**For Kim Woods Only**

first discussion

This week, the primary discussion will center on networks and there primary defenses, firewalls. They provide an important early defense for protecting the network and the organization.

This discussion asks you to evaluate expense of implementing vs. the probability of a penetration. This is a common occurrence in the real world since it is not always possible to implement every solution when budgets are tight. Risk management often calls for judgment backed up by analysis to determine the degree of security that should be implemented. For this discussion, you may need to drag out MS Excel and build a model to determine your recommendation. Supporting documentation and citations are suggested and should be included whenever possible.

Group C will take the lead in this discussion while the members of Groups A, B and D will respond to at least two students’ postings with comments, questions and further discussion. If questions are posed, they should be responded to by the original poster.

Firewall Decision

You are the CEO of Inverness Investments, a medium- size venture capital firm that specializes in investing in high- tech companies. The company receives more than 30,000 email messages per year. On average, there are two viruses and three successful hackings against the company each year, which result in losses to the company of about $ 250,000. Currently, the company has antivirus software installed but does not have any firewalls.

Your CIO is suggesting implementing 10 firewalls for a total cost of $ 80,000. The estimated life of each firewall is about three years. The chances of hackers breaking into the system with the firewalls installed are about 3 percent. Annual maintenance costs on the firewalls are estimated around $ 15,000. Create an argument for or against supporting your CIO’s recommendation to purchase the firewalls.

Questions

1.  What advantages does a firewall offer provide a network?

2.  What is the cost savings for the first year if the company purchases the 10 firewalls? What about the next five years?

3.  Are there any considerations in addition to finances?

4.  What would your recommendation be? Provide examples and citations to support your position.

References

Baltzan, P. (2014). Business driven information systems (Fourth ed., p. 243). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Week 3 - Second Discussion

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This week we will be examining IT Infrastructures and there role in building an IT system. In this discussion, you will need to research the seven primary characteristics of an IT infrastructure:

1. Usability
2. Maintainability
3. Scalability/Performance
4. Reliability/Availability
5. Authentication
6. Security
7. Networks 

These terms can be applied to other aspects of IT and business in general, but the focus here is on IT architecture.  Some additional research will provide specific examples including what companies have focused on in these areas.  Simply typing "IT Scalability" (or whatever characteristic you select) into your web browser should provide good results, but be sure to evaluate the sources to make sure they are relevant to this discussion.  Remember to distinguish between objective articles and vendor's marketing information.

Each member of Group C will select one of the seven characteristics above and respond with an example of what this term means in terms of IT architecture and why it is so important to a solid architecture to support information systems. The members of Groups A, B and D will respond to at least two students' postings with comments, questions and further discussion. Be sure to check back and see if other students or I replied to your posting and posed additional questions or asked for additional information.

Note:  In Stage 3 of your Case Study, you'll be identifying which of the  above will be included in the list of IT requirements for a system to improve Myra's selected process.  Therefore, you will need a solid understanding of these to do a good job with Stage 3.