Final Project Report for Media Management System
Page i
Final Project Report
for
Media Tracking System
Version 2.0 approved
Final Project Report for Media Management System
Table of Contents
Table of Contents ...................................................................................................i
Revision History ................................................................................................... iii
Group Members ................................................................................................... iii
1. Final Project Summary......................................................................................i
1.1. Content Summary ......................................................................................i
1.2. Lessons Learned ....................................................................................... ii
1.3. Learning Outcomes Summary ................................................................... ii
1.3.1 Communications................................................................................. iii
1.3.2 Critical Thinking .................................................................................. iv
1.3.3 Network Design .................................................................................. iv
1.3.4 Management Information Systems ...................................................... v
1.3.5 Systems Administration and Scripting ................................................. v
1.3.6 Security ............................................................................................... v
1.3.7 Employability ...................................................................................... vi
2. Future directions ............................................................................................. vi
3. Annotated Bibliography .................................................................................. vii
4. Appendix A: Vision and Scope ....................................................................... vii
5. Appendix B: Status Report 1 ............................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
6. Appendix D: Presentation Slides...................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
7. Appendix E: Other Deliverables/Artifacts ......... Error! Bookmark not defined.
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Final Project Report for Media Management System
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Revision History
Name
Date
Kenneth Wright
Kenneth Wright, et al
07/01/2010 Initial Draft
07/15/2010 With contributions and edits from
all team members, we refined the
document
07/23/2010 Style, editing, additional
information from all team members
07/30/2010 Final editing and proofreading
Kenneth Wright, et al
Kenneth Wright, et al
Reason For Changes
Version
1.0
1.5
1.6
2.0
Group Members
Name
Role
Responsibilities
Kenneth Wright
Project Manager
& Infrastructure
SME
Database &
Hardware SME
Interface &
Encryption SME
Oversee project activities, supervise solution
integration into existing infrastructure
Joe Hettinger
Greg Robison
Install & design database, supervise server
hardware implementations
Build user interface and make
recommendations for secure network traffic
transmission
1. Final Project Summary
T2 Technologies is the go to source for small and intermediate size business looking for
progressive and cost effective IT solutions.
Recently Nationwide Children’s Hospital contracted T2 to create a cost effective media
management system to organize, track and manage their large inventory of backup
tapes, CD/DVD and other media that is stored and their main data center and at their
offsite storage facility. This system is designed to better manage and track the media
as well as provide regulatory compliance for data safety in accordance with federal
HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and PCI (Payment card
industry) laws and guidelines.
1.1. Content Summary
Scope
This engagement provides for an electronic database with a standard GUI interface to
inventory and track portable media. The engagement also includes a web interface for
offsite employee usage. This web interface will have limited function and only be for
inventorying or transport of media.
Schedule
This engagement began on April 26, 2010 and will continue through August, 2010 with
the implementation of the system and first two weeks of inventorying the customer’s
tape inventory.
Costs
Hardware costs include the PC to interface with the database, the scanner and other
peripheral hardware required at both the customer site as well as the offsite facility.
All additional costs have been development, software and programming time.
Risks
As outlined in the scope document, the risks are as follows
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Risk
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Impact
Probability
Mitigation
The solution will be cumbersome and not
adopted quickly or compliance will be
sporadic.
High
Moderate
The tape and other media usage will reduce
to such a level as to make this solution
obsolete
Low
High
Web based entry (browser incompatibility)
Moderate
Low
Regular reporting and auditing from
management will ensure compliance after
initial training. Design considerations to
make the system easy to use will also aid in
compliance
The natural progression is to move from
portable media for back ups so this will be a
natural reduction. However, tracking for
the portable media must be maintained
until all media has reached expiration
Prior to implementation we will ensure
that all computers that access this system
are at the same level of browser.
High
We are planning to use a combination of
internal team members as well as outside
resources to assist in the web development
and connection to the database. In
addition, MS access 2003 offers the ability
to create web pages from forms.
Lack of web development experience with
our team
Potentially high
Communications Strategy
The team utilized several communication methods to collaborate with each other;
including email, instant web meeting technology, voice calls and voicemail. The team
also used both email as well as Microsoft OneNote to keep notes on meetings, and
other conversations.
We utilized regular meetings with both the customer as well as the business practitioner
to solicit feedback for improvements and changes.
1.2. Lessons Learned
Our primary lesson learned was to dig deeper into the actual use of the final product.
Who would use it, what would be their workflow. After careful consideration, we
determined that the web portion of the system should have been added to a future
enhancement since the employees at the offsite storage would not be granted access to
Nationwide Children’s network.
A redesign of the screens would have been unnecessary for this project, had the design
team gone to the customer sites prior to designing the management screens and done
a workflow study. This resulted in changes to the primary management interface to
allow for easier workflow when creating and sending daily cases of media to the offsite
storage facility.
1.3. Learning Outcomes Summary
The learning outcomes were met by a variety of ways the following is a summary for
each section and then following the summary is the detail for each section.
