system design and analysis

You will conduct a systems analysis project by performing 3 phases of SDLC (planning, analysis and design) for a small (real or imaginary) organization. The actual project implementation is not required (i.e. No coding required.) You need to apply what you have learned in the class and to participate in the team project work.

Deliverables

This project should follow the main steps of the first three phases of the SDLC (phase 1, 2 and 3). Details description and diagrams should be included in each phase.

Part 1: Planning Phase

2 Marks

Learning Outcome(s):

LO1

Under this section, include the following

· Adopt an SDLC development methodology (1 mark)

· Develop a work plan (Gantt chart) (1 mark)

Answer:

PLANNING PPHASE

DESCRIPTION

The project will look into the history of evolution and development of computers from the old age error to the modern powerful and complex computer systems. Different stages will be analyzed and how each of the stage contributed to the evolution of the computers to the next generation. The system development life cycle of the computers will be researched in details to examine if there is any future expectation of another level (generation) of computers. The planning phase of this project will focus on highlighting the strategies that were put across to facilitate the growth and evolution of computers to make them more complex hence making them to perform different tasks at the same time. Analysis phase will involve comparing and contrasting different facts about different stages of computer development life cycle. Design will involve description of different computer appearances, shapes, size and their internal complexity.

USERS

The users of this project will be the information and technology specialist who are doing great research on computer existence and how they can improve the existing generation of computers to the next level. This is because complex information will be provided by this project which may expose some weaknesses of the existing computer systems hence triggering possible improvement possibility to the specialist. General people will also benefit from this project as they will be fed with more information on using of computers hence the project will highly boost the technological knowhow of the people within the system.

FINAL PRODUCT

The project is focused on helping in attaining the most powerful and complex computer systems through complex research and information analysis compared to the past and already existing computer systems.

In this section, you are required to determine the main business requirements; consequently, the following must be included:

· Create Use Cases (0.5 mark)

· Model Processes (Data Flow Diagramming) (0.5 mark)

· Model data (ER modeling) (0.5 mark)

Answer:

ANALSIS PHASE

Computers evolution and development has really taken big strides dating back in the year 1940 when computers came into existence (O'Brien & Marakas, 2005). These were the Vacuum tubes computers which were heavy and huge as they used to fill the whole room. In addition they were using a lot of electricity and they were expensive to operate. They lend to evolution of the first computer generation (first stage of the development cycle) which used lowest-level programming understood by computers to perform operations. However these computers were too slow and could only solve one problem at a time. ENIAC is an example of these computers.

The third cycle of computer development was marked by introduction of integrated circuit which enabled the transistors in second stage to be turned into silicon shapes called semiconductors. Semiconductors were very powerful and efficient increasing the speed of instructions execution by the computers. In addition semiconductors enabled and facilitated the interaction of the computer users with the computer program through the keyboards and the monitors. This further enabled the computer to perform different tasks at the same time (multitasking).Integrated circuit further made the size of the computer to reduce as a lot of information could be stored in electronic form compared to other stages of computer development cycle.

The fourth stage of computer development was marked by the integration of millions of integrated circuits into single silicon ship. These ships formed the computer microprocessor. Microprocessor enabled connection of all computer components through a central controlling point (Central processing unit) combined on the same chip with the input and output of the computer. This stage also lend to development of GUIs and mouse as well as handheld devices. The last stage of computer system development cycle was built on artificial intelligence which was marked by use of superconductors and parallel processing (Blanchard, et.al, 1990). This stage marks the current stage of computer cycle development providing the information and technology specialist with a lot of areas to improve and shift the computer development to the next level.

Part 3: Design phase

1.5 Marks

Learning Outcome(s):

LO2 and LO3

Under this section, include the following:

· Select an architecture design (0.5 mark)

· Screens Design (create the User Interface Structure Design), and sample system screens. No need to be in HTML, they can be just drawing of how the screen will appear. (0.5 mark)

· Class Design Diagram (0.5 mark)

Answer:

DESIGN PHASE

One of the major development that can be made on the current computers is the introduction of Quantum computation and molecular nanotechnology which will enable the computers to shift to the next level with ability of designing of computers devices with ability to respond to natural language.

As seen from the above, different stages of computer development cycle had different features such as first generation were huge compared to the small size fifth generation computers, used a lot of heat compared to the third generation computers which highly minimized heat consumption. Some were very fast and effective in instruction execution while others were slow depending with the features at that development stage of the cycle.

FIRST GENERATION

SECOND GENERATION (STAGE)

THIRD GENERATION (STAGE)

FOURTH GENERATION (STAGE)

FIFTH GENERATION

End of project report