Microsoft Corporation Information System Information Technology Essay

Information System means system that helps any organization in effectual performance. Information system includes five major components that are data, hardware, software, people and procedure and how these components interact with each other to produce factual Information.

The organization we selected is Microsoft Corporation. In our report, we investigated how Microsoft uses different phases of Software Development Life cycle to develop new software for their customers and what are the security risks for their software and we have provided some solutions and recommendations for those.

Introduction: I:1224245596231_1.jpg

Founded in 1975 by William Henry Gates III (known as Bill Gates) and Paul Allen in New Mexico Microsoft Corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of Software products for computing devices.

About Microsoft:H:images (2).jpg

Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, United States.

There are 3 Divisions within the Microsoft Corporation:

Platform Products and Services Division

Business Division

Entertainment and Devices Division

Worldwide area is served by Microsoft.

A product for Microsoft varies from Operating System to large Business Software and Game Consoles. Such as Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Server, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, XBOX 360.

Populace Engaged with the Microsoft is 93000 in more than 100 countries.

Components of Information system

Data/Information

Gathering data and then manipulate it into proper information is a plus point for any organization whether an IT Company or any business organization to gain a competitive edge in the market.

In Microsoft Corporation data/information is used in various aspects such as data regarding employees, vendors, business organizations and one of the most indispensable and precious information is the customer specifications for the Software which later is interpreted to come up with new software for the particular business organization or any other vendor.

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Hardware

As Microsoft is an IT company so it is very essential for the organization has certain set of hardware equipments to perform certain specific tasks such as designing new software’s, systems.

Hardware is defined as any electric, electronic and mechanical components contained in a computer. Hardware components used within the Microsoft premises are

Desktop Computers: – The whole work in the organization is based on this device. They are generally using the assembled configuration consisting of Keyboards, Mouse, Intel Pentium IV processor and several other peripherals.

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Printers: – used within the company premises to take out hard copies for future references. Generally shared onto a network within the company premises.I:deepakhp_officejet_pro_k8600_color_printer_cb015a.jpg

CCTV’s -Used within the company premises to have a check on the Employee and external intrusions. H:images.jpg

Biometric Devices- Generally used for the security purposes, employee attendance and much more.

Software

Microsoft is using certain application software for doing their work effectively and efficiently such as Programming Languages like asp.net, VB.net, C++ and much more.

As Microsoft is well-known for its software within the market such as Microsoft Operating Systems, Microsoft Office 2007, 2010, Visual Studio 8.0 and list of software continues to grow. They might need certain application software for the documentation and to backup data for future use.

Software that Microsoft uses relies on a network. And this desktop and server software is running within the Microsoft enterprise, is known as on-premises software.

Application Software

Microsoft Office 2010 and the old versions to-

For word processing – Microsoft Word

For Spreadsheet – Microsoft Excel

Programming Languages – Asp.net, VB.net, C++, C# etc.

Microsoft Project Management Software.

Backup Software – VERITAS Backup Exec™

Accounting software – Microsoft Dynamic GP

Operating Systems

Microsoft is using operating system designed specifically for servers such as UNIX.

People

In an organization people are related in two forms people inside the organization as well the people outside the organization either work individually or in a group to accomplish certain goals. People associated with the organizations are Employees, Technicians and external people such as the customers.

Procedures:

It is defined as an instruction or set of instructions a user follows to achieve an activity

Example:

User manual

Data entry

Various steps are taken within the company to do achieve their goals. For an IT company or for Microsoft developing the software is of major importance so SDLC is carried out to develop the Software

Employee payroll are given through certain procedures.

System Development Life Cycle

The six stages of the SDLC are intended to rely onto one another, taking the outputs from the previous stage, adding extra effort, and generate results that leverage the preceding effort and are directly appreciable to the previous stages.

This output transform input approach is anticipated to result in a quality product that gratifies the original aim of the customer.

Our research focus on how Microsoft designed the Microsoft Dynamics gp generally used for the accounting purpose

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Financial Departments.

PLANNING STAGE

The planning stage set up a profound observation of the intended software product, and uses this to establish the basic project structure, evaluate feasibility and risks associated with the project, and describe appropriate management and technical approaches.

