TM587 Network Operations Management

Group Project – July Session, 2007

Recommended Network Solution for

GadgetConnection.com

Brian CenkerJohn Harrison

John ‘Chris’ McCoyMohamed SalemJohn Thompson

Souhila Toumi

Keller Graduate School of ManagementDeVry University

August 21, 2007

Table of Contents

Introduction and Executive Summary……………………………………………......3

Application Architecture…………………………………………………………….6

Data Center……………………………………………………………………….13

Desktop PC……………………………………………………………………….14

VoIP…………………………………………………………………………….…16

Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity………………………………………….......18

Network LAN/WAN Architecture………………………………………………….22

Network Management and Tools……………………………………………………26

Budget……………………………………………………………………………...30

Academic Value……………………………………………………………………33

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….…34

References……………………………………………………………………….....36

2

Introduction

This course project will seek to create a complete I.T. Network Operations infrastructure

for a fictitious e-commerce company known as ‘The Gadget Connection’. Based on the

business requirements of this company, the infrastructure plan will detail the proposed

LAN, WAN, Application, Telecommunication, Information Security and E-Commerce

Architecture designed to meet the business needs of this e-commerce company. A

detailed budget and growth recommendations will be included.

Executive Summary

‘The Gadget Connection’ is an online e-commerce based personal electronics store

serving the continental US. Founded in Dallas, Texas in 2007, the company boasts an

exclusive online model for retail product distribution, including a complete B2B supply

chain management solution. Products offered by TGC range from handheld PDA’s,

Portable GPS systems, Blue tooth accessories, to Ionic Air Cleaners, and other small

format gifts that can be shipped quickly with minimal damage risk. TGC’s competitive

advantage is its strategic shipping distribution model utilizing geographic proximity

based shipping. There are a total of four distribution centers to represent the 4 major

shipping regions: Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, and New Jersey.

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When a customer orders one of TGC’s 100 products, it is shipped from the Distribution

Center physically closest to the customer’s shipping address. This shipping method

reduces shipping times and costs, increasing customer satisfaction and ultimately repeat

revenue. The company utilizes an identical warehouse blueprint in each site which

includes an RFID tracking system to provide an automated system for tracking received

shipments to each distribution center. This tracking system reduces inventory tracking

times by up to 45%, thus improving the turnaround time required for order fulfillment.

Utilizing the latest e-commerce technology allows TGC to cross ship items from any of

the other 3 centers as an alternative to backordering equipment that would be considered

unavailable by a traditional bricks and mortar facility such as a shopping mall storefront

location. TGC also boasts a customer friendly web order system, accepting all major

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credit cards, and Paypal payments. All four distribution centers also have a small

customer service call center to provide offline support for any customer experiencing

difficulty with the online order process. The call centers utilize a follow the sun system to

provide time sensitive support for TGC’s customers. An after hours call center support

team works the overnight shift in each location to provide overlapping support in each

time zone and to give TGC’s customers a true all-hours support system for emergencies.

This is a strong component of the company’s competitive strategy. The main data center

is located in Dallas, and a failover capability exists in Newark. Dallas replicates its data

to Newark on a regular basis to provide for this capability should an emergency arise.

TGC’s competitors include Sharper Image and Brookstone. For 2006, TGC’s Net Profit

exceeded both competitors by a margin of over 33 percent. For 2007, TGC is projecting

20% revenue growth from the online consumer market in alignment with the projected

growth of consumer web purchasing and increased competition among ISP’s offering

triple-play packaged services.

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Application Architecture

E-commerce Servers and Apps

NLB WEB SERVER CLUSTER

To ensure that GadgetConnection.com would be available whether there was a

hardware failure, if we were performing maintenance, or during extreme web traffic we

chose to use a Network Load Balancing (NLB) Web Server Cluster. The NLB web server

cluster will allow all of the computers to work together on the back end and appear as one

unified system on the front end to the user. The computers will be connected physically

by cables and use cluster software to communicate. Using Windows Server 2003 we can

benefit from both types of clustering services that they offer:

1. Cluster Service (MSCS): this service provides high availability and scalability for

mission-critical applications. Using MSCS, all servers configured in a cluster stay

in constant communication and as soon as one server fails to communicate due to

failure or maintenance then another server in the cluster starts to provide service

immediately (this is called a failover process) without any interruption to the end

user.

