Background
The major responsibilities of the position of Senior IT Specialist & Systems Analyst at Upton, Martin Ulysses, & Clapper (UMUC) explicitly incorporate duties of determining market tendencies and new technological streams of advancements, specifying resources required for comprehensive computation power of the work stations to provide users with comfortable work environment, advocate and consult management of the company on the contemporary state of the equipment, support users of the machines and any other firm’s technological assets with corresponding services, contribute to company’s IT improvement and evolution.
UMUC possesses a set of specific fields of activity, including, but not restricted to, business services of financial analysis. The firm engages in conducting independent economic and market assessments for banks, insurance companies, mortgage lenders, and government regulatory agencies. Additionally, UMUC is credited with the excellent reputation of a trustworthy and professional firm due to its unbiased, politics neutral, objective, accurate financial and economic products and services. Having a tenure of Senior IT Specialist & Systems Analyst, a respective task was established by The Senior Manager, Revolving Debt Analysis (RDA) to administrate the process of modernization of technological assets in accordance with contemporary initiatives.
Purpose
The main scope of the task is to refresh 35 desktop personal computers (PC) for RDA. New machines should be able to conducting elaborated and complex calculations of many variables and constants, handling nationwide operations of analyzing credit card frauds, default, and write-off data. Consequently, the purpose of this report will include the process and method of identifying the new components of technical upgrades to 35 PCs in order to enable them of performing required operations with ease, thereby ensuring high performance of the firm’s crew.
Evaluation method
The zero step of the evaluation method that has been completed is the defining and developing the research algorithm in order to create a clear follow-up plan of activities towards swift and precise achievement of the main goal – fulfillment of the set task. Before making any search or any other further steps, the table requirements, provided by the RDA Senior Manager, have been rigorously investigated and the conclusion of general requirements has been produced. Immediately after, the phase of conducting primary research of software specifications and their hardware requirements has been initiated. This research facilitated further endeavors of identifying components of the computers and designing their combinations. In order to analyze the possible variants and select the most appropriate out of the wide variety of choice, every constituent component was research on the web, exploring throughout vendors’ web-sites as well as manufacturer’s, and further meticulous scrutiny of the matter was accomplished. The capabilities of each component were iteratively investigated and thoroughly reviewed. This stage of work has come to be the most time-consuming, as the adequate precautions were taken in order to meet the requirements for running software and conducting activities, along with avoiding any unnecessary expenses, guaranteeing substantial and profitable investment.
The information of hardware requirements of provided software was collected from software developers and distributional websites, such as Microsoft.com, adobe.com, etc. The top performance influencer (besides operating system Windows 8.1) was identified to be SAS 9.4, whose recommended hardware specifications have fallen to be next: a CPU of a minimum of 2 cores, 2 GB of RAM available to SAS, and swap-space should be exceeding the physical RAM in 1.5 times or at least 250 GB. (System Requirements for SAS 9.4)
In the first step of research of hardware components, the Central Processor Unit has been chosen as the ground zero for building a new pattern PC, since it is the most crucial element of the system, which is represented a piece of electronic circuitry that uses digital logic to perform the instructions of your software. (Gilster, 2001) Through research it has been evaluated that the most appropriate choice of CPU is Intel Core i5 4440. Accordingly to the Intel’s website, Core i5 is a good medium choice between cheaper version Core i3 and more elite and expensive version Corei7. It has 4 cores, clock frequency 3.10 GHz, socket type s1150, graphical core up to 1100 MHz in Turbo mode, maximum memory frequency of DDR3-1600. (Intel Core™ i7-800 and i5-700 Desktop Processor Series Manual)
In the proceding step, a compatible motherboard should be chosen. The choice has fallen on the ASRock H97 Anniversary, since it provides compatibility with socket s1150, supports DDR3-1600 memory, having 4 slots for a total amount of 32 GB, and the bus of 5 x PCI-Eх 2.0 x1, 1 x PCI-Eх 3.0 x16. It incorporates Gigabit Network Card by Realtek RTL8111G for fast LAN and other networks connections. It also includes the embedded “Intel HD Graphics” video card, which will be sufficient for the graphical tasks.
The choice of RAM is Team’s 8 GB module of the Elite Plus type of memory of DDR3 technology, with frequency of bus 1600 MHz and bus bandwidth of PC3-12800. Two bars of this type may be more preferable, as they will enlarge the scope of activity and enable users for multitasking and tracking several processes.
The hard drive that should satisfy the requirements was chosen to be the Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.12 series 3.5" hard drive of 500 GB supporting SATA III interface. That piece should cover up both the required swap-space and storing capacity of the documents, databases, and many other types of files of the users.
Report Summary
All the chosen components empower users of the utilization of the software and activities enlisted in requirements. Through the iterative process of the research and analyzing, there has been created a selection of the personal computer components that are regarded as plausible choice and are guaranteed to improve the business’s operational capability with the prospect of the potent exponential growth of the procedures, which can be carried out in the future using these machines.
Evaluation and recommendation matrix
References:
Intel Core™ i7-800 and i5-700 Desktop Processor Series (Vol. 1). (2010). Retrieved February 13, 2016, from http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/datasheets/core-i7-800-i5-700-desktop-datasheet-vol-1.pdf
Gilster, R. (2001). PC hardware a beginner's guide. Retrieved February 13, 2016, from https://abiiid.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/pc-hardware-a-beginners-guide.pdf
System Requirements for SAS 9.4 Foundation for Microsoft Windows for x64. (2016). Retrieved February 13, 2016, from http://support.sas.com/documentation/installcenter/en/ikfdtnwx6sr/66390/PDF/default/sreq.pdf
