technology proof of concept sample

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3/29/2016 TECHNOLOGY PROOF OF CONCEPT SAMPLE

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TECHNOLOGY PROOF OF CONCEPT SAMPLE

An example of documentation prepared to support an architectural assessment

completed for a small system. This document is a good example of how the

methodology can be employed on a project of any scale. Due to the small scale of this

project, three documents were combined into this document: Current Situation

Assessment, Requirements Denition, and the Proof of Concept evaluation.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Technical Proof of Concept phase is concluded with the presentation of this

document.

The results of this phase are clear: The consultants feel that Clipper is a viable tool for

development of the new AAA system which will replace the current AAA application at

the XYZ Company.This opinion has been reached after a two-week investigative

process which involved a ve-day site visit to the XYZ, followed by consultation withindustry experts in the areas of systems development, networking, and database

management systems.

The only major inhibitor to using Clipper is its performance when providing on-line

update access to large les. The volume of data for tracking ‘movements’ is very

large.However the performance impact can be minimized by transferring data to off-

line read only les for report generation.

Development in Clipper offers a clear advantage in terms of maintainability. Clipper is

an easy to use language which is known by many developers.Increased maintainability

results in greater opportunity for evolution of both the application and its use by the

XYZ.Since Clipper uses an industry standard X-base le structure,the XYZ is

strategically positioned to take advantage of other development tools in the future

while maintaining their investment in existing data bases.

1.INTRODUCTION

The XYZ Company’s (XYZ) current AAA system (AAA), in production since July of


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1990, was originally intended to enable a reduced staff in the Administration Section

to efciently and effectively process a large volume of claims; this goal has not been

achieved.In addition, the current AAA lacks important functionality, and does not

provide effective use by multiple departments.

The current AAA was developed in an environment, ZIM, which is not familiar to

many computer specialists.As a result, enhancements to the existing system are not

easily accomplished and in many cases have been abandoned.

In April of 1993, the XYZ issued a request for proposal (RFP) for development of a new

AAA to meet its requirements. They identied a development environmentusing

Clipper to ease implementation of any future requirements.

With extensive experience in the Clipper environment, the consultants were

concerned that a solution developed with Clipper would not support a mission critical

application such as the XYZ AAA.

In response to the RFP, the consultants proposed a technical proof of concept as the

rst step leading to development of the new AAA system.

1.1Purpose of this DocumentThis document details the ndings of the XYZ Company AAA System Technical Proof

of Concept phase.

The technical proof of concept is the rst phase in development of a new AAA system

for the XYZ. The primary objective of this phase is to evaluate the viability of a Clipper

solution.

The preparation of this document followed an on-site technical investigation of the

XYZ environment, the current AAA, and requirements for the replacement system.

1.2Factors Considered in Evaluation of Clipper

The following factors were considered in the evaluation of Clipper as a suitable

development tool for the AAA System:

XYZ’s hardware and software environment;


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XYZ development standards;

requirements for the new AAA System;

current and anticipated data volumes;

system performance requirements;

access requirements for system users;

application maintainability.

1.3Document Structure

This document is organized in the following sections:

Section 2: SUMMARY OF CURRENT ENVIRONMENT

This section addresses issues including internal and external systems interfaces, the

technical environment, and operational standards and policies in describing the

current XYZ AAA.

Section 3: EVALUATION OF CURRENT ENVIRONMENT

This section evaluates the current environment in terms of its strengths, weaknesses,

and opportunities for improvement.

Section 4: REQUIREMENTS FOR NEW AAA SYSTEM

This section describes issues surrounding development of the replacement AAA

system, addressing existing technical problems and new technical requirements .

Section 5: EVALUATION OF PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT

This section discusses an evaluation of Clipper as a tool for development of the new

AAA.

2.SUMMARY OF CURRENT ENVIRONMENT2.1Existing Applications Environment


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2.1.1Overview

The XYZ Company (XYZ) administers the Assistance Program (AP).This program is

designed to provide assistance to shippers and manufacturers located in the Region,

by reimbursing carriers for reductions in rates.