2. Network Load Balancing (NLB): this service load balances incoming traffic

across all of the servers configured in the cluster. NLB improves availability and

scalability of Web servers.

PROFILE SERVER CLUSTER

Profile servers are used for tracking who your users are and what they do on your

site like what links or ads they click on, what they buy, how they move through your site,

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and much more. Using a profile system we can record information about users accessing

our site and just like the Amazon site we can then offer banners or related items specific

to each user. We have also configured the profile servers as a NLB cluster.

CATALOG SERVER CLUSTER

The Catalog servers let us build custom catalogs for the site. Using marketing

tools, our marketing department can easily manage these catalogs. This was also setup

using a NLB cluster configuration.

APPLICATION SERVER CLUSTER

The Application servers house all of the applications which run on the website

and are configured as a NLB cluster.

TRANSACTIONS SERVER NLB CLUSTER

We chose to use a Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) to manage and process all

of the transactions occurring on Gadgetconnection.com and have configured it as a NLB

cluster. Since this is an E-Commerce site we needed the MTS because what it basically

does is track a transaction (a set of operations) because it can either complete successfully

or fail and the MTS provides the means to roll back a transaction that fails as well as

monitor and correct for transactions failures.

PAYMENT SERVER CLUSTER

The Payment Server is also configured as a cluster and is responsible for the

following:

1. Responsible for the online operation of the system.

2. Automated account management.

3. Automated payment order creation.

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4. Supports handling multiple currencies and currency conversions.

DATA WAREHOUSE STORAGE SERVERS

The Database servers will provide all of the database services to the Intranet as

well as the Extranet as well as provide other database server functionality. Database

servers do not need to be configured as clusters because one server will be designated as

the Master and the rest as the slaves.

Credit Card Processing Architecture

E-Commerce sites basically function in the same manner with the only difference being

how fancy each site may be. The basic functions of E-Commerce sites are:

1. Display a catalog of products to your customers

2. Allow your customers to easily browse through your product catalog

3. Allow your customers the ability to purchase items from your product catalog

All credit card processing is done within what are called transactions and the most

popular one of course is the sales transactions. Since the sales transaction is the most

important to the Gadgetconnection.com (as well as to all web site owners) we will only

list and describe the other transactions but use the sales transaction in this example:

Sale: this is when a customer purchases a product or service from a

merchant and the money is transferred from the customer’s account to the

merchant’s account.

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Preauth: this transaction is basically just performed to check to see if a

customer’s credit card is valid, no money is actually transferred and the

preauth is usually in the amount of $1.00.

Postauth: this is when a customer purchases a product before it is actually

shipped. The amount of the purchase is deducted from the customer’s

account until the merchant ships the product and the merchant needs to

perform a postauth to transfer the money from the customer’s account to

their account.

Credit: this is the opposite of a sale where the merchant needs to transfer

money from their account to the customer’s account.

Chargeback: this is when a customer disputes a charge that has been

made on their account due to error, etc. Chargebacks are the most time

consuming of all of the transactions listed and the most expensive because

when a customer disputes a bill the bank has to temporarily remove the

money in question from the merchant’s account and place it in the

customer’s account until the merchant can just the bill in question. If the

bank is satisfied with the merchant’s justification of the bill then the bank

has to transfer the money back to the merchant and charges them a certain

amount as a penalty per chargeback.

The diagram below is a simple diagram that illustrates the credit card processing function

of the Gadgetconnection.com website.

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The transaction starts with a customer placing an order with

Gadgetconnection.com through the use of a shopping cart. The user clicks on

CHECK OUT and fills out a form and clicks SUBMIT.

The server receives the customer’s information through the submitted form then it

sends it to the code on the server to process the information.

The code on the server first validates the information sent by the customer and

once it accepts the data it will send it to the Payment Authorization Service (or

Gateway) to check if the credit card is valid.

The Payment Authorization Service (PAS) validates the credit card, checks to see

if the amount of the purchase is available on the card, and if every thing is fine

will then send an approved/rejected message back to the code on the server. (The

PAS charges a small fee for their services either on a per transaction basis or a

monthly fee depending on when the account was setup)

As transactions are sent to the PAS, they are then batched through to the

appropriate clearinghouse which then in turn directs the transactions to all the

banks involved and transferring money from bank to bank. (Clearing houses

usually charge between 2% - 5% of the total sale)

Security is a top priority at Gadgetconnection.com and to meet our customer’s needs we

ensure the following:

Privacy: customer information will not be shared or released to unauthorized

parties without customer’s consent.

