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Computer Systems and Website Planning

    Planning --   Last Section: F - WEB DESIGN   |    Next Section: H - DATA MGMT


G. Systems Architecture and Operating Environment

Updated on May 2, 2011

The ideas in this section may not be "architecture" or "operating environment", but all of this is related to the system that THNC will need:

  1. General Systems/Operating Features
    1. Broadband Internet access;
    2. Long distance telephone access;
    3. Digital telephone service integrated with computer access to provide both services over a single digital gateway
    4. Transparency to THNC staff and members
    5. Digital gateway provides access so that
      1. employees have direct voice contact with management,
      2. employees and management can talk to members, and
      3. volunteers can speak with members until an employee is available.
    6. Multiple, rapid, and nearly simultaneous accesses to a large database as:
      1. employees speak with members and access the database to provide solutions to their questions,
      2. employees conduct research or access to database for preparation of THNC products, and
      3. thousands of members access database for all kinds of searches on topics of interest to them.
    7. Single or multiple processors accessing a large database;
    8. Employees using multi-tasking work station terminals to work on various projects and help members; each work station may use two or three lines to the Internet, one for each type of work being done; when talking with a member, an employee may use two such lines at the same time, accessing member services and searching the database.
    9. Best, most suitable operating system: Linux, MS Windows, Mac OS X, or something else. It needs to be compatible with the DBMS and everything else.
    10. Employees use batch and/or interactive, real-time administrative tools and report capabilities to monitor use of the database
    11. Employees use office applications from THNC's headquarters for business needs, employee records, taxation and forms filing, member contributions, and many other business-related capabilities


  2. Employee Activities
    1. Perform research on a home networking topic, gather related information from the Internet and other sources, and enter it into the staging part of THNC's database, not accessible by members;
    2. Gathered information will be assigned to one of 100+ tracks of information storage, each dedicated to an industry related to home networking or for another separate purpose (information on one type of product or one application for a number of products).
    3. Examine the gathered, staged information for validity with respect to THNC's Ethical Standard (a comprehensive set of guidelines for evaluating truth of information)
    4. Edit the validated information into the main part (so- called member's portion) of the database, integrating new with older information; this information is immediately accessible by members
    5. Employees will access the member's part of database for product development projects


  3. Member Activities
    1. In members' portion of database, members use various tools to find different types of information
    2. In the online retail store, members may purchase books, Educational Presentations, and other items created from information found in the database
    3. Members may call and speak with technicians who access database
    4. Members may access their account information


  4. Electable Services in Member Service Area
    1. Member notification when new products are available
    2. Member notification when technology rate-of-change indices change


  5. Administrative Activities
    1. Log files to record work being done by each employee
    2. Employee or management-generated documents;
    3. Checks and balances on information--built-in features of DBMS to allow tracking of changes by each employee;
    4. Security safeguards;
    5. Disaster recovery capabilities to accomplish:
      1. to track recent changes by employees,
      2. to remove the changes, and
      3. to restore database to its previous state.


    A - PURPOSE & TOC | B - OVERVIEW | C - GENERAL ACCESS | D - MEMBER ACCESS

    E - EMPLOYEE ACCESS | F - WEB DESIGN | G - SYSTEMS | H - DATA MGMT

    I - SECURITY | J - CLOUD | K - APPS | L - THNC-STATION

    M - SERVICE | N - PHILOSOPHY | THNC HOME