ITEC 610 – MIDTERM EXAM

ITEC 610 – MIDTERM EXAM

Instructions

1.There are five questions in this exam. Each question is worth 20 points so you can earn up to 100 points. This exam is worth 25% of your grade.

2.Each answer should be complete and respond to all facets of the question. Each answer shall be no longer than 2 pages, single spaced, 12 pt font, with 1 inch margins. State your assumptions if needed. Your writing style will be evaluated (points will be deducted for writing errors).

3.The deliverable must be APA compliant and include at least two credible references for each question. Place your reference list at the end of each question. No references to wikis, blogs and other unreliable sources.

4.All of your answers must be original and in your own words. Do not include quoted material. Violators of the academic integrity policy will be subject to disciplinary action.

5.Do not copy and paste. Your instructor will submit your exam to Turnitin. Do not create a student account in Turnitin.

6.Post your one file containing all of your answers (DOC or DOCX only) in the LEO Assignment area by the end of the session, Sunday night 11:59 pm EST. Do not submit ODT or PDF files.

Questions

3.When making decisions about how to acquire hardware, software, or any other components of the IT Infrastructure, consideration is given to the following four characteristics of an IT infrastructure:

1. You have just been hired to work in a brand new cupcake bakery in Adelphi, Maryland. You know the value of information systems and want to convince the owner (who knows only how to manage a bakery) that technology can help the business. List at least four business-related competitive strategies (not technologies) that will address the potential risks an organization may encounter as it strives to maintain or improve its position in the marketplace. Also, for each competitive strategy you identify, give an IT technology example that can apply to support that strategy.
2. In order to make the cupcake bakery thrive you need to remain competitive in the market. Four ways to make sure you remain competitive are Cost Leadership, Product Leadership, Operational Excellence and Customer Intimacy.
3. First, let’s talk about Product Leadership, develop something that is out of the ordinary. Being a bakery, everyone expects cakes, cupcakes, brownies, and the like. In order to maximize your product leadership strategy, consider creating goods not usually found in a typical bakery. This could range in the way of fruit dessert salads, coffees, or more exotic bakery items, like cake pops, or your own line of donuts. In order to maximize your product leadership technologically, consider joining social media like Facebook to get the word out about your business and new products. Consider having a sign in your store or the website URL on your receipt so people can view and share the latest news and information about your bakery.
4. When it comes to cost leadership, the goal is to be on the lower end of costs when it comes to competing with your competitors. This means using products or byproducts that are lower in cost, so you can provide your service at a cheaper price to your consumers. When it comes to lower costs though, don’t skip out on quality. Some ways to complete this is to make everything from scratch. Don’t use boxed, canned or packaged ingredients unless absolutely necessary. Also, you don’t need to use name brand when the “knockoffs” can be just as good in quality.
5. Operational excellence is achieved through successful implementation of cost leadership. If you are unable to produce your services at a lower price, your operations are likely to suffer, if not fail. Competitors will have the upper hand with the latest products, the cheaper prices, and the customer base. A technological way to support both Cost Leadership and Operational Excellence strategies is to take advantage of Amazon’s Prime Pantry and the subscribe and save option. This will allow you to search for the best price and to save money on things you already buy, plus save you time by automatically sending you your ingredients on a basis in which you determine.
6. The last strategy is Customer Intimacy. Customer Intimacy is the process of getting more in touch with your customers. This can be from having suggestion boxes, at a minimum. More likely, you would want maybe a customer loyalty program where if a customer buys so many products, they get some for free. This could be as simple as, for so many visits they get something for free, or buy 12 cupcakes, get a certain number free. You could also provide customization or personalization on your products. So if someone wants a cake that you don’t currently offer, or wants something changed or personalized, you would allow it. You could also introduce catering for birthday parties or weddings. To achieve this, you would want to post this information on your website so your customers know what all you have to offer.
7. Dorris, M. December 2, 2013. What’s Your Strategy? Operational Excellence, Product Leadership or Customer Intimacy?. Retrieved from https://digital.gov/2013/12/02/whats-your-strategy-operational-excellence-product-leadership-or-customer-intimacy/
8. Martin. November 29, 2014. Competitive Strategies. Retrieved from https://www.cleverism.com/competitive-strategies/
9. Identify and describe four technologies developed and/or advanced by Google and explain how it impacts society positively and negatively. At least one technology must be related to networks and at least one should be related to mobile technology. Indicate which technology is related to networks and which relates to mobile technology.
10. Google is a fast-growing company that has developed or bought/advanced many different technologies. Four technologies developed or advanced by Google are Google Fiber the Waze Application, YouTube TV and Google Pay.
11. Google Fiber, a network related technology is a newer technology that is just hitting the markets. It is only in select cities right now, so not everyone can take advantage of it currently. It uses the existing fiber backbone already in place and gets you download speeds close to 1000 Mbps. This is a positive effect for society in that you don’t have to worry about how much you download as they will not throttle or lower your speeds at a certain limit. This will allow users to get more for their money. It can potentially impact society negatively by eventually spreading across the US and putting other major networks out of business, thus creating a monopoly.
12. Another technology that I love is the Waze mobile application. This allows the user, while driving, to report conditions on the road. You can report things like slow-moving traffic, to objects in the road and even stopped vehicles on the side of the road. Of other user entered alerts, Waze can also notify you of accidents and police sitting on the side of the road with radar. This is a positive thing for society as it keeps drivers in the know with what is going on with the traffic conditions. A negative aspect of this app is that a user can report something that is not there, or even say for instance that an accident has cleared up which could cause another accident, or that the police are no longer there, causing a speeding driver to get pulled over. Another negative aspect of this app is that it requires the driver to report conditions while they are driving. If they had a passenger, they could mitigate the risk.
13. YouTube TV is another technology that is new and becoming more and more popular. It allows the user to pay $40 a month for a selected amount of networks to watch. This can replace your current cable or satellite plan so the user can pay for the networks they want. Plus YouTube TV offers unlimited DVR. This is definitely a positive for society so the users can save money on their TV budget. They pay only for the channels they want instead of paying for a bunch of networks that they do not watch. This could also be negative in that in my opinion, if there is nothing on TV, I can turn it off and find something else to do. Having channels that you want and unlimited DVR can ultimately mean that there will always be something on TV. This can cause the user to waste away their day watching TV. This will mean that nothing productive will be done that day, causing a potential for an extended period of laziness.
14. Lastly, Google Pay is an application that allows you to pay virtually anywhere to almost anyone. You can make payments through mobile applications, pay at a brick and mortar store, or even send your friends money. All you do is connect your credit or debit card to the application and you are all set. The only issue I see right now is that it is only available on the Android Operating System. It doesn’t worry me personally since I have ApplePay on iOS. But back to Google Pay, this is a big advantage to society in that since most people have their cell phones glued to them, they always have a way to pay for products. This could be a potential disadvantage in that people may be reliant on just google pay and forget to bring their wallet with them and leave them without being able to pay for their goods in the one place that may not accept Google Pay. Also, with leaving their wallet behind, they may also be leaving other important things behind like their driver’s license.
15. Google Fiber. Retrieved from https://fiber.google.com/about/
16. Google Pay. Retrieved from https://pay.google.com/about/
17. Waze. Retrieved from https://www.waze.com/
18. YouTube TV. Retrieved from https://tv.youtube.com/welcome/.

