In this assignment you will be playing the part of a computer hardware and networking consultant for a firm known as “Made to Measure Computers” – MTMC.
“Nuts & Bolts Imaging” is a new customer for your firm which specialises in producing sophisticated animation graphics for parts for the automotive industry. They have been very successful so far and they now wish to expand their 3D animation operation so they can adequately service more of their customers and in different design areas.
They will need to have new desktop PCs designed, some servers and their network needs to be configured to link all their systems together.
For the new PCs, they need 30 units which need to be capable of running NewTek’s famous Lightwave3D in its latest version.
Each PC will need at least 2 display screens with an option for adding a third – any graphics card choices must allow provision for this. Also, provision should be made to ensure that the animators using these systems are able to use these systems comfortably and in line with health and safety requirements for the usage of such equipment.
They also need to have 2 file server units which will act as a central animation storage facility and its “mirror” backup. Only rudimentary display hardware is needed for these, as they will, for the most part, be accessed remotely rather than directly in day-to-day operation. They are not expected to handle database queries.
These systems (design PCs and servers) need to be added to their existing line up of PCs on their company network.
In a report of no more than 2500 words, and a single page brochure/quotation document for your customer (so be concise) :
For the report:
Specify and design a suitable PC model for the 3D animation section of the company (30 machines). This section is worth 40 marks. Ensure that:
· The design conforms to all the requirements for running the most up-to-date version of NewTek’s Lightwave 3D (the price of which should not be included in the system cost).
· A suitable operating system license is selected and included for each machine.
· You supply a full and detailed justification as to why each component has been selected – backed up by suitable evidence.
· Suitable security features are included for the safeguarding of data on these systems.
· You provide full costing for these machines without exceeding a budget of £3500 sterling per machine.
· This should include your company profit margin at 10%.
Specify and design the 2 file servers suitable for use as the master and mirror servers for animation storage. This section is worth 40 marks. Ensure that:
· They have a suitable and economic network operating system installed with any appropriate licensing sorted out for the number of clients accessing them (i.e. the 30 users of the PCs you are designing).
· Supply full justification again about your component choices – as per the PC units.
· You investigate and recommend what can be done to implement the mirroring of the two servers. Either to act as a continuous back up from the master to the mirror or a load-balancing approach where both servers are sharing the workload – and hold identical copies of files – i.e. a file written to one, will automatically be written to the other one too.
· Suitable security features are considered.
· You provide full costing for these two servers without exceeding a budget of £3000 sterling per machine.
· This should also include your company profit margin at 10%.
For the Brochure/Quotation (worth 20 marks):
· Produce a single page brochure that is suitable to give to the enquiring client company showing what their systems would be made up of – in proper layman’s terms and your final offer price.
· This need not be heavy on words at all, but attractive enough and informative enough for a client to make a decision to buy.
Guidelines
This assignment should be submitted no later than 13:00 UK Time on Day 7 of week 4.
The submission should be either a Word, PDF or Open Document format file.
Your submission should 2500 words in length (+/- 10%).
Please make sure that you correctly cite and reference all secondary sources you use, and include a reference list. The reference list will not be included in your final word count.
PLEASE TAKE SPECIAL NOTE:
· As a responsible employee of MTMC – dedicated to the best value for your clients, you need to ensure that your specifications are based both on performance and economy.
· Any specifications which are clouded by “marketing hype” will cause a loss of up to 20 marks from the overall assignment mark.
· The unjustifiable inclusion of any unnecessary/surplus parts/software may also cause an additional loss of up to 10 marks.
· You may assume that cost is no object for staff training (and is not in your budget).
· REALLY IMPORTANT! You are not allowed to specify any ready-built or off-the-shelf PCs or servers. Inclusion of such hardware will result in the loss of all 40 marks from your PC or server sections.
· You may use any reasonable source of machine components for your locality. However there must be evidence of the price lists for these included as an appendix to your submission.
· Do make sure that where requested, you do actually make recommendations about the technologies for the company to employ – don’t lose marks for leaving these items out.