The client for this project is Generic Financial Service Planned Offices. They are planning an expansion that will eventually include eight offices that are geographically spread through several western states. There will be a home office located in Boise, Idaho. The other seven offices will be located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Montana, 2 in Wyoming, 2 in North Dakota, and one in Rapid City South Dakota. All remote offices will need to be able to send and receive electronic information from the home office.
The home office will have two administrative assistants who will connect to the Internet through PCs. They will also need a printer, fax, and telephones. The office will have 2-3 brokers who will connect to the database through laptops. They need to have remote access at client locations. There will also be a receptionist in the office from 8AM to 5PM. There will also be a computer where clients can submit applications in privacy. Each of the satellite offices will be set up in the same manner as the main office. This means that the network will have to provide for access to the Internet for 4 pcs and 3 laptops. All of the offices need to be able to communicate with the home office. The individual offices will be between 800 to 1200 square feet.
Different levels of users will need to have different types of access permissions to the information in the database. The system will need to be highly secure, as it contains personal information from customers. The client is highly concerned about security and wants redundancy to protect from the loss of physical data in an event such as a natural disaster. The business structure will be based on a central company website where customers and employees can send and receive information. Consumers will be able to submit their loan application online. They will also be able to submit it at the office kiosks. The application will be forwarded to the home office for approval or denial. The client is not interested in wireless due to security issues, but still need the system to be available 24 X 7. The system needs to be regularly backed up.
The best solution to the problem of remote access in different cities would be a cloud-based system for Internet access. The client might consider cloud-based access if they can be convinced that it is secure. Using WPA2-Enterprise authentication with 802.11 authentication server would provide the security needed by the client and would help to restrict access to certain information by unauthorized users (Windows.com, 2016). Using security methods with cloud based computing methods such as one-time passwords, phone authentication, smartcards, cryptographic keys that are not embedded in the source code, and periodically rotating keys and passwords are some methods for securing database information on the cloud (Rashid, 2016).
Educating the client on the measures that can be taken to secure the system in the cloud is the best way to overcome their hesitation. To satisfy their need for redundancy, a multiple cloud disaster recovery configuration will be used where one master database will feed two slave databases with private IPs and connections using a virtual private network to create a tunnel for secure communication (Rightscale, 2015). The entire database could be recovered quickly and easily with a double-cloud system. Once the client understands the full capabilities of cloud based databases and the various security measures that are available, as well as the ability to easily achieve redundancy, it is likely that they will be at ease using a cloud based system. It would be possible to have a local copy of the database at each office location using this method. This method would satisfy the client’s need for availability and speed, yet allow then to have the safety and redundancy that they require.
- Rashid, F. (2016). Introducing the ‘Treacherous 12,’ the top security threats organizations face
when using cloud services. InfoWorld. Retrieved from
http://www.infoworld.com/article/3041078/security/the-dirty-dozen-12-cloud-security-
threats.html
- Rightscale (2015). Cloud Computing System Architecture Diagrams. Retrieved from
http://docs.rightscale.com/cm/designers_guide/cm-cloud-computing-system-architecture-
diagrams.html
- Windows.com. (2016). What are the different wireless network security methods? Retrieved
from http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/what-are-wireless-network-security-
methods#1TC=windows-7
