Implementing Implementation Plan How and when the participants are to be trained to operate the new system The

method of conversion How the system will be tested Conversion of data for the new system

Methods of Conversion Direct: System is completely implemented at a single point of time Parallel: Involves the operation of the new and old systems together Phased: The gradual introduction of the new system while the old system is progressively discarded. Pilot: System is installed for a small number of users to test drive

Implementing Training Traditional group training sessions: An outsourced specialist trainer trains a team. Peer Training: One or more users undergo intensive training, and then these users train the others how to use the system. Online Training: Tutorials and such allow users to learn at their own pace Operation manuals: Operation manuals give step by step instructions

Testing Evaluating Maintaining The system goes through acceptance tests, which verify whether or not a system has met its requirements. These tests include: Volume Data: Test if the system performs within its requirements when subjected to large amounts of data. Tests if the system performs well under simulated operational conditions, such as many users, connections, or many different processes are occurring. Live Data: Tests if the system operates under real conditions. This confirms all parts of the installed system are working.

For each task, an operation manual should include: What the task is and why it is required How the task relates to other tasks within the system Who is responsible for the task and performs it When the task is to be completed How to complete the task

Technical performance monitoring

This evaluates the continuing achievement of the systems evolving requirements. Characteristics of Communication Systems Functions in: Application Level (Source, Destination). Part of the software application. Communication Control and Addressing Level (encoding, decoding) This level ensures that packets reach their destination correctly. They include error checks, flow control, and the source and destination address. Transmission Level (Transmitter, Medium, Switching/Routing, Receiver)

MAC Address A hardware address that uniquely identifies each node on a network How a message is passed between source and destination A message is created The message is divided into data packets, and the packets are then wrapped in protocols. Protocols add a header and trailer to the entire data packet and pass it to the next protocol. The message is transmitted to the receiving end, where the process is reversed, and each protocol strips off tis header and trailer, performs error checks, and passes to the next protocol.

Signal generation by the transmitter The transmitter is the physical hardware that generates or encodes the data onto the medium creating a signal. The main task of the transmitter is to represent individual bits or patterns of bits as a wave. Types of waves include: radio waves, infrared waves, microwaves, altering voltages, and white laves. Receivers decode the signal on the medium. This is controlled by protocols operating at the Transmission level. NICs, switches, routers, modems etc. all contain transmitters.

Transmission Transmission occurs as the signal travels through the medium. Usually this is very fast; however, data is split into packets, and are not sent continuously. This is due to errors, error checking and correction and some protocols wait for acknowledgement from the receiver before they send the next data packet. These features have the potential to double transmission times, and therefore flow control is used by protocols to help overcome this problem. Synchronizing the exchange To accurately decode, a signal requires the receiver to sample the incoming signal using the same timing as the transmitter during encoding. This is fine when a common clock is used, but this is not a practical possibility when the communication occurs outside of a single computer.

Asynchronous Links: transfer individual bytes using start and stop bits Synchronous Links: Transfer data packets called frames. Two elements assist the synchronizing process: The preamble (found at the start of every frame), and the second element is embedded within the data, and is used to ensure synchronization is maintained throughout transmission of each frame. Ethernet uses long preamble (8 bytes) which is alternating 1s and 0s. This ends with a frame delimiter; a terminating patter (11). The receiver uses the preamble to adjust its clock to the correct phase as the transmitting clock. A frame delimiter is needed at the end of a preamble, as the receiver may lose some bits during clock adjustment, so these delimiting bits indicate the start of actual data.

Addressing and Routing Ethernet uses the receivers MAC address to determine the path leading to the receiver. The Ethernet switch maintains a table of all the MAC addresses in a network, and frames can therefore be directed down the connection which leads to the receiver. Routers use the IP address within IP datagrams together with their own routing table to determine the next hop in a datagrams travels. The routing table is continually updated, to show the current state of attached networks and surrounding routers. Routers can then divert datagrams around poorly performing network connections.

Security Management Protocols restrict messages based on users names and passwords, and some encrypt messages during transmission. Protocols A protocol is a formal set of rules and procedures that two devices must agree on to transfer data efficiently and successfully. Handshaking: The process of negotiating and establishing the rules of communication between two or more devices.

HTTP Operates within the Application Level The primary protocol used by web browsers to communicate and retrieve web pages from web servers. A client server connection (browser is client, webserver is server) HTTP GET: retrieves entire documents, which include any type of file (video, image, etc.) The browser requests a document from a web server using the GET command with the URL of the document. The document is then transmitted. The header, which precedes the file data, indicates the nature of the data. The browser reads this and determines how it is displayed.

HTTP HEAD: retrieves just the header information of the file. This is used to check if the file has been updated since the browser last retrieved the file. If not, the existing version in the browser cache is displayed. HTTP POST: used to send data from the browser to a web server (creating an account etc.)

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Operates in the communication control and addressing Level This protocol ensures messages are delivered correctly. TCP requires IP to be operating. Each packet is called a segment, where a segment includes a string of bytes forming part of the data to be sent. TCP checks for errors within each segment (sliding windows) to control the flow of data, and ensure every byte is successfully received. Uses checksum error checking method. Window size controls transmission rate (smaller = slower)

Internet Protocol IP is the protocol that causes data packets to move from sender to receiver. Operates with all types of networks and hardware. Does not guarantees datagrams will reach their destination Checksum of bytes is in each datagram header. IP has the ability to reroute messages over the most efficient path using routers, which uses another protocol ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) Has four bytes, separated by dots. Datagrams recombined when they reach the final destination. The header of each datagram is at least 20 bytes long and includes 1 byte TTL (time to live) field. If the TTYL field is zero, the datagram is discarded.

Ethernet Ethernet packets are known as frames The MAC address of both sender and receiver is included in the frame header. 6 byte Unique MAC Address found from the NIC (Network Interface Card) There is a CRC at the end of every Ethernet frame. Uses CSMA/CD to prevent data collisions.

Measurements of Speed Bits per second (bps): The number of bits transferred each second Baud rate: The measure of signal events occurring each second along a communication channel. A signal even being a change in the transmission signal used to represent data.