Integrity: messages transmitted between Gadgetconnection.com and customer

must not be altered or tampered with.

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Authentication: sender and receiver must prove their identities to each other.

Non-Repudiation: proof is needed stating that messages have been received by the

customer.

Authentication and integrity will both be met by using digital signatures and certificates.

Basically, messages are run through a hash function and given a value (called message

digest), and then the digest, hash function, and the messages are encrypted using the

customer’s public key and sent to the customer. The customer decodes the message with

their private key and then runs the message through the hash function that was provided

to obtain the same message digest to verify that the message has not been altered or

tampered with. Privacy and authentication will both be met by using Secure Socket

Layers (SSL) because it utilizes Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and digital certificates.

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Transaction Process from Consumer to Distribution

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Application Server/DataCenter Environment

GadgetConnection.com has chosen Hewlett Packard (HP) for its general server

needs. HP has a long track record of superiority in the server arena with respect to

hardware and support. Our company will use HP ProLiant DL360 G5 1U rack mountable

servers at each location in the company. Each server will have dual Intel Xeon 5160

processors (dual-core), a minimum of 4 GB of DDR2 667MHz RAM, a minimum of four

hot swappable 72GB 15,000 RPM Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) hard drives, redundant

power supplies, and 2 gigabit Ethernet ports.

One particular reason for choosing this server is the fact that it is ideal for

utilizing virtualization in the server room. Through the use of VMware products these

servers will be able to support at least four virtual servers at a time. These servers will be

used for the general work to be done at each warehouse by office, warehouse, and

executive staff. The two dual-core Intel Xeon processors and minimum 4 GB of memory

will allow for the virtual servers in use to function well on a single server. The hot

swappable hard drives will be working in RAID 5 configurations to ensure redundancy

and data reliability. The fast RPM speeds of the drives will help to serve up the data

requested by user’s quickly and efficiently. The redundant power supplies will help in

keeping the server up and running even if one of the power supplies dies. And the gigabit

Ethernet ports will be connected to gigabit ports on the data switch in the same rack as

the server to connect the servers to the backbone network and provide a high speed

connection to the servers from the clients ten times faster than the client machines are

capable of pushing and pulling data to and from the server.

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Each server will be running VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3) with Windows Server

2003 as the guest operating systems. The standard edition of VI3 offers enterprise class

infrastructure virtualization for whatever workload we throw at the system so it is ideal

for our needs. VI3 offers GadgetConnection.com a superior platform for performance and

scalability through improving memory and power management as well as performance

optimization in many areas. It also gives the company an easy and effective tool to

manage the servers from every possible angle, including storage management, system

monitoring, and the provisioning and migration of virtual servers.

Each virtual server will host Windows Server 2003. One virtual server will be the

Active Directory server, DNS/WINS server, and DHCP server. A second virtual server

will be the file and print server. A third virtual server will be the Symantec Ghost

Solution Suite server and Symantec Antivirus Enterprise Edition.

Desktop PC Environment

GadgetConnection.com has chosen Hewlett Packard (HP) for its general desktop

PC needs. We made this choice based on the fact that HP has a long track record of

superiority in the desktop PC arena with respect to hardware and support. Our company

will use the HP Compaq Business Desktop dc5700 at each desk in the company. Each

desktop PC will have a Pentium 4 3.2 GHz processor, a 2 GB of DDR2 667MHz RAM,

an 80 GB hard drive, a CDRW/DVD-ROM drive, and a 10/100/1000 Ethernet card. Each

desktop system will also have a ViewSonic VA1703wb 17” widescreen flat panel

monitor. The total cost for each of these systems will be $916 including s/h.

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Through the use of Symantec’s Ghost Solution Suite we will maintain the user’s

desktop environment by creating baseline images for computer deployment. Since all of

the computers have the same hardware utilizing a solution such as Symantec Ghost will

reduce strain on desktop support specialists and will allow for faster deployment of

desktop computer systems. Each user’s data will be stored on the file server, with their

My Documents folder pointed to their file server share. Through the computer usage

policy they will know that any data stored on the computer’s hard drive may be lost in the

event of a system failure. Through these steps a user’s computer can be imaged and re-

imaged as needed without serious, if any, data loss.

