Marilyn A. Bosito                                    05/37/08

O0A

Book: Modern System Analysis and Design Fourth Edition

Author: Jeffrey H. Hoffer, Joey F. George, Joseph H. Valacich

Reference: LRC Extension (QA 76.9 S88 H64 2005)

Chapter 2

"If you cannot find happiness along the road, You will not find it at the end of the road."

Chapter 2 shows what system analysis and design is all about; it is describe the different types of Information Systems, describe the Information System development Life Cycle (SDLC) and explain the Rapid application Development and its constituent parts: Prototyping, Joint Application Design, and Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools.

Information System Analysis and Design began in 1950’s, it is an organizational process whereby computer based information system are develop and maintained. Analyzing and designing information system will gave a chance to understand organization as depth and breadth, and an important result of a system analysis and design is an Application Software, it is a computer software design to support function or process. In analysis and design of information systems the primary responsible is the System Analyst his/her role is to study the problem and needs of an organizations.

To satisfy all of an organization information systems needs, there are several different types or classes of an information system. This type are distinguished from each other on the basis of what the system does or by the technology used to construct the system.

The Transaction Processing System (TPS)   automate the handling of data about business activities or transaction, the goal of TPS development is to improve transaction processing by speeding it up, using fewer people, improving efficiency and accuracy, integrating it with other organizational information system. The Management Information System (MIS) takes the relatively raw data available through TPS and converts into meaningful aggregated form of the managers need   to fulfill their responsibilities. Decision Support System (DSS) Provides guidance in identifying problems, finding and evaluating alternatives solution, and selecting or comparing alternatives.

Most organization finds it beneficial to use standard set of steps called a Systems Development Methodology, it is a standard process followed in an organization. To conduct all the steps necessary to analyze, design, implement and maintain information Systems. The System Development Life Cycle is common methodologies used to develop, maintained and replace information system .SDLC has five major phases, the first phase is planning in this phase total information of the system are identified, analyze, prioritized and arranged, the second phase is analysis in which system requirements are studied and structured, the third is design in which description of the recommended solution is converted into logical and physical system specification , design has two parts the logical and the physical, the fourth phase is implementation in which he information  system is coded, tested installed and supported in the organization and the final phase is maintenance in which information is systematically repaired and improved.

The SDLC has its share criticism there are frameworks has been develop to address life cycle problems. One of these frameworks is Rapid Application Design (RAD) is an approach to developing information Systems that promises better cheaper systems in which depends on prototyping –an iterative process of system development  in which requirements are converted to a working  system that is continually revised through close collaboration between analysis and users, managers, and analyst work together for several days in series of intensive meetings to specify or review  system requirements, and Computer-aided Software Engineers(CASE) tools software tools that provide automated support for some portion of the systems development process. Another frameworks is Agile Methodologies, the most famous of which is Extreme Programming, it is an approach to a software development put together (beck 2000).

The next approach is Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD), it is development methodologies and techniques based on objects rather than data or process. The object oriented approach combines data and processes into single entities called object structure that encapsulates attributes and methods that operate on those attribute, it is also an abstraction of a real world thing in which data and process are placed together to model the structure and behavior of the real world object. Another key idea in object orientation is inheritance the property that occurs when entity types or objects classes assumes the attributes and methods of its ancestors. Object class is a logical grouping of object that has the same attributes and behaviors. One of the most popular realizations of the iterative approach for object oriented development is the Rational Unified Process(RUP) establish four phases of development: inception, elaboration, construction, and transition.

The first Chapter opens my mind to the opportunities of the system analysis and design field.