Guidance needed

[Aka Roger]

Hi guys,

I'm supposed to write a report that I had not written before and it is part of System Development Life Cycle.

Therefore, anyone got any past experience that can guide me on how can this report be written?

Qns
Discuss the specific design considerations for the product/proposed solution with respect to the following (where applicable):

- Database
- Interface
- Program structure
- Hardware/Network
- Others

Regards,
Roger

[penagate]

Ahh I did this project in year 12. Basically just talk about the client requirements for the system, what they need from it, any constraints upon the design or data, and how you propose to address the problem by constructing the solution. And use lots of waffle-words like I did in that sentence.

Make sure you are always discussing with respect to the big picture - the solution as a whole - as well as the details. Aside from giving you a higher word count, that also makes your report appear professional and yes-he-knows-what-he's-talking-about sort of thing.

[Aka Roger]

When it says "specific design considerations ", what does it mean?
Is it on how I design the system or others?

[RobDog888]

Moved

[penagate]

When it says "specific design considerations ", what does it mean?
Is it on how I design the system or others?

It's a fairly open-ended term, which means you can talk a lot It can refer to constraints you need to consider when designing the solution. It can refer to the client's requirements from the solution. Could be the type and structure of the data. Basically it means anything to do with the construction of the solution. Anything that you need to consider during the design process.

Going through the points one by one:

• Database. First and most importantly you need to discuss what the client requires from the system. It's no good storing sales data if all they want is employees' bathroom visit histories. Consider what information needs to be extracted and presented - and then discuss what data needs to be stored, in order to be able to extract the required information. Show a schema of your database structure - the tables, fields, relationships. Nice big diagrams work wonders here, but only if you label them clearly and refer to them in detail in the actual text. If you don't do that they're a waste.
• Interface. Now that you've decided how the database should be structured, discuss how best to present the information extracted. The user interface depends really on how you are extracting information. Detail how the user interface of the system enables users to access the information and produce reports etc. You should include a manual for your application. Straightforward stuff.
• Program structure. This is the core of the 3-tier system - the business logic layer. Sitting between the data and the user interface is the logic that ties it all together. Here you talk about how the software manipulates the data received to present the required information. It's easy to overlap with the UI and data sections so make a conscious to do that.
• Hardware/Network. Presumably your system will be deployed on a network with a fair number of users. You can talk about which parts are located where - the server/client relationship - basic stuff. Mention the minimum hardware requirements to run the application.
• Others - I'd say implementation considerations is something that's missing from those dot points. You should talk about how the system should be implemented in the target environment in terms of physical installation, users, etc., and mention considerations that should be taken into account during the implementation process, such as network downtime (if that's a service disruption - depends on the type of business).

Hope that helps a bit. I probably missed a fair few things, you'll find once you get going there's heaps to write about

[Aka Roger]

Wow! That's awesome. This guideline would be VERY useful to me. Thanks a lot dude. Will post if I've any doubts