Technology

Summary

The use of technology will be very important in the projected growth of Primus Securities. With a multitude of technologies available, choosing the correct ones that maximize capability with future expansion will be a priority. Primus Securities, much like its industry brethren, E-trade Securities and Charles Schwab, is attempting to provide successful online investing via their website. Using technology, Primus has at their disposal many online products, tools, and services to choose from that would provide a unique and satisfying online investment experience for its customers. Primus wishes to expand their site to include more frequent and faster investment opportunity for customers.

An incremental implementation of technological infrastructure will allow for future expansion and will provide savings throughout future operation. In addition, this technology will provide customers a more secure and satisfying shopping experience and will increase their confidence level. It will be necessary to incur a large expense on infrastructure installation at the beginning of the development. This infrastructure investment along with a subsequent investment in human resources to staff it will make future expansion cheaper and easier to accomplish.

Finally, outsourcing key aspects of the operation will achieve maximum cost savings.

Infrastructure

The purpose of a well-designed infrastructure is to ensure that an e-business is able to run effectively while safely being scaled within a budget. For a company like Primus Securities, a cost effective infrastructure will be implemented remaining functional and adequate for their purposes. The important aspect of a new e-business is to add technology without disturbing business operations and aligning information systems with the organizational strategy. In this paper, Team B will examine a viable infrastructure for a new e-business venture undertaken by Primus Securities.

Hardware Decision

The company needs to invest in equipment such as servers, workstations laptops, PDAs and cell phones to keep up with the competitive edge of technology. The online trading industry is a fast-paced business, where customer information must be readily available to all key employees. Primus Securities main objective is to operate efficiently and effectively.

Part of building the web-based infrastructure requires Primus Securities to purchase adequate servers to accommodate their fast growing clientele. To assure that the website operates 24/7, the company has purchased redundant systems that will prevent server outages. This new design will allow the e-business application to run in a separate environment, independent of the corporate network. This will eliminate any security attacks on the corporate network. Since this is a Web based application, all users will access the application through a Web Browser. There is no desktop client for this application so physical access to the environment is not needed.

The new system design will require the following:

Compaq Servers / Storage

* Domain Controllers (1) - There is one domain controller that will run DNS and Backup software

* Web Servers (2) - These Web servers will be clustered for redundancy and load balancing. They will run the e-Business software.

* SQL Servers (2) - These servers will run the SQL Database system in a clustered environment for redundancy. All data will be stored in the SQL database. Both will use a shared storage device.

* Tape Backup (1) - This unit will connect to the Backup server and will allow Backups for all of the systems in the environment.

* Shared Storage (1) - This storage unit is required when running SQL server in a clustered environment. It is shared amongst both servers but is only used by one at a time. If one of the servers crashes due to hardware failure, the other server is able to pick up where the other left off using this same storage device.

This hardware meets the allotted budget constraints. All servers, workstations, and laptops, running Microsoft Windows Server, Windows XP, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Web Services meet or exceed Microsoft best practices requirements.

Network

In order to be able to share file and print services amongst employee's, a network infrastructure must be established, a Local Area Network, or LAN will be installed for this purpose. Although this infrastructure can be used for the Web infrastructure, "extra safeguards would have to be taken to secure internal applications and data from outside access". (http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com)

Due to the nature of the business, the corporate LAN will need to be accessible at all times of the day. For this, the company will need to take advantage of the Internet to provide remote access via VPN onto the company network. To prevent unexpected intrusions into the corporate LAN, Primus Securities will need to purchase a firewall that will allow only authenticated users to access the system.

Outsourcing

Primus Securities has a choice to use Quote.com as a service provider for up to the minute stock ticker. This decision would be beneficial, as it will save money for the company. There is plenty of competition and rapid changes that Primus Securities has to face. They will have to make sure that they stay with what is affordable for them and what will help them run more efficiently for themselves and their customers. By outsourcing their infrastructure, Primus Securities will be able to reduce the cost of maintenance and allow the company to redeploy internal resources to other focus areas. The outsourcer will also be able take care of the little things so that the company can take on the strategic initiatives. (Chan, 2004) The new website will attract new customers, easy navigation, and allow the company to make more flexibility when it comes to making financial decisions.

E-trade.com Comparison

As a global leader in the industry, e-trade has over 20 years of experience providing online trading solutions. E-trade's cutting edge platform has allowed the company to gain over $3 million active institutional and individual accounts and $90 billion plus in customer assets.

E-trade works hard to keep their clients' account and personal information secure. From updated security technology to advanced fraud prevention measures, e-trade has the people and tools in place to provide a strong defense

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