The program divides carriers into four major groups:

The Rail Program

The Basic Westbound Program

The Selective Westbound Program

The Intra Program

Before becoming eligible for assistance, participants make application to the

Company.Upon authorization, the participant is added to the list of authorized

carriers, and claims may be processed.

Claims are received by the Company for carriers requesting reimbursement under the

program.Before claims are approved for payment they must be veried.This

verication will ensure that the claim is correct, and that the movements and

commodities meet the requirements of the specic program group.

Once claims have been veried and approved for payment, the Finance and

Administration section carries out the payment process through the Payment System

(PS).

Based on information gathered during the claim verication process, a carrier may be

audited.Results of the eld audit may be fed back into AAA in the form of comments

regarding a specic carrier.

2.1.2Major Data Stores

Volume of data is one of the major factors which will inuence the viability of a

system developed with Clipper.The following table summarizes the volume

contribution of the data stores which provide the greatest volumes of data to the

current AAA.


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CURRENT SYSTEM: VOLUMES IN MAJOR DATA STORES

Entity Size (bytes per record) Number of records Data Volume (MB)

Participant

Carrier

Application 16.14

Certicate 15.37

License 39,795 80.31

Claim 71,655 10.52

Payment 71,019

Total 133.43

Participants

All organizations involved in the program.These organizations include carriers

(authorized and pending authorization), agents, and banking institutions, among

others.

Carriers

All carriers that have been authorized to participate in the program.

Applications

All applications for participation in the program that have been received by the XYZ.

Certicates

All certicates that have been issued to authorized carriers.

Licenses

License information for every carrier.

Claims

All claims that have been received by the XYZ.

Movements


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Contains information on the movements which make up each claim.

This data store is not used by the current system.

Payments

All claim payments.

2.1.3Internal System Interfaces

Payment System (PS)

Payment data is exported from the current system, producing a text le which is

imported into PS by XYZ staff.

Audit Control Language System (ACLS)

Various data necessary to perform a eld audit on randomly-selected carriers is

exported from AAA, producing a text le which is subsequently imported into ACLS by

XYZ staff.

Payment at Year End Process (PAYE)

Special payment “commitment” and “nancial code” numbers are specied in

AAA.These numbers will indicate, following payment import into PS, that payments

should be made according to the PAYE.

2.1.4External System Interfaces

Carriers

Carrier information is currently received in hard-copy and input into AAA by data-

entry staff.

2.1.5Current Users

The following table will summarize the current AAA user distribution at the XYZ.

SUMMARY OF CURRENT USERS


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Business

Group

User Type and Description Number of

Users

Administration Certication: Data entry and verication of

applications, certicates, and licenses.

Claim Control: Claim data entry.

Verication: On-line claim verication (“desk audit”)

via ad-hoc query.

General: Modication and Reporting.

Supervision: On-line claim authorization, ad-hoc

query access.

Management: Payment authorization, ad-hoc query

access.

Field Audit Field Audit: Field audit of carriers using data imported

into ACLS, AAA query

Supervision: AAA query

Management: AAA query

Finance Generation of payments and PS import.

2.2Existing Technical Environment

2.2.1Hardware Platforms

At XYZ, all machines are Intel-based and vary in conguration and capacity from 1 MB

286/12s to 16 MB 486/66s, as described in the following table:

Purpose Make and

Model

Conguration Quantity

File Server

(server OFFICE)

KEEN-3334 486 DX2/66i 16/1.2 GB

mirrored

3 x 16-bit NIC

Application/DatabaseServer

(server Head Ofce)

Business VEISA 486 DX/50e 16/2 GB

mirrored


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3 x 16-bit NIC

Application/Database

Server

(server REGION)

