There are ten (10) tasks, one for each week:  the tasks are detailed below.  There is a table to complete for each task.  Please fill in the information required.  An example of a completed task is below.  Note the first response is good – so aim for something like this.  The second response is not acceptable, so if you submit anything like it, you won’t pass the assignment!  The reasons?  Poor resource selection (Wikipedia), no Harvard reference and a block cut and paste from the site (no citation, no original content)

Task

Find two resources that explain aspects of IT Service Management.

COBIT versus ITIL

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.

Summary:

This pages talks about ITSM.  It says that IT service management (ITSM) refers to the entirety of activities – directed by organized and structured in and supporting 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.

Week 1Task

The past decade has witnessed tremendous advances in computing, wired and wireless communication, and storage technologies. Discuss the main features and applications of two mass storage technologies namely: direct-attached storage and network-attached storag

Week 2Task

Real-time operating systems are operating systems that guarantee a certain capability within a specified time constraint. Discuss the main benefits of real-time operating systems for the health sector.

Week 3Task

Mobile Cloud computing has gained a wide acceptance for organisations as well as individuals by introducing computation, storage and software based services. Explain the security and privacy issues in relation to the use of the mobile Cloud computing in the finance sector.

Week 4Task

TCP/IP is consists of communication protocols used to transfer packets between computer hosts within the network. In TCP/IP, the transport layer is responsible for providing the application layer with session and datagram communication services. Discuss the common standards at the transport layer

Week 5Task

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a system of interrelated computing devices that are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. Discuss the cyber security challenges faced by the health sector in this IoT era.

Week 6Task

Internet of Things (IoT) Cloud is a model designed to facilitate the information society, enabling advanced services by interconnecting physical and virtual things based on, existing and evolving, interoperable information and communication technologies through ennoblement of ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. Explain the importance of real time data capture capability, data visualisation, data analytics, and API protocols in the application of IoT Cloud.

Week 7Task

A Social Network Service (SNS) is a kind of web service for establishing a virtual connection between people with similar interests, backgrounds, and activities. However, there are different security and privacy threats that target every user of social networking sites. Provide five solutions to deal with these security threats.

Week 8Task

Big data has been considered to be a breakthrough technological development over recent years. Big data is based on large volumes of extensively varied data that are generated, captured, and processed at high velocity. Discuss the main challenges as well as the social and economic values for organisations in adopting big data.

Week 9Task

There has been a growing interest in the application of agile and lean practices for software development. Discuss the benefits of agile and lean practices and their impacts on project constraints.

Week 10Task

The availability and implementation of information and communication technologies (ICT) is increasingly vital to all dimensions of a nation’s inclusive, equitable and sustainable economic development and growth strategies. Discuss how ICT is fundamentally changing the nature of economic, environmental, and social relationships globally.

Answer: