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1. The website will Allow the management of user accounts Fully met Allow the management of ADS tasks Fully met Allow the management of computers Fully met Allow the running of ADS tasks Fully met Allow the queuing of multiple ADS tasks Fully met Allow the designing of full multi computer setups Met with constraints Display new configurations entered in to the website separately Fully met Allow the running of multiple sequential ADS tasks Fully met Allow the saving and loading of previously run sets of ADS tasks Fully met Allow customers to enter configuration change requests into the Fully met website Show the statistics of computer user and ADS task use Fully met Require users to login to the website Fully met Have different security privileges Fully met Show a summery of running ADS tasks and ADS task errors Fully met Not to allow unauthorized viewing of pages Fully met Not allow bad inputs to be saved to the database Fully met Table 6 9 How well the functional specification was met The website fully met the functional specification but again was limited to four jobs per configuration Table 6 10 shows the non functional specification for the website and which parts are met As the non functional specification is qualitative whether the specification was met was decided by the users feedback in relation to the size of the project For example the website followed the chosen HCI princi
2. JOB Attribute name Data Type Description JobID Integer Unique auto increment Primary Key CreatedBy Integer Foreign Key USER UserlD CreatedDate DateTime The date and time the job was created Active Bit Indicates if the job is still active Table 4 13 Final JOB table CONFIGURATION Attribute name Data Type Description ConfigID Integer Unique auto increment Primary Key Description Varchar 30 Description of what the configuration does CreatedBy Integer Foreign Key USER UserlID CreatedDate DateTime The date and time the job was created IsNew Bit Indicates if the configuration has ever been applied Table 4 14 Final CONFIGURATION table The JOBTASK table and the CONFIGURATIONJOB table were both identified during the normalization of the database Each of these tables contains it own attribute Position to identify in what order each entry should appear The JOBTASK and the CONFIGURATIONJOB tables can be seen in Tables 4 15 and 4 16 respectively JOBTASK Attribute name Data Type Description JobID Integer Foreign Primary Key TaskID Integer Foreign Primary Key Position Integer Primary Key Table 4 15 Final JOBTASK table CONFIGURATIONJOB Attribute name Data Type Description ConfigID Integer Foreign Primary Key JobID Integer Foreign Primary Key Position Integer Primary Key Table 4 16 Final CONFIGURATIONJOB table 28
3. As RIS is a pull deployment system the laboratory technician must manually go to each computer that requires a new OS to be installed and manually reboot it Once the OS has been installed the technician must perform any post OS configuration required on each computer separately The current work process that the ILS team uses is shown in Appendix 2 2 and the times for each of these steps can be found in appendix A2 3 This process has six steps that require interaction from the technician and requires on average a total of 5 7 minutes of their time shown in Appendix 2 4 The total average time taken to install an OS for one computer is 41 3 minutes Table 2 1 shows the advantages and disadvantages of the current system that the ILS team have in place and Table 2 2 shows the advantages and disadvantages of the system if the RIS server was changed to an ADS server without additional website functionality Advantage Faster than using CD Advantage Standardised installations Disadvantage Still takes a long time to install operating system Disadvantage Requires lots technician interaction Disadvantage Can only install single instances Disadvantage Cannot install applications Disadvantage Customers cannot start installation instances Disadvantage Does not understand infrastructure hierarchy Table 2 1 Advantages and Disadvantages of RIS Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services We
4. data to be saved to the database If bad data cannot be saved to the database the website will have greater stability and will encounter less errors Not to allow unauthorized viewing of pages To provide extra security Require users to login to the website A user requirement for both security and for statistics Have different security privileges A user requirement for security Allow the running of ADS tasks A user requirement Allow the queuing of multiple ADS tasks A user requirement Allow the design of full multi computer setups A user requirement Continued over page 15 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specification and design Allow the running of multiple sequential ADS tasks A user requirement Allow the saving and loading of previously run sets of ADS tasks A user requirement Show the statistics of computer user and ADS task use A user requirement Allow customers to enter configuration change requests into the system A secondary user requirement Table 4 1 Functional specification From the specification in Table 4 1 it can be seen that all of the users primary requirements as discovered in Chapter 2 are being included in the website Only one of the users secondary requirements is included This was to ensure the users primary requirements were fully implemented and test
5. 24 Figure 4 9 Complete entity relationship diagram 25 Figure 4 10 JOBTASK discovered entity 25 Figure 4 11 CONFIGURATIONJOB discovered entity 25 Figure 4 12 Final entity relationship diagram 26 Figure 4 13 ADS and website database link SIT Figure 5 1 Website map 29 Figure 5 2 Joining of XML tasks 35 Figure 5 3 Flow diagram for applying a configuration cr ae Figure 7 1 Linear and non linear configurations 48 List of Extracts Extract 5 1 Code to create a connection to the website database 30 Extract 5 2 Data being formatted as a SQL data type 30 Extract 5 3 Method to retrieve user information 23145 Extract 5 4 SQL statement joining database tables 32 Extract 5 5 Code to check the user s privileges 38 Vi Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1 Introduction This project is concerned with assisting data centre workers and system administrators with the modelling maintenance and deployment of data centre servers and desktop machines The system produced will help technicians to quickly and easily analyse the current setup of their computers and return those computers back to their original state or allow the installation of additional software remotely This functionally will reduce the amount of time they must spend maintaining computer systems and the amount of time it will take them to return
6. 336 LOC webConfigJob e For each job read in all of the tasks from that job from webJobTask e For each job e Create a XML file to represent the job e For each task in the job e Update the usage statistics e Read the XML path for the task from webTask e Write the XML path for the task to the jobs XML file e Close the jobs XML file e Transform the jobs XML file using the XSLT document to include the full XML document e For each job e Create a new Set of computers in ADS using WMI e Add all of the computers in the current job to the set e Update the computer usage statistics e For each job e Run the outputted XML file on the computer Set in ADS using WMI e Update the config in webConfig so that it is no longer marked as new Table 5 3 Step taken to apply a configuration 86 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 5 Implementation Figure 5 3 shows a flow diagram of the process of applying a configuration Read in the jobs for the configuration Read all the tasks for each of the jobs Create a XML wrapper file for the job XML wrapper file Update the task statistics get the XML path and write it to the wrapper file XSLT Website document database Apply the XSLT document to the wrapper file XML task files a Create ADS computer sets add computers and update computer statistics Output XML task file ADS computer set Apply t
7. Once the page has the user s information it can decide if the user has the correct permissions to view a summery of the ADS server s activities i e the view permission If the user does have view permissions the page calls three separate methods to display the new configurations running configurations and error messages Each of these methods is similar the method to read and display the running configurations is show in Appendix 5 3 The home page differs slightly from the original prototype It was decide that the user would not be shown a full list of new configurations as this list became very large to avoid long scrolling pages they are informed there are new configurations and given a link to view them The user cannot click on the running configurations or the errors to get more information as shown in the prototype due their being limited documentation so the time required to implement this would have outweighed the benefits it provided The prototype design is shown in Appendix 5 4 and the final design in Appendix 5 5 5 7 Configuration page The configuration page is by far the most complex page of the website It allows the creation loading saving viewing editing and application of configurations There are over 1 500 Lines Of Code LOC for manipulation of data between the website database and the ADS server 5 7 1 Loading of a configuration When a user wants to view edit or apply an existing configuration the Confi
