develop an overall Information Systems Infrastructure plan from top to bottom for the new organization
Your team has been assembled to provide Information Technology consulting services to a newly formed fictitious company in the upscale cooking supplies industry. (Their product lines include both home-based and professional items.) This medium-sized company was formed by combining several smaller companies within the same industry into a single entity. Each of the smaller companies had their own IT system, and some were not so good, usually because the systems were cobbled together from different sources over the years. The new organization intends to avoid that undesirable outcome.
This organization intends to bring all of the disparate systems together into one comprehensive system. The company is already planning to implement an ERP system with SAP as the core application for managerial control. That part of the transition was outsourced to another team and is not part of your charter. In addition, another team is designing the Computer Systems Architecture including the operating systems, and applications development. You would need to coordinate with them in regards to input/output, computer peripherals, and software components (operating systems and file management) but that is not the focus of your team.
Your team was assembled by selecting individuals from some of those smaller companies described above, so you have never worked together before. Also, the levels of experience and training for the various team members can be quite variable.
Your mission is to develop an overall Information Systems Infrastructure plan from top to bottom for the new organization. Some aspects to consider might include networking, Internet and Intranet, systems and applications, emerging technologies and technological advantages related to Big Data, Cloud Computing, Fog Computing, Internet of Everything (IoE), Software Defined Networks (SDN), network management, and cyber security.
You may or may not be concerned with the specific source or brand name for a platform or subsystem as your team sees fit.
The team needs to consider all the possible roles that need to be supported in this organization that includes light manufacturing, procurement, sales, distribution, and customer support. A good portion of the sales staff will operate from mobile platforms while traveling to customer sites. The primary business channel is wholesale to other businesses but the organization intends to provide some in-house retail operations through brick & mortar facilities as well as online operations.
The overall assignment is to develop a comprehensive plan for the Information Systems Infrastructure for this fictitious organization in a form that would be appropriate as a PowerPoint slideshow for management. You may consider that as the means of presenting your conceptual plan.
I. Introduction/ details and description of project
II. Computer Hardware platforms
III. Operating systems platforms
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Provide a total of 8-10 slides