Zenith

Z-386/33E

386 SX/33e 8/300 MB

mirrored

2 x 16-bit NIC

Communications Server Tandon 286/12MHz

2 x 9600 bps modem

Mail Gateway Epson Equity

III+

286/12MHz

Remote Access Gateway Epson Equity

III+

286/12MHz

9600 bps modem

AAA Workstation Tandon 286/12MHz 1/No HD

8-bit NIC

Field Audit

and General W/S

386 SX/25 4/120

8-bit NIC

Personnel

and RIMS W/S

386 SX/25 8/120

8-bit NIC

Payment Workstation digital

DECpc LPv

433d

486 DX/33 4/120

16-bit NIC

Field Audit Laptop Toshiba

T3200

386 SX/25 1/120

8-bit NIC

PS Workstation Clone 486 SX/33 4/120

16-bit NIC

9600 bps modem

Field Audit Laptop Toshiba 486 DX/33 4/120


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T4100 Xircom Pocket Ethernet

Network Admin

Workstation

digital

DECpc LPx

466d2

486 DX2/66 12/250

16-bit NIC

2.2.2System Software

The XYZ computing environment features a Novell LAN with DOS-based workstations.

Machine Operating System Application Software

Server OFFICE Microsoft MSDOS

6.0

Novell Netware

3.11 (100 users)

WordPerfect 5.1, WordPerfect Ofce 3.1,

Lotus 1-2-3 (2.2, 2.4, 3.1), dBase III+,

TimeLine 5.0, R&R Report Writer 4.0,

Hotel Directory System,

Harvard Graphics (2.3 and 3.0)

Server Head

Ofce

Microsoft MSDOS

5.0

Novell Netware

3.11 (100 users)

Off-line access to AAA data.

Server REGION Microsoft MSDOS

5.0

Novell Netware3.11 (100 users)

ACL, RIMS

Communications

Server

Microsoft MSDOS

5.0

Netware Asynchronous Communication

Services

Mail Gateway Microsoft MSDOS

6.0

WordPerfect Ofce

“Connection Server”

Remote Access

Gateway

Microsoft MSDOS

6.0

Carbon Copy

Remote Access Microsoft MSDOS PC Anywhere


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Gateway 6.0

AAA

Workstation

Microsoft MSDOS

5.0

Microsoft MSDOS

6.0

Field Audit

and General W/S

Microsoft MSDOS

6.0

Personnel

and RIMS W/S

Microsoft MSDOS

6.0

PaymentWorkstation

Microsoft MSDOS6.2

PS Workstation Microsoft MSDOS

6.0

DSS Communication package.

Field Audit

Laptop

Microsoft MSDOS

6.2

WordPerfect 5.1, Lotus 1-2-3 2.2

Network Admin

Workstation

Microsoft MSDOS

6.2

Microsoft Windows 3.1

2.2.3Communications

The XYZ internal environment consists of a Netware 3.11 segmented ethernet LAN.

LAN communication is via Novell’s SPX/IPX protocol over thin ethernet (10Base2 thin

coaxial cable).

A communications server provides remote dial-in to corporate systems via two

dedicated modems.

Access to corporate e-mail is provided by a WordPerfect Ofce Mail Server and

dedicated modem.

Remote connection to the network is via a Carbon Copy Gateway and a PCAnywhere

Gateway, each with a dedicated modem.

Connection to PS for corporate nancials is via dedicated modem shared by the PS


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workstations.

2.2.4Peripherals

All modems communicate at 9600 bps.

Network printers are workstation-attached laser printers from Hewlett Packard (HP):

LaserJet, LaserJet III, and LaserJet IIId.

Individual printers include laser printers: HP DeskJet, HP LaserJet, HP LaserJet IIp;

and impact printers: Panasonic KX-P1592, and Star NX-1000.

The following diagram provides a conceptual view of the current XYZ computing

environment.

[1]

[2]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69252154@N00/4410374766/http://www.flickr.com/photos/69252154@N00/4410374766/


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2.3Organizational Standards and Policies

This section describes the technical standards and policies currently in place at the

XYZ.

