System Design Oahu Base Area Network

System Design: Oahu Base Area Network

The aim of this paper is to examine and discuss the Navy's decision to build the largest local area network (LAN) connecting the U.S. Pacific Fleet using information-gathering techniques and design methods. The system has the capacity to connect sailors and marines within the 102-million square miles of the Pacific Fleet's command coverage. Moreover it will provide the indispensable access for supplying and training the U.S. Navy. The Oahu Base Area Network (OBAN) will be the largest LAN in the world when all the phases are complete. It was started way back in 1998. It is the supporting network for the six naval commands in the Pearl Harbor, Hawaii area. Phase one has been completed. Other phases have begun in San Diego, the Pacific Northwest and the Pacific Far East, following the original business model (Kaylor, 2000). The uniqueness of this system is in its single LAN and like others LAN network it is not the collection of bridged networks. Hence, it will enable all of the Naval forces throughout the Pacific to utilize interactive networking to have access to information. The advantages of this system will be far reaching and the Naval force involved will have way in, to the radical advantages of the digital world.

An Understanding of BPR Model in Software Development Lifecycle

It is involved in implementing new workflow for an area that is either being downsized or being created due to mergers or expansions. A term in the business world, "Think out the box," it means think out of the way. BPR will be applied to the internal and external functions and operations and is expected to be a primary savings tool for the Navy. The beginning step in any BPR effort relates to understanding what processes to change. To do this, you must first understand which processes represent the key business processes for the organization. Key business processes are the structured set of measurable activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. The important aspect of this definition is that key processes are focused on some type of organizational outcome such as the creation of a product or the delivery of a service. Key business processes are also customer-focused. In other words, key business processes would include all activities used to design, build, deliver, support, and service a particular product for a particular customer. BPR efforts, therefore, involves first the study of organization's key business processes and then alter the sequence and structure of activities to achieve radical improvements in speed, quality, and customer satisfaction. The same techniques you learned to use for systems requirement determination can be used to discover and understand key business processes.

As per the 'Introduction to Business Systems Analysis' (Curtis, Hoffer & Valacich, 2002), there are steps that are necessary in the evaluation and development of a business information system. One cannot jump to the other steps and they must be followed consecutively in order to ensure that there are no gaps or loss of essential information to make an informed decision. As the OBAN base has the number of the computers and exponential increase in the workforce the system development life cycle will be implemented very cautiously. The purpose of systems analysis is to ascertain what must be done in order to carry out the functions of the system. This will engross a decomposition of the functions of the system into their logical components and the production of a logical model of the processes and of the data flows necessary to perform these. The logical model will be illustrated by data flow diagrams at the various levels of process decomposition. Out of the many design alternatives, the most suitable design is selected. All the seven steps of the SDLC stages are followed one by one. It can be presented pictorially as: As the project is already decided there is nothing much to do in the beginning stages. (Pressman, R.S. 1992 [2]) The system analysis part is crucial.

In the case of the OBAN system, it was important that significant analysis be conducted for the needs, requirements and objectives of completing this system. Most important was to create a system that would link the entire fleet and provide information quickly. According to Introduction to Business Systems Analysis (Curtis, Hoffer & Valacich, 2002), the steps involved in the business analysis process to construct this LAN will be analyzed and evaluated. The most important step in the successful development and implementation of any new business system or the enhancement of an existing system is to determine the business requirements and issues for that system. The Navy wanted a single system that would allow all of its users access to information quickly and easily. One of the key factors was the sheer size of this system. With a system of this magnitude, the Navy determined that fiber optic cable would provide the necessary bandwidth to link the seven command facilities in Oahu and provide the speed needed for multiple users (Hanna, M. 1992 [3]). In addition, the Fleet needed to deploy one system that would allow a significant number of users to share information and virtually link an area that is as large as half the surface of the earth (Kaylor, 2000).