MIS 140 Mesher Spring 2003 Responding to a Request For Proposal 100 pts MIS 140 Spring 2003 Instructor Mesher Initial Progress Report Due Monday April 28th Due Date In class Monday May 12th 2003 I Introduction what is an RFP In this assignment you will respond to a request for proposal RFP by writing a network proposal RFPs are valuable when the buyer s needs are complex since the RFP spells out the customer s requirements in detail They typically use competitive bidding ensuring a balanced consideration of both quality and cost By writing a response to an RFP your lab group will act as a networking contractor providing your group with a valuable lesson in network design and allowing you to apply the knowledge you have already gained in this course In addition it will be to your advantage to do some of your own research such as talking to knowledgeable computer store employees for this RFP II The Automobile Recycling Industry In the United States there are approximately two cars for every three people Tens of millions of new and used cars are sold every year and making the automobile industry overall one of the main features of the US economy Each car is made up of thousands of individual parts which are often only used on that make model and year of car or at most on just a few other similar models As cars age parts wear out or are damaged in accidents and need to be replaced Because new replacement parts known as dealer parts are typically sold at a premium a huge industry exists known as the auto wrecking or auto recycling industry in which parts taken off cars that are no longer drivable are resold to individual car owners used car dealers and auto repair shops To date communications facilities at these companies are not very sophisticated Autorecycling companies typically use the telephone and a resellers CB radio network but are not organized for e Commerce The focus of this project then will be an imaginary Webbased virtual auto recycling company that will work with local auto recyclers to create a more efficient and profitable local industry while at the same time carving at a niche for itself as a value added reseller of used auto parts III NCal eParts E Commerce Auto Parts Network RFP The new company to be called NCal eParts will be issuing an RFP to solicit potential vendors your group to submit a design for a new medium sized e Business network for the local auto parts recycling industry which will have the following features 1 MIS 140 Mesher Spring 2003 The corporate office LAN handling management and accounting functions A query room in which 6 employees will respond to customer queries via electronic chat telephone or e mail to providers that supply auto parts A second query room will be set up at a second location in Stockton that will need to have access to the corporate web site and date base servers A leased line or VPN that will allow the employees in the Stockton query room to access the corporate server facilities in Sacramento A Web farm housed in a data room including a brief discussion with references of what a web farm is and how they are used in business High speed Internet access to the facility S to c k to n Q u e ry R o o m VPN In te rn e t VPN D a ta R o o m Q u e ry R o o m C o r p o r a te O f f ic e M a in O ffic e Facility Details 1 Data Room Web Farm The key facility will be a web farm that will allow both online queries to business partners as well as be used by query room workers to field parts requests Initially 6 workers will handle incoming orders at the new facility Marketing estimates based on current phonebased business activity indicate that the facility will initially receive about 1 000 orders per week and the company hopes to ramp this up to 3 000 by the end of 2004 For this assignment you will need to do some research on web farms and their design and include a brief discussion of what they are and how they are implemented in your report But to simplify the assignment let s assume that the Web Farm will consist of a load balancing server that will also serve as a proxy server and 4 slave servers that will process the database queries generated by the proxy server load balancing servers are discussed in the text in chapter 9 2 MIS 140 Mesher Spring 2003 2 Corporate Office The corporate office LAN will initially include workstations for a total of six employees in the accounting marketing the LAN managers and the company owners These workers will need Internet access but will also need to have their network protected from unauthorized access by both outsiders and other corporate employees 3 Query Room Call Center An additional LAN will also be created to support a core feature of the NCal eParts facility the query room The query room will be used by employees to respond to phone calls e mail messages and chat queries for requested parts Initially the room will include just six workstations but should be readily expandable to twelve 4 Stockton Query Room Call Center The true potential of the company lies in its ability to coordinate the sales and rapid delivery of parts over a relatively large region As the company grows marketing plans exist for it to quickly expand to provide this service to all of Northern California and Western Nevada Initially however the concept will be tested by setting up a second query room to handle the auto recycling market in Stockton Note that in all cases you can assume that the telephone network for the company will be handled separately from this proposal DELIVERABLES Initial Progress report 10 Points On Wednesday April 23rd turn in a 2 3 page progress report worth 10 of the assignment grade listing how the work is being divided up and managed describing your approach to designing the network an overview of what you ve learned so far and the problems you are having that you may wish to discuss Final Report Sections Proposals for the new network must address the following network and project details 0 1 2 3 4 5 Executive Summary Project Overview including Timeline and Budget Local Area Network Wide Area Network Security Future Plans Scaling Up the Project 3 MIS 140 Mesher Spring 2003 0 Executive Summary a one page proposal summary of the highlights of your proposal 1 Project Overview present a detailed project budget along with a timeline for its completion Note the Gantt chart required here is an implementation gantt chart that is a list of the steps needed to implement the network not the steps