CS 330: Management Information Systems Fall 2023

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CS 330: Management Information Systems
Fall 2023

Assignment 1 [31 marks]

As a reminder, the assignment is due Friday, Sept. 29, 5pm ET. Assignments may be submitted 48 hours late (i.e., Sunday, Oct. 1 5pm ET), but you will lose 25% per day.Submit your assignment to Crowdmark as a single PDF document.

In this assignment, you will answer short answer questions and examine different products online and compare specifications. If you are having trouble accessing the links included in the assignment, you can access PDFs of the webpages on Learn.

Data vs. Information [4 marks]

Go to Best Buy's website (https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca). Feel free to navigate to any product pages that interest you.
1. Give 2 examples of data that would be of interest to Best Buy. [2 marks]
2. Give 2 examples of information that would be of interest to Best Buy. [2 marks]

Measuring Data [8 marks]

As we discussed in class, the prefix T could stand for 1000 4 or 1024 4 . But it gets even worse
- different operating systems will often use different values for the prefix when reporting file size:
● Windows uses powers of 1024
● Linux uses powers of 1000
● macOS used to use powers of 1024, but now they use powers of 1000
3. If a Linux computer lists a file as 1TB, what would its file size be on Windows in MB? Round your answer to 2 decimal places and show your work. [3 marks]

4. You want to download a file that is 51,338,042 bytes and your internet download bandwidth is 25 Mbps. How long would it take you to download the file? Round your answer to 2 decimal places and show your work. [5 marks]

Comparing Specifications [15 marks]

Consumer laptops come in a wide range of prices and specifications. Usually, gaming laptops are on the more expensive end. To get a sense of the differences between consumer and enterprise servers, we will compare a $2,000 laptop to a $30,000 rack server. You can get the specifications from the websites below or view PDFs on Learn:

Laptop: https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/asus-rog-zephyrus-g14-14-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-9-7940hs-512gb-ssd-16gb-ram-geforce-rtx-4060/16690991

Server:https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/servers-storage-and-networking/poweredge-r940/spd/poweredge-r940/pe_r940_p2_vi_vp

RAM

5. How much RAM does the laptop come with? [1 mark]

6. How much RAM does the server come with by default (i.e., without customizing the specifications)? Look under the "Memory" section and find the blue checkmark. You may see more than 1, in which case you have to multiply your answer by that number. [1 mark]

Cores

7. How many cores does the laptop come with? [1 mark]

8. How many cores does the server come with by default? Look under the "Processor" section and find the selected option. You can find the number of cores in the title. For example, in "Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8253 2.2G, 16C/32T, 10.4GT/s, 22M Cache, Turbo, HT (125W) DDR4-2933," the number of cores would be 16 (16C means "16 cores"). You may see "2x" in front, in which case you need to multiply your answer by 2 (e.g., 2 ✕ 16 cores = 32 cores). [1 mark]

Secondary Storage

9. What type of secondary storage does the laptop come with? How much storage does it come with? [2 marks]

10. What type of secondary storage does the server come with by default? How much storage does it come with by default? [2 marks]

Customizing the Server

A nice thing about rack servers is that they can be customized to suit our business needs. Look at some of the customization options available for secondary storage.

11. Suppose we want to use the server primarily for storage. What customization would you recommend to increase the storage capacity without increasing the overall price? Justify your choice. [2 marks]

12. For this assignment, look at the "SAS SSD" and "SAS HD" headers. SAS refers to the technology used to connect to the computer and is beyond the scope of the course. Explain the differences between the SSD and HD customization options when it comes to capacity, bandwidth, and price. You can get bandwidth by finding "Gbps" in the title. [3 marks]

One customization option is to add additional processors for increased processing power (under "Additional Processors" the "2x Intel® Xeon® Gold 5215 2.5G, 10C/20T, 10.4GT/s, 13.75M Cache, Turbo, HT (85W) DDR4-2666" option can be selected).

13. How would your answer to Q8 change with additional processors? Show your work. [2 marks]

Hard Drive Reliability [4 marks]

We talked about two metrics to gauge hard drive reliability: MTBF and AFR. Suppose we have a MTBF of 1,800,000 hours.

14. What is the AFR? Round your answer to 2 decimal places and show your work. Remember to write your answer as a percentage! [2 mark]

15. Suppose there are 1,900 hard drives at UW. Given the AFR you just calculated, how many are expected to fail in a year? Round up your answer to the nearest integer and show your work. [2 marks]

2023-10-09