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1.3.1 Communications outcomes are met through email, WebEx meetings, and
phone calls are documented in the Communications Log in Appendix E.
Additionally, ideas develop into working components, and the flow of ideas can
be seen in the transition from Appendix A to Appendix B.
1.3.2 Critical Thinking outcomes are seen by the team’s approach to solving the
management of portable media through email communications in the
Communications Log and the project white papers in Appendix E.
1.3.3 Network Design outcomes were met as demonstrated through diagrams
and with a VPN to access the network in section 13.2 of Status Report 1 in
Appendix B.
1.3.4 Management Information Systems outcomes are document in email
communications in the Communications Log in Appendix E and Section 8 of
Status Report 1 in Appendix B where the business practitioner provided feedback
to the team.
1.3.5 Systems Administration and Scripting are documented throughout Status
Report 1 in Appendix B. One example of Systems Administration is the backup
plan in section 13.2 of Status Report 1.
1.3.6 Security is documented and acknowledges that vulnerabilities may be
introduced when adding a new server and describes the encryption used for the
wireless network in section 7 of Status Report 1 in Appendix B and in further
detail in 1.3.6 of this section.
1.3.7 Employability is documented in section 3 of the Vision and Scope in
Appendix A. configuration files, diagrams, security plans, etc., that you have
included in the Appendices to this document.
1.4. Communications
All members of the team have responded, contributed, and interacted well with each
other throughout the capstone project. Assignments have been completed in a timely
manner with few grammatical errors, using correct terminology, and in an organized
easy to read fashion in the correct APA format. Specifically, the weekly deliverables
demanded enough work that teammates would have to quickly divide the work,
complete tasks, and submit the work back to the group for review. Submitting tasks
back to the group gave teammates an opportunity review the work and provide
appropriate feedback.
The Franklin Live and WebEx meetings were focused on the project deliverables and
provided opportunities for brainstorming, planning, and feedback on submitted tasks. All
participants were prepared for the meetings with ideas or questions that were pertinent
to the project.
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During the meetings and through email, there were times that teammates would
challenge each other on the direction or selected method for completing a particular
task. These ‘challenges’ often would provide unique insight to the problem and
demonstrated the synthesis and understanding of the topic leading to an enhanced
solution to the problem at hand.
1.5. Critical Thinking
The team members did an outstanding job in the analysis of the management problem
with portable media at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. The team’s approach to solving
the management of portable media was based on the following ideals and methods.





Build a product that considers alternative future uses that is reliable.
Completely define the problem.
Decide the fastest and most cost effective way to solve the problem.
Use the Software Development Life Cycle using the Waterfall Methodology.
Develop with trouble shooting tools or methods that will aid in trouble shooting
problems.
One example of the foreword thinking was the suggestion of a team member to add
several fields to the database that would aid in troubleshooting problems. The trouble
shooting fields added were for date and time stamps, the user who created the record,
and the user who modified the recorded. Some developers would not add these fields to
conserve disk space, reduce development time, and to speed up the application.
However, the number of tables and the expected size of the database will not consume
too many resources or noticeably affect the speed of the application. Additionally, it is
easier to add the fields during initial development than it is to go back and add fields
after the product has been released.
1.6. Network Design
This project did not require the team to design a network because Nationwide Children’s
Hospital already had an established network. The project involved one server to be
added to a network consisting of over 350 servers and over a thousand workstations.
However, the Nationwide Children’s Hospital network administrator provided the team
with an overview of the network that described the physical layout and how the DNS,
DHCP, and VPN were setup. Using the overview of the network, the team reviewed
what was required to connect to the portable media management server both internally
and externally. The following are the networking components that were used and
reviewed to ensure the team could access the necessary resources.
 How to determine if name resolution is working or not.
 The use of ping, arp, and netstat in the command prompt for trouble shooting.
 Remotely logging into computers with the use of Remote Desktop Protocol
(RDP).
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
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Accessing network resources using a Virtual Private Network.
Mapping network drives.
1.7. Management Information Systems
The portable media management system developed for NCH will control media
inventory, the process for tracking media sent to offsite storage facilities, and IT
analysts request for restore jobs. The system will track when media is destroyed and
reports will identify the media can be destroyed according to retention policies.
Additionally the system is compliant with HIPAA and other privacy statutes.
The system will eliminate illegible paper logs and speed up processing with a barcode
scanner to track the media identification number. The look up process will be much
faster, a built in query will identify the location of the media with the media identification
number for the last back up of a server instead of thumbing through a paper log. The
HIPAA compliant system will avoid inadvertent or miss placed portable media,
eliminating or reducing the possibility for fines associated with HIPAA compliance
violations.
The business practitioner that advised our team was helpful in pointing out a few errors
in our initial plans along with good standard procedures for database development. One
suggestion was to include the table name or abbreviation into each field name and not
to abbreviate the field name if it is not clearly understood by a new user. The reason for
using this procedure is that the database becomes self-documenting, which is helpful
for new personnel who need to develop, modify, or maintain the system.