8. 15 Final JOBTASK table 28 Table 4 16 Final CONFIGURATIONJOB table 28 Table 5 1 Steps taken to load a configuration 33 Table 5 2 Steps taken to save a configuration 34 Table 5 3 Step taken to apply a configuration 36 Table 5 4 User attribute row numbers 39 Table 6 1 Types of unit testing performed on the website 41 Table 6 2 Types of integration testing performed on the website 41 Table 6 3 Types of acceptance testing performed on the website 42 Table 6 4 Web pages that passed all unit tests 42 Table 6 5 Web pages that did not pass all unit tests 42 Table 6 6 Levels of page security 43 Table 6 7 Security levels of the web pages 43 Table 6 8 How well the user requirements were met 44 Table 6 9 How well the functional specification was met 45 Table 6 10 How well the non functional specification was met 45 List of Figures Figure 3 1 Deployment system scores 12 Figure 3 2 Deployment system features 12 Figure 4 1 Defensive design 18 Figure 4 2 Screenshot of Microsofts website 20 Figure 4 3 New task hierarchy using extended entities 22 Figure 4 4 USER and JOB relationship 24 Figure 4 5 USER and CONFIGURATION relationship 24 Figure 4 6 CONFIGURATION and JOB relationship 24 Figure 4 7 JOB and TASK relationship 24 Figure 4 8 JOB and COMPUTER relationship
9. 300 per SPS Server 2000 Linux Solaris node HP UX AIX Microsoft Windows Windows Server Yes No No No No No Free ADS Server 2003 2000 and 2003 Novell Windows NT Windows NT 2000 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 130 per ZENworks 6 2000 NetWare Linux Solaris user NetWare Figure 3 2 Deployment system features Harbaugh 2003 The website will to some extent extend the features of ADS to include patch deployment application deployment work station deployment and role based deployment With these extra features ADS would be a serious contender with its rivals on interoperability and still retain its free price tag 12 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 3 Research and risk assessment As the Infrastructure and Laboratory Support ILS team can only use Microsoft products due to company policy ADS and RIS are the only two options available to them This could also be the case at other companies if they have licensing agreements with Microsoft or already own Windows Server 2003 and do not have the budget available to pay for ZENworkes or Altiris SPS 3 2 3 Speed of deployment ADS provides a large speed advantage over the current RIS system This will allow customer computer setups to be deployed faster this decreases response times to requests and gives the technicians more time to complete other work A full discussion and justifications on deployment speed is given in Appendix 3 2 3 2 4 Cost of deplo
10. n as a user may or may not have created a number of jobs or configurations but any job or configuration that was created was only created by one user USER creates JOB Eee eN N Figure 4 4 USER and JOB relationship USER creates CONFIGURATION TE R o n Figure 4 5 USER and CONFIGURATION relationship In addition to both being related to the user the JOB and CONFIGURATION tables are also both related to each other as a configuration is made up of a number of jobs This will give the relationship 1 n to 1 n as many configurations could contain a particular job and many jobs may be in each configuration Jobs and tasks are linked in a similar way although tasks can exist without being included in a job consists of JOB O E a Figure 4 6 CONFIGURATION and JOB relationship JOB consists of TASK E EO O o Figure 4 7 JOB and TASK relationship In the ADS database the TASK table has a relationship with the COMPUTER table as a singular task can be run on 1 n computers Relating JOB instead of TASK to COMPUTER enables a number of TASK to be run on 1 n computers JOB runs on COMPUTER eee Pt i Figure 4 8 JOB and COMPUTER relationship 24 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specification and design The full entity relationship diagram is shown below in Figure 4 9 COMPUTER runs on ne creates USER e eee consists of con
11. of the website follows a design covered on Microsoft s bCentral This design is not only a design used by Microsoft s website it is a standard design used on lots of popular websites and follows many of Nielsen s Laws of Web User Experience This was chosen as any user should be familiar with the website design of a navigation bar on the left hand side and the main content to the right of it Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles when things always behave the same users don t have to worry about what will happen Instead they know what will happen based on earlier experience Every time you release an apple over Sir Isaac Newton it will drop on his head That s good Nielsen 2004 Colours The main colours that are used on the website are shown in Table 4 6 Colour HEX Where it is used f1f1f1 Left sidebar 086dce Panel headings and page title cccccc Table headers e9e9e9 Alternative table items ffffff Standard background 000000 Text colour ff0000 Error messages Table 4 6 Colours used on the website The colours in Table 4 6 were chosen as they are standard colours used by Microsoft All of the colours were taken from the Microsoft website which can be seen in Figure 4 2 and an additional page in Appendix 4 8 19 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specification and design T Microsoft At Wor
12. program rather than a replacement By fully integrating the website with ADS the website could replace the ADS management program altogether and allow full management of the ADS server remotely This would be difficult due to the lack of documentation 48 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 7 Conclusion and further developments 7 5 Conclusion am very pleased with the final outcome of both the website and report for the project Although am a very competent programmer having to learn a new language and create a complex program in a short amount of time was challenging Despite this the users and think the website is of high enough quality to be used in a production environment The lack of documentation meant that trial and error had to be used at the start of the project to figure out how to interface with ADS although once these problems were overcome the website worked well All the tools chosen were also suitable for the project and despite my prior lack of experience with C it was a good choice of language as it simplifies integration with other Microsoft technologies more than a language like PHP would Additionally it extended my knowledge to include another programming language and along with the other technologies have used such as ADS WMI and XML have learned a great deal in addition to what had previously been taught 49
13. security privileges that the user can have this is to give the maximum amount of granularity to the website security The task entity Appendix 4 2 provides a description of what a task does the path to the XML file that instructs ADS on the actions it should take information on which OSs the task will run on and counters to show how many times that task has been used A Bit is used to identify if a task installs an OS and what OS it is as the user will only be allowed to choose one OS per job due to multi booting OSs not being supported The job entity Appendix 4 3 contains information on the job s creation an ordered list of tasks included in the job and a Bit to indicate if the job is still active The username and date of creation of the job are stored to enable statistics to be produced about the activity of each user In addition to this future developments were taken into consideration and the possibility of users reusing other users jobs in their own configuration so it would be useful to know who created each job If a job is active the computers used as part of that job are no longer listed on the new configuration page as indicated by the IsActive Bit This prevents users from accidentally reformatting computers that are still in use by other users 29 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specification and design This introduces a problem with users wishing to pla
14. select the task that was selected when the configuration was saved LoadOtherTasks int 132 LOC FOR EACH JOB e Select all the tasks that will run on the OS selected or all tasks if no OS is selected e Loop through each task box and bind it to the tasks LoadComputers 116 LOC Select all free computer and computers in the configuration Loop through each of the computer list boxes bind the computers and select the ones that are in use by the configuration Table 5 1 Steps taken to load a configuration 5 7 2 Saving of a Configuration When a user wants to save the configuration it is written to the database As with all the webpages the data is converted into the correct SQL data type before being submitted to the database To further ensure the data saved to the database is correct in addition to valid the page runs a number of error checking methods Although the page takes longer to submit and increases its size it is worthwhile to ensure the information in the database is correct Table 5 2 shows the process the page takes to save the configuration to the database ce Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 5 Implementation No Method Description 1 btnSave_Click Check there is a short description 28 LOC Call ChecklsIncludedWithNoTasks Call ComputersOnlySelectedOnce Call SaveConfigT oDatabase 2 ChecklsiIncluded_ Copy the Include Job check boxes Wi
15. 00 and 2003 PLATFORM Deploys Windows Linux Solaris NetWare eDirectory and server run on Windows NT Windows Server 2000 and 2003 BOTTOM LINE SPS offers a com plete powerful deployment environ ment with inventory patch manage ment software delivery remote con trol monitoring and app manage ment Managers willing to brave the initial cost and configuration time should recover expenses rapidly BOTTOM LINE ADS scope is limited It can only be installed on Windows 2003 Server and can only deploy Windows Server 2000 and 2003 If you only need it for those specific OSes it does a good job it is a marvel of simplicity in installation and use and it s free BOTTOM LINE Not just for NetWare networks any more ZENworks offers a strong role based solution for deploying server OSes applications and patches based on the server s role in the organization It also includes a variety of software and network management tools Figure 3 1 Deployment system scores Harbaugh 2003 Deployment Face Off It s simplicity vs complexity when comparing server provisioning solutions from Microsoft Altiris and Novell with the Windows only ADS in one corner and SPS and ZENworks in the other Support Patch Application System Workstation Role based i _ Platform OSes it deploys PXE deployment deployment management deployment deployment Price Altiris Windows Windows NT 2000 Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
16. Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 5 Implementation Chapter 5 Implementation 5 1 Introduction The following chapter covers the implementation of the website It includes explanations of problems overcome during the creation of the website and a description of each section of the website 5 2 Website map The website consists of 12 webpages Each page can function independently provide user feedback and process its own submission This was done intentionally to minimise the number of web pages whilst maintaining the functionality of a larger website This keeps the code for pages together rather than splitting it across numerous pages allowing easier editing of sections of the website Figure 5 1 shows a map of the website Login page Left navigation Home page page Site administration Manage computers Manage tasks Configuration page View new r configurations View active k configuration View inactive L configuration ee ee ee Figure 5 1 Website map 29 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 5 Implementation 5 3 Database creation All the tables were created with the word web in front of them to distinguish them from tables in the ADS database They were created using the SQL enterprise manger to create a SQL server database Once the database tables covered in Chapter 4 were created and the primary keys s
17. M industry standard to represent systems applications networks devices and other managed components You can use WMI to automate administrative tasks in an enterprise environment Microsoft 2005 WMI can be thought of on the most basic level as an interface standard that allows applications to programmatically access each others functionality and information This allows applications to send and receive information to each other easily without the programmer having to worry about the format in which the information should be sent The last sentence of Microsoft s description is very apt as this project is concerned with this area Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 2 User requirements and analysis Chapter 2 User requirements and analysis 2 1 Introduction This chapter covers the identification of the problems that forms the basis of this project requirements of the potential users of the website and current and new work procedures 2 2 Background As described in the first chapter this project is a result of an investigation into the working practices of the Infrastructure and Laboratory support ILS team at Microsoft UK The following section is further background information 2 2 1 Current procedure To help the ILS team do their job they currently have a Microsoft Remote Installation Services RIS server running in the lab More information on RIS can be found in Appendix A2 1
18. S can be used in data centres to deploy software and to manage computers ADS works by using the Pre boot eXecutable Environment PXE to allow control of computers prior to the Operating System OS loading pre OS and a small program called the Administration Agent AA to control them post OS Further information on ADS is covered in Appendix A1 2 Microsoft 2005 NET Microsoft NET is a set of new software technologies for connecting information people systems and devices which is based on Web services small building block applications that can connect to each other as well as to other larger applications over the Internet Microsoft 2005 NET is a Microsoft system that allows applications to easily communicate with each other by using NET technologies This usually consists of using a NET programming language such as C net VB net or J net and using eXtensible Markup Language XML as a common information transportation language Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 1 Introduction Windows Management Instrumentation WMl Windows Management Instrumentation WMI is a component of the Microsoft Windows operating system and is the Microsoft implementation of Web Based Enterprise Management WBEM which is an industry initiative to develop a standard technology for accessing management information in an enterprise environment WMI uses the Common Information Model CI
19. Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 1 TPG OUCTION sieaa eaaa a Nee eee Lee A dele 1 Ze Definition Of term S s airepean a ieee tennessee 1 B HBACKOMOUMNO AEEA eto Gost satel aoe tat cata or 1 A AGOAl SlALSMOIN decedent iced deca died ccndsttnda se ddtedccadccnde ind ttadscndlcndeanbliadd dediced cent 1 57 IDI SCUVGS asta hac aes ale he aoe es eh cca a he oe ni oc he I cs 2 6 Project management technique ccccceeeeeeeeeeeeceeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeees 2 7 Stages of d evelopmentissc csdviaw ateweiew aia en aan Gen aiek 2 8 Work planene peer Pree rane nUnEREr erry EA Aa en Nene e Teer Tr 3 9 Technologies overview cccccccceeeseeceeceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaeeeeeeeeeeeeessessnaeeeeeeeees 3 Chapter 2 User requirements and analysis Za SIMPOGUCUGMisiccctec cecdbetstaceteec aa Ae E EEEE S AAAA E EAA EEN AE EA 5 22a Background erate ses athe RRE RE AAE R 5 2 2 1 Current procedure ccccccceeeeeeeeeennneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeneaeeeeeeeeeeeeseeennnaeeeeeeees 5 22 2 C rrent PLODIEINS ar a A AA E 6 Zi TING WS OVS rniii 7 2 3 User requirements sash ist aa ea a ae ao Whee tah hen fs 7 2 3 1 Desired working practice sirci ec ee cect eee ee eh Sek lathe ke lcd 7 2 3 2 Requirements capture sc ccs caescigi sees siedeuets kel vase bs uaet ciel kena tease 8 Z338 Users TEQUIFEMEMS sissie a E 9 2 3 4 Differing user requirements cccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
20. administrators to create user accounts and Appendix 5 20 show the page allowing administrators to edit user accounts When the administrator switches between the create and edit mode the username input switches from a text input box to a dropdown selection box allowing them to select the user they want to edit from a list this is an aspect of defensive design and usability aot Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 5 Implementation Manage tasks page The manage tasks page allows administrators to create database entries that link a task on the website to a XML file on the hard disk The administrator can also edit tasks in a similar way used on the manage users page Appendix 5 21 shows the manage tasks page allowing administrators to create tasks and Appendix 5 22 shows the page allowing them to edit tasks Manage computers page The manage computers page allows an administrator to create a link between a computer in the ADS database and the website This is a simple task of selecting the computers they want to be visible on the website and clicking Add If they want all computers to be listed on the website they can click Add All To remove links from the website to the ADS database they can click Remove or Remove All The manage computers page is shown in Appendix 5 23 5 11 Statistics page The statistics page allows administrators to view the usage statistics for tasks computers
21. and users It reads the values from the database and displays them to the user The users can reset the statistic counters so they could for example see what task have been used each week The final design for the statistics page is shown in Appendix 5 24 5 12 Style sheet To ensure consistency in the style of the website a Cascading Style Sheet CSS was used This was only very simple and set the website font and table style Further formatting could be added if needed that would automatically be applied to every page on the website 40 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 6 Testing and evaluation Chapter 6 Testing and evaluation 6 1 Introduction The following chapter covers the testing and evaluation of the website Users have an infinite potential for making unexpected misinterpretations of interface elements and for performing their job in a different way than you imagine Nielsen 1994 The testing of the website was split into a number of categories to ensure each part of the website was tested thoroughly as a single error could mean vital business data would be lost 6 2 Testing outline 6 2 1 Unit testing outline Table 6 1 outlines the types of unit testing carried out on the website these were to ensure each control and function of the website worked correctly when used Testing type Description Control validation testing Every control on the website was tested to
22. assing the data Hence the user was limited to five tasks per job and four tasks per configuration Despite these difficulties all of the information is passed and displayed correctly 47 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 7 Conclusion and further developments 7 4 Project extensions Implementation of secondary user requirements The easiest way to improve the website would be to provide more of the functionality that the user requested e g to be alerted by e mail when a configuration had been successfully applied Non linear configurations Currently the website only allows tasks to be run sequentially The website could run non linear configurations with the addition of a function that could determine the new positions of the jobs no major code changes would be required Figure 7 1 shows the current linear configurations and a potential non liner configuration Current Configuration Potential new Configuration Figure 7 1 Linear and non linear configurations Future planning of configurations As explained in Chapter 4 the website does not allow users to select a computer that are already in use to ensure they are not accidentally reformatted This could be improved by allowing users to select the computers but not allowing the configuration to be applied Further integration with ADS Although the website integrates with ADS it was designed as an extension to the existing ADS management