2.3.1Technical StandardsNetwork

Novell Netware 3.11

SPX/IPX protocol

10Base2 Ethernet

Application Development

Clipper 5.0

Paradox

dBase III+

Server

Minimum: 386 DX/33 8 MB RAM, 300 MB mirrored disk

Preferred: 486 DX2/66 16 MB RAM, 1.2 GB mirrored disk

Workstation

Minimum: 386 SX/25 4 MB RAM, 120 MB HD, MS-DOS 5.0

Preferred: 486 DX/33 8 MB RAM, 175 MB HD, MS-DOS 6.2

Applications

WordPerfect, WordPerfect Ofce, Lotus 1-2-3, TimeLine, Harvard Graphics, HotelDirectory System


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2.3.2Technical Policies

Some operations which impact other on-line users (such as selection of carriers for

audit) are now done against a copy of AAA data, resident on another server.

Index regeneration is performed when indices become corrupted (possibly due to

workstation crashes, etc.)

All servers are backed-up nightly from the LAN Administration Workstation.Tapes are

stored off-site with a four-week rotation.

2.4Operational Organization

2.4.1System Support and Maintenance

Network management, software support, and preliminary hardware support is

provided by the XYZ Systems Administrator.

Additional hardware support is provided by local service organizations.

Support of the current AAA is provided by the XYZ systems administrator, and by XYZcorporate IT staff via one of the remote access gateways.

2.4.2System Operation

In terms of AAA usage, the XYZ organization consists of three sections:

Administration

This section is responsible for carrier certication, and claim control and verication.

Field Audit

This section is responsible for eld audit.AAA usage is limited to data extraction and

on-line query.

Finance and Administration

This section is responsible for generating payments and importing those payments


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into PS.

3.EVALUATION OF CURRENTENVIRONMENT

3.1Introduction

The current system has some strengths, omissions, and many problems which concern

all users, and which have highlighted the need for a replacement system.

This section will discuss the problems, strengths, and opportunities for improvement

of the current system.The issues discussed in this section are a combination of

observations made during the technical proof of concept site visit and interviews, and

of issues raised in the Request for Proposal Terms of Reference and supporting documentation.

3.2Observations

3.2.1System Usage Issues

From a user perspective, the primary problems with the current system involve

response time and system availability.By far the worst problem is the fact that when

payments are being run, no other AAA users may access the system; other problems

include

response time of up to seven minutes for claim deletion,

year-end report completion time of seven days,

noticeable system response degradation during report generation.

3.2.2Operational Issues

From an organizational perspective, the primary problems with the current system

involve the omission of key data, and the inability to provide systemenhancements.Specically, the problems are:

claim movements are not tracked,


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no automatic claim verication is performed,

existing reports are limited and generation time is unacceptable,

required reports are not available from the system and cannot be developed,

ad-hoc requests for information cannot usually be fullled,

interfaces to internal and external systems are inefcient and subject to human error,

lack of expertise with ZIM internally and locally makes system enhancement and

extension very difcult and risky,

system is no faster than the manual method, and expected reductions in staff have not

occurred.

3.2.3Strengths

The single strength of the current system is in the area of claims control.The system

provides acceptable tracking of carriers and their claims throughout the certication,

claim, and payment processes.

3.3Conclusion

The desire to replace the current AAA system has been expressed and supported

throughout all phases of this project to date, beginning with the XYZ project initiation

report in March of 1992.

A replacement system would offer improvement in each of the following areas:

Accessibility,

Performance,

Maintainability,

Unfullled Requirements;

All of the problems experienced with the current AAA fall within one of these areas.


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3.3.1Accessibility

Accessibility in the current system is impacted as users perform database-wide access

through payment generation.Essentially, all tables are subjected to a le-lock which

overrides and disallows all other attempts at locking at any level.

3.3.2Performance

AAA performance problems are evident in unacceptable response times, and are a

function of workstation capability, ineffective use of workstation memory by AAA,

database design and distribution, and network performance.

3.3.3Maintainability Maintainability problems are caused by the environment under which the current

system was developed (ZIM); this development environment is not supported locally

or internally by the XYZ.This has impacted the ability of the XYZ to make corrections

and enhancements to the system.

