BSc (Hons)Business Computing and Information Systems

Corporate Communications Systems Management

University of Wales BSc (Hons) in Business Computing and Information Systems

Module name: Level: Semester: Issue date: Submission deadline: Module Weighting:
Important Notes:
Please refer to the Assignment Presentation Requirements for advice on how to set out your assignment. These can be found on the NCC Education Campus. Scroll down the left hand side of the screen until you reach Personal Support. Click on this, and then on Policies and Advice. You will find the Assignment Presentation Requirements under the Advice section. You must familiarise yourself with the NCC Education Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism Policy and ensure that you acknowledge all the sources which you us in your work. The policy is available on Campus. Follow the instructions above, but click on Policies rather than Advice. You must complete the Statement and Confirmation of Own Work found at the back of this assignment. Please make a note of the recommended word count. You could lose marks if you write 10% more or less than this. You must submit a paper copy and digital copy (on disk or similarly acceptable medium). Media containing viruses, or media which cannot be run directly, will result in a fail grade being awarded for this module. All electronic media will be checked for plagiarism.

Corporate Communications Systems Management NQF Level 6 Spring 2011 Wednesday 30th April 2011 Friday 29th April 2011, 12:00noon, UK time 40%

Marker's comment:

Moderator's comment:

Mark:

Moderated Mark:
March 2011

Final Mark:
NCC Education Ltd 2011

Corporate Communication Systems Management

BSc (Hons)Business Computing and Information Systems

Corporate Communications Systems Management

Assignment Guidance
It is the students responsibility to familiarise themselves with the NCC Education Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism policy contained in the Programme Handbook. Any assignment submitted after the submission deadline, without prior approval, will be given 0% and the student will be referred. The late assignment submission may be marked as a referral attempt, but only a maximum mark of 40% can be awarded for that particular assessment. If a student requests an extension to the official submission date this must be done in writing to the Course Director at least five full UK working days before the official submission date. This request must be accompanied by supporting evidence. This assignment is worth 40 % of the overall final mark for the module. Students should write no more than 2500 words for this assignment. Students are encouraged to read widely in preparing for the assignment, making reference to articles in academic journals and other relevant sources. All references should be cited in text and included in a reference section at the end of the report using the Harvard Referencing Scheme. The Statement and Confirmation of Own Work must be completed and submitted with the assignment. This assignment must be submitted by the due date and time as given on the front of this assignment. Please refer to the Assessment Criteria contained in the Programme Handbook which shows how the level of marking relates to your standard of work.

Submission Requirements
You must read and understand NCC Educations policy on Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism. You must complete the attached form Statement and Confirmation of Own Work. You must attach the completed form to your assignment.

Corporate Communication Systems Management

March 2011

NCC Education Ltd 2011

BSc (Hons)Business Computing and Information Systems

Corporate Communications Systems Management

Case Study
Scenario You are employed in the network division of the The World newspaper publishing company. The company has about 2000 employees spread over three sites. The core of the business is the publishing of a daily newspaper which is distributed within the area of Berlin, Germany. They publish a number of local papers which cover different aspects of the city life and a larger newspaper which is given out at all of the underground stations and bus terminals within the city. The majority of the employees do not work inside the buildings but are freelance journalists and only email work back into the company when they have a story which needs publishing. The printing and distribution of the newspaper is carried out on a site which is 35 kilometres outside of Berlin. There are two sites which prepare the material. One of the sites is responsible for the writing of the text and the formatting of the paper. The other site deals with multimedia (images, adverts) and the archiving of material. These sites are separated by a road which passes between the buildings. Information is passed between the buildings via an Internet connection using FTP. Once written the electronic version of the paper which on average is approximately 50MB per paper is transferred onto a CD and a courier takes this directly to the other site, outside of Berlin for printing. Due to the delays of the courier getting to the printing presses it means that the paper has to be finalised 2 hours before it is actually ready to be printed. At the moment, as discussed the journalists are working at remote locations within Berlin and emailing the work back into the company via a desktop computer at home. This does mean that there is a delay in the article getting to The World and sometimes this means missing that days printing schedule. The company want to look into the possibility of providing all of the journalists with mobile equipment so that pictures and stories can be transferred back quickly for printing that day. At this moment in time all of the main offices are based on a cat3 UTP hub based LAN environment. This setup is the same inside all of the buildings and the company has noticed that work is taking longer to process due to the network slowing down. You have been asked to investigate the network from the point of view of upgrading the infrastructure to allow all of the buildings to communicate directly if required. As increasing amounts of photographs are being sent to the company it is difficult to move the data via the current Internet connection. In addition the connection to the Internet at each building is currently only 512 kbps maximum, which is very slow as they have recognised that a large part of the news that they rely upon is being sent out via the Internet from companies such a Reuters or CNN. You are also required to investigate the feasibility of using VOIP (Voice over IP) between the sites. Currently there is only a limited amount of phone calls between the sites, however, asthe infrastructure is to be upgraded anyway they want to consider the use of VOIP too. An analysis of the current telephone infrastructure has been carried out and it was noted that on average across the company each employee makes 1 hour of calls per working day. Within these, 15 minutes are for internal calls between sites. Diagrams of the different sites are given at the end and should be used as the basis of your designs.