Each desktop computer will be running the Windows XP SP2 operating system.

Many different pieces of software will be installed on each system through the use of the

baseline image created using the Symantec Ghost Solution Suite. The baseline image will

include the complete Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 suite of office productivity

products, Symantec Antivirus Enterprise Edition, Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.1, Microsoft

Internet Explorer 7, and the latest Adobe Flash Player and Java run-time environment.

Any additional software that each user requires will be installed on the computer after the

baseline image has been applied (e.g. – financial packages, etc.).

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VOICE/VoIP

VoIP Environment

GadgetConnection.com has chosen to use Cisco voice over IP (VoIP) for all of its

telecommunications needs. Cisco has proven itself to be a strong contender in the voice

market for a number of years now. They continue to innovate and produce new and better

ways to accomplish voice related everyday needs and tasks. Also, their superior hardware

and software positions in the networking industry make it a good choice to continue using

their equipment in other areas of our organization than just networking equipment.

Finally, it helps from an I.T. perspective in that the department doesn’t have another

vendor’s equipment and software to learn and get acquainted with in order to effectively

monitor and maintain the voice network.

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The Gadget Connection will use the Cisco 7750 Integrated Communications

System (ICS) for providing VoIP connectivity at each site. This single unit will provide

not only VoIP service for each site right now, but also the ability to add data applications

that tie into the voice system, such as CRM, when we are ready for that move. This offers

the company flexibility and scalability that will come in handy within the next few years.

The Cisco ICS 7750 is rack mountable and offers excellent expandability for future

growth. Various modules can be added to the unit based on needs. It offers redundant

power supplies for failover in case a single power supply was to cease functioning, which

will help to keep this critical piece of hardware working. Additionally, ICS hardware will

be installed at each site in a mesh fashion to allow for constant connectivity should a link

go down between two of the sites. The systems will be administered through a

comprehensive suite of tools from a centralized, web-based user interface. With this

system the IT staff can perform real-time reporting, performance monitoring, perform

remote configuration, and more.

Working with the Cisco 7750 ICS will be Cisco SIP Proxy servers. These will be

located at each site and will work within the Cisco 7750 ICS to route calls throughout our

SIP based network. The Cisco SIP server will give our company additional phone

features including call forward busy, call forward no answer, etc. Each Cisco SIP Proxy

server will run on an integrated Cisco blade within the ICS unit. The Cisco SIP Proxy

server will offer call setup services between each site. The Cisco Unified

Communications manager will offer a gateway between the SIP signaled VoIP network

and the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). We will have 3 PRI’s at our

Chicago site that will offer access to the PSTN to each of our warehouses throughout the

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country. We will also be using Enhanced 911/VoIP 911 capabilities through local LEC

service providers to aid in the correct emergency information should an IP phone be used

to place a call to emergency services. A few local POTS lines at each warehouse will be

available for failover telephony service in case of a major outage or disconnect from the

Chicago site.

Another piece of the voice puzzle that will be accommodated by the ICS will be

unified messaging. The Cisco Unity Unified Messaging product provides a single

mailbox for all forms of messaging, which includes voice mail, e-mail, and faxes. All of

this helps the company’s employees to be more productive by eliminating the need to

check multiple places for messages. Cisco’s Unity product also offers auto attendant

features that will allow for smoother call routing and making sure that the right messages

land in the right mailboxes. This Cisco product will integrate seamlessly and

transparently with our Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 environment through the digital

networking feature that is available for networking Cisco Unity Unified Messaging

locations. An added benefit of using this system is the ability to give our users the

capability to administer various parts of their messaging system. Through the use of a

personal Web administration utility, ‘ActiveAssistant’, they can establish or change

various personal preferences including security codes, greetings, personal distribution

lists, and more.

We will also implement the Cisco Customer Response Solutions (CRS) for our

call center needs at each warehouse. This system gives us the capability of offering

sophisticated call routing, management, and administration features to aid us in meeting

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our customer’s needs. This system will offer our customers a professional response

system when they place a call to our call center. Prioritization will be possible for

customer’s who have paid more for higher level service, screen pops to call agents so that

they have a customer’s information on their screen when they answer each call, the

ability of the system to recognize most idle agents and route calls to them in order to

more evenly distribute call loads among agents, and more.