3.3.4Unfullled RequirementsData capture and tracking problems are a symptom of requirements which have not

been fullled by the current AAA.Essentially, development of the current AAA was

never completed, so required functionality is not available.

3.3.5Architectural Issues

The current AAA application does not make effective use of workstation memory.As aresult, increased memory capacity does not improve performance of the application,

and does not allow for installation of additional software components such as virus

protection software.

The network has limited bandwidth, to the point that large volume transactions are

likely to have a signicant impact on overall performance.Further, the network

segmentation is such that cable lengths are at their maximum.

Novell-recommended procedures aimed at ensuring network performance and

stability have not been implemented.A procedure should be established to cycle (cold


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boot) each server at least every 30 days.At the time of writing the Ofce server had

been operational for 131 days and the Region server had been operational for 53 days.

A procedure should be implemented to regularly purge deleted data to free up disk

storage.

At the time of writing, the CACHE BUFFER for the Region server was at 42%.Any number below 50% should be investigated because running too low can lead to a

system crash. Another couple of MB of memory on the Region server may be

warranted.

Archival of data does not take place.The database design and apparent table-wide

techniques of some processes in addition to the retention of historical data contribute

to the unacceptable response time of some processes.

4.REQUIREMENTS FOR NEW AAA SYSTEM4.1Introduction

Assessment of Clipper as an environment under which a replacement system could be

developed must take into consideration the current and future system requirements

and issues.

Issues such as changes in usage and data growth, as well as requirements reecting

availability and accessibility are described in this section.

4.2System Usage Requirements

4.2.1User Identication

SUMMARY OF USERS AT REPLACEMENT SYSTEM START UP DATE

Business

Group

User Type and Description Number

of Users

Administration Customer

Service: Carrier certication and maintenance of carrier

data.

Claim


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Data Entry: Data entry of non-machine-readable claims.

Control and input of machine-readable claims for

verication.

Post Audit: Verication of sampled machine-readable

claims following verication and payment.

Verication: Resolution of problems with machine-

readable claims.Carrier assistance with machine-readable

submissions.

Supervision: On-line claim authorization, ad-hoc query

access.


access.Field Audit Field Audit: Field audit of carriers using data imported

into ACLS, ad-hoc query

Supervision: Ad-hoc query

Management: Ad-hoc query

Finance Generation of payments and import into PS.

SUMMARY OF USERS AT SYSTEM MATURITY

Business

Group

User Type and Description Number

of Users

Administration Customer

Service: Carrier certication and maintenance of carrier

data.

Claim

Data Entry: Data entry of non-machine-readable claims.

Control and input of machine-readable claims for

verication.

Post Audit: Verication of sampled machine-readable

claims following verication and payment.

Verication: Resolution of problems with machine-

readable claims.Carrier assistance with machine-readable


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submissions.

Supervision: On-line claim authorization, ad-hoc query

access.


access.

Field Audit Field Audit: Field audit of carriers using data importedinto ACLS, AAA query

Supervision: AAA query

Management: AAA query

Finance Generation of payments and import into PS.

4.2.2Accessibility and Usage

Access to data and system functions should be controlled on a per user basis.This will

avoid inadvertent changes to data, and lead to higher productivity as users are not

presented with options for which they do not have permission.

4.2.3Performance

XYZ studies have suggested that a clerk can capture up to 100 movements per

day.Performance must be such that this expectation is met.

With the exception of movement data entry, performance requirements have not been

specied.However, the general requirement is that performance must be improved

when compared with the current system.

4.2.4Growth Trends

The AAA user community is not expected to grow.Rather, use will grow within each

user group as efforts are refocused, and business requirements change.

4.2.5Policy and Regulatory

New policies at the XYZ have set a maximum delay in claim payment of 20 days

following claim receipt.


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Claim movements must be tracked in order to measure the effectiveness of the

program.

4.3Operational Requirements

4.3.1Availability

The system must be available to all users between the hours of 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM,

with minimal performance degradation caused by multi-user data access.

