SHES 2302 Sistem Maklumat 09

Bioinformatics Department

Tutorial 2
Name:
Matric No:

1. Briefly identify six sources of software.

a.) Hardware manufactures
b.) Custom software producers
c.) Application service providers
d.) Enterprisewide solutions
e.) In-house developers

2. Identify the most common criteria for choosing off-the-shelf software. Which two
criteria would be among the most important?
The most common criteria are cost, functionality, vendor support, viability of
vendor, flexibility, documentation, response time, and ease of installation.
 Cost involves comparing the cost of developing the same system in-house to
the cost of purchasing or licensing the software package.
 Functionality refers to the tasks the software can perform and the mandatory,
essential, and desired system features.
 Vendor support identifies the amount of support the vendor can be expected
to provide, viability of vendor examines the vendor’s marketplace strength.
 Flexibility refers to the flexibility of customizing the software .
 The documentation criterion examines issues relating to the user’s manual,
technical documentation, and cost of acquiring additional copies of the
documentation.
 Response time questions the length of time it takes the software package to
respond to the user’s requests in an interactive session and how long it takes
the software to complete running a job.
 The ease of installation criterion examines the difficulty of loading the
software and making it operational. Vendor support and viability will be among
the most important.

After taking consideration on this few criteria, two criteria would be among most
important is cost and functionality.
 3. What is an application service provider? What are the advantages and disadvantages of
using an ASP?
Abbreviated as ASP, a third-party entity that manages and distributes software-based
services and solutions to customers across a wide area network from a central data center.
Advantages Disadvantages
 Cost- it cuts down on the costs of  Internet connection-if you loose
either starting up or maintaining an internet connection for any reason,
in-house IT unit. Pay as you go you would also loose access to the
makes it easier to budget and project application until the connection is
your annual costs restored
 IT-it ensure that software upgrades,  Confidentiality-the service provider
new technologies and the like are must be trusted as a custodian of your
made available by experts who are information. Remember that an ASP
bound to provide these under clearly will have access to your sensitive
defined service agreements. personal data,such as customer data.
 Professional-Professional Therefore, security must up-to-date
administrators will take care of your and the ASP must be held
server , data backups and systems accountable for returning your data
administration so there is no need to should either of you decide to
retain staff for these functions. terminate the relationship

4. What is outsourcing? Identify two outsourcing arrangements. Identify two reasons for
outsourcing.
Outsourcing is subcontracting a process, such as product design or manufacturing, to a third-party
company. The decision to outsource is often made in the interest of the lowering cost or making better
use of time and energy costs, redirecting or conserving energy directed at the competencies of a
particular business, or to make more effiecient usre of land, labor, capital, information technology.
Two outsourcing arrangement are ASP and ERP vendors.
Cost savings-the lowering of the overall cost of the service to the business. This will reducing the
scope, defining quality levels, re-pricing, re-nogatiation, cost- restructiong.
Focus on the core business-Resource (for example investment, people, infrastructure) are focused
on developing the core business. For example often organization outsource their It support to
speciliaised IT services companies.