Business Case: IIS Solution Analysis and Best Implementation Scenario
Business Case
IIS Solution Analysis & Best Implementation Scenario
Executive Summary 2
Project Overview 3
1.1 Project Overview 3
1.2 Project Description 3
1.3 Alternatives Considered 3
1.4 Recommended Solution 3
1.5 Risks 3
Project Description 4
2.1 Project Background and Opportunity 4
2.2 Business Needs 4
2.3 Project Objectives 4
2.4 Organizational Benefits 4
2.5 Project Scope 5
2.6 Out of Scope 5
Alternatives and Cost/Benefit Analysis 6
3.1 [Possible Solution 1] 7
3.2 [Possible Solution 2] 7
3.3 [Possible Solution 3] 7
3.4 Comparison 7
3.5 Recommended Alternative 7
Project Risk Assessment 8
REFERENCES 9
IIS Solution Analysis & Best Implementation Scenario
Description
IIS (Intelligent Solutions Imaging) has a $2 million reserved budget allocated for a complete information systems replacement and solutions implementation. The newly implemented solution will have upgraded each of their site locations: The current IIS corporate head-quarters (Dallas, US), a newly erected consolidated facility (consisting of operations, warehouse and engineering), their London sales and support site and their Shanghai manufacturing center.
IIS is US head-quartered organization consisting of Dallas facilities, a remote engineering office (Fairfax, VA) and two international sites (London and Shanghai). Their present Dallas location has 3 buildings and will be erecting a newly constructed facility which will consolidate their operational, engineering and warehousing efforts.
Current Technology
Currently IIS is a corporate WAN with both dispersed and system systems. Presently, each site accesses their own site specific servers, run locally installed applications, manage their own PBX phone and fax systems and has no centralized tool for administratively controlling global technology resources. Additionally, IIS uses Cat5 which is now considered a sub-standard solution for complex WAN connected sites. Cat 6e and Fiber are the only cable plant solutions that will bring IIS into a contemporary WAN platform.
Business Needs
All telecommunications, network servers, and data cabling will be replaced and a new solution will be implemented. IIS needs a solution that will be:
Secure
Functional
Extensible
Future-proof
These needs will ensure IIS remain both competitive and resourceful with local and remote site technologies.
Possible Solutions
The solutions will be presented to meet their stake-holders request. The construct of each solution will meet the needs of onsite and remote employees, be DOD 8100.2 (Department of Defense Directive 8100.2 Compliance Report, 2016) and 8570.01 (DoD Directive 8570.1, 2016)
compliant and provide centralized ease of access and management. The three solution are:
Solution 1: Onsite-Premise Equipment Solution
Solution 2: Hybrid Solution – Onsite and Hosted Technologies
Solution 3: Hosted Solution - IaaS and SaaS Platform
Improvements to Current Technology
These improvements will provide centralized access to the same data from any platform or location. This would include mobile, tablet, laptop and desktop systems. Access from different operating systems and software versions is a primary objective that will be meet with each of our solutions.
Employees onsite or remote will be able to work in real-time on files in a shared and highly secured work-space. Phone systems will be consolidated into a centralized VoIP solution that would make call group, call routes, auto-attendant, voice queue and voice mail easier to setup, service and deploy.
Recommended Solution
Our project management team has resolved to "Solution 3: Hosted Solution - IaaS and SaaS Platform" as our recommended solution. This solution is:
Cost sensitive
Solution oriented
Virtual (allowing global employees access to shared data in real-time)
Allows for centralized management
Secured
Platform-less
Functional
Future-Proof
Project Risks
Project risks associated with this implementation scenario may include:
Local/regional weather conditions causing deployment delays
Local/regional equipment customs restrictions
Restricted access to data during cut-over phase
Possible data loss due to theft of employees mobile devices
All risks will managed as best as possible. All system data will be backed-up daily and especailly prior the "go-live" date. All mobile devices to can be wiped remotely once they are reported stolen or lost thereby reducing risk.
1.1 Project Overview
[The overview and history should present the customer’s business history and capture the business reasons for the project. Business reasons are many but they can include; required changes to technology, changes in the working environment, increased productivity or efficiency, better customer support, etc.]