23. ble 2 5 shows the advantages and disadvantages that the website will provide This includes all of the benefits of using an ADS server but also addresses most of the disadvantages of the ADS system Advantage Faster than using RIS Advantage Standardised installations Advantage Single point of administration Advantage Can install applications Advantage Customers can start installation instances Advantage Understand infrastructure hierarchy Advantage Job can be resumed if a step fails Disadvantage Potential security risks Table 2 5 Advantages and Disadvantages of new website Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 2 User requirements and analysis 2 3 2 Requirements capture To best capture the requirements potential users of the system were interviewed and asked to describe how they would want a deployment system to work and what features would be needed to accomplish this This methodology was chosen over a formal questionnaire due to the problem of the project being well understood and firsthand experience of using the present system By using a written questionnaire it would have been extremely difficult to get the same level of detail that could be communicated verbally due to the complex nature of the project s solution The e mail responses provided a brief description of the features required without having to go into complex detail that was already known from
24. bsite Chapter 2 User requirements and analysis Advantage Faster than using RIS Advantage Standardised installs Advantage Single point of administration Advantage Can install applications Disadvantage Customers cannot start installation instances Disadvantage Does not understand infrastructure hierarchy Disadvantage Job will not continue if one step fails Disadvantage Potential security risks Disadvantage Does not understand infrastructure hierarchy Table 2 2 Advantages and Disadvantages of ADS Although changing the RIS server for an ADS server would introduce benefits for the ILS team there would still be a number of disadvantages present The management team for ILS do not currently have an automated system for calculating the statistics about software usage they rely on asking the technicians what they have installed This is not only time consuming for both the management and the technicians but is also not a very accurate way of collecting the data 2 2 2 Current problems The main problems that face the ILS team are the design and deployment time of complete systems On average a customer will ask for around 40 computers that may all have their own unique configuration of software and hardware This leads to a problem with the system design as RIS does not have the ability to store a list of which OSs have been installed on each computer Therefore the technician must ensu
25. ch into new technologies procedures and new working practices 1 4 Goal statement To deliver a system that will allow technicians to easily maintain and model their computer data centres and allow them to quickly and easily rebuild their data centre from a bare bones situation Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 1 Introduction 1 5 Objectives To help successfully achieve the goal of this project a set of objectives was created shown in Table 1 2 Objectives Find the current main problems facing data centre workers and system administrators Research the technologies and feasibility of a solution Design and Develop a system to solve the discovered problems Test the system for stability reliability and usability Evaluate the system against the original discovered problems Produce complete documentation for the system Table 1 2 Project objectives 1 6 Project management technique As creating any piece of software requires planning to produce a high quality and functional piece of software that meets the users requirements this project will follow the V process model shown in Appendix 1 3 The V process model originally derived from the classic waterfall model for software project management shown in Appendix 1 4 This model ensures that each stage of the project is completed successfully and allows the flexibility to go back and change prior parts of the proje
26. ct if new information is discovered later on It also helps with the testing of software as it shows what testing should be done at each stage to best meet the users requirements Dawson 2004 The V process model fits this project well due to the research and learning that was required As new information was discovered during the research stage the final solution better fitted the users needs as this information was used as part of the solution For these reasons the V process model was chosen over the waterfall model 1 7 Stages of development As with any large project time must be managed well to ensure efficient time management the project was split into the following sections e Introduction and planning stage a brief introduction about the project and the initial work plan e Requirements and research concerned with the users requirements for the system and research into technologies and techniques used in the solution e Specification and design concerned with converting the users requirements and suggestions into a formal specification and designing a solution by combining the specification with the results of the research This includes the design of database tables entity relationship diagrams data Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 1 Introduction flow diagrams sample user interface designs and trade offs that were made at the design stage e Implementation and
27. d to apply Job 4 only and there was an error in Job 1 the page would not let Job 4 be applied This problem was due to the affected functions checking the configuration as a whole instead of each job individually This was fixed by changing the following two functions to accept a job number ComputersOnlySelectedOnce gt ComputersOnlySelectedOnce int JooNumber ChecklsIncludedWithNoTasks gt ChecklsIncludedWithNoTasks int JooNumber 42 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 6 Testing and evaluation The manage tasks page failed one test test number 299 it allowed an invalid path to be entered for the task XML document This error was fixed by changing the textbox to an Open File dialog only allowing the user to select XML files 6 4 Integration testing 6 4 1 Test cases A number of test scenarios were run on the website to ensure the different parts of the website worked together As expected after the successful unit testing the website passed all of the test cases without any problems An example test case can be seen in Appendix 6 14 6 4 2 Security testing Each of the pages was subject to a number of security checks that fell into the three levels covered in Chapter 4 these are shown in Table 6 6 Level Description 1 The user is redirected to the login page if they have not logged in 2 The user is redirected from the page if they do not have the permissions to v
28. e website these are shown in Table 2 4 User Group Description Technical lab workers The Microsoft ILS lab team will be the primary users of the website The lab staff will use the website on a daily basis to install and configure software on computers in the Microsoft data centre Management The ILS management will be the secondary users of the website They will use the website to retrieve statistics about computer and software usage External Customers Customers that come in to Microsoft to use the computers in the data centre will be the tertiary users of the website They will use the website to examine their current configuration and request changes to it Table 2 4 Identified users of the website 2 3 User requirements 2 3 1 Desired working practice As show in Appendix 2 2 the current working practice of the ILS team requires the technician to go to each computer that needs a software change and manually perform any post OS configuration on an individual basis The new working practice requested is for the technician to have much less interaction with each computer and for the customer to be able to submit an electronic request as opposed to a verbal request As new working practice shown in Appendix 2 5 requires less interaction from the technician it will allow him her to carry on with other work and also reduces the total amount of time taken for the customers computers to be reconfigured Ta
29. e websites Ul it was also used to secure access to the websites pages Table 4 5 shows how each level of defensive design relates to each level of protection on the web pages In addition to the specific HCI elements used in the websites UI design general HCI principles from Nielsen were followed These ensured the site did not have any major design problems Level Protection Prevention The user is redirected to the login page if they are not logged in Correction The user is redirected from the page if they are logged in but do not have permission to view the page they entered in as the URL Recovery The pages controls are disabled and an error message displayed if the user does not have permission to use them Table 4 5 Web pages security methods 18 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specification and design 4 3 2 Design choice and justification Throughout the design of the pages Microsoft s website was used as a reference This made the ADS website look and feel more like an official Microsoft website This is not only a benefit to the ILS team as the site will look more professional it should benefit anyone using the site as the design should be familiar to them reducing the need for user learning A screenshot of the view active configurations page can been seen in Appendix 4 9 with the following design features highlighted Site layout The layout