Planning phase begins when steering Committee receives a project and following things are carried out to check whether is appropriate to design in new software or not

i. Review and approve the project.

ii. Prioritize the project request.

iii. Allocate resources and form a project development team.

The minimum information for each goal contains a title and textual description, although additional information and references to external documents may be included.

The outputs of the project planning stage are the configuration management plan, the quality assurance plan, and the project plan and schedule, with a detailed listing of scheduled activities for the upcoming Requirements stage for the development of the software Microsoft Dynamic gp, and high level estimates of effort for the out stages.

Analysis

These necessities describe the major functions of the planned application, define operational data areas and reference data areas, and define the initial data entities.

2 steps

Preliminary Investigation

Feasibility tests are carried out to ensure whether the Management software we want to develop is worth pursuing or not.

Detailed Analysis

Requirements of the Users.

Within requirements of user lot of data is collected through data gathering techniques such as Questionnaire, JAD session, Interview such as what more should be included in the software as compared to that of access.

Recommendation of Solution.

There are 2 Techniques for detailed analysis. It depends upon software to software which type of technique to use.

Process Modeling.

Object Modeling.

Within process modeling Entity relationship diagrams, data flow diagrams data dictionary are designed that are supposed to be the part of the software.

Entity Relationship Diagram:

Is a tool that graphically shows the connection among entities in a system?

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Data flow diagram:

Is a tool that graphically shows the flow of data in a system?

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These requirements are fully described in the primary deliverables for this stage: the Requirements Document and the Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM). Detailed listings of database tables and fields are not incorporated in the requirements document.

The title of each requirement is also placed into the first version of the RTM, along with the title of each goal from the project plan. The purpose of the RTM is to show that the product components developed during each stage of the software development lifecycle are formally connected to the components developed in prior stages.

The outputs of the requirements definition stage include the requirements document, the RTM, and an updated project plan.

DESIGN STAGE

The design stage takes as its input the requirements identified. For each requirement, a set of one or more design essentials will be produced as a consequence of interviews, workshops, and/or prototype efforts.

Design elements describe the desired software features in detail, and generally include functional hierarchy diagrams, screen layout diagrams, tables of business rules, business process diagrams, pseudo code, and a complete entity-relationship diagram with a full data dictionary.

These design elements are intended to describe the software in sufficient detail that skilled programmers may develop the software with minimal additional input.

When the design document is finalized and accepted, the RTM is updated to show that each design element is formally associated with a specific requirement. The outputs of the design stage are the design document, an updated RTM, and an updated project plan.

DEVELOPMENT STAGE

Now after doing a lot of investigation, research, project criteria’s are well defined and it is now the time to develop the new software. Individuals are provided with their own tasks.

For each design element, a set of one or more software artifacts will be produced. Software artifacts include but are not limited to menus, dialogs, and data management forms, data reporting formats, and specialized procedures and functions.

Appropriate test cases will be developed for each set of functionally related software artifacts, and an online help system will be developed to guide users in their interactions with the software.

The RTM will be restructured to show that each developed object is linked to a specific design element, and that each developed artifact has one or more corresponding test case items. At this point, the RTM is in its final configuration.

The outputs of the development stage include a fully functional set of software that satisfies the requirements and design elements previously documented.

Testing and Implementation

Certain tests are carried out to check whether the software is working properly or not. Security risks for that software are listed and checked the back doors for that software would not left behind.

There are 5 tests before actually the software is being implemented:

Unit test, System test, Integration test, Acceptability test, Security check which is further explained in this report.

It is time to implement the Software. Before actually implementing the software first the user’s guidelines are defined that how to use the new software.

Train the users.

Conversion strategy

Microsoft always prefers either parallel conversion or pilot conversion so that it might not affect in the work of the whole enterprise.

Documentation

Documentation is actually the Collection and summarization of data and information of the project for future referral and the referral of the users.

Gantt chart Scheduled within the Organization

Gantt chart

It is a popular tool used to plan and schedule time relationships among project activities within the organization.

