COLLEGE OF COMPUTER STUDEIS

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT

IT0021
(System Administration and Maintenance)

Final Project

Student Name / Group DEL ROSARIO, ARTHURO T.

Name:
Name Role
Members (if Group):

Section:

Professor:
 Final Project

Learning Goals:

1. Use the systems administration concepts you learned in the course to provide technical
improvements to current processes.

2. Implement solutions based on an organization’s restrictions, like financial resources,

number of users, etc.

Overview: You’ll take what you learned in the System Administration and IT Infrastructure
Services course and apply that knowledge to real-world situations.

Assignment: For this writing project, you’ll be presented with three scenarios for different
companies. You’ll be doing the systems administration for each company’s IT infrastructure. For
each scenario, present improvements to processes based on the company’s needs and current
restrictions. There’s no right or wrong answer to your consultation, but your responses should
explain the problem, the improvement, and the rationale behind them. Please write a 200-400
word process review for each company presented to you.

Scenario 1:

You’re doing systems administration work for Network Funtime Company. Evaluate their
current IT infrastructure needs and limitations, then provide at least five process improvements
and rationale behind those improvements. Write a 200-400 word process review for this
consultation. Remember, there’s no right or wrong answer, but make sure to provide your
reasoning.

Software Company:

Network Funtime Company is a small company that builds open-source software. The company
is made up software engineers, a few designers, one person in Human Resources (HR), and a
small sales team. Altogether, there are 100 employees. They recently hired you as a system
administrator to come in and become their IT department.

When a new person is hired on, the HR person purchases a laptop for them to do their work.
The HR representative is unfamiliar with what type of hardware is out there; if a new employee
requests a laptop, the HR person will purchase the cheapest option for a laptop online. Because
of this, almost everyone has a different laptop model. The company doesn’t have too much
revenue to spend, so they don’t order laptops until someone gets hired at the company. This
leads to a few days of wait time from when someone starts to when they can actually work on a
laptop.
The company doesn’t label their computers with anything, so if a computer is missing or stolen,
there’s no way to audit it. There’s no inventory system to keep track of what’s currently in the
fleet.

Once a computer is purchased, the HR person hands it to the new employee to set up. Software
engineers that use Linux have to find a USB drive and add their preferred distribution to the
laptop. Anytime someone needs something from HR -- whether it’s office related or tech related
-- they email the HR representative directly.

When a new employee gets a machine, they’re given logins to use cloud services. They get a
personal orientation with HR to make sure they can login. This requires the HR person to block
off a few hours for every new employee. If an employee forgets the login to their machine, they
have no way to retrieve a password and they have to reimagine their machine. Employees don’t
have a strict password requirement to set for their computers.

The company currently has many of their services in the cloud, such as email, word processors,
spreadsheet applications, etc. They also use the application, Slack, for instant communication.

Answer:

This company is in desperate need of infrastructure management. Network Funtime Company

has several issues. For starters, HR always buys the cheapest laptop for new employees who
are unfamiliar with its hardware. This could save time and money for the company, but it is a
bad idea that will result in lost productivity. Employees need laptops that meet their needs and
have the right specifications and features to work properly. To address this issue, businesses
must create a budget and optimize their shopping strategy. Without a budget, businesses
frequently overspend their funds. The company can also use different tiers of devices based on
the needs of the users. For example, it may be worthwhile to spring for luxury laptops for C-
suite executives and the development team, midrange laptops for professional staff, and entry-
level laptops for support staff. Second, the company does not have a system in place to track its
inventory. Company assets must be documented and inventoried. Begin any computer
inventory system by physically labeling every asset worth more than a certain amount of
money. Employees are also required to inventory personal and corporate inventory at least
once a year. Third, the company lacks a person to install and configure their machines. The
company must have technical support. Fourth, employees do not have a strict password
requirement for their computers. Companies should be concerned about whether their
sensitive information is safe from hackers if their employees' passwords are so obvious. To
improve passwords to reduce the risk of data breaches, the company must: Implement
password complexity checking, requiring at least 10 mixed character passwords; and avoid
using common passwords. Employee multifactor authentication entails employees
authenticating themselves using multiple pieces of evidence and Offer password values to
assist users in storing and organizing passwords.
Scenario 2:

You’re doing systems administration work for W.D. Widgets. Evaluate their current IT
infrastructure needs and limitations, then provide at least five process improvements and
rationale behind those improvements. Please write a 200-400 word process review for this
consultation. Remember, there’s no right or wrong answer, but make sure to provide your
reasoning.

