Learning Goals:

Use the systems administration concepts you learned in the course to provide technical improvements to current processes.

Implement solutions based on an organizations restrictions, like financial resources, number of users, etc.

Overview: Youll take what you learned in the System Administration and IT Infrastructure Services course and apply that knowledge to real-world situations. Youll also have the chance to review your peers work to gain a better understanding of other process improvements that could be made and why.

Assignment: For this writing project, youll be presented with three scenarios for different companies. Youll be doing the systems administration for each companys IT infrastructure. For each scenario, present improvements to processes based on the companys needs and current restrictions. Theres no right or wrong answer to your consultation, but your responses should explain the problem, the improvement, and the rationale behind them. Please write a 200-400 word process review for each company presented to you.

Grading: This is a required assignment for the module. The assignment is peer reviewed, so after you submit your response, youll need to review and evaluate three submissions from other learners taking this course. To grade other submissions, follow the instructions and respond to the questions.

Review criterialess

After submitting your review, youll evaluate three of your peers. Youll give a quantitative (multiple choice) assessment of the response to each question. Then, youll provide qualitative (open response) feedback for the assignment as a whole. Each of the three prompts will be evaluated out of a total of 6 points. The whole writing project will be worth a total of 18 points.

For each scenario:

Explain the problem the company faces.

List at least five process improvements you plan to implement.

Explain the rationale behind each improvement recommendation.

(33%) Scenario 1

(33%) Scenario 2

(33%) Scenario 3

Step-By-Step Assignment Instructionsless

For each scenario, present improvements to processes based on the companys needs and current restrictions. Review improvements that align with the companys restrictions. You should write a 200-400 word process review for each company presented to you. Youll be scored on the following:

Explain the problem the company faces.

List at least five process improvements you plan to implement.

Explain the rationale behind each improvement recommendation.

Example Submissionsless

Company X:

Process Improvement #1:

Problem: The organization doesnt currently have disaster recovery or backups in place.

Solution: Implement an NAS solution to do daily differential backups and weekly full backups.

Reasoning: Company X is a small company. Since we have a restriction on financial resources, we should implement a cheaper solution for backups. We can get an affordable NAS and have backups done off-site.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Youre doing systems administration work for Network Funtime Company. Evaluate their current IT infrastructure needs and limitations, then provide at least five process improvements and rationale behind those improvements. Write a 200-400 word process review for this consultation. Remember, theres no right or wrong answer, but make sure to provide your reasoning to be eligible for full credit.

Software Company:

Network Funtime Company is a small company that builds open-source software. The company is made up software engineers, a few designers, one person in Human Resources (HR), and a small sales team. Altogether, there are 100 employees. They recently hired you as a system administrator to come in and become their IT department.

When a new person is hired on, the HR person purchases a laptop for them to do their work. The HR representative is unfamiliar with what type of hardware is out there; if a new employee requests a laptop, the HR person will purchase the cheapest option for a laptop online. Because of this, almost everyone has a different laptop model. The company doesnt have too much revenue to spend, so they dont order laptops until someone gets hired at the company. This leads to a few days of wait time from when someone starts to when they can actually work on a laptop.

The company doesnt label their computers with anything, so if a computer is missing or stolen, theres no way to audit it. Theres no inventory system to keep track of whats currently in the fleet.

Once a computer is purchased, the HR person hands it to the new employee to set up. Software engineers that use Linux have to find a USB drive and add their preferred distribution to the laptop. Anytime someone needs something from HR -- whether its office related or tech related -- they email the HR representative directly.

When a new employee gets a machine, theyre given logins to use cloud services. They get a personal orientation with HR to make sure they can login. This requires the HR person to block off a few hours for every new employee. If an employee forgets the login to their machine, they have no way to retrieve a password and they have to reimage their machine. Employees dont have a strict password requirement to set for their computers.

The company currently has many of their services in the cloud, such as email, word processors, spreadsheet applications, etc. They also use the application, Slack, for instant communication.

1--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Youre doing systems administration work for W.D. Widgets. Evaluate their current IT infrastructure needs and limitations, then provide at least five process improvements and rationale behind those improvements. Please write a 200-400 word process review for this consultation. Remember, theres no right or wrong answer, but you should provide your reasoning to be eligible for full credit.

Sales Company:

W.D. Widgets is a small company that sells widgets. Theyre mostly made up of salespeople who work with lots of clients. Youve taken over as the sole IT person for this company of 80-100 people.

When HR tells you to provision a machine for a new employee, you order the hardware directly from a business vendor. You keep one or two machines in stock, in case of emergency. The users receive a username that you generate for them. You then give them an orientation on how to login when they start. You currently manage all of your machines using Windows Active Directory. The company uses only Windows computers. When a new computer is provisioned, you have to install lots of sales-specific applications manually onto every machine. This takes a few hours of your time for each machine. When someone has an IT-related request, they email you directly to help them.

Almost all software is kept in-house, meaning that youre responsible for the email server, local machine software, and instant messenger. None of the companys services are kept on the cloud.

Customer data is stored on a single file server. When a new salesperson starts, you also map this file server onto their local machine, so that they can access it like a directory. Whoever creates a folder on this server owns that folder and everything in it. There are no backups to this critical customer data. If a user deletes something, it may be lost for everyone.

The company generates a lot of revenue and is rapidly growing. Theyre expecting to hire hundreds of new employees in the next year or so, and you may not be able to scale your operations at the pace youre working.

================================================================================================

Youre doing systems administration work for Dewgood. Evaluate their current IT infrastructure needs and limitations, then provide at least five process improvements and rationale behind those improvements. Please write a 200-400 word process review for this consultation. Remember, theres no right or wrong answer, but you should provide your reasoning to be eligible for full credit.

Non-profit Company:

Dewgood is a small, local non-profit company of 50 employees. They hired you as the sole IT person in the company. The HR person tells you when they need a new computer for an employee. Currently, computers are purchased directly in a physical store on the day that an employee is hired. This is due to budget reasons, as they cant keep extra stock in the store.

The company has a single server with multiple services on it, a file server, and email. They dont currently have a messaging system in place. When a new employee is hired, you have to do an orientation with them for login. Youre also responsible for installing all the software they need on their machine, and mapping the file server to their computer. The computers are managed through Windows Active Directory. When an employee leaves, theyre currently not disabled in the directory service.

The company uses an open-source ticketing system to handle all internal requests as well as external non-profit requests. But the ticketing system is confusing and difficult to use, so lots of the employees reach out to you directly to figure out how to do things. In fact, so many things are difficult to find that employees typically ask around when they have a question.

There are nightly backups in place of the file server. You store this information on a disk backup and take it home with you everyday to keep it safe in case something happens onsite. Theres also a small company website thats hosted on the single server at the company. This website is a single html page that explains the mission of the company and provides contact information. The website has gone down many times, and no one knows what to do when it happens.