•Dependable

•Manageable

•Adaptable

•Affordable

Evaluate cloud computing in relation to each of these four criteria.

Cloud computing is a technology that is really taking off in today’s society. One of the features of cloud computing is that it is a dependable service. One of the benefits of cloud computing is loss prevention. Cloud computing gives the user or business a backup medium for all their files. Hardware, like hard drives fail all the time, so having your information backed up to the cloud is the smart way to go to protect your information. Of course, relying solely on the cloud is not wise. Although very dependable, it’s still good to back up your information locally. You never know when the cloud service you may be using could be compromised. Although rare, it is still possible, so having multiple backups is smart.

It is very easy to manage cloud computing technology. For instance, when you place a file into a cloud, there is only one of them. This makes editing the file simple and painless. If you have a team with six members, you will not have to worry about there being six different copies of one document. That can be very confusing. Cloud computing can implement a checkout process which allows a user to check out a document to make edits, and then check it back in with the changes so all others in the team can see all the updates.

Cloud computing is very adaptable in such a way that one can utilize the cloud almost any way they want. Cloud computing can be used as a file sharing service, like Google Drive or Dropbox. It can also be used as a data dissemination tool, like some corporations use SharePoint for information exchange. Cloud computing also is used for Virtual Private Networks (VPN). A user would long on to the VPN from outside of the office network to access files within the office network. This makes telecommuting possible.

Lastly, cloud computing can be very affordable. Dropbox and Google Drive, for example, have free versions up to a certain data size that you can utilize for file sharing. If you upload all your company’s data to the cloud, you save time and money by mitigating the need to personally upload the files to every workstation in your company. With many sizes available for cloud computing, you won’t have to worry about purchasing space that you don’t need and it going to waste. Just pay for what you need, and if you need more, simply upgrade your service for more storage space.