Specifically regarding phones we will use different phones for different types of

employees and in different situations. For walk-up phones and open access or open area

phones we will deploy Cisco 7911G sets, which offer a very basic set of features which

include a single line for placing calls. This is ideal in an environment where features

aren’t needed. For G&A employees we will deploy Cisco 7940G IP sets, which offer

access to two lines and average features including hold, transfer, etc. For managers we

will deploy Cisco 7960G IP sets, which offers management access to six lines or

programmable buttons as well as the same features offered with the 7940G. For

executives and their assistants we will deploy Cisco 7970G IP sets. These sets offer

access to eight lines or programmable buttons, full color backlit touch screen displays and

high quality speaker phones. Each of these phones except for the Cisco 7911G has an

integrated 10/100 Mbps Ethernet Switch, supports XML applications to the screen, and is

a standards compliant SIP phone.

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Disaster Recovery/Backup/Business Continuity

The main data center is located in Dallas, with primary failover capability in

Newark. The use of virtual servers is a large part of the company’s continuity plan in case

of disaster. There are two primary benefits to the company’s use of virtual servers. First,

the use of virtual server allows full use of the purchased hardware, meaning there will be

significant cost savings associated with using Virtual Servers over physical servers.

Second, virtual server clusters can be created so that, in case of disaster, an off site

physical server will recognize the loss of functionality and begin running the virtual hard

disk that failed. In other words, down time is reduced to minutes, not hours. This strategy

also produces cost savings associated with replacing failed or old equipment, because

virtual servers are not hardware dependent, and the same virtual hard disk can run on a

wide array of hardware. If a catastrophic event occurs in Dallas, it will only be evident by

the few minutes it takes the Newark servers to realize the failure and begin running

services. This 99.9% up-time is the most cost effective route for the company to go, as

attaining 100% up-time would require a substantial increase in funding and is not

required if an outage only causes a minute of disruption.

In addition to the highly available virtual server cluster, the company will use

Symantec Backup Exec 11d with a full compliment of backup agents (database, e-mail,

etc). To simplify the restoration of data in the event of a catastrophic system failure, as

well as reduce the time to restore data on the fly, hard disk storage will be used for all

backups. The main backup site will be at the datacenter in Dallas, while a small portion

of network bandwidth will be set aside to continually mirror the backup data to the

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failover datacenter in Newark. The company will perform the following server backup

schedule to ensure highly available restoration:

Su M Tu Wed Th Fr Sat

Full Diff Diff Diff Full Diff Diff

The database backup schedule will be more granular; a full database backup every

morning at 0330 EST, followed by 15 minute incremental backups until the next full

backup is completed. At any point a failure can be recovered with minimal loss of time

and revenue.

The main goal is for the Dallas and Newark hubs to maintain constant

communication while both sites are alive so that if one site dies, the sister site can resume

full operations with no loss of data in a very short amount of time. This continuity plan

covers hardware failures as well as catastrophic events, and also loss of network, so that

if Dallas’s link to the WAN is down, Newark will recognize this as a failure and begin

services on its physical servers until Dallas’s WAN link is restored, at which time

Newark will be the primary and Dallas will be the secondary. In the future, additional

levels of redundancy will be added to the sites in Chicago and Los Angeles to provide the

extra (three nines) .999% uptime required to provide reliable service to the company’s

customers.

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Network LAN/WAN Architecture

The IP addressing for the sites currently includes 3 subnets or vlans. These subnets or

vlans are “trunked” on access switches back to the core switches. This allows all 3

subnets or vlans to be available on all access switches at the site. This provides flexibility

for internal physical moves and reconstruction by simple virtual port changes that could

be performed remotely if needed.

The first subnet, referred to as the data subnet, is for use by average users and

network printers. In addition to network printers, this is where laptops and desktop PC’s

would be placed. The second subnet, referred to as the VoIP subnet is to be used for the

VoIP telephones at the call center and employee’s offices or work areas. The third subnet

is the server subnet. This subnet is where all servers for the site would be placed,

including an internal facing interface for the proxy/firewall at the sites where an internet

connection is present. The information technology staff may also need to place

themselves on this subnet to perform troubleshooting or specialized configuration at

times.

