Student Report Jesse Hermes Table of Contents Sections Page I Overview 2 II Work Flow Diagram 3 III System Prototype Specifications 4 IV Deployment Plan 5 V Hardware and Software Descriptions 5 VI Issues and Areas of Improvement 6 VII Reflections and Conclusions 8 Appendix A Database Tables 9 B Project Log 10 C References 17 D Source Code 18Copyright © 1971-2002 Thomas P. Sturm Jesse Hermes Report Report, Page 2 I Overview Goal (General): To create a software application which would allow employees of University of St Thomas Computer and Communication Services (now Information Resources Technologies) to record and track problems, and their solutions, which are reported by end users to the department helpdesk, more easily than can currently be done with the existing software. Goal (Specific): To build a web based database front end using JSP and Java Servlets which meets the requirements specified above.Copyright © 1971-2002 Thomas P. Sturm Jesse Hermes Report Report, Page 3 II Work Flow Diagram (Please excuse the crudity of this diagram)Copyright © 1971-2002 Thomas P. Sturm Jesse Hermes Report Report, Page 4 III System Prototype Specifications Prototype 1 System Software/Hardware Requirements: • Functioning Linux Box with Network connectivity • Working MySQL server • Functioning Java Environment • Working JSP Server with MySQL driver System Requirements: • The ability to enter ticket information by Helpdesk consultant • The ability for Helpdesk Consultants and other TSG members to assign and transfer tickets between members of TSG • The ability of TSG members to update tickets and flag them as completed • The ability for Helpdesk Consultants to close completed tickets. Requirements Meet: • All Prototype 2 System Software/Hardware Requirements: • Functioning Prototype 1 System System Requirements: • The ability for members of TSG to manage database information, including the ability to: • Enter and edit priority numbers and descriptions • Enter and edit status information • Enter new technicians into the system Requirements Meet: • All except the ability to edit status information on the GUI front end. o Reason for incompleate: Application development oversight Prototype 3 System Software/Hardware Requirements: • Functioning and approved Prototype 1 System System Requirements: • The ability for members of TSG to search through Database for past tickets System Optional Requirements: • The ability for end users to look to the web to see the status of incidents assigned to them and their progress. • The ability for Helpdesk Consultants to perform and record Fallow up information Requirements Meet: Due to a shortcoming of version 3 of the MySQL database, only basic search capabilities where implemented. (See Section VI for more information) Also due to time constrains unfortunately none of the optional requirements where meet.Copyright © 1971-2002 Thomas P. Sturm Jesse Hermes Report Report, Page 5 IV Deployment As can be seen in the usability testing, the level of security, in the log in credentials, is built to be very low. Although there is not possible to bypass the login screen, since the session object, whish is used in every subsequent jsp page, is only created by IntitApplicaitonServlet which is called from the login page, all that is needed to log in is a valid username. This is because this system, at least in the mind of the developer and the development team, was seen as an internal use only program, and something, that although is web based, would not need, and would not wanted to be, available to the public, on the internet. With this in mind, the server which houses the application should be either; 1) Given a non-internet valid IP, such as 192.168.x.x, and allow access to that subnet only to internal IPs (140.209.x.x) 2) Have strict firewall rules placed upon it. It would be recommended that a total port block from outside the University be placed on it, or at least a total lock to all IP not contained in a specified group of IP which could be used for off-campus administration, or support of the system. V Hardware and Software The software packages chosen to build the application with are as follows: Database: MySQL an open source database package distributed under the GPL license. The version of which I am using, version 3, is missing a few of the criteria to be a fully relational database, such as views, it has a well developed query optimizer. http://www.mysql.com Web/JSP Server: Under the instruction and recommendation of Morgan Catlin, Orion server was chosen. Orion is an open source server disturbed under the GPL license, designed for Java Servlets, JSP, and J2EE web application serving. http://www.orionserver.com The computer itself, the application was build on is a Pentium II 200 MXX with 32 megs or RAM, and a 20 gigabyte IDE hard drive with 60 megs allocated as scratch disk, running RedHat 7.0. (http://www.redhat.com) Which is a real attest to the efficiency of both of the server softwares and to Linux itself. Although for a full implementation, IRT wide usage, a more power server would be recommended, the test case with 4 of the six members of the development team plus 2 testers not apart of the development team, logged in actively using the application, put no significant tax on the system.Copyright © 1971-2002 Thomas P. Sturm Jesse Hermes Report Report, Page 6 VI Issues and Areas of Improvement Besides a few specific areas (specified in code comments) which would allow for better performance of a couple of Servlets and queries, there are a few issues which posed such a problem that they required specific attention and work-arounds where required to solve them. They are as fallows. Logging Problem Class: SystemLog.java Explanation: The major problem is that MySQL (at least version 3.X.X) even though storing dates as long values displays them as YYYYMMDDHHMMSS so when a log event happens within the same second (which is not uncommon even on a PII 200 MXX which I build this system on) MySQL throws a duplicate primary key exception. Solution 1:java.sql.Date will work for 1 item, however it formats the date to YYYYMMDD0000000, ex "11-14-2001 at 00:00:00" This is a step backwards because now I need to increment on the day. There is no way for PreparedStatement to except java.util.date (which would solve the problem) Solution