30. ed Including all of the secondary requirements would have required a long time to implement this would have impacted on the quality of the implementation of the user s primary requirements In addition to the specific user s requirements functionality such as adding and removing user accounts has also been included Although this was not specifically asked for by the users it is required to fulfil the users requirements 4 2 2 Non functional specification Table 4 2 shows the non functional specification of the website This covers qualitative aspects of the website These are not fixed features or capabilities they are more of a general level of quality that the website tries meet The website will messages Justification Gives the user more confidence that the website functions correctly Have 100 of errors with friendly error Have error messages that are understood by most computer users Helps users to solve their own problems without having to ask for help Be robust to unexpected data To stop unexpected errors occurring on the website Be user friendly Ensures users will be happy using the website Be functional Computing professionals prefer surface functionality rather than hidden functionality Not submit errors to the ADS system Ensures that computers will not be accidentally reformatted or altered in any adverse way Follow HCI principles Helps with the
31. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 19 4A Data Modelling scrcctncagssticeet a atacettiersigl tint attuctaie tl RA 21 4 4 1 Current database cccccccceeeeeeeeseeneeeeeeeeeeeeeesesaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaees 21 4 4 2 Identify entities and attributes eee cece cece eee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 21 4 5 Entity relationship identification ceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 4 6 NOfrimalizatiOn iret feist etiteadeceenls tee aecenentneleneeees AT Date DICNONANY tec cececvestadace stunts cece tocasiastaheav aa Chapter 5 Implementation Bede MAO GUUCHO Mua eeii aeaaaee aE EEE annari i 5 2 Website MaDe sitesi cence sicecchtelceeihieigesctoat acbiei gen toatl cen beeiceet 5 3 Database Creation cc ccccccccceeeeeseeeeeceeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeees 5 4 0 WOON PAOes 5a ane anit alten eee aie a 5 5 Left Navigation PAGS eciisetssalececs ts iad tesatocers lauds welds naccvedd yy 5 6 LOMIG PAO Cx stne a E EEEa 5 7 Configuration page sic secnretaesenseeseteccieantenseeasbeiees capendveaes 5 7 1 Loading of a configuration seeeseeeseeennreeeeeeseerenee 5 7 2 Saving of a Configuration cccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeteees 5 7 3 Applying a configuration ce ccccecdiec cyccies teed eeceavetasenteedes 5 8 View configuration PAGeS x cieincieia due cece hee eee ed 5 9 Administration Page cccccceeeceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeteeeeeeees 5 10 Manage users tasks and computers pages eeee 5 11 Statist
32. eeeeeeeeeeenaeees APDONOIX zirana e a a lettered aseaat User Manual ss ccie negevantaaaioredeuovwnenstedeesenmcernenscoesencenepeconm iv List of Tables Table 1 1 Terms used throughout the report 1 Table 1 2 Project objectives 2 Table 2 1 Advantages and Disadvantages of RIS 5 Table 2 2 Advantages and Disadvantages of ADS 6 Table 2 3 ILS problems generalised 6 Table 2 4 Identified users of the website 7 Table 2 5 Advantages and Disadvantages of new website 7 Table 2 6 Users primary requirements 9 Table 2 7 Users secondary requirements 9 Table 3 1 Difference of ADS and RIS 11 Table 3 2 Benefits of C 13 Table 3 3 Benefits of Visual Studio 14 Table 3 4 Other project tools 14 Table 4 1 Functional specification 15 Table 4 2 Non functional specification 16 Table 4 3 Semiotics in use 17 Table 4 4 Websites defensive design methods 18 Table 4 5 Web pages security methods 18 Table 4 6 Colours used on the website 19 Table 4 7 Identified database entities 21 Table 4 8 Extended entities from current ADS 21 Table 4 9 Description of relationship terms 23 Table 4 10 Final USER table 26 Table 4 11 Final TASK table 27 Table 4 12 Final COMPUTER table 27 Table 4 13 Final JOB table 28 Table 4 14 Final CONFIGURATION table 28 Table 4
33. eeenees 10 Chapter 3 Specification and design geli oTPMOCUN CUO Mees cts ces tae sett a cs add ands as Soest ats ae ee ee 11 Dies FIRESCONCI ae Cee Eee al EN eA Nae Ae Ae eee 11 3 2 1 Automated Deployment Services ADS vs Remote Installation Services Mis ACALUIGS cccecte etescass atccniees an E A A E a AA 11 3 2 2 ADS vs Novell ZENworkes 6 and Altiris SPS ceeeeeeeeeeees 12 3 2 3 Speed of deployment eee ecceseecceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaeeees 13 3 2 4 Cost ordeployinenticc g ace coe bean atnerecoce ecm atuenet oe 13 3 2 5 Advantages of CH seniii iaaii 13 3 2 6 Advantages of Visual Studio ccccccceeeeeeeeeeeesececeeeeeeeeeeeeeeneeees 14 3 2 7 Other project tools 28 sit se ote tata leit bee dutch date teen ceeded tee een 14 3 3 Risk assessment SUMMETY ccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 14 Chapter 4 Research and risk assessment AUS MMO QUICHE OM i aapne a a raaa aE 15 4 2 Specification Satsco ce eaiataestaea tial eta oat elated batt eae ele 15 4 2 1 Functional specification ccccccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeneeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 15 4 2 2 Non functional Specification ceeccceeeceeeee eee eeeeeeeeeeneeeeeeeeeeeeeee 16 4 3 Website CGSIGNas wasnt Aa AAA AAA A Nala Re A aes 17 4 3 1 HCFC ES acchc ieee stata EEEE eee eit Mette helt te 17 4 3 2 Design choice and justification cccccceceeeeeeeeeeeeee
34. elected the relationships between the tables were created These were created using the relationships tab in the properties of each of the tables Finally the ASP NET user account on the web server was given permission to access the database This allowed the website to use integrated security to access the database rather than requiring a username and password Extract 5 1 shows the code to access the database SqlConnection conn new SqlConnection Data Source local Initial Catalog adsdb Integrated Security true Extract 5 1 Code to create a connection to the website database Integrated security was chosen as it allows the password of the user account to be changed without the password also having to be changed in the source code of the webpages 5 4 Login page The login page checks the username and password entered by the user against entries in the database As with all the pages on the website to ensure data being submitted to the database are valid they are changed to the correct format before being sent as shown in Extract 5 2 Create SQL command to check password SqlCommand cmd new SqliCommand SELECT FROM webUser WHERE Username Username AND Password Password conn Create cmd parameters for Username and Password cmd Parameters Add Username SqIDbType VarChar cmd Parameters Add Password SqiDbType VarChar Set the parameter to the users input cmd Parameters Username Value txtUsername T
35. ensure it preformed the correct actions when it was used Control verification testing The code for each control was tested to ensure that it preformed the correct action in the correct way Function validation testing Every function on the website was tested to ensure it produced the correct result Function verification testing Each function on the website was tested to ensure it could handle errors correctly and was producing the correct output in the correct way Table 6 1 Types of unit testing performed on the website 6 2 2 Integration testing outline Table 6 2 outlines the types of tests that were used to assess how well the web pages integrated with each other Testing type Description Test cases Common scenarios were run through to ensure the different parts of the website worked together Security testing Each page was tested to ensure it was secure from unauthorised access and use Table 6 2 Types of integration testing performed on the website 41 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 6 Testing and evaluation 6 2 3 Acceptance testing outline Table 6 3 outlines the types of tests used to evaluate how well the website met the user s needs Testing type Description Usability testing The site was tested by users to see if the site was easy to use System testing The site was tested against the users requirements to see if the
36. ext cmd Parameters Passwora Value txtPassword Text Extract 5 2 Data being formatted as a SQL data type Correctly formatting the data allows the webpage to handle errors before the data are sent to the database This does not only ensure invalid data are not submitted to the database it also improves efficiency as the webpage does not have to wait for a reply from the database before it can inform the user there is an error There is also an adverse effect that five lines of code are required instead of one It was decided that the inclusion of more lines of code was an acceptable trade off for data validity 30 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 5 Implementation In addition to logging in the user the login page also put the user s information in a session variable that it is available to other pages on the website therefore it does not have to be read from the database every time it is needed The prototype page is shown in Appendix 5 1 and the final page in Appendix 5 2 5 5 Left Navigation page The left navigation page provides hyperlinks to different pages on the website It uses the user information to decide which links are clickable by the user i e if the user is not an administrator the hyperlink for the administration menu is disabled The original design presented the user with buttons these were changed to hyperlinks for aesthetic and usability reasons The prototype and fina
37. g a simple text editor Visual Studio Net 2003 was chosen due to the benefits shown in Table 3 3 Feature Benefit Documentation MSDN has a wealth of articles and examples WYSIWYG web page designer Allows easy creation of user friendly web pages Pretty printer Makes code easier to view Table 3 3 Benefits of Visual Studio Microsoft 2005 3 2 7 Other project tools During the project a number of other tools will also be used to complete certain tasks these are briefly described in Table 3 4 Tool Description ADS MMC snap in Used to control the ADS server and view outcomes of the websites task submissions ADS Sequence Used to create XML task files that instruct ADS on Editor actions or steps to take SQL Server Used to hold the ADS and website database Rational Rose Used to create database diagrams Office tools Used to create the report Table 3 4 Other project tools 3 3 Risk assessment summery The risk assessment identified a number of potential problems the system could have encountered All of the risks identified were assessed and solutions or contingencies produced A network designs for the final system as also produced to reduce potential security problems even further The full risk assessment can be seen in Appendix 3 4 14 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specification and design Chapter 4 Specification and desi
38. gID of that configuration is passed to the configuration page via a session variable in the same way that the user s information is passed Table 5 1 shows the process the page follows when it receives a ConfigID to load The LoadComputer method is shown in Appendix 5 6 To reduce the number of times the website has to access the database to improve performance the SQL commands join tables where possible to retrieve all the data required in one trip Extract 5 4 shows an example of a SQL statement joining tables when the TaskIDs and their position numbers are read for a configuration cmd new SqlCommand SELECT webJobTask Taskld webJobTask PositionNo FROM webJobTask INNER JOIN webConfigJob ON webJobTask Jobld webConfigJob JobID WHERE webConfigJob ConfigID ConfigID ORDER BY webJobTask PositionNo conn Extract 5 4 SQL statement joining database tables 239 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 5 Implementation No Method Description 1 LoadOSTasks 44 LOC Select all tasks that install OSs Loop through each OS task box and bind the tasks to the box Loop through each OS task box and select the OS that was selected when the configuration was saved LoadConfig 134 LOC Get the configurations description Get all the jobs in the configuration Loop through each job and call LoadOtherTasks Job Position Loop through each job and update the other task boxes to
39. gn 4 1 Introduction This chapter covers the final specification and the design of the website It also covers the justifications and tradeoffs for specification and design decisions 4 2 Specification A specification helps to remove ambiguity about what the system will do and helps define the users true requirements The specification focuses on what the system will do rather than how it will do it which is cover later in the design section Dawson 2004 4 2 1 Functional specification Table 4 1 shows the functional specification of the website and the justification for each of the websites functions The website will Justification Allow the management of user accounts To help with the maintenance of the website and allow user accounts to be added edited and removed Also to aid with the website security Allow the management of ADS tasks To allow user accounts to easily add edit and remove ADS tasks from the website Allow the management of computers To allow users to include or exclude certain computers on the website l e production computers may not want to be accessible from the website Display new configurations entered in to the website separately To allow technicians to easily see when a customer has made a request Show a summary of running ADS tasks and ADS task errors To provide users with some feedback about the state of their ADS tasks Not allow bad
40. hat on the website a job is a number of tasks and a configuration is a number of jobs This problem can be avoided in future by users being shown the User Manual before they use the website All of the other usability issues on the website were minor a full list can be found in Appendix 6 14 6 5 2 System testing Table 6 8 shows the users original requirements and which requirements the website met Requirement Ability to run ADS tasks remotely Fully met Ability to queue ADS tasks Fully met Ability to design full multiple computer setups Met with constraints Ability to reapply saved computer setups Fully met Ability to produce statistics on computer and software Fully met usage The system must have some form of security Fully met Table 6 8 How well the user requirements were met All of the user requirements were met although the user is currently limited to four jobs in a single configuration This is because there was no efficient way to dynamically create tasks and jobs This can be changed in the code to allow more than four jobs per configuration or could be solved by splitting large setups into a number of smaller configurations 44 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 6 Testing and evaluation 6 5 3 Functional testing Table 6 9 shows the functional specification for the website and which parts of the specification are met
41. he outputted XML file to the set Update the config to no longer be new Figure 5 3 Flow diagram for applying a configuration Appendix 5 11 shows the code that creates the XML wrapper file and merges the XML documents Appendix 5 12 show the code that creates the ADS computer sets adds the computers and updates the computer statistics Appendix 5 13 shows the code to apply the XML configurations to the ADS computer sets created 37 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 5 Implementation The ApplyConfig method takes two parameters ApplyConfig int RunFromOnwards int RunOnly The first parameter makes the method apply only jobs that have an equal or value higher than it i e if the parameter equals 3 only jobs three and four are applied The second parameter make the method only apply the job number of the parameter i e if the parameter equals 2 only job two will be applied This allows the user to be selective about which jobs to run The final page design was similar to the prototype design these can be seen in Appendix 5 15 and Appendix 5 14 respectively The main difference is that the final page cannot dynamically create tasks or jobs it is fixed to five tasks per job and four jobs per configuration This was due to difficulties in getting dynamically created controls to remember their values after a page submission As there is no efficient way of doing this it was decided that fixing the nu
42. ics page cece consent cl deciensdecese ssi ieee de danercada tad cede eda 5 12 Style sheet aoa AAS oa A ae ee Ae ae a a Chapter 6 Testing and evaluation Gali MOGUICHOMicsavcaveratexerscoscteecentenavcea tescet eerie ate ete 6 2 Testing OUt Enne stare tieta at holatcttecreretils 6 2 1 Unit testing outline 2 2 22 eee ceeceeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 6 2 2 Integration testing Outline ceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeteees 6 2 3 Acceptance testing Outline ccccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees Go THM TCSUN Gack Leo a chee a felt eA Ae ees As 6 4 Integration testing cccccccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeteeeeeeees 6 4 1 Testcases ss case t tie p ot stet cic ee hab ater ti ieet tot ses taat 6 4 2 Security teSting ccecccccceeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 6 5 Acceptance testing Bonsai caren lata ancy iter 6 5 1 Usability testing ieee tice Me ke ee al ee 6 5 2 System testing steele eee 6 5 3 Functional testing 0sssseseneeeeeooeeeennnnnreeeeeerrrnnnrreeeee 6 6 Evaluation and testing SUMMETLY cccceeeeeeeeeetneeeeeeeees Chapter 7 Conclusion and future developments PM Mro d CtO Meee aa eaa a e iaae i eaae a T 2 lt Projectsummaly missien straa ora raei auies TA E S iO ONE E E 7 4 Project extensions ssssessseeenneeseeerrrrnrnrreseerrrrrnnneneeent 7 94 CONCIUSIOM a senesine ananena iaaiiai dedetected References and bibliography cccccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
43. iew the page 3 The page controls are disabled if the user does not have the permissions to use them Table 6 6 Levels of page security Table 6 7 shows the results of the security tests on the pages All of the pages reached the maximum security level of Level 1 The login page was not included as all users need to be able to access this page Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 t lt lt lt 2 z2 z2 2 5 e D D D D a A D La 3 5 5 5 D a D D i 3 civ Se ee oo oe oS oli53li alal elplololol2 o 2 9 c re 2 183 5 Z ej jgj a o g O lt c D O Q O Q a a 2 joa l amp gj ol ao jo v 1a Se lS o S 0a oO 5 O D D rN O Q oO lt eo o Z O xe oa i D S ol amp g jea a O oO oO Q xe 7 no a D ge oO oO Table 6 7 Security levels of the web pages 43 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 6 Testing and evaluation 6 5 Acceptance testing 6 5 1 Usability testing There was only one major usability issue with the website which was the terminology used this confused users about how to run tasks on computers The users became confused as jobs and configurations are not part of a normal ADS system and they tested the website without being told what jobs or configurations were ADS only allows users to run tasks so a user must learn t
44. k Microsoft Internet Explorer File Edit Yiew Favorites Tools Help Q sxx Q E A JO search Je Favorites amp 2 a B z lay B L Address a http jfw micrasoft comjatwork default mspx E Google v Search web gO EP301 blocked E Autorii fea Options Search Microsoft com for Microsoft At Work Microsoft At Home Security At Home Articles at work discover ways to work smarter Product Information Downloads Ea S Get more A i ne cf Security fe E QOOC stuff Microsoft At Home Control document gt 4 versions with today s Microsoft Office I see the demo manage information stay connected work together 4 ways to control your e Secure your wireless home 6 ways to work as a virtual mail Inbox network team Mind your e mail manners Working with a mobile Learn all the ways you can device 4 ways to store share information Manann wmi Windows Internet Figure 4 2 Screenshot of Microsoft s website Hyperlinks The links in the left navigation bar stay black when clicked all other links on the website change colour when clicked Nielsen says that hyperlinks should change colour when they are clicked The links in the left navigation bar remain black however as they represent menu options and not standard page links Allowing these links to remain black differentiates them from standard links to the user Menu bullet points To further diffe
