XYZ’s Consulting being able to see what we did wrong and fix it without us having to pay for them to come to North Dakota.