Feasibility Study

FEASIBILITY STUDY

In simple terms, a feasibility study involves taking a judgment call on whether a project is within your capabilities (doable). A feasibility study evaluates the project's potential for success.

The two criteria to judge feasibility are cost required and value to be delivered. A well-designed study should offer a historical background of the business or project, a description of the product or service, accounting statements, details of operations and management, marketing research and policies, financial data, legal requirements and tax obligations. Generally, such studies precede technical development and project implementation.

1.       Technical Feasibility - assessment is centred on the technical resources available to the organization. It helps organizations asses if the technical resources meet capacity and whether the technical team is capable of converting the ideas into working systems. Technical feasibility also involves evaluation of the hardware and the software requirements of the proposed system.

2.       Economic Feasibility - helps organizations assess the viability, cost, and benefits associated with projects before financial resources are allocated. It also serves as an independent project assessment, and enhances project credibility, as a result. This assessment typically involves a cost/ benefits analysis of the project.

3.       Legal Feasibility - investigates if the proposed system conflicts with legal requirements like data protection acts or social media laws.

4.       Operational Feasibility - this involves undertaking a study to analyze and determine whether your business needs can be fulfilled by using the proposed solution. It also measures how well the proposed system solves problems and takes advantage of the opportunities identified during scope definition.

These include such design-dependent parameters such as reliability, maintainability, supportability, usability, disposability, sustainability, affordability, and others.

5.       Scheduling Feasibility is the most important for project success. A project will fail if not completed on time. In scheduling feasibility, we estimate how much time the system will take to complete, and with our technical skills we need to estimate the period to complete the project using various methods of estimation.

Conducting a feasibility study is always beneficial to the project as it gives you and other stakeholders a clear picture of your idea.

Below are the key benefits of conducting a feasibility study:

·         Gives project teams more focus and provides an alternative outline.

·         Narrows the business alternatives.

·         Identifies a valid reason to undertake the project.

·         Enhances the success rate by evaluating multiple parameters.

·         Aids decision-making on the project.

BCS Class Timetable for October Sitting 2017

BCS Class Time Table for October sitting 2017

Diploma level classes will publish shortly

Subject	Time
CSM	Saturday 09.00 – 10.30 a.m (6th MAY)
MIS	Saturday 10.30 – 12.00 a.m(6th MAY)
IT Environment	Saturday 01.00 – 02.30 p.m(6th MAY)
SE2	Saturday 02.30 – 04.00 p.m(6th MAY)

Subject	Time
IS	Saturday 4.30 – 6.00 p.m (6th MAY)
SD	Saturday 6.00 -  7.30 p.m  (6th MAY)
CNT	Friday     6.30 -  8.00 p.m  (5th MAY)

BCS/CER/IS/DIP/SE1/ Prototype Model

Prototype Model

Prototyping is a working model of a real system. There are two types of prototypes. The basic idea here is that instead of freezing the requirements before a design or coding can proceed, 

• Throw-away prototype
• Evolutionary Prototype 

Throw-away prototype
Model is use to gather requirements, after gathering requirements development start from the beginning. 

Evolutionary Prototype
Model is use to get the user feedback and finalize the model and deliver the system

Throwaway prototype is built to understand the requirements. This prototype is developed based on the currently known requirements. By using this prototype, the client can get a “what users really want” of the system, since the interactions with prototype can enable the client to better understand the requirements of the desired system.  Prototyping is an attractive idea for complicated and large systems.

Advantages of Prototype model:

• Users are actively involved in the development
• Since in this methodology a working model of the system is provided, the users get a better understanding of the system being developed.
• Errors can be detected much earlier.
• Quicker user feedback is available leading to better solutions.
• Confusing or difficult functions can be identified
• Requirements validation, Quick implementation of, incomplete, but functional, application.

Disadvantages of Prototype model:

• Leads to implementing and then repairing way of building systems.
• Increase the complexity of the system as scope of the system may expand beyond original plans.

BCS/Dip/SE1/ Waterfall Model

Waterfall Model

The waterfall model is a popular version of the systems development life cycle model for software engineering. Often considered the classic approach to the systems development life cycle, the waterfall model describes a development method that is linear and sequential. Waterfall development has distinct goals for each phase of development. Imagine a waterfall on the cliff of a steep mountain. Once the water has flowed over the edge of the cliff and has begun its journey down the side of the mountain, it cannot turn back. It is the same with waterfall development. Once a phase of development is completed, the development proceeds to the next phase and there is no turning back.

Advantages

• Simple and easy to understand and use
• Easy to manage due to the rigidity of the model . 
• each phase has specific deliverable and a review process.
• Phases are processed and completed one at time.
• Works well for smaller projects where requirements are very well understood.

Class Time Table for September Sitting

CERTIFICATE LEVEL (7th May 2016) Saturday
Information System	9.00-10.30
Software Development	10.30- 12.00
Computer & Network Technology	12.00 – 1.30

PGD LEVEL

IT and the Environment	13TH Friday   (6.30 – 8.00 pm)
Computer Services Management	7th Saturday (3.00 – 4.30 pm)
Management Information Systems	7th Saturday (4,.30-6.00 pm)
Software Engineering 2	7th Saturday (6.30- 8.00 pm)

BCS/CER/CNT/OSI 7 LAYERS

Definition: Learn what the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model is and how its seven layers of functions provide vendors and developers with a common language for discussing how messages should be transmitted between any two points in a telecommunication network

OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) is reference model for how applications can communicate over a network. A reference model is a conceptual framework for understanding relationships. 

