Assignment Description
1. Do project 9.1 of the book.
2. Surf the “obama site,” (Spend 1 hour or less on this part of the assignment)
Use the criteria in the lecture for presentation to management
How well does it fulfill those criteria?
Pick one of the charts. Determine its” eloquence”
Authors
William Rozzo, Andrew Fessler, and Jonathan Wesel
Summary
We calculated the system continuous availability initially to be 98.70%. Reducing hardware
maintenance time increases this by 0.09%. Increasing the availability for a backup credit card
vendor improves this by 0.8%. If we incorporate both of these changes we see a 0.89%
improvement, putting continuous availability at 99.59%.
Using degraded mode, we can further improve availability. Initially, we found 99.40%
availability. It improves by 0.09% with hardware improvements, and 0.24% with credit card
vendor backup. Together this creates a 0.33% improvement, giving a continuous availability of
99.73%
In order to improve user satisfaction of the system when the response time is longer than one
second, we feel a status metric should be displayed such as a progress bar.
Finally, an assessment of the “Obama site” was carried out, with the results shown below.
Significant Findings or Learning
As pure coincidence, we stumbled upon Wikipedia failing availability/reliability for a short
period of time Sunday. We found this to be interesting and figured since it was so fitting that we
would share. It appears that even some of the best aren't perfect.
The IT Dashboard was a good tool for analyzing and representing the plethora of data available
on the various projects and investments of many government branches and agencies. With so
much information available, it is important to correctly identify the relevant information and use
it affectively to learn a lesson or take action.
Honor pledge
I pledge on my honor that I have not given or received any unauthorized assistance on this
assignment/examination. I further pledge that I have not copied any material from a book, article,
the Internet or any other source except where I have expressly cited the source.
Detailed Results
Availability
99.9
Hardware
99.8
Software
99
CC System
Hardware down for .1%
Software down for .2%
CC System down for 1%
1.68hrs
3.36hrs
16.8hrs
Operational for 10 weeks
Hours
1680
Method 1
1. Calculate the system continuous availability
(Total Hours – HW downtime – SW downtime – CC downtime) / Total Hours =
(1680 – 1.68 – 3.36 – 16.8) / 1680 = 0.987 = 98.7%
2. Using hot backup system to reduce maintenance time by 90%
Scheduled maintenance takes 1.68 hours, reduced by 90% = 1.68 – (1.68 * .9) = 0.168 hours
(1680 – 0.168 – 3.36 – 16.8) / 1680 = 0.9879 = 98.79%
This is an improvement of 0.09%
3. 80% availability for backup CC system vendor
So, in the 30% time what we would be down, we switch to this other system, which is available 80% of
the time the 30% calculated to be 16.8 hours (1% down time).
If we are now up 80% of this time, then 80% of 16.8 = 13.44, 16.8-13.44 = 3.36 hours down time.
So, now we get:
(Total Hours – HW downtime – SW downtime – CC downtime) / Total Hours =
(1680 – 1.68 – 3.36 – 3.36) / 1680 = 0.995 = 99.5%
This is an improvement of 0.8%
4. If we incorporate both improvements
(Total Hours – HW downtime – SW downtime – CC downtime) / Total Hours =
(1680 – 0.168 – 3.36 – 3.36) / 1680 = 0.995 = 99.59%
This is an improvement of 0.89%
Method 2
1. Calculate the system continuous availability
((Total Hours – HW downtime – SW downtime – CC downtime) / Total Hours * 0.3) +
((Total Hours – HW downtime – SW downtime) / Total Hours * 0.7) =
((1680 – 1.68 – 3.36 – 16.8) / 1680 * 0.3) +
((1680 – 1.68 – 3.36) / 1680 * 0.7) = 0.9949 = 99.49%
This is an improvement of 0.09%
2. Using hot backup system to reduce maintenance time by 90%
Scheduled maintenance takes 1.68 hours, reduced by 90% = 1.68 – (1.68 * .9) = 0.168 hours
((1680 – 0.168 – 3.36 – 16.8) / 1680 * 0.3) +
((1680 – 0.168 – 3.36) / 1680 * 0.7) = 0.994 = 99.4%
3. 80% availability for backup CC system vendor
So, in the 30% time what we would be down, we switch to this other system, which is available 80% of
the time the 30% calculated to be 16.8 hours (1% down time).
If we are now up 80% of this time, then 80% of 16.8 = 13.44, 16.8-13.44 = 3.36 hours down time.
So, now we get:
((1680 – 1.68 – 3.36 – 3.36) / 1680 * 0.3) +
((1680 – 1.68 – 3.36) / 1680 * 0.7) = 0.9964 = 99.64%
This is an improvement of 0.24%
4. If we incorporate both improvements
((1680 – 0.168 – 3.36 – 3.36) / 1680 * 0.3) +
((1680 – 0.168 – 3.36) / 1680 * 0.7) = 0.9973 = 99.73%
This is an improvement of 0.33%
For the response time, the only problem seems to be that the credit card system responds either
very quickly (<1 second) or very slowly (15–20 seconds). What should you do to improve your
user satisfaction with the response time?
We should try to figure out why the system varies response time so drastically. Once that is
determined, if the response time is predicted to be short, we have nothing to worry about.
However if we predict the response time to be anything greater than 1 second (for simplicity we
will use this value as it doesn't appear there is anything in the middle) we should give the user
some sort of status using something like a progress bar.
Part 2
The charts presented on the IT site are very diverse, and present a depth of information. While
this site is targeted at the general public, the way the information is laid out might be daunting at
first to sift through, but once you know what you are looking for you should be able to find it.
The government has decided to relay as many metrics as possible concerning the IT projects
through all agencies. In terms of drawing a picture, some charts leave more to be desired, but
others a highly interactive and really paint an image of what is going on with IT. One very
strong part of the presentation of the information is how drillable it is, from the agency to the
program to the project to the individual metrics.
The interactive charts I would consider to be very eloquent for a couple reasons. Firstly, the
interactive nature of the chart gives an added dimension of a slider that controls the timeline. By
using the timeline, one can get an even better picture of the spending over the course of time of
each area and how they changed relative to one another. The chart is moving both in the
figurative and literal sense in this case. The representation presented in the chart is also intuitive
and shows so much in a clear and persuasive way.