Maximum acceptable system downtime is seven hours.

4.3.2Maintainability

It is expected that system software and related components will be maintained by

local computer professionals and XYZ systems staff.

4.3.3System Management

XYZ systems staff will manage the system (backup, archival, etc.)

4.4Internal Interfaces

The development environment must be exible enough to allow enhancement of

existing interfaces and development of new interfaces, as these become necessary.

4.4.1Corporate Financials (PS)

The interface between the replacement system and PS will not vary from the current

interface; the interface will remain a text le export from AAA and import into PS by

XYZ staff.

4.4.2Audit Control Language System (ACLS)

The method of selection of carriers is expected to change in the interface from the

replacement system.This selection will take the form of a exible query, enabling the


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random selection of carriers, based on various criteria.

The data interchange will not change from the existing AAA method, in which a text

le containing data for the selected carriers is exported from AAA and imported into

the ALCS by XYZ staff.

4.4.3Payment at Year End Process (PAYE)

The interface to this system will remain the specication of special payment

commitment and nancial coding numbers which will indicate, following payment

import into PS, that payments should be made according to the PAYE.

4.5External Interfaces

The development environment must be exible enough to allow enhancement of

existing interfaces and development of new interfaces, as these become necessary.

4.5.1Carriers

It is expected that two methods will be used to receive carrier claims into the new

AAA:

data entry from hard copy submitted by carrier

ext le import

The methods by which carriers will submit claims in electronic form for import into

the replacement system are:

diskette

le transfer via modem (future requirement)

In order to facilitate preparation of claims by carriers, to be submitted electronically, a

carrier claim submission application must be developed.This system must have

minimal requirements in terms of additional components required for use by thecarrier.The system must produce the text le required for import into the replacement

AAA system.


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5.EVALUATION OF PROPOSEDENVIRONMENT5.1Introduction

The replacement AAA System must provide all of the capabilities of the current AAA,in addition to unfullled requirements of the XYZ, while providing enhanced

availability, performance, and maintainability.

This section will discuss the ndings of the Technical Proof of Concept and the

reasons for concluding that Clipper is a viable tool for development of the replacement

AAA system.

5.2Approach for Evaluation

Throughout this evaluation process, the consultants are specialists in networking,

systems development, and database management systems have drawn upon their

experiences and those of the Project Advisor. Experts at Computer Associates and the

consultants Technology Network were also contacted.

The Technology Network (TNet) provides specialists in specic technology areas for work on projects, world-wide.The TNet experts consulted in this evaluation effort

specialize in systems development environments (including Clipper) and database

management systems.

The Project Advisor is a central repository of information relating to all projects,

world-wide.The project advisor provided information on projects using Clipper in an

environment very similar to that currently in place at the XYZ.

Computer Associates (CA) are the makers of Clipper (now called CA-Clipper).CA was

consulted regarding the capabilities of Clipper in an environment similar in volumes

to that currently in place at the XYZ.CA provided guidance on the performance

bottlenecks to be avoided in a system with such large data volumes.

5.3Performance Constraints

The use of Clipper as a tool for developing the replacement AAA System is constrained

by performance factors.


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Performance and availability is acceptable in systems which do not have large numbers

of distributed users accessing complex data bases. For large Clipper systems, however,

a great deal of attention must be paid to the data processing model in order to ensure

acceptable levels of performance.

5.4Data Volumes and Retention

The volume of data that will be captured in the tracking of claim movements and its

effect on performance and availability has been a major focus in the Clipper

assessment.As data volumes increase, the amount of time required to add, update,

query, and report on the data also increases.

In general, it is required that data be retained in an on-line state for one year, at which

point the data may be placed in a ready off-line state for two to three years.After three years, the data may be archived for infrequent report access.