The purpose of the OSI reference model is to guide vendors and developers so the digital communication products and software programs they create will Inter-operate, and to facilitate clear comparisons among communications tools. Most vendors involved in telecommunications make an attempt to describe their products and services in relation to the OSI model. And although useful for guiding discussion and evaluation, OSI is rarely actually implemented, as few network products or standard tools keep all related functions together in well-defined layers as related to the model. The TCP/IP protocols, which define the Internet, do not map cleanly to the OSI model.

The seven Open Systems Interconnection layers are:

Layer 7: The application layer. This is the layer at which communication partners are identified (Is there someone to talk to?), network capacity is assessed (Will the network let me talk to them right now?), and that creates a thing to send or opens the thing received.  (This layer is not the application itself, it is the set of services an application should be able to make use of directly, although some applications may perform application layer functions.)

Layer 6: The presentation layer. This layer is usually part of an operating system and converts incoming and outgoing data from one presentation format to another (for example, from clear text to encrypted text at one end and back to clear text at the other).

Layer 5: The session layer. This layer sets up, coordinates and terminates conversations. Services include authentication and reconnection after an interruption.

Layer 4: The transport layer. This layer manages packetization of data, then the delivery of the packets, including checking for errors in the data once it arrives. 

Layer 3: The network layer. This layer handles the addressing and routing of the data (sending it in the right direction to the right destination on outgoing transmissions and receiving incoming transmissions at the packet level). IP is the network layer for the Internet.

Layer 2: The data-link layer. This layer sets up links across the physical network, putting packets into network frames. This layer has two sub-layers, the Logical Link Control Layer and the Media Access Control Layer. Ethernet is the main data link layer in use.

Layer 1: The physical layer. This layer conveys the bit streamthrough the network at the electrical, optical or radio level. It provides the hardware means of sending and receiving data on a carrier network.

BCS/PGD/ITE/Climate Change

Climate Change

"Climate change is a change in global or regional climate patterns, in particular a change apparent from the mid to late 20th century onwards and attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels"

Natural Causes

The Earth’s climate can be affected by natural factors that are external to the climate system, such as changes in volcanic activity, solar output, and the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Of these, the two factors relevant on timescales of contemporary climate change are changes in volcanic activity and changes in solar radiation. In terms of the Earth’s energy balance, these factors primarily influence the amount of incoming energy. Volcanic eruptions are episodic and have relatively short-term effects on climate. Changes in solar radiance have contributed to climate trends over the past century but since the Industrial Revolution, the effect of additions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere has been about ten times that of changes in the Sun’s output.

Human Causes

Climate change can also be caused by human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels and the conversion of land for forestry and agriculture. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, these human influences on the climate system have increased substantially. In addition to other environmental impacts, these activities change the land surface and emit various substances to the atmosphere. These in turn can influence both the amount of incoming energy and the amount of outgoing energy and can have both warming and cooling effects on the climate.  The dominant product of fossil fuel combustion is carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. The overall effect of human activities since the Industrial Revolution has been a warming effect, driven primarily by emissions of carbon dioxide and enhanced by emissions of other greenhouse gases.

The build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has led to an enhancement of the natural greenhouse effect.  It is this human-induced enhancement of the greenhouse effect that is of concern because ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases have the potential to warm the planet to levels that have never been experienced in the history of human civilization. Such climate change could have far-reaching and/or unpredictable environmental, social, and economic consequences.

Short-lived and long-lived climate forcers

Carbon dioxide is the main cause of human-induced climate change. It has been emitted in vast quantities from the burning of fossil fuels and it is a very long-lived gas, which means it continues to affect the climate system during its long residence time in the atmosphere. 

However, fossil fuel combustion, industrial processes, agriculture, and forestry-related activities emit other substances that also act as climate forcers. Some, such as nitrous oxide, are long-lived greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, and so contribute to long-term climate change. 

Other substances have shorter atmospheric lifetimes because they are removed fairly quickly from the atmosphere. Therefore, their effect on the climate system is similarly short-lived. Together, these short-lived climate forcers are responsible for a significant amount of current climate forcing from anthropogenic substances. 

A number of short-lived climate forcers have climate warming effects and together are the most important contributors to the human enhancement of the greenhouse effect after carbon dioxide. This includes methane and tropospheric ozone – both greenhouse gases – and black carbon, a small solid particle formed from the incomplete combustion of carbon-based fuels (coal, oil and wood for example).

Other short-lived climate forcers have climate cooling effects, most notably sulphate aerosols. Fossil fuel combustion emits sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere (in addition to carbon dioxide) which then combines with water vapour to form tiny droplets (aerosols) which reflect sunlight. Sulphate aerosols remain in the atmosphere for only a few days (washing out in what is referred to as acid rain), and so do not have the same long-term effect as greenhouse gases.