Information System Overview

Information System Overview

Introduction

Riordan Manufacturing, Inc. is one of the leading companies in the field of plastic injection molding. The company specializes in creating innovative plastic designs using state-of-the art design facilities, with internationally acclaimed products. Precision, high quality, attention to details, and smart quality control systems are the hallmark of company, resulting in company's gaining competitive advantage in the industry. The company maintains several manufacturing and distribution facilities in Michigan, Albany, Pontiac, Georgia and Hang Zhou, China. All these facilities are interconnected with each other and the company's corporate headquarters in San Jose, California, where all research development work is done, using Wide Area Network (WAN) connection.

The major customers of Riordan Manufacturing, Inc. include manufacturers of automotive parts, beverage and bottle makers, aircraft manufacturers, home appliance manufacturing companies, and the Department of Defense. As the company has continuously expanding and plans to open a new office in Seattle, Washington, it requires to set up the IT system in the new office. This paper aims at discussing the information system needs of the company, while also assessing the current information system infrastructure in order to determine the requirements for the new office.

Discussion

Assessment

In order to main the competitive advantage, Riordan needs to employ latest technological innovation in the business, with the aims of smoothly and efficiently running the business operations. The detailed evaluation of existing information system (IS) infrastructure have been conducted, which include evaluation of WAN and LAN technologies, underlying security protocols and the type of connections interconnecting each facility of the company. The current network model is client-server environment with dedicated servers at each facility to handle the service requests from workstations/clients. The network consists of devices such as switches, routers, copper cabling within the building, Windows and UNIX based servers and workstations and firewall to protect from information security threats.

The review of the IS infrastructure in Riordan's facilities revealed that the network mainly follows the star topology principles with multiple WAN connections. Each network segment operates on a 100 base T Ethernet backbone connecting the edge router for interconnecting the different facilities using a T1 line connection from the service provider. The workstations are connected to the network using 24 port Gigabit Ethernet Cisco switches with dedicated uplink ports. In addition, each facility is running a mix of Windows and UNIX based servers and Windows based clients systems running different business applications. Each facility is also provided with a satellite connection as a backup link to be used in case the primary link fails.

Scope of the New System

The purpose of this paper is to devise a plan for providing the IT infrastructure for Riordan's new office in Seattle, Washington with appropriate routing, switching and security protocol that would conform to the company's business needs as well as the international standards. The primary aim of this document is to recommend the network design and development for the new office with an objective of enabling seamless integration and compatibly between the IS infrastructure of all ...