Monday, June 27, 2011

ISOM - How IT/IS can give benefits and disadvantages

1) Education

In education field, the benefits it can provide is that

  • Ease of Information Sharing
In information sharing, the administrator can upload all the information and announcement onto a general based website for the whole University personnel and student. This allows an easier reach out to all the people of the university and no singular message to be sent to each people.

  • One platform to get education information
The students of the college can gather their lecture slides, tutorials from a web based platform like learnfinity. This allows the student to obtain the information anytime they wanted to as long as they have internet access. This also indirectly reduces the burden of the lecturer to provide them with copies.

  • Helps prepare student for modern world
In the working environment nowadays everything is based on IT. When a student is given a foundation on using IT and IS during their education level, they are able to utilize their skills later on when they're working, this grants them the skill to survive and provide better competency.


Disadvantage on Education

  • Lack of interaction
In the real world, people will have difficulty in interaction with people of other race. Due to the difference in mother tongue speaking and the lack of social interaction studying in a IT condition.

  • Poor time management
If you are not the right candidate for online education. The flexibility of planning your own schedule in online education could be the disadvantages for you if you are a type of person that can't manage your time probably between your work, family and study. If you are this kind of person, a pre-plan schedule may fit you well, letting yourself to study at your own pace with your own schedule may causes you fail to complete your degree program.

  • Single media type teaching
As most of online learning materials are in text format, if you are not comfortable with this format and prefer to listen to the lecture instead of reading it. Then, it will become the disadvantage for you and you need to reconsider your decision before you choose online education to be your degree pursuing channel.


2) Growth of Organization

Advantage
  • Time & Cost
By using IS, it can help the company saving time in every activity as well as well decrease its cost of employing more people to work while using IS can reduce the man power needed. By using IS the company will be more organized and can generate more profit in a short time.

  • Integration with other company
IS can help companies integrate with each other, improve the smooth transition of process that can help in better production of process and better understanding of each other companies which indirectly improve mutual relationships with each other can lead to better agreements and deals.

  • Decision making
With IS, the decision making process of a company is made more efficient and accurate. With less human error and mistakes, the company suffer less loss which will help the company to grow rapidly serving the market's needs.


Disadvantage

  • Too dependent on IS
When IS itself is giving too much benefit to one company, it comes with a risk that the company will be too attached with it. When the system fails, the company is crippled and continuation of the business is halted.

  • High maintenance
A company who is using IS and is still growing uses a lot of money to maintain and run it compared hiring manpower. If the revenue generated is insufficient to cover the expenditures, then the company will result in heavy losses.

  • Hacking risk
A company is dependent and uses a lot of IS in its daily operations is putting itself in risk that it is opening many doors of vulnerabilities to malicious attacks. If the security system is not well developed, then vital information of the company will leak and stolen.


3) Interpersonal skills

Advantage

  • Huge network
A person can make many friends due to the availability of many social networks and blogs and virtual hang out ares. Giving opportunities for people to know more people.

  • Huge exposure
A person will receive huge amount of exposure to huge amount knowledge because many people share their ideas and knowledge. With IS helping them to make decision on the way, it can improve the way of life of people and make them to be a good citizen.

Disadvantage

  • Health risk
It will lead to health issues when one person is indulged too much into IS which spends a lot of time in it, neglecting his/her own health.

  • Dependent on IS
When one is indulged with too much of IS, it is hard for them to kick the bad habit of using it all the time. It will be like drugs, when it is absent from the life of that person, it will cause addiction.

Monday, June 20, 2011

ISOM - Disaster Recovery Plan

Most businesses depend heavily on technology and automated systems, and their disruption for even a few days could cause severe financial loss and threaten survival.
The continued operations of an organization depend on management’s awareness of potential disasters, their ability to develop a plan to minimize disruptions of critical functions and the capability to recovery operations expediently and successfully.
A disaster recovery plan is a comprehensive statement of consistent actions to be taken before, during and after a disaster. The plan should be documented and tested to ensure the continuity of operations and availability of critical resources in the event of a disaster.
The primary objective of disaster recovery planning is to protect the organization in the event that all or part of its operations and/or computer services are rendered unusable. Preparedness is the key. The planning process should minimize the disruption of operations and ensure some level of organizational stability and an orderly recovery after a disaster.


Other objectives of disaster recovery planning include:
• Providing a sense of security
• Minimizing risk of delays
• Guaranteeing the reliability of standby systems
• Providing a standard for testing the plan.
• Minimizing decision-making during a disaster


The planning committee should prepare a risk analysis and business impact analysis that includes a range of possible disasters, including natural, technical and human threats.
Each functional area of the organization should be analyzed to determine the potential consequence and impact associated with several disaster scenarios. The risk assessment process should also evaluate the safety of critical documents and vital records.
Traditionally, fire has posed the greatest threat to an organization. Intentional human destruction, however, should also be considered. The plan should provide for the “worst case” situation: destruction of the main building.
It is important to assess the impacts and consequences resulting from loss of information and services. The planning committee should also analyze the costs related to minimizing the potential exposures.


Processing and operations should be analyzed to determine the maximum amount of time that the department and organization can operate without each critical system.
Critical needs are defined as the necessary procedures and equipment required to continue operations should a department, computer center, main facility or a combination of these be destroyed or become inaccessible.
A method of determining the critical needs of a department is to document all the functions performed by each department. Once the primary functions have been identified, the operations and processes should be ranked in order of priority: Essential, important and non-essential.

The Steps are as below

1. Obtain Top Management Commitment
2. Establish a planning committee
3. Perform a risk assessment
4. Establish priorities for processing and operations
5. Determine Recovery Strategies
6. Perform Data Collection
7. Organize and document a written plan
8. Develop testing criteria and procedures
9. Test the Plan
10. Approve the plan

Citation-
http://www.drj.com/new2dr/w2_002.htm

Monday, June 6, 2011

Risk, Consequences and Recommend Security Measures

Risk
1) Hackers hack the online website
2) The server containing the website fails
3) Building having problems and leakage happens
4) Programming error

Consequences
1) When hackers hack into the website, it tampers the data, steals important data or even makes the website unable to function properly.
2) This will cause the website unable to function. Customers are unable to visit the website and make purchases
3) This will cause the hardware in the IT department fails to function as water will spoil the hardware which will lead to website failure or disable some of its functions.
4) Programming error that caused by the website developer which will make some of the website function unable to fully function which will stop the visitors from utilizing the website to its maximum.

Recommended Security Measures
1) To impose firewall, username and password in order to access the website confidential data. Those firewall must be updated regularly and passwords must be changed occasionally. (Code of conduct, what firewall)
2) An additional server which will serve as backup for the website when the website fails. The server can be not very high end as it will be supporting the website at a functional level until the main server is restored. (mirror server, hot site, cold site)
3) Regular maintenance and protection placed on the server so that it will be protected from natural disasters, as well as backup being placed somewhere else and activated when the main server fails to function.
4) Have a few dedicated programmers to do the job in developing the website. Constant update and checking on possible error and debugging them. Increase more validation in the programming lines so that possible errors can be filtered out.