1.8. Systems Administration and Scripting
The additional systems administration and scripting associated with the new portable
backup media tracking system at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital comes with
minimal overhead. The database runs on a laptop computer in Access 2007 and
DotNetFramework 2.0. The computer will be joined to the domain for security and
integration as well as receive regular updates from the WSUS server and a managed
anti-virus application. Operating System and software upgrades will be applied as
needed, ensuring that sufficient testing is done before hand to reduce any bugs that
could interrupt service on the production network.
The wireless hand scanners running Microsoft Windows CE 6.0 will be configured to
receive important operating and software upgrades as well. Additional they will used on
a rotational schedule that ensures that they will regularly be returned to administrators
so that regular inspections for updates and compatibility can be conducted.
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1.9. Security
Anytime a new server or device is introduced to a network it represents a new potential
vulnerability and access point for malicious activity if not properly safe guarded against
threats. The new management system for portable backup media that will be
implemented at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital by Team 2 consists of several
components that have been thoroughly researched to determine the most effective
methods for establishing a strong security posture. Although the system is protected by
the existing security controls on the Nationwide Children’s Hospital network, it
introduces several new features and capabilities that warrant additional security
implementations. To start, the new servers will have security patches and software
updates applied in accordance with the Nationwide Children’s Hospital current policies.
Anti-virus software will be installed and maintained in the same fashion making the new
servers security compliant to the Nationwide Children’s Hospital information assurance
standards.
The new management system for potable backup media also makes use of several
different web interfaces that will be protected using Transport Layer Security (TLS) and
user authentication by username and password. Firewalls will be configured to only
allow requests for the web interface to be permitted from the internal network to help
prevent its exploitability from external threats. The mobile scanners used for the system
introduce a new operating system to the network, Microsoft Windows CE 6.0 that will
also require monitoring for security patches and software updates as well. They will be
placed on a rotational use system that will ensure that administrators will have
procession of them on a regular basis to keep them current. Communication between
the handheld scanners and the servers will be protected with TLS, and the wireless
traffic from the scanner to the wireless access points will be protected with WPA2 using
the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).
Although the actual backup systems are not part of the new implementation, they are an
integral part of the overall system. Team 2 has made that recommendation that all
backup data be encrypted using a data at rest encryption solution such as the Simpana
plug in for Commvault or OpenSSL, a free open source backup encryption software
application for Windows and Unix servers.
1.10. Employability
The scope of this project to develop a portable backup media tracking system for the
Nationwide Children’s Hospital was designed to meet several initial strict requirements.
The system had to be developed at minimal cost, development staff consisted of in
house personal, required a simple to navigate web interface and be robust enough to
provide the tracking requirements of portable backup media.
The selection of software and hardware products was carefully chosen to conform to the
necessary design requirements. Access 2007 was selected as low cost database
solution that could run on minimal hardware, in this case a laptop computer. Access
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2007 is also a robust enough application that could be used to run custom a database
with report generating capabilities and provide remote data input through web forms via
multiple sources. The hand scanners with wireless networking capability provide the
necessary portability scan, track, indentify and report portable media at multiple
locations simultaneously. The database and web interfaces were developed with inhouse staff, providing future support for database changes, upgrades or the addition of
new features or capabilities should the need arise.
The final portable backup media tracking system produced by this project successfully
meets all the pre-determined design requirements and operational criteria. The makes
use of all possible network infrastructure in place, an requires minimal additional
components to purchased and no outside contracting to complete the software
development.
2. Future directions
The portable backup media tracking system produced from this project was intended to
be a low cost solution developed by in house staff at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
As long as the organization maintains staff with the appropriate skill sets, the product
can continue to be updated with new capabilities and features added as needed for
automation tasks of this business process.
Should the Nationwide Children’s Hospital require upgrading to a more robust database
server in the future such as Microsoft SQL, the Access 2007 data can be upsized and
migrated to the new database server. Such an upgrade would require an additional
investment in hardware, but the current solution provides a foundation that would make
the transition fairly seamless for administrators.
For T2 Consulting, this database is a launching point to remove the branding, convert to
a SQL database with a full web front end to create a commercially marketable product.
3. Annotated Bibliography
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http://www.promoteware.com/Module/Article/ArticleView.aspx?id=10
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128 Barcode. Adams 1.
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Barcode Technologies. (n.d.). Retrieved June 27, 2010, from Lightning Labels:
http://www.lightninglabels.com/Articles/Best-of-the-Lightning-Labels-Blog.htm
This book explains technologies and technical terms
Bowman, P. H. (2006). IT Made E-Z. In P. H. Bowman, & L. Long (Ed.), IT Made E-Z (p. 49).
IT Made E-Z, Inc.
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A dynamic website allowing users to search for browser usage based on input date
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http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-marketshare.aspx?qprid=0&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=124&qpnp=13&qpct=3
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application developers have
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Silwa, C. (2002, May 20). .Net vs. Java: Five Factors to Consider. Retrieved June 30, 2010,
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