DISCUSS RELEVANT ONLINE RESOURCES THAT EXEMPLIFY

Week

Task

1

The text briefly mentions USB and FireWire as hardware standards that provide a way of connecting and communicating with external devices. Collect and summarise two resources that explain and describe two otherbus communication standards.  You may find it helpful to use the search term “bus hardware standards”.  The resources must not be about the same technology/standard.

2

When we think about operating systems, we tend to focus on desktop software such as Windows, Linux and OS X.  However, our mobile phones also use operating systems. Collect and summarise two resources that describe specific operating systems that run on mobile phones (note:  you can choose current or discontinued/legacy operating systems).  The resources must not be about the same operating system.

3

The text discusses Amazon Web Services (AWS) as an example of a Cloud Service Provider (CSP).  Collect and summarise two resources that describe two other major commercial CSPs.  Ensure you include information about the services they provide and examples of clients. The resources must not be about the same CSP.

4

The text chapter in week four mentions ASCII character encoding, however there are now other more widely used character sets and encoding standards.  Collect and summarise two resources that discuss other character sets and/or encoding standards.  You may find it helpful to use the search term “character encoding standards”. The resources must not be about the same character set or encoding standard.

5

Attacks on human judgement or more specifically, social engineering attacks, are some of the most difficult to prevent form an ICT security perspective. Collect and summarise two resources that discuss specific examples social engineering attacks. The resources must not be about the same incident/attack. 

6

Although redundancy is a common element of network design, there are limitations when it comes to backbone infrastructure.  Damage to undersea and underground fibre optic cables can have a major impact on networks and inter/intra-national communication.  Collect and summarise two resources that provide examples of this happening and describe the impacts.  The resources must not be about the same incident/event. 

7

The text mentions Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive as examples of cloud-based collaboration services.  There are many other cloud-based file hosting & collaboration services/products that are commonly used for intra/inter-organisational projects.  Collect and summarise two resources that discuss examples of these products.  The resources must not be about the same product.

8

While the management and analysis of “Big Data” is regarded as problematic, perhaps an even bigger challenge is how to undertake and store back-ups.  Collect and summarise two resources that discuss technologies or techniques that can be used back-up and/or store Big Data.  The resources must not be about the same technique or technology.

9

Outsourcing all or part of an organisation’s IT function has had mixed outcomes and for some organisations it has ended up being a costly failure. Collect and summarise resources that relate to two specific outsourcing failures (i.e. two organisations where outsourcing has failed – the resources and your summary should explain why the outsourcing was a failure).  The resources must not be about the same organisation.

10

The text discusses the need for good project management in order to minimise the risk of ICT implementation failure.  However, one element not discussed is the role of the project manager.  A competent and effective project manager can make all the difference in a difficult project.  Collect and summarise two resources that discuss the attributes/qualities of good project managers.  Although the content of the resources can partially overlap, each resource should introduce new or different attributes and/or qualities.

Example

Task

Find two resources that explain aspects of IT Service Management.

Resource 1

(Good Response)

Title and Reference:

COBIT versus ITIL

IBARAKI, S. 2014. COBIT versus ITIL [Online]. Available:

Summary:

This resource is a blog entry discussing the differences between CoBIT and ITIL.  I chose this resource as there is a lot of confusion about the way in which ITSM is applied and the distinction between the CoBIT and ITIL implementations is frequently unclear.  Ibaraki explains that CoBIT provides the governance and metric structures while ITIL delivers on the actual mechanics and “how-to” processes.  The author makes an interesting observation that it is wrong to simplify COBIT as providing the ‘why’ and ITIL providing the ‘how’ because both ITSM mechanisms have considerable overlap and both need to be used at the same time.  I found this article very useful in explaining the differences and similarities between these two aspects of ITSM.

Resource 2

(Bad Response)

Title and Reference:

Summary:

This pages talks about ITSM.  It says that IT service management (ITSM) refers to the entirety of activities – directed by policies, organized and structured in processes and supporting procedures – that are performed by an organization or part of an organization to plan, deliver, operate and control IT services offered to customers. It is thus concerned with the implementation of quality IT services that meet the needs of customers, and is performed by the IT service provider through an appropriate mix of people, process and information technology.