1.2 Project Description
[Summarize the following items:
the opportunity or challenge that this project is addressing
responsibilities for completing the project (main customer contact and team members)
how the proposed alternatives support the business need(s) and will benefit the customer]
1.3 Alternatives Considered
[Describe the alternatives that were not chosen for recommendation. Do not go into great detail but highlight the main point(s) that did not meet the standard set by the chosen solution.]
1.4 Recommended Solution
[Summarize the recommended solution including the main reason(s) it is being recommended. Make sure to include the total cost in the summary.]
1.5 Risks
[Summarize the major risks associated with this project and the consequences if a given risk occurs. Describe actions that can be taken to lessen the risk(s).]
2.1 Project Background and Opportunity
[This is a detailed description of the history and current state of the customer’s information technology system. Describe any problems that exist. Only include information that has a direct bearing on the reasons for this project. ]
2.2 Business Needs
[Describe, in detail, the individual business needs that are driving this project.]
2.3 Project Objectives
[List what this project will accomplish within the given time frame. These objectives should be measurable and verifiable. This section can serve as a final project review checklist. An example of an objective is: Reduce processing time from 1 hour to 30 minutes, by March 2006. Explain how each objective supports one or more of the identified business needs.]
2.4 Organizational Benefits
[Briefly describe the tangible and intangible benefits for the organization.
Examples of tangible benefits:
Increased services/customers
Decreased cost of service provided
Savings from business process improvements
End user productivity gains
Savings from structural changes
Savings from optimized information or information storage
Reduced staffing costs, including overtime and reduced turnover
Replacement of low value staff activities with high value work
Improved decision making by providing timely, integrated, comprehensive and accurate information
Elimination of duplicate IT applications used to support the business
Reduced errors, reduced or eliminated duplication, and less needless work
Cost avoidance – reductions of operating costs in the future
Tangible benefits can be usually be quantified by expressing the benefit in monetary values.
Examples of intangible benefits:
Better customer or staff satisfaction
Increased knowledge of technologies, resulting in improved staff efficiency
Improved efficiency or effectiveness of the customers resources (where it is impossible to assign a monetary value)
Enhanced ability for the customer to meet their business goals
Faster adoption of technology
Improved quality of information and decision-support capabilities
Improved staff morale and reductions in staff stress and turnover
Regulatory compliance
Improved communications
Elimination of duplicate IT applications used to support the business
Reduced errors, reduced or eliminated duplication, and less needless work
Intangible benefits are more difficult to quantify in monetary terms but often are the major drivers for acceptance and approval of projects. ]
2.5 Project Scope
[This section defines the primary components and/or tasks of the project.
Component/Task
Function: Describes what functions of the customer’s business the project involves.
Technology: Defines the boundaries within which the project must work, i.e. use of existing systems, compliance with established standards, etc.
Timeframe: Explains specific details about when the project will start and end
Project team: Details the specific locations/sites, customer personnel, and group members involved in the project. ]
2.6 Out of Scope
[This section includes all items that are specifically excluded from the project. ]
{Purpose of the Alternatives Section:
The reason for writing the Alternatives Section is to provide the reader with possibilities that are available to address the problem or opportunity. It provides the reader with rationale to why these alternatives have been selected as viable alternatives. Finally, it provides a detailed description of viable options that will address the business problem or opportunity.
Description:
For each viable alternative, explain the key features including people, processes and systems. Discuss how each viable option addresses the business problems and meets the objectives of the project within the outlined scope as stated in Section 2 – Project Description.
Each alternative must be defined in sufficient detail to enable identification of project risks (Section 4 – Project Risk Assessment) and benefit and costs (Included in this section).
The reason for including a Cost/Benefit Analysis is to provide the reader with an evaluation of the costs and benefits associated with each viable alternative. The reader can easily understand and compare the initial and on-going expenditures to the expected financial and non-financial benefits, for each viable alternative. Present the costs, benefits, and budgets for each alternative separately and clearly.
Include any detailed requirements analysis in an appendix.
Checklist for Alternatives
Are the alternatives truly distinguishable?
Are the viable alternatives defined at a sufficient level of detail to define costs and benefits?
Have any critical success factors been highlighted for each alternative?
Have all constraints for each alternative been identified?
Have all quantitative costs and benefits been identified?
Have all qualitative costs and benefits been identified?
Is the timeframe appropriate considering the expected life span of the project?
Can any of the non-financial items be converted to financial items?
Are all the assumptions clearly identified?}
3.1 [Possible Solution 1]
3.1.1 Description – Alternative 1
[Identify and detail the first viable and reasonable alternative that addresses the project opportunity at hand.]
3.1.2 Cost and Benefits – Alternative 1
3.1.2.1 Costs
[Identify all relevant costs incurred over the chosen project timeframe:
Tangible non-recurring costs – non-recurring costs are one time, project related costs.
Capital costs – These costs are amortized over the useful life of the asset and not expensed in the year they were acquired.
Other non-recurring costs – These costs will normally include hardware, software, and labor costs not already identified as capital costs.
Tangible recurring costs – costs that are incurred on a regular basis, i.e. Software licensing fees, etc.
Another type of cost is intangible costs. Examples are initial loss of productivity, opportunity costs, corporate overhead, and customer resistance to change. These costs are not required to be included in your senior project, however they are important considerations for real-world projects. ]
3.1.2.2 Benefits
[Quantify, in monetary terms, using the benefits identified in section 2.4.]
3.2 Hybrid Solution-Onsite and Hosted Technologies
3.2.1 Description – Alternative 2
Networks form the central focal point of any business. The conventional networking technologies are not only rigid and difficult to manage, but also lack visibility and control. Pure over the top solutions can simplify the process, but there is no guarantee on high performance when it comes to mission critical systems. In order to attain high performance standards and cheaper costs, IIS needs to make use of right technologies collaborating seamlessly together. A hybrid network solution will enable the company to balance critical factors such as cost, performance, security and scalability. This solution will give IIS the freedom to host some systems onsite, and also have the hosted version in parallel. In the event that the hosted service is unavailable, the onsite picks over and service delivery continues uninterrupted.
In building the network, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Virtual Private Cloud will be use. The tool will enable the infrastructure engineer to provision and launch web services in the created virtual services. The network configuration will be duplicated in a remote mirror location for redundancy purposes so that when one site goes down then the redundancy site picks up. The solution will enable the creation of AWS directory that will integrate with the default directory through the SharePoint application.
3.2.2 Cost and Benefits – Alternative 2
3.2.2.1 Costs
AWS charges are based on per consumption basis. There is no fixed minimum charge and the prices are based on the region where the deployed instance is running. The payment model that shall be used by IIS is the on-demand instanced model which lets the company to pay for the utilized capacity hourly with no upfront payments. Depending on the requirements of the application, the compute capacity can be adjusted upwards or downwards, and only pay for the used instances. The figure below depicts the comparison of TCO of web applications between on-premise and AWS over 3 years.
Source: Amazon web services
3.2.2.2 Benefits
3.3 [Possible Solution 3]
3.3.1 Description – Alternative 3
3.3.2 Cost and Benefits – Alternative 3
3.3.2.1 Costs
3.3.2.2 Benefits
3.4 Comparison
[Compare the alternatives identifying their relative strengths and weaknesses.]
3.5 Recommended Alternative
[Which of the three alternatives do you recommend? Explain why you recommend that alternative.]
{Purpose of the Project Risk Assessment Section:
The reason for writing the Project Risk Assessment Section is to provide the reader with an understanding of the risks that are related to the project and how these risks may vary by viable alternative. For the recommended alternative clearly identify the consequences of failure for each of the major project objectives. Usually, the risk assessment includes a method of relatively ranking the risks and identifying methods of reducing specific risks although these steps are not necessary for senior project.}
4.1 Risks for Project and Each Alternative
[Identify all project risks that may relate to the project. A risk is a factor or event that may jeopardize the project from achieving the anticipated benefits or increase the cost of the project.
Examples of project risks are:
Lack of Senior Management Support
Legislative changes
Insufficient training
Inadequate communication
Conflicting priorities
Inability to free-up critical business resources]
4.2 Consequences of Failure
[Cleary describe the customer’s stated consequences if project objectives are not accomplished. Treat each objective separately with its own consequence of failure.]
REFERENCES
https://www.isc2.org/dodmandate/default.aspx