The subnet size meets the current needs of the site and allows for growth in the

future. The subnet mask for all subnets currently is 255.255.255.0 which is the native

netmask for this 192.168.x.x address space. This allows for over 250 TCP/P addresses to

be available on each subnet. The largest areas are the data and VoIP subnets which

accommodate the 75 employees who each have a network attached device and phone and

there is still plenty of room for growth within the subnets.

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The address space is also placed and spaced accordingly on binary boundaries.

For example, the 192.168.2.0 255.255.255.0 subnet has no adjacent configured subnet in

the current design. However, the adjacent subnet is reserved for future use. The future use

could be a simple resizing of the network mask from 255.255.255.0 to 255.255.254.0 to

increase the subnet size to 510 available hosts if needed. Flexibility also allows for a new

and different subnet to be created within the reserved space if the future need arises.

Internet access is provided by an Internet service provider who will place their router on

site to be managed by them. This bundled T1 service at both locations will cost

approximately $2000 monthly. A 24x7 service agreement is in place with the ISP to

guarantee uptime and prompt resolution if there is an issue with their network or router.

Secure Internet connectivity for users is achieved by the use of a firewall and

proxy product called Wingate from Qbik. Specifics can be found at

http://www.wingate.com/products.php. The application will be installed a standard

Windows platform server at each of the two locations that has the internet link. It will

allow users to share the two internet connections in a secure manner. The application will

block outside attacks and viruses while also allowing a policy to be implemented

regarding permitted web sites and advanced logging. Furthermore, the firewall will allow

access to E-Commerce servers from the outside internet for business applications. Pricing

is $2249 for a 250 user enterprise license.

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Network LAN Diagrams

DALLAS

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LOS ANGELES

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CHICAGO

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NEWARK, NJ

Network Management and Tools

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The network is configured in such a way that growth would need to exceed 300% before

changes were necessary to increase subnet sizes and/or reconfigure equipment. The LAN

is redundant at the core layer and each access switch has a connection to each of the core

switches for access redundancy. For example, an entire Cisco 6509 switch could become

unavailable or fail entirely and the network would dynamically fail over and remain

available. The same would hold true for the Cisco 3800 WAN routers. Quality of Service

(QoS) is implemented on the VoIP vlan so that packets tagged with voice tagging bits get

higher priority on the LAN and into the MPLS WAN.

Despite this redundancy and traffic prioritization, issues may still arise in the future.

Network management and monitoring will need to be performed to maintain the overall

health of the network. A network sniffer software product called Omnipeek from

WildPackets will be used for real-time analysis of troubling situations. Wildpackets site

(http://www.wildpackets.com/products/omnipeek/overview) provides an excellent

detailed overview of the product. For example, it may become necessary to look at

network traffic originating from a specific server to certain destinations because of a

performance loss that is observed by some. The sniffer software would show specific

traffic down to the packet level coming to and from any network connected device.

IP address management is crucial to preventing duplicate IP addresses from being issued

and allows for wise planning to be maintained in a software product. Solar Winds

Engineers’ Toolset will help track IP address assignments and perform additional

troubleshooting that is less complex than the use of sniffer software. It can track DHCP

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scopes configured on the DHCP server and aid the administrators with subnet mask

calculation and future subnet allocation among many other features. Additional details

can be viewed at SolarWinds web site

(http://www.solarwinds.net/products/toolsets/engineer.aspx) along with testimonials.

Network devices and servers can be monitored using a product called What’s Up Gold

from Ipswitch. Ipswitch has a website (http://www.ipswitch.com/products/whatsup/)

which goes into great detail about this product offering. It is extremely important to have

network devices and servers monitored by a product that will perform SNMP queries

tracking many variables and uptime. The product will provide historical data about the

devices and will also provide notifications based on certain predefined triggers or events

which could be provided to the help desk or specific engineers.

(Budget shown on next page)

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I.T. Organization

The Information Technology organization is headed by a single Director’s

position, reporting to the Company President. Under the Director are 5 Senior technical

positions including Help Desk Manager, Senior Telecom Voice Engineer, Senior Data

Network Engineer, Senior Database Programmer and Senior Systems Admin. Under each

of these senior positions are technical staff distributed in each of the four locations. The

database position has technical staffing in only the Chicago and Dallas locations as these

are considered the most primary data distribution locations for the company. The help

desk position supports desktop PC connectivity in each distribution center. This includes

building of new desktop systems, repairing failed hard drives and other hardware related

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pc issues, and general phone based help desk support to the local users at each location.