Corporate Communication Systems Management

March 2011

NCC Education Ltd 2011

BSc (Hons)Business Computing and Information Systems

Corporate Communications Systems Management

The report that you have been asked to produce will be presented to the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of The World. This person is not a technical network expert and is dependent on you explaining all of the details of your design. You will need to provide the following: 1. Approximate costs of the network equipment used in your design, including a topology diagram for each site, showing the new network hardware appliances 2. A diagram showing how you plan to connect the sites together (WAN links), with placement of equipment and connections 3. A narrative justifying your approach for the LAN upgrade at each site and for the interconnections between sites. For example if 2 sites were 1.5km apart would it be better to connect using WiMax or pay for a leased line? Additionally discuss the issues of mobility and future VoIP implementations. 4. Discussion of the benefits and risks with your design and how the company will get a ROI (Return On Investment) that they have made with your design. In addition discuss what other alternatives are available to your solution and why they were not selected, supported by a simulation of your network in comparison to the original using a suitable application such as Opnet. Your report should be 3500 words +- 10%. For your prices you need to show via references where the prices have come from so that these can be validated. If you use any work which is not yours, for example a picture, or a piece of text which helps you to explain your argument this must be correctly referenced.

Corporate Communication Systems Management

March 2011

NCC Education Ltd 2011

BSc (Hons)Business Computing and Information Systems

Corporate Communications Systems Management

Appendix 1 Site A (journalists) Machines on this site Floor 1 Maximum of 10 fixed location PCs and 10 nomadic Floor 2 Maximum of 20 fixed location PCs and 2 nomadic and one copier

Corporate Communication Systems Management

March 2011

NCC Education Ltd 2011

BSc (Hons)Business Computing and Information Systems

Corporate Communications Systems Management

Site B (multimedia) Machines on Site Floor 1 Maximum of 20 fixed location PCs and 2 nomadic Floor 2 Maximum of 20 fixed location PCs Maximum of 6 main servers for data storage

Corporate Communication Systems Management

March 2011

NCC Education Ltd 2011

BSc (Hons)Business Computing and Information Systems

Corporate Communications Systems Management

Site C (printing press) Machines on Site Maximum of 10 PCs and 5 nomadic

12716.67

Printing Unit

3580.71

1320.83

3580.71

Corporate Communication Systems Management

March 2011

NCC Education Ltd 2011

BSc (Hons)Business Computing and Information Systems

Corporate Communications Systems Management

Statement and Confirmation of Own Work

Programme/Qualification name:
All NCC Education assessed assignments submitted by students must have this statement as the cover page or it will not be accepted for marking. Please ensure that this statement is either firmly attached to the cover of the assignment or electronically inserted into the front of the assignment.

Student declaration I have read and understood NCC Educations Policy on Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism. I can confirm the following details: Student ID/Registration number: Name: Centre Name: Module Name: Module Leader: Number of words: I confirm that this is my own work and that I have not plagiarised any part of it. I have also noted the assessment criteria and pass mark for assignments. Due Date: Student Signature: Submitted Date:
Corporate Communication Systems Management March 2011 NCC Education Ltd 2011