Characteristics in Defining Deployment Environment

Considering that I was tasked by the IC-dean to evaluate the enrollment system of the university, there are some things that need to be considered in order for the enrollment system to work inside the university. One of the primary considerations after developing the enrollment system is the deployment environment of the application. The most common things that you need to consider would be the compatibility of the developed system to the system requirements, the considerations on the hardware and the software that will be used, the network planning, the security configuration, the cost and schedule of the deployment, and the deployment itself. In order for me to clearly evaluate those things, let me first define what is the deployment phase and how is it important after the system has been developed.


By definition, system deployment is a state where in delivery, installation, and testing of a computer or system occurs to put it in the state of operational readiness. In addition, system deployment is a process of transforming a mechanical, electrical, or computer system from a packaged form to an operational state. In other words, software deployment is the process of showing the outcome of what the IT team has been doing for many days, once a system has already been developed, system deployment occurs after that.

System deployment phase is one of the critical phases in developing a system. It is where the developed phase is passed to the clients and undergo to testing and clarifying for errors and bugs. Deploying a system does not easily mean that you, the IT team, pass the system to the clients and after that, you don’t care what happens next. The deployment of system needs critical analysis on how to deploy it, what things are needed to consider in deploying it, the requirements in deploying the system, and especially the cost and time needed to analyze in order to deploy the system properly.


According to Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN), when choosing a deployment strategy, the one who is tasked to engage with the system must do the following:
*Understand the target physical environment for deployment,
*Understand the architectural and design constraints based on the deployment environment, and
*Understand the security and performance impacts of your deployment environment.

Based on the above information that I gathered in relation to system deployment environment, I can now enumerate the characteristics examined when choosing or defining a system deployment environment. Here are some of the characteristics that need to examine:

Compatibility among System Requirements. The systems analyst must consider the systems requirements in deploying a certain system. In enrollment system, accessing and updating information is the common operation being done in the system, there must be a consideration on the speed of access and update so that there would be no delay on retrieving information. Compatible database must also include in considerations because information of students are stored in a database.

Compatibility among Hardware and System Software. Hardware and software are included in the consideration since the system software being deployed must match to the hardware of the computer. In relation to the enrollment system in USEP, most of the computers are under Microsoft operating system, which simply means that the system is well suited to computers using Intel processors. By considering compatibility between hardware and software, it could improve performance of the system, and minimize cost of maintenance since it has been ensured that there would be no compatibility issue between the two.

Consideration on Network Planning. In enrollment system, one of the primary reasons on having a system is to interconnect different departments in such a way that there would be unity in the information being processed. In this case, the systems analyst must consider the connectivity methods inside the university. If the university would go to wireless networks, consider the vulnerabilities of having a wireless network in traveling such crucial and important details like the grades of the students and the basic information of the student which is basically confidential.

Security configuration. The systems analyst must consider the security of the system. The accessibility of the system must be limited only to the ones handling the information. In the enrollment system, the system must be deployed in the departments that are included in the enrollment system so that they could be the only persons to access the file.

Cost and Schedule for Deployment. One of the salient things needed to be considered in deploying a system is the cost and schedule for deployment. As an analyst being tasked to deploy a system in a university, I must consider the budget of having a system in the university. The cost and time are relatively parallel to each other, when the cost of deployment is high; the schedule of maintaining the system would be compromised. But as an analyst you should consider both the cost and the maintenance of the deployment according to the system.


Sources:
http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=-ot62DeCKO4C&pg=PA309&lpg=PA309&dq=characteristics+that+an+anlayst+examines+when+choosing+or+defining+deployment+environment&source=bl&ots=V0x_RrJEXy&sig=ps0TRNmjo8XOHg7SB59vcqAN7Ng&hl=tl&ei=VTSOS9S2O4SQtgPk4qnZCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee658120.aspx