The voice engineering team is responsible for maintaining the company’s VoIP

infrastructure including the ICS systems in each location, moves adds and changes for the

telephones, and other phone support related issues. The Database team handles all e-

commerce application related programming and support including routine database

maintenance. The Systems Admin group handles all server related support for the data

center operations including system builds, backup and recovery, routine maintenance and

all server specific support within the Dallas and Chicago locations. Each team lead is

responsible for conducting regular staff meetings, and managing the daily operations of

his/her team functions including all personnel issues, technical support escalations, and

communication with the Director of I.T.

Academic Value

Brian Cenker

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I have to say that I have probably had the pleasure of learning more from my group members than they have learned from me. While most of them have professional experience, my experiences are limited to less than a year in an enterprise class environment. Fortunately that short amount of time was enough to make what I consider educated contributions to the project. In most of my other classes I was a group leader, but it was a relief being able to follow this time around, and I think everyone really rallied around John and came together to complete this. I certainly appreciate everything that I have gained from both this project and the members of the team that put it together. The military has taught me it generally takes more than 8 weeks to bring a group of people together into a cohesive unit, and I feel like we bettered that mark an accomplishment even more impressive when one considers the confusion at the beginning of the semester.

John Harrison

This project has been a great experience. It has taught me a lot about teamwork and also having a good team leader. We all worked well together and our team leader, John “Chris” McCoy, kept us on track and did a great job just keeping the momentum going. I feel like I have learned a bit more about good team work and, should the opportunity arise in the professional arena, about what makes a good team leader. As for the depth of this project it was pretty intense. There was a lot to cover in order to be sure the company had everything needed from the I.T. perspective. This project opened my eyes to the fact that there are details that need to be considered beyond what you might normally consider. Also, I learned quite a bit from reading the other write-ups to the paper that my team mates were in charge of concerning hardware, software, networking, configurations, etc. Finally, a great thing about this project is that we focused on our existing competencies. If someone wanted to tackle something they knew nothing about that was okay, but if anyone had a specific skill or knowledge set already in place it made it easier to dole out pieces of the project pie.

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John ‘Chris’ McCoy

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The academic value of this project was beneficial in both a technical and managerial perspective. The technical framework of the project encompasses the course TCO's as the I.T. infrastructure is designed to match the business requirements of the organization. From a management perspective, the staffing and management elements are aligned with the technical requirements in order to support the new infrastructure. The overall implementation is thus strategically aligned with the business objectives of the company, giving the I.T. organization greater business value. This strategic alignment is an important concept in management as it provides the business with a better logical understanding of the investment in technology as it aligns with production and competitive advantage in the market. In terms of the Keller aspect, the team proved that it is possible to bring together the expertise of several technical professionals in a short time frame, to produce an educated and high quality technical business plan in a consultative capacity.

Conclusion

To achieve a competitive advantage over its ‘brick-and-mortar’ storefront and

mall based competitors, the e-commerce business operations of ‘The Gadget Connection’

required an IT infrastructure that could utilize the most current technology available. The

design provided in this project gives ‘TGC’ this clear competitive advantage by allowing

the company to leverage the benefits of scalable solutions such as SIP based VoIP, and

state of the art MPLS WAN routing technologies. The architecture is fully manageable by

a team of competent IT professionals using the latest current technologies and strategies.

Additionally, The SIP solution for VoIP will provide flexibility to tie in more advanced

CRM solutions as the protocol offers a close alignment with the OSI Seven Layer model,

based on an http addressable format. This will allow the call centers to scale their

capabilities with the business as order volumes increase with e-commerce market growth.

The 24/7/365 operation will be properly supported with a clustered solution to provide

the highest resilience in the event of any unforeseen incident. Ultimately this solution will

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place TGC far ahead of its competitors. Additionally, the structured management and

staffing of each location will provide a strategic, fine tuned support operation to ensure

that a 99.999% uptime can be achieved. The solution provided offers a bridge between

the shipping model in place and the technology required to support the day to day

operational capacity of the organization. As internet usage continues to grow over the

next five years, TGC will have the capability to scale its own architecture with this

growth through the enhancement of its existing architecture and IT technology.

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