Microsoft follows 5 steps before scheduling Gantt chart

1. Goal objectives and expectations of the project for the time criteria defined.

2. List of the required activities.

3. Time estimation for each activity.

4. Order of Activities.

5. Activity that occur at the same time period i.e. parallel scheduling.

After that the above things are plotted onto a bar chart and then using the required project management software Gantt chart is designed and then get approved by the Steering Committee.

Project Management Software

Project management software used to plan, schedule and control projects within the Microsoft premises is the software designed by Microsoft itself i.e. Microsoft Project Management Software.

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Four Feasibility Tests

Feasibility is the measure of how suitable the development of new software will to the company. Project feasible at one point might become infeasible at other.

Also called as Cost/Benefit feasibility measures whether the new software would provide in benefits or not in future.

Whether the company can allocate the resources needed for the progress such as Developers, Funds to pay to the developers, Hardware.

Check whether the software would be designed in the estimated time period.

Or the scope of the project might reduce.

New Software would work properly or not according to the customer expectations.

Would customer like it or not.

Software’s used during the Implementation phase

Software used are C++, Asp.net, VB.net depends upon the requirements. 

Tests Performed to verify the Application

These 5 Stages are categorized in following different testing Process:

Unit Testing – Tested for full, partial, or upgrade install/uninstall, from crashes, hardware failures.

Security testing -Safe from Hackers, unauthorized intrusions, back doors. Checked if system, database is safe from external attacks.

Compatibility testing – Does the software compatible on different hardware and systems.

Assessment testing – Comparison of databases or accounting software designed before. Its potency and weaknesses with preceding versions or other similar products.

Performance testing – To check whether software meets performance requirements.

Integration testing – Testing of integrated modules to verify shared functionality after integration. Modules are typically code modules, individual applications, client and server applications on a network, etc. This type of testing is especially relevant to client/server and distributed systems.

Security Measures

Information is the advantage in the majority organizations. Companies get a competitive advantage by knowing how to make use of that information. The danger comes from others who would like to obtain the information or limit business chances by interfering with normal business processes.

Following are some risks that can create an information loss:

Virus, Worms and Trojan Horses.

Employees.

Natural Disasters.

Denial of service attack (DoS).

Perpetrators of Cybercrime (7 Categories)

Outside attackers.

IP Spoofing.

Password Cracking.

System Failure. 

Solutions and Recommendations

As Virus, Worms and Trojan Horses are spread through emails so it is strictly recommended not to open unexpected emails, do social networking within the premises equipments. Use antivirus software. Antivirus software used within Microsoft is McAfee.

Common examples of computer-related employee perpetrations include Changing Data, Deleting Data, and Supply company information to the competitors so it is recommended to have bird’s eye view on the Employees and employee should follow the company’s rules and regulations too.

Natural Disasters can also cause loss of data as well as hardware equipments so it is recommended to use Surge Protector for natural disaster like thunderstorm

A DoS means which multiple unsuspecting computers are used to attack multiple computer networks the best way to protect the network is either use Firewall enabled equipments for networking or Honeypots.

Protection for perpetrators of cybercrime is difficult but several steps can be taken to protect Information from them such as use secured networks, protect computers from spam by using secured software, and encrypt data through various data encryption techniques before actually deploying that onto the servers.

For IP Spoofing it is recommended not to enter confidential information onto the website until or unless it is apparent that it is safe to enter. E.g. check whether the website is digitally certified or not.

One of the major aspects in the loss of information is the use of password that can be cracked easily so password of at least 10 digits should be used with different combinations of characters.

At last susceptible thing is the system failure so not use equipments which are old enough, protect equipments from voltage fluctuation, and natural disasters as explained above.

Conclusion

Information system is the need of todays fast pace world. After the detailed study on Microsoft Corporation we came to know that the company is engaged in developing, manufacturing, licensing, and supporting software products worldwide.

The software products and services available in Microsoft include operating systems for servers, and intelligent devices; server applications for distributed computing environments; information worker productivity applications; business solutions applications; computing applications; software development tools, and video games.

So after going through the company procedures for System Development life cycle we would like to conclude that steps taken by the Microsoft Corporation would lead to good Management software that would help in increasing the productivity as well as the efficiency of the Employees.