Sales Company:

W.D. Widgets is a small company that sells widgets. They’re mostly made up of salespeople who
work with lots of clients. You’ve taken over as the sole IT person for this company of 80-100
people.

When HR tells you to provision a machine for a new employee, you order the hardware directly
from a business vendor. You keep one or two machines in stock, in case of emergency. The
users receive a username that you generate for them. You then give them an orientation on
how to login when they start. You currently manage all of your machines using Windows Active
Directory. The company uses only Windows computers. When a new computer is provisioned,
you have to install lots of sales-specific applications manually onto every machine. This takes a
few hours of your time for each machine. When someone has an IT-related request, they email
you directly to help them.

Almost all software is kept in-house, meaning that you’re responsible for the email server, local
machine software, and instant messenger. None of the company’s services are kept on the
cloud.

Customer data is stored on a single file server. When a new salesperson starts, you also map
this file server onto their local machine, so that they can access it like a directory. Whoever
creates a folder on this server owns that folder and everything in it. There are no backups to
this critical customer data. If a user deletes something, it may be lost for everyone.

The company generates a lot of revenue and is rapidly growing. They’re expecting to hire
hundreds of new employees in the next year or so, and you may not be able to scale your
operations at the pace you’re working.

Answer:

This company would probably benefit from setting up GPOs and assigning roles to users. This
would allow you to push software out to machines based on what role they have been assigned
in Active Directory. This would keep you from having to install software manually on any new
machine. You should be creating backups of the fileserver both locally and through a cloud
service. It may also be a good idea to re-assign file permissions and security groups, so that
only domain admins have full control of files and directories. All users could be assigned
permissions based on roles in the company, and corresponding GPOs. Finally, you should hire
an assistant now, before the workload increases beyond what you can handle alone. You may
want to hire someone to take on a defined part of the IT responsibilities, such as low-level
helpdesk/support tech, or you could hire a “counterpart” who would be able to also do
everything that you do.
Scenario 3:

You’re doing systems administration work for Dewgood. Evaluate their current IT infrastructure
needs and limitations, then provide at least five process improvements and rationale behind
those improvements. Please write a 200-400 word process review for this consultation.
Remember, there’s no right or wrong answer, but make sure to provide your reasoning.

Non-profit Company:

Dewgood is a small, local non-profit company of 50 employees. They hired you as the sole IT
person in the company. The HR person tells you when they need a new computer for an
employee. Currently, computers are purchased directly in a physical store on the day that an
employee is hired. This is due to budget reasons, as they can’t keep extra stock in the store.

The company has a single server with multiple services on it, a file server, and email. They don’t
currently have a messaging system in place. When a new employee is hired, you have to do an
orientation with them for login. You’re also responsible for installing all the software they need
on their machine, and mapping the file server to their computer. The computers are managed
through Windows Active Directory. When an employee leaves, they’re currently not disabled in
the directory service.

The company uses an open-source ticketing system to handle all internal requests as well as
external non-profit requests. But the ticketing system is confusing and difficult to use, so lots of
the employees reach out to you directly to figure out how to do things. In fact, so many things
are difficult to find that employees typically ask around when they have a question.

There are nightly backups in place of the file server. You store this information on a disk backup
and take it home with you everyday to keep it safe in case something happens onsite. There’s
also a small company website that’s hosted on the single server at the company. This website is
a single html page that explains the mission of the company and provides contact information.
The website has gone down many times, and no one knows what to do when it happens.

Answer:

First, if the company does not currently have a messaging system in place, messaging technology
can improve their company's communication network. With the right messaging technology, the
company will gain enhanced message security, improved employee collaboration, and stream
lined account controls. Second, when an employee leaves, their entry in the directory service is not
currently disabled. If an employee leaves, the company must immediately disable their AD account,
and it can be reactivated when needed. Third, the ticketing system is complicated and difficult to
use. An IT ticketing system is designed to keep IT teams up to date on the status of IT Tickets. A
company requires a ticketing system that is simple to use and focuses on communication and
customer satisfaction. Each ticket will contain a technical problem or series of problems, and it is the
responsibility of the IT team to resolve these issues as soon as possible. Finally, the company does
not have a backup system. Backups help companies ensure that, regardless of their company
security strategy, they have secure and clean data to keep their business running in the event of
data loss, a hack attack, or even a natural disaster.