REPLACEMENT SYSTEM: EXPECTED ANNUAL GROWTH IN MAJOR DATA

STORES

Entity Size (bytes per

record)

Growth (records per

year)

Growth (MB per

year)

Participant

Carrier

Application

Certicate

License

Claim 18,000

Movement 2,000,000 783.92

Payment 15,000

Total 791.30

5.5Maintainability

As mentioned several times in the request for proposal and supporting documentation, the current AAA is not maintainable.There is no available pool of ZIM

knowledge, and as a result the XYZ has been forced to nd “work-arounds” and return

to manual processes wherever the current AAA fails them.


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Clipper has a well-known, intuitive programming language. This enhances the

maintainability of a system written in Clipper. Clipper is a local and corporate XYZ

standard with many local and XYZ internal experts available for application

maintenance.

5.5Critical Components of Proposed Environment

This section will describe the components critical to the success of developing a

replacement AAA system using Clipper.

5.6.1Transaction/Archival Model

There will be approximately two million new movement records added to the databaseeach year.This is a large transaction volume no matter what database is in use. Adding

records to such a large data store could result in a signicant response time

degradation.

With this in mind, such updates to the database should not occur when other users

may require access.To allow for this, the application should be structured such that

potentially lengthy transaction updates are applied to the database in isolation from

other types of access.

On-line query, report generation and ACLS extracts may be targeted directly at the

off-line database, keeping in mind that the latest transactional updates (e.g.

movements entered today) will not be available.

Retention of data for long periods will cause substantial performance degradation in

all areas of data access.For this reason, when data is no longer required for frequent

access, it should be placed in an off-line read-only area and nally archived.

5.6.2Hardware Architecture

One of the largest factors impacting database performance under Clipper is the speed

at which the database indices are updated.Network communication rate, workstation

processor speed, and available memory are the most important factors in increasing

the speed of index update.

These performance issues will become increasingly important as the system matures

and the volume of data continues to grow. To ensure that performance is maintained


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to acceptable levels. Operators requiring update access to data should use fast 486

class PCs with at least 8 MB of memory. Clipper developed programs are able to

directly access Expanded memory on PCs. The Architectural Issues identied in

Section 3.3.5 should be addressed to generally improve network performance.

5.7Considerations for the Future

Clipper databases conform to a widely adopted industry standard denition called X-

Base.This means that there are many products available for managing future system

growth and enhancement.These include query and reporting tools, executive

information systems, and other development tools and environments.

Clipper applications may be extended with other, more powerful, programming

languages such as C.This provides the opportunity for seamless integration of new technologies with the application.

5.8Conclusions

Based on the detailed assessment of the XYZ’s technical environment and anticipated

requirements of the new system, SHL believes that Clipper will provide an adequate

tool for development of the new AAA System.

The main factors considered in this evaluation were the current technical

environment, Clipper’s suitability for development of AAA requirements and the

ability to attain expected levels of performance and system maintainability.

Clipper may not be an ideal development tool for large systems with complex database

structures, high data volumes and large numbers of distributed users. However it is

well suited to the new AAA System. The data base structure is fairly straight forwardand data volumes for on-line access can be kept low by transferring large transaction

les to a read-only area for report generation. Users of the new system are also

centralized in a single ofce and will access the new system with fast 486 class

personal computers.

On average, each carrier has ve licenses.

One modem is shared between both PS workstations.

Record sizes are based on XYZ preliminary database design specications.


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ParticipantGrowth gures are not known for non-carrier participants.

CarrierEach carrier may have a license, certicate, and application for both Intra and

Westbound programs.

ApplicationApplications that are not authorized are still stored on the system.

LicenseLicenses are renewed each year.This means that yearly license volumes grow by

the number indicated plus the number of current carriers.

MovementThe XYZ cost-benet analysis states that 20% of movements are expected

to be submitted in non-electronic form and that of these 20%, only 23.5% will actually

be entered into the system.The resulting reduction in total number of movements

(306,000) per year is not reected in this table.

PaymentPayment record growth assumes that all claims are paid

Read 1 comment

1 Comments

Hi Craig,

The sample of PoC provided by you was excellent. Thank you. Could you please

suggest books or sites where I could nd more sample case studies of the PoC.

Thanks & Regards,

Seema

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