Assessment item 2 - Business requirements report
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Value: 15%
Due Date: 12-Apr-2020
Return Date: 06-May-2020
Submission method options: Alternative submission method
TASK
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The Department of Spatial Information (DSI) is a State Government department. The major function of DSI is to provide accurate and timely spatial information to other Government departments, but also to make some of this spatial information available to the public. In order to provide both the government and public services, DSI has developed a number of web services that deliver this information through a number of internally developed services and applications. This suite of web services and applications is referred to as the DSI Online Spatial Delivery System (OSDS).
The OSDS is considered essential by DSI and their users, so these services must be:
• Readily available and accessible at all times,
• Capable of handling heavy loads in times of peak demand,
• Capable of serving downloads to users as required,
• Secure from attacks,
• Capable of providing detailed reports on usage.
DSI have a number of new projects being developed that are expected to increase the demand for its spatial data dramatically. The Executive Management of DSI have looked at a number of proposals to support these new programs. The two alternatives they are investigating are:
1. Increasing the internal DSI Data Centre capacity to host and support the new projects in the OSDS. This would probably need a 50% increase in web infrastructure and support services within the Department. This would necessitate an increase in data centre infrastructure, server numbers as well as a major increase in the bandwidth available to DSI.
2. Migrating the OSDS to a Cloud provider. This would allow DSI to continue to develop and refine the data in its internal Maintenance systems and then move a copy of the completed data to the cloud-based Delivery system for publication.
DSI Management would like to adopt Proposal 2, in order to meet their budget restrictions, but have asked you to prepare a report for the DSI Board that looks at the following aspects of the proposal:
1. The possible delivery and deployment models that DSI should adopt for a cloud-based OSDS. This should include:
a. The advantages and disadvantages of using either an IaaS or PaaS approach for the OSDS, (20 marks) and
b. The possible architecture(s) that could be used to deploy the OSDS (20 marks).
2. Should the Board consider the use of an Cloud Edge solution for the OSDS? What advantages and disadvantages would the Edge give to the OSDS? (20 marks)
3. The OSDS software architecture uses a monolithic approach to design, while a move to use the Edge will require many applications and web services to be redesigned as microservices.
a. Explain the differences between monolithic and microservice architectures to the DSI Board using an example (20 marks).
b. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of these two styles of software architecture (20 marks)
4. Your recommended approach for delivery and deployment of the OSDS, including the reasoning for your recommendation (20 marks).
Your report should not exceed 10 pages, excluding references.
RATIONALE
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This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s:
• be able to compare and evaluate the ability of different cloud computing architectures to meet a set of given business requirements.
• be able to evaluate a set of business requirements to determine suitability for a cloud computing delivery model.
MARKING CRITERIA AND STANDARDS
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Question HD DI CR PS FL
1a. IaaS/PaaS evaluation (20 marks) Clear, comprehensive
description of IaaS and PaaS architectures and their uses, advantages and disadvantages clearly identified & fully discussed Detailed description of
IaaS and PaaS architectures and their uses, advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed Good description of IaaS and PaaS architectures and their uses, many advantages and disadvantages mostly identified & discussed Adequate description of
IaaS and PaaS architectures and their uses, some advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed Incomplete or inadequate description of IaaS and PaaS architectures and their uses, with few or no advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed
1b. Possible architecture for OSDS (20 marks) Clear, comprehensive description of a possible OSDS architecture and its advantages and disadvantages clearly identified & fully discussed Very good description of a possible OSDS architecture and its advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed Good description of a possible OSDS architecture with some advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed Adequate description of a possible OSDS architecture with a few advantages and disadvantages identified & discussed Inadequate or incomplete description of a possible OSDS architecture with few or no advantages and disadvantages identified or discussed
2. Use of Cloud Edge for OSDS (20 marks) Clear, comprehensive discussion of the use of the Edge for OSDS and advantages and disadvantages clearly identified and fully discussed Very good discussion of the use of the Edge for OSDS and most advantages and disadvantages identified and discussed Good discussion of the use of the Edge for OSDS and many advantages and disadvantages identified and discussed Adequate discussion of the use of the Edge for OSDS and some advantages and disadvantages identified and discussed Inadequate or incomplete discussion of the use of the Edge for OSDS with few or no advantages and disadvantages identified or discussed
3a. Differences between monolithic & microservice architectures (20 marks) Clear, comprehensive discussion of the differences between both architectures with an example that shows the differences clearly Very good discussion of the differences between both architectures with a good example that shows the differences
Good discussion of the differences between both architectures with an example that shows many of the differences Adequate discussion of the differences between both architectures with an example that shows some differences
Inadequate or incomplete discussion of the differences between both architectures with an example that is unclear or with no example
3b. Evaluation of software architectures (20 marks) Clear, comprehensive discussion of both architectures with their advantages and disadvantages clearly identified and fully discussed Very good discussion of both architectures with most of their advantages and disadvantages identified and discussed Good discussion of both architectures with many of their advantages and disadvantages identified and discussed Adequate discussion of both architectures with some of their advantages and disadvantages identified and discussed Inadequate or incomplete discussion of both architectures with few or none of their advantages and disadvantages identified or discussed
4. Recommended approach (20 marks) Clear, comprehensive discussion of the recommended approach with the reasoning fully discussed Very good discussion of the recommended approach with the reasoning well discussed Good discussion of the recommended approach with some of the reasoning discussed Adequate discussion of the recommended approach with parts of the reasoning discussed Inadequate or incomplete discussion of the recommended approach with little or no discussion of the reasoning
Spelling, Grammar, Presentation Up to 5 marks may be deducted for poor presentation, spelling and grammar
APA referencing Up to 5 marks may be deducted for not providing or following the proper APA 7th edition style of referencing.
Note that the guide for APA referencing is provided in the Resource Section of the ITC561 Interact site.
PRESENTATION
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Your report MUST be presented in MS Word format using the following headings:
• OSDS Architecture Evaluation
• Possible OSDS Architecture
• OSDS on the Edge
• Software Architecture Approaches
• Software Architecture Evaluation
• OSDS Recommendation
Your report should use the following presentation standards:
• Use Calibri, or a similar font, in 11 or 12 point type.
• All diagrams and images are to be embedded in the document. Diagrams and images that are supplied separately will not be marked.
• All text should be left-justified.
• Each page must have a header or footer with your name and student number.
• Page numbers must be shown in the footer of each page, except on the title slide.
Reports that do not meet this presentation criteria will not be are marked.