Situation Analysis
PLEASE SEE ATTACHED GUIDELINE AND RUBRIC***
Create a short paper that includesthe following critical elements in this assignment: 1) A description of the business-related challenges faced by the organization 2) One example of a case study that discussessimilar challenges faced by organizations with constraints related to the lack of features listed in Table 1, or 3) If you work in the information technology field, describe any similar operating-system-related challenges faced by your organization, or 4) A description of how any of the features listed in Table 1 or a lack thereof would play a role in your productivity at work or school.
ATTACHED FILE(S)
IT 600 Final Project Milestone One Guidelines and Rubric
Overview: For the final project, you will evaluate a fictitious organization and develop a set of operating system requirements and a comprehensive
recommendation for that organization. The goal is to leverage the cumulative knowledge you acquire in each module of this course to map operating system
components to organizational challenges. Each module will have a conceptual base. You will then complete a hands-on lab by leveraging the workstation you are
using to take this course. Later, you can apply the knowledge of the specific operating system commands in those labs to write about how the commands would
be applied in a real-world analysis of an operating system’s capabilities. Review the Top Secret, Inc. scenario below carefully to understand the nature of the
problem. They make a fine product, yet they cannot use it effectively to run their own operation. Consider the diff erences between a simple single-purpose
operating system and a general-purpose operating system and how the concepts you are learning in this course can help Top Secret, Inc. find a solution.
Scenario: Top Secret, Inc. (TSI) is a successful operating system company whose customers include Fortune 500 companies, governments throughout the world,
and major U.S. contractors. TSI makes embedded operating systems for secure terminals that control ingress/egress control systems for Wall S treet firms,
camera systems for drone aircraft for government contractors, and alarm systems for top-secret government installations. TSI operating systems are world-
renowned for their quick response to sensor input, highly reliable operation, limited memory utilization, small size on disk, and low power consumption.
The TSI Operating System (TSI OS) works exceptionally well on the devices owned by TSI customers, but it does not work well in the TSI back office. Like many
startup companies, TSI had to cut costs when it launched a few years ago. To save money, the company decided not to use enterprise-class operating systems
for its own workstations and servers. Instead, it chose to use a single-purpose TSI OS, reasoning that TSI OS was good enough for TSI customers, so it should be
good enough for TSI. Unfortunately, TSI OS lacks many features of a modern operating system and does not take advantage of the architectural optimizations
present in the latest hardware. Below is a matrix of general purpose operating system (GPOS) features and how they map to TSI OS:
GPOS Feature TSI OS Support for GPOS Feature
Multiprogramming
TSI OS does not support more than one program running at a time.
TSI
customers need one program resident, and that is the program that
handles sensor input and (e.g., from cameras and motion sensors). A back-
office operating system requires preemptive multitasking and advanced
scheduling features.
Multiprocessing
TSI OS does not support more than one processor on a physical device.
The operating system locks up when interrupts are generated by a second
processor. Since most processors on the market are multicore, TSI has to
purchase old, decommissioned hardware with single-core processors for
its data center.
Multithreading
TSI OS lacks a system call interface beyond basic file open, close, read, and
write. As such, it does not provide a CreateThread() or pthread_create()
API call like Windows or Linux. Back-office applications that offer
multithreaded operation hang at launch, so TSI has to use open-source
software so that a team of TSI software developers can remove multi-
threading functionality.
Virtual Memory
TSI OS uses a flat memory model without paging. As a result, TSI OS
administrators in the back office frequently have to reboot the operating
systems when they crash due to insufficient memory.
System Call Interface
As previously mentioned, TSI OS has only a basic system call interface. This
causes severe software compatibility issues. To get around this limitation
at TSI headquarters, developers have had to modify traps to kernel mode
and develop custom system call responses.
Security
Given the fact that TSI OS operates based on sensor input, it does not have
any security for log in, file system modifications, or network security. In
customer installations, the system is typically located on a closed TCP/IP
network, so operators can quickly get access to device statistics. As a
result, anyone with network access at TSI headquarters can log into any
TSI OS server in the back office.
Device Drivers
TSI software developers write custom device drivers for each customer.
That does not work well for the TSI back office because the variety of
devices is so large and sophisticated, TSI developers are unable to code for
them.
Fault Tolerance
Given the device driver limitations of TSI software developers, they are
unable to code device drivers for RAID cards. As a result, all company data
resides on individual SATA and SCSI drives.
Table 1: Mapping of the features found in a typical general purpose operating system compared to the TSI OS used at TSI headquarters for its back-office servers.
The mapping shows that the choice of a single purpose OS for its back-office function has limitations that require an enterprise-class, general-purpose operating
system.
Prompt: For this milestone, conduct an analysis of the situation in which TSI finds itself. Write a short paper that describes the business-related challenges faced
by the organization. You are not describing solutions to those challenges just yet. Search for case studies or articles that discuss similar challenges faced by
organizations with constraints related to the lack of features listed in Table 1 above. If you work in the information technology field, describe any similar
operating-system-related challenges faced by your organization. If you are a consumer of IT services, describe how any of the features or lack thereof would play
a role in your productivity at work or school.
Create a short paper that includes the following critical elements in this assignment:
1) A description of the business-related challenges faced by the organization
2) One example of a case study that discusses similar challenges faced by organizations with constraints related to the lack of features listed in Table 1, or
3) If you work in the information technology field, describe any similar operating-system-related challenges faced by your organization, or
4) A description of how any of the features listed in Table 1 or a lack thereof would play a role in your productivity at work or school.
Guidelines for Submission: Your paper must be submitted as a 2–3 page Microsoft Word document with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, one-
inch margins, and sources cited in APA format.
Critical Elements Proficient (100%) Needs Improvement (70%) Not Evident (0%) Value
Description of
Business-Related
Challenges Faced by
TSI
Business-related challenges faced
by TSI are accurately and
adequately described
Business-related challenges faced
by TSI are either not accurately
and/or adequately described
The description is not provided 40
Examples of Similar
Challenges
Similar challenges faced by
organizations with constraints
related to the lack of features listed
in Table 1 above are provided from
a case study or a work environment
or school environment
Examples provided are not similar Examples are not provided 40
Articulation of
Response
Submission has no major errors
related to citations, grammar,
spelling, syntax, or organization
Submission has major errors
related to citations, grammar,
spelling, syntax, or organization
that negatively impact readability
and articulation of main ideas
Submission has critical errors
related to citations, grammar,
spelling, syntax, or organization
that negatively impact readability
and articulation of main ideas
20
Earned Total 100%
