CT110-3-2 Group In-course Assessment Page 1 of 5

Module Code and Name : CT110-3-2 Virtual Computing

Lecturer : Shounak Ghosh

Submission Requirement : Hardcopy and Softcopy

Assignment Learning Outcomes

CLO 1 Work in team to provide a virtualization solution for an Group

organization (A3, PLO5) Assignment

PLO 3: Communication, Leadership and Teamworking Skills

Assignment Overview:

Technocrat, a multinational recruitment and executive search services firm, provides

specialist and personalized recruitment services to a number of impressive private sector
clients. Clients include household names, multinational retailers, and SAP. The company
is listed in the Recruiter FAST 50 list as a result of their rapid expansion. The company
now employs around 90 members of staff spread across multiple offices, including
Manchester (Head Office), London, Amsterdam, Cologne, and Singapore.

The company went through a number of phases with their IT infrastructure, thanks to their
incredibly impressive growth. Following multiple upgrades and server rollouts, the
infrastructure includes File Servers, Terminal Servers1, an Exchange Server, and a
Database Server. Applications used are office suite, generic day-to-day office
applications, and their recruitment database.

Currently there is too much strain placed upon the Manchester connections, and the
existing infrastructure offered little in terms of office survivability, resilience, or
redundancy. At this point the company engaged you to provide a solution. After a detailed
discussion with the business, including the management team, and the users, you have
identified four areas of concern that are of key importance for the company:

1. Resilience, Redundancy, and Availability

Given that the company works in the fast-paced recruitment sector, they need an IT
platform that is resilient against hardware failure, and highly available to ensure maximum
productivity and profitability. Data redundancy was of utmost importance as the company
relies heavily upon their recruitment data to make their tight deadlines.

2. Security, Backup, and Disaster Recovery Planning

Level 2 Virtual Computing 2019

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Technocraft’s database is the company’s lifeblood and incredibly valuable to them, but
also to their competitors. Industrial espionage is a real concern and therefore they needed
a solution that would be very well protected both physically and virtually. In addition to
this, the solution needed to account for a disaster recovery plan if the data was to become
corrupt or sabotaged.

3. Connectivity and Bandwidth

The existing offices were already straining the connections into the Manchester Head
Office; with two new offices on the cards, a solution which would remove that strain was
needed.

4. Scalability, including Hardware & Software Upgrades

Thanks to their substantial growth, they had already been through a number of hardware
and software upgrades. A traditional IT proposal which allows the company for additional
growth came in at £120k over three years and requires substantial upfront investment.
The company wants a solution that would scale with their business without the need for
future-proofing their hardware and software purchases upfront.

At 60 users, and two new offices on the cards, your decision was to move the company’s
application and data on the cloud.

*A terminal server is a server or network device that enables connections to multiple client
systems to connect to a LAN network without using a modem or a network interface.

You are required to write a research paper based on any one of the topics provided below,
keeping in consideration the learning outcomes above.

You are required to architect a solution for the above-mentioned company for them to
shift/migrate/adopt to the cloud where their Compute, Storage and Network Requirements are
addressed against the issues they are having enabled in physical computing, during their run.

You are to employ the use of Amazon Web Services, at least 3 (Amazon S3, Amazon RDS, and
Redshift) of them to be used for the above. Compute/Storage/Network requirements to ease the
process in hand, and also 2 other services to administer the security and internal application and
administration process automation.

Assessment criteria:

Student’s Name Student 1 Student 2

Group Components (A)

Overall design & structure (10)
Current trends & best practices
(10)
Executive summary (5)

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Coherence & integration (5)

Total Marks (30)
Individual Components (B)
Technical accuracy (15)
Critical analysis & justification
(20)
Research & completeness (15)
Referencing & original work (10)
Presentation (10)
Total Marks (70)

Student 1 Student 2

Group Components (A)

Individual Components (B)

Overall Marks (A + B)

Marking Criteria

Distinction Thorough and in-depth research and investigation supported by

evidence. Excellent level of knowledge and understanding reflected
in discussion. Contents of documentation well organized and
presented in a professional manner. Discussion has good flow.
Confident and able to address most questions posed during
presentation. Good analysis of research area conducted.

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Referenced materials well cited and references documented.

Effective and fully functional final product to support area of research.

Credit Minor gaps in research and investigation conducted. Good level of

knowledge and understanding reflected in discussion.
Documentation Contents of documentation organized and presented
in a professional manner with some minor issues. Sometimes lacking
confidence but able to address most questions posed during
presentation. Some analysis of research area conducted. Citation
and references available in documentation but with minor issue.
Final product has some relationship to the area of research and/or
most features of the final product functional with some minor issues.

Pass Major gaps in research and investigation conducted. Satisfactory

level of knowledge and understanding reflected in discussion.
Contents of documentation disorganized and/or not presented in a
professional manner. Lacks confidence and unable to address most
questions posed during presentation. Minimal analysis of research
area conducted. Citation and references are available in
documentation but with major issues. Most areas of final product not
related to the area of research and functionality of the product is
limited.

Report Guidelines:
This is a group assignment.

1. Group report.
2. 2 members in a group.
3. Your report should be 5000 words (tolerance 10%)
4. Line spacing : 1.5 lines
5. Font Size : 12 (except titles and headings)
6. Font Type : Times New Roman

Submission:

Details of what is to be submitted:

1. One propose document (hardcopy and softcopy).

2. You are required to present (approximately 3 to 4 minutes) of your assignment
individually in the class.
Submission deadline: Week 14.

Level 2 Virtual Computing 2019

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Level 2 Virtual Computing 2019