Milestone 1: IT Consultation for MilleniAds

Assignment 2-3 Milestone 1: IT Consultation for MilleniAds

IT-201 – Computer Platform Technologies

Southern New Hampshire University

Business Needs

MilleniAds is a new start-up company that will be offering advertising products for clients. After sitting down and having a conversation with the entrepreneur, I was tasked with determining the business needs that will make MilleniAds successful now while providing the opportunity for growth in the future. As of right now ten people are employed in the following categories: creative director, graphic designer, sales staff, financial accountant, office administrator, and the entrepreneur as the CEO. Because MilleniAds is just starting out, the CEO informed me that there will be a budget of $25,000. Considering the budget and different job functions of the employees, I have come up with the following recommendations that will address MilleniAds’ business needs.

MilleniAds is an advertising company that plans to produce customized sales flyers, brochures, letterheads, and business cards. To achieve this, MilleniAds will need devices that will give the graphic designers the ability to create and manipulate digital images. A combination of desktops and tablets for the employees is what I recommend. The CEO, office administrator, and financial accountant can benefit from a desktop setup. For the other employees who have indicated that they don’t want to be tied down to a desktop and want greater mobility, I suggest a tablet style device. The HP all-in-one desktop provides a large storage capacity for the three employees who will maintaining data related to the business side of the company, and Surface Pro tablets will give the creative team along with the sales team the ability to be mobile. The images and data that the employees will be creating for clients will need to be stored so that they can be easily accessible when physical copies of the finished product need to be printed. For this, I recommend an in-house server be setup. The option of using offsite third-party servers is becoming popular because it takes maintenance and upkeep out of the hands of the company, along with reducing the initial start cost of purchasing the hardware and software required to setup a server. But, I feel that since the business will be small for the time being, the fees associated with offsite servers may be too much for a business with a small clientele. Eventually, if MilleniAds needs to scale up their server but doesn’t want to pay for more hardware and software, they can make the move to a company that has all of that already in place. In the future, MilleniAds can even create a hybrid system that utilizes what they have in place along with an offsite company. But for now, with the given monetary constraints, a simple server that can be upgraded housed within the office will be sufficient. MilleniAds will also need a printer with the capabilities of producing the graphic advertising products the creative team will be creating.

MilleniAds will be creating advertising products, therefore they will need a software program that gives the team the ability to create and manipulate digital images. There are many products that provide all the tools the creative team will need, but the program I recommend is Adobe Creative Cloud. The CEO expressed that she wants to oversee the inventory, sales, and expenses digitally. She does not anticipate a large clientele for at least the first year, so a complex program will not be necessary. Based on this information, a program like Intuit QuickBooks will track all necessary information for the CEO along with any information she takes an interest in in the future. Running the Windows 10 operating system on all the devices along with Windows Server 2016 on the server will allow easy file sharing amongst the employees without requiring them to have to load their work on flash drives if they want to move their work to another workstation. Windows 10 will also be the perfect environment to utilize Microsoft Office 365 giving MilleniAds a plethora of office applications at their disposal.

Because I am recommending an in-house server for MilleniAds, the network configuration that should be put in place is a client-server network. I also recommend a combination of wired Internet connections for the desktops and a wireless router for the tablets. Lastly, MilleniAds will require security software to ensure the network stays safe from malware and provide virus protection. In the following pages you will find a consultation report that outlines and justifies the recommendations I am making for the hardware, software, networking, and information security needs for MilleniAds.