When using this template, the following steps are recommended:
1. Replace all text enclosed in angle brackets (e.g., ) with the correct value or content.. These angle brackets may appear on the cover page, the body of the document, or in tables.
2. Modify boilerplate text as appropriate for the specific project, if applicable.
3. To add any new sections to the document, ensure that the appropriate header and body text styles are maintained. Styles used for the Section Headings are Heading 1, Heading 2 and Heading 3. Style used for boilerplate text is Body Text.
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b. Ensure that all entered or modified text is Black.
c. If instructions and boilerplate language are left in the document, it will negatively impact your format score.]
Background [Use this section to provide a summary of the organization and situation that resulted precipitated the need for the analysis.
The section must not exceed two (2) 3 – 5 sentence paragraphs.] Upton, Martin, Ulysses, and Clapper (UMUC) specializes in economic and market assessments for financial institutions, such as banks and mortgage lenders. Additionally, UMUC verifies and validates similar assessments performed by other entities. Due to the unique requirements of the programs used, UMUC revaluates their needs prior to acquiring new systems.
As part of the annual revaluation of system needs, the Senior Manager of revolving Debt Analysis (RDA) has identified that their systems are no longer meeting their needs. This lack of capability has led to the RDA manager asking for 35 new computers. These systems must be able to perform the complex calculations the department performs, as well as, store the massive amount of data used in these calculations. Purpose of This Report [Use this section to clearly show why this report is being written. Statements like “it is a required assignment” or “for a grade” will not be successful and will result in point deductions. This is a business oriented document and you must be specific about why this document is necessary.
This section must not exceed one (1) 3 – 5 sentence paragraph.] The purpose of this report is to identify the required system specifications needed to perform the company’s new initiative to analyze more complex data sets. In order to accurately identify the system needed to perform these tasks, each hardware component must be evaluated against the software requirements. Once these items have been compared, a system that meets the needs of the new data initiative can be recommended to the purchasing department. Evaluation Methodology [Use this section to explain the steps or process used to conduct the hardware evaluation.
This section must not exceed three 3 – 5 sentence paragraphs.] The evaluation methodology used in this analyzes is a three staged process. First stage of this process to identify the recommended system specifications needed to run each software package listed in the table of requirements. This stage starts with consulting each of the software packages websites to identify the recommended requirements. For example, Windows 8.1 requires 2GB of ram and SAS 9.4 requires 2GB of dedicated ram. Once this information is identified it is listed in a table to be used by phase two of this processes.
The second stage of this process is to identify minimum specifications needed to run programs concurrently. Using the example above, windows requires 2GB of RAM and SAS requires 2GB of dedicated RAM, meaning that the system will require at least 4GB of memory for them to run correctly. Once the requirements for programs commonly run at the same time are identified, they are listed in a table for the final stage.
Stage three of this process uses the information identified in stage two to identify what parts hardware meets or exceeds the hardware requirements. The Items that meet those requirements are listed below.
Report Summary [Use this section to provide a high-level summary of the hardware you evaluated and are recommending. Be mindful that the target audience for this report a business manager from a business unit (Senior Manager, RDA). The summary should be not overly use jargon.
This section must not exceed three (3) 3 – 5 sentence paragraphs.] The need for this new equipment stems from the company’s new initiative to analyze more complex data sets. Without these equipment upgrades, staff will be unable to house the amount of data to perform many of these new calculations. Additionally, the new calculations for the data sets that the current systems can house will take significantly longer than the current analyzes.
The hardware requirements identified in this report represents the recommended specifications needed to run the software identified in the table of requirements. These recommendations also include running several programs concurrently. For example, running a query with SAS, checking email with outlook, and editing a word document at the same time is a commonly required task.
Evaluation & Recommendation Matrix Hardware Component Recommended Attributes Justification & Comments Requirements Satisfied CPU Clock speed 2GHZ+ Cores 2+ • Clock speed required to quickly perform queries with SAS 9.4 • Minimum cores required by SAS 9.4 RDA001; RDA002; RDA003; RDA004; RDA005; RDA006; RDA007; RDA008; RDA009; RDA010; RDA011; RDA012; RDA013; RDA014; RDA015; RDA016; RDA017 RAM Capacity 16GB (4x4GB sticks) Speed 1600MHZ+
• Capacity required to effectively run SAS, outlook, and MS office at the same time. • Speed will allow users to edit images/videos faster. • Allows for larger data sets in Stata 13 because programs loads entire data set into memory before preforming calculations. RDA001; RDA002; RDA003; RDA004; RDA005; RDA006; RDA007; RDA008; RDA009; RDA010; RDA011; RDA012; RDA013; RDA014; RDA015; RDA016; RDA017 Hard drive Size 2TB Speed 7200RPM Quantity 2 • 2TB HDD will ensure there is adequate storage space to store data sets. • Speed will read and write data to the drive faster.
• Two drives set to mirror each other will prevent data loss due to disk failure. RDA001; RDA002; RDA003; RDA004; RDA005; RDA006; RDA007; RDA008; RDA009; RDA010; RDA012; RDA013; RDA014; RDA015; RDA016; RDA017 Video card Memory 1GB Connections HDMI & DVI Max resolution 1080×1920 Core speed 1GHZ+ • Memory required to use Matlab R2012b’s visualization feature. • Resolution allows more information to fit on the screen, improving employee’s ability to view spreadsheets and edit images/video files.
• Connections required to achieve recommended resolution. • GPU core speed allows system to process graphical information faster. RDA001; RDA002; RDA003; RDA004; RDA005; RDA006; RDA007; RDA008; RDA009; RDA011; RDA013; RDA014; RDA016; RDA017 Motherboard 16GB+ Type supported DDR3 Connections: SATA, USB, audio, and Ethernet port (1000MB). • Ethernet port speed allows for quicker access to network resources. • DDR3 slots needed to house recommended memory type and amount. RDA001; RDA002; RDA003; RDA004; RDA005; RDA006; RDA007; RDA008; RDA009; RDA010; RDA011; RDA012; RDA013; RDA014; RDA015; RDA016; RDA017