Golden, B. June 18, 2013. Why Cloud Computing Offers Affordability and Agility. Retrieved from https://www.cio.com/article/2384827/cloud-computing/why-cloud-computing-offers-affordability-and-agility.html

Salesforce. n.d. 12 Benefits of Cloud Computing. Retrieved from https://www.salesforce.com/hub/technology/benefits-of-cloud/

4.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) consists of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Transportation Security Administration, United States Coast Guard and the United States Secret Service.

The DHS strategic plan states: “The Department of Homeland Security’s overriding and urgent mission is to lead the unified national effort to secure the country and preserve our freedoms. While the Department was created to secure our country against those who seek to disrupt the American way of life, our charter also includes preparation for and response to all hazards and disasters.”

Define and explain data warehousing in detail and describe how it could be used in the DHS.

Data Warehousing is the way businesses or large corporations, like the DHS can store large amounts of information electronically all in one location. Data warehousing is more than just a data storage service or a database. A database stores information that can change daily, or even hourly. Data warehousing is more used as a method to store archives or something that won’t necessarily change. The DHS can benefit from this by using data warehousing as a “lessons learned” medium since they probably do not have large groups of files database wise that needs periodic or regular updating. When lessons learned was brought up, it is geared more toward data mining, which is a way to look for patterns in the business to make operations run more smoothly.

For example, The United States Coast Guard, in conjunction with the DHS uses the DW-ALMIS data warehouse for official reporting of logistics and asset management. There is no detailed information on this warehouse that is available to the public. The DHS also uses Data Warehousing to track many aspects related to homeland security. For instance, they currently house data, called the Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, related to all foreigners who were allowed admittance into the US for various reasons. This could be for temporary visitors, or for those seeking asylum or naturalization. It also includes records of those who were deported or found to be in trouble with the law for various reasons.

Department of Homeland Security. Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook

Data.gov. November 22, 2017. The United States Coast Guard Data Catalog. Retrieved from https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/dw-almis#access-usehttps://catalog.data.gov/dataset/dw-almis#access-use

Frost, A. 2018. Warehousing Data: The Data Warehouse, Data Mining, and OLAP. Retrieved from https://www.knowledge-management-tools.net/data-warehousing.html

5.Describe how applying big data technology to social media can be useful for: (1) a chain of fitness centers, (2) a large government agency, (3) a multinational fashion retail company and (4) a global online university.

Finally, summarize the negative aspects of applying social media data in this way and identify ways to mitigate these concerns.

Using big data with social media has many uses for almost any business. A chain of fitness centers can use it to strategize for their success. They can use social media to gather their customer’s input and recommendations on how they would rate or use their equipment. For instance, is their equipment out of date or falling apart? Customers are probably more likely to voice their opinion on social media rather than face to face, in person.

A large government agency can use big data and social media to evaluate insider threats or to teach citizens how to recognize potential indicators of insider threats. The government can give historical case studies of past instances where people have betrayed the US for various reasons. They can give indicators to look for, what these people have done to complete their illegal activity.

A retail fashion company can use big data and social media to advertise to their users on upcoming sales and promotions. They can also use it to predict what their customers want by providing sales and promotions that tailor to specific demographics.

A global online university can use big data and social media the same way a government agency can. They can use different educational case studies for their students. They can also use it as a medium for the students to critique their classes or instructors.

A huge negative aspect of big data and social media is the privacy issue. With so many breaches of websites and user’s information being stolen, privacy has been probably one of the biggest issues we have today with big data and social media. Although a website might appear to be secure, sometimes the company might not have the customer’s best interests at heart. A way to mitigate this is to ensure that any information that is taken from the customer cannot be used in any way to identify them, or can’t be used in a way that can be stolen and used against them.

Bleiberg, J. May 29, 2014. Five Ways the Government Wants to Use Big Data (Beyond the NSA). Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2014/05/09/five-ways-the-government-wants-to-use-big-data-beyond-the-nsa/

ESDS. Positive And Negative Impacts Of Big Data. Retrieved from https://www.esds.co.in/blog/positive-and-negative-impacts-of-big-data/#sthash.ZcPlUpfH.dpbshttps://www.esds.co.in/blog/positive-and-negative-impacts-of-big-data/#sthash.ZcPlUpfH.dpbs

Hung, D. January 22, 2016. The Impact of Big Data on Social Media Marketing Strategies. Retrieved from https://tech.co/impact-big-data-social-media-marketing-strategies-2016-01

Reed, D. n.d.. Negative Impact of Social Networking Sites. Retrieved from https://socialnetworking.lovetoknow.com/Reasons_Why_Social_Networking_Is_Bad