45. l menu can be seen on the left side of Appendix 5 4 and Appendix 5 5 respectively 5 6 Home page This page gives the user a brief summary of the activity of the Automated Deployment Services ADS server if the user has the permissions to see the information As the login page puts the user s information in a session variable any of the webpages can read this information back with the code in Extract 5 3 private DataGrid GetUserInfo Create the user information datagrid DataGrid dtgUserlnfo new DataGrid string teststring Try to get user information if not present redirect to login page try ditgUserlnfo DataGrid Session UserInfo teststring dtgUserInfo ltems 0 Cells 0 Text return dtgUserInfo catch Response Redirect login aspx return null Extract 5 3 Method to retrieve user information Not only does Extract 5 3 retrieve the user s information it also redirects the user to the login page if this information cannot be retrieved i e the user has not logged in A session variable was chosen over a cookie to pass the information as the information in a session variable will be lost once the user closes the browser or after a timeout period so the user does not have to worry about the security risks of leaving information in a cookie on the computer they are using to access the website 31 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 5 Implementation
46. mber of jobs would be an acceptable trade off for the amount time that could then be saved and spent on other areas of the website 5 8 View configuration pages When a user wants to either view new active or inactive configurations they are read from the database There is a separate page to list configurations in each state The pages are separate as users have different permissions e g a user may be able to view new configurations but not view inactive configurations To ensure users can only perform actions they have permissions to perform the pages check the user s privileges Extract 5 4 shows a cut down version of the code that performs the check find out if the user has permissions to deactivate tasks Get the userinfo DataGrid dtgUserlnfo GetUserInfo if dtgUserInfo ltems 0 Cells 7 Text True Let the user perform the action Else ERROR The user does not have the permissions to do this task Extract 5 5 Code to check the user s privileges Extract 5 5 uses the command if dtgUserInfo ltems 0 Cells 7 Text True to check if the user can deactivate configurations The index used in the Cells array relates to the row number of an attribute in the webUsers table of the database Table 5 4 shows the row number of each of a user s attributes 38 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 5 Implementation Row Number Attribute Name UserID Username Pass
47. n out a configuration in advance as they will not be able to select computers that are in use now but will not be in use when they actually want to apply the configuration This is a difficult problem to overcome as computers are not in use for a fixed period of time the website is unable to predict when a certain computer will no longer be needed by a user As the data stored on the computers is valuable the safest option was chosen of not letting users choose a computer unless it is not currently in use This is to help prevent the accidental reformatting of computers The job entity will also have a description This is not currently being used by the website but is included for future developments The configuration entity Appendix 4 4 contains information on the configuration s creation a description an ordered list of jobs in the configuration and an indicator of whether the configuration has ever been applied The indicator of whether the configuration has been applied or not will enable the website to list configurations that may be requests from a customer separately As the username of the creator of the configuration is stored a technician will be able to view all of the unapplied configurations and see which ones have been submitted by customers This process could be further refined by indicating which user accounts are customers and only displaying those configurations This was chosen not to be implemented as customers we
48. nSave Bit Indicates if the user can save configurations IsAdmin Bit Indicates if the user is an Administrator Active Bit Indicates if the user account is still active Table 4 10 Final USER table 26 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specification and design TASK Attribute name Data Type Description TaskID Integer Unique auto increment Primary Key FullDescription Varchar 500 Long description of what the task does ShortDescription Varchar 30 Short description on what the task does XMLPath Varchar 200 File path to the XML file the task represents WillRunOn2k Bit Indicates if the task will run on Windows 2000 WillRunOnXP Bit Indicates if the task will run on Windows XP WillRunOn03 Bit Indicates if the task will run on Windows 2003 WillRunOnLH Bit Indicates if the task will run on Windows Longhorn IsXP Bit Indicates if the task installs Windows XP Is2k Bit Indicates if the task installs Windows 2000 Is03 Bit Indicates if the task installs Windows 2003 IsLH Bit Indicates if the task installs Windows Longhorn CurrentCounter Integer Number of times the task has been run since the counter was last cleared Counter Integer Total number of times that task has been run Table 4 11 Final TASK table COMPUTER Attribute name Data Type Description ComputerID Integer Unique auto increment P
49. o be joined a sample wrapper document can be seen in Appendix 5 9 The wrapper file then has a XSLT document applied to it this can be seen in Appendix 5 10 The XSLT document takes the file paths from the wrapper document and outputs another XML file that includes all the steps from all of the source files Figure 5 2 shows a graphical representation of this process File 1 File 2 File 3 Step 3a Step 3b Transform XSLT document Step 1a Step 1b Step 2a Output Wrapper file Step 1a Step 1b Step 2a Step 3a Step 3b Filet XML File2 XML File3 XML Figure 5 2 Joining of XML tasks 35 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 5 Implementation The full application process In addition to merging XML files there are a number of other actions that take place before a configuration is applied Table 5 3 shows the steps taken by the website when the Apply button is pressed No Method Description 1 ChecklsIncluded_ See Table 5 2 WithNoTasks 2 ComputersOnly _ See Table 5 2 SelectedOnce 3 Computerls_ e Set FoundOne False Selected int e Loop through the computer list box 35 LOC represented by the passed int e lf acomputer is selected set FoundOne True e If FoundOne False update the error message e Return FoundOne 5 SaveConfigTo_ See Table 5 2 Database 4 ApplyConfig int int e Read the jobs in the config from
50. own in Table 2 7 Requirement Better support for installing patches Ability to backup data on computer systems for later redeployment Ability for customers to use the website Ability to resume tasks that terminated with errors Ability to schedule a job to run at a certain time Ability to configure applications via the website To be alerted once the job was finished by e mail or SMS To work over multiple geographical sites Table 2 7 Users secondary requirements 9 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 2 User requirements and analysis To decide which of the features were implementable research was conducted and the technological limiting factors and the time limiting factors were taken into account A further explanation of technological limiting and time limiting factors is described in Appendix A2 11 2 3 4 Differing user requirements The different potential users of the website had differing requirements that must be met The technicians requested features that would reduce their work load and simplify computer system design The management requested features that would allow them to produce usage statistics and reports for computers and software As the technicians will be the primary users of the website their requirements took precedence Additionally before any statistics can be produced for the management the technicians have to be using
51. perform certain actions remotely Ability to queue ADS tasks Would allow a technician to select multiple tasks they wanted to run on a computer all at once instead of to keep having to revisit the ADS server Ability to design full multiple computer setups Will help with the deployment and the tracking of customer systems Ability to reapply saved computer setups Will ensure that if a customer revisits the labs they can have exactly the same computer setup they previously had when they used the labs This could also be a useful feature if the customer was also using ADS in their data center as the whole system design can be exported to XML The customer could rerun the tasks in their data centre with minimal modification and recreate the exact environment they were using in the labs Ability to produce statistics on computer and software usage Requested by management to assist with budget allocation and staff training The statistics would be able to show the usage of the computers to indicate which computers are used most and which software is used most frequently so that training on the most appropriate subject can be given to the technicians Must include security features Should only allow selected users to have access to the website and allow only certain users to run certain jobs on certain computers Table 2 6 Users primary requirements The final secondary user requirements are sh
52. ples well but there are thousands more that were not used as part of the website due to time constraints The website will Have 100 of errors with friendly error messages Fully met Have error messages that are understood by most computer users Mostly met Be robust to unexpected data Fully met Be user friendly Mostly met Be functional Fully met Not submit errors to the ADS system Fully met Follow HCI principles Fully met Be maintainable Fully met Table 6 10 How well the non functional specification was met The website fully met nearly all of the non functional specification and mostly met the other parts It was decided the website was not totally user friendly as users needed to be told a definition of a job and a configuration 45 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 6 Testing and evaluation Error messages should always be constructive and help users to overcome the problem instead of simply pointing out that there is trouble Nielsen 2000 The users decided that the error messages were not as clear as they could have been as they did not provided enough explanation on how to fix the error although they did provide an accurate description of what error occurred 6 6 Evaluation and testing summery The unit testing provided 100 coverage of the code for errors and out of the 19 errors found the website only required three code changes to fix
53. provide to the data out weighed the extra work required to implement them 4 4 2 Identify entities and attributes From studying ADS it is easy to identify 3 main entities that work together to complete the process of installing software on a computer shown in Table 4 7 Entity Description The user Physically starts the process The task The logic used to make the computer complete the task chosen by the user The computer The physical object the will be effected by the running of the task Table 4 7 Identified database entities As the website will provide more power and greater flexibility with the task part of the process than ADS currently has it will be extended as shown in Table 4 8 Figure 4 3 shows this extension in diagram form Entity Description The job A list of tasks to be run on a list of computers The configuration A list of job to be run Table 4 8 Extended entities from current ADS 21 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specification and design ADS task ADS task ADS task ADS task ADS task Figure 4 3 New task hierarchy using extended entities For each of the five entities that have been identified in the process a number of attributes that describe each of the entities can be produced The user entity Appendix 4 1 consists of user logon information and security privileges There are a number of
54. re identified as being the tertiary users of the website in Chapter 2 so other features of the website took precedence The configuration does not require an indicator of whether it is active or not as the jobs inside the configuration are active or inactivate the configuration inherits their status The computer entity Appendix 4 5 contains a foreign key to a the computer on the website with a computer in the ADS database a foreign key to show what task the computer currently belongs to and counters to show how many times the computer has been used 4 5 Entity relationship identification As discussed in the previous section there are five entities that will interact during the use of the website In natural language the user creates a configuration that contains jobs the jobs contain tasks and the tasks will be run on a computer Table 4 9 describes the terminology that will be used to describe the relationships between the different entities Term Description 0 1 Zero to one relationship 1 1 One to one relationship 0 n Zero to many relationship 1 n One to many relationship Table 4 9 Description of relationship terms 23 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specification and design In the database the USER table will have a relationship with both the JOB table and the CONFIGURATION table Both of the relationships for the user will be 1 1 to 0
55. re that records are kept Deployment time is also an issue as the technician has to wait for the current customers to leave on Friday before reconfiguring the computers for the new customers arriving on Monday morning Although these are problems specific to the ILS team at Microsoft they can be generalised to apply to any organisation that has computers shown in Table 2 3 Problem Description System design This is a problem in any organisation as all the technicians need to know what software is on each computer so that they do not reformat the wrong one In addition as there may be many computing staff there needs to be a record of what software is on each computer in case it needs to be rebuilt and the person who built it originally is not available Deployment time This is becoming increasingly more important for companies as a high computer utilisation rate will increase profitability for example e commerce sites or online services Additionally following a virus or hacker attack every minute that the computer system is down could be costing the company thousands of pounds in lost revenue so restoring the computer system to its original state quickly is imperative to minimise losses Table 2 3 ILS problems generalised 6 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 2 User requirements and analysis 2 2 3 The users There are three main user groups identified that will use th
56. rentiate the left navigation menu from other links on the website they also have square bullet points next to them These bullet points can be seen in Figure 4 2 in use on Microsoft s website Reusing of pages The website reuses pages as much as possible for example the configuration page is used to create new edit existing and the view existing configurations This was done to reduce the amount of learning that is required by the users Learnability is one of the aspects of Usability as defined by the International Organization for Standardization ISO Jordan 1998 Since the website could be used by external customers from the ILS labs increasing learnability will enable those users to complete tasks with less training This can save both time and money 20 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specification and design 4 4 Data modelling 4 4 1 Current database ADS has a database that contains information about the computers in the data centre consequently this information does not need to be stored in the website s database To ensure the integrity of the ADS database if there were an error with the website a separate database has been created to hold any additional information the website needs To further protect the data in the ADS database the website only reads data from the ADS database and uses WMI to write to the database Although these steps add complexity the extra safety they
57. rimary Key JobID Integer Foreign Key indicating which job is using the computer JOB JobID ADSComputerlD Integer Foreign Key linking the ADS database to the website database DEVICES ID CurrentCounter Integer Number of times the computer has been used since the counter was last cleared Counter Integer Total number of times the computer has been used Table 4 12 Final COMPUTER table The computer table is the link between the ADS database and the website database The link between the ADS database and the website database can be seen in Figure 4 13 CurrertJobIO JobTemplate LastDiscoveryTime Description ADS database webComputer F ComputerID JobID ADSComputerID ComputerName Counter CurrentCourter webJob Gj JobID CreatedBy CreatedDate Active Website database Figure 4 13 ADS and website database link 27 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specification and design Pictures of the full website database with data tables and the full ADS database linked with the website data base can be seen in Appendix 4 6 and Appendix 4 7 respectively The JOB table no longer contains an ordered list of tasks as they are linked via the JOBTASK table and the CONFIGURATION table no longer contains a list of jobs as they are linked via the CONFIGURATIONJOB table The JOB table can be seen in Table 4 13 and the CONFIGURATION table in Table 4 14
58. rtability across organisations Greater portability also means the website will better cope with future changes in the ILS working practices As ADS is a new technology there is very little information on how to programmatically interface with it and currently no publicly available systems to look at for help There are still currently no generic web based systems that integrate with ADS even Microsoft are currently only in the beta stages of creating a web based ADS solution The project website is a first generation solution of its kind and provides significant benefits over older deployment solutions 7 3 Critique There were a number of difficulties encountered whilst creating the website mostly due to the complex nature of the work Despite this the website code was very stable and error free due to the extensive testing that took place and my continuing improvement at programming with C Although Microsoft is correct in saying Windows Management Instrumentation WMI can be used to administer an enterprise environment it is not simple to implement Technologies are described as working together in harmony In reality integrating different technologies requires a lot of additional work e g running an ADS job through C code using WMI The main drawback of the project website is the problems with the flow of information when pages are submitted Due to the difficulty of the task and the language chosen there was no efficient way of p
59. saved to the database Table 4 3 Semiotics in use These types of signs were used on the website to help improve feedback to the user Defensive design is designing the UI to help reduce user errors correct user errors and recover from user errors Garret 2002 Figure 4 1 shows how defensive design reduces the number of user errors 17 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specification and design KARRAR AAAA RAAT EARR AAA NE A 44 eee didt b4 44 She ME NS ein a ee tae CORRECTION Je 40 e Figure 4 1 Defensive design Garret 2002 Table 4 4 shows how the website UI addresses each level of defensive design Level Resolution Prevention Each data field has its name clearly indicated Data field names are self describing Each data field is a fixed selection choice where possible Page submission buttons grouped e e e e Data fields dynamically update other options on selection e e e Correction Dynamically checks data inputs before page submission All data types are checked before the page submission is successfully accepted e All errors display a relevant error message Recovery e All page code is placed in try and catch code blocks e Page data is remembered and redisplayed Table 4 4 Websites defensive design methods Defensive design was not only used in the design of th
60. sists of ee Ph Un CONFIGURATION T Figure 4 9 Complete entity relationship diagram 4 6 Normalization As show in Figure 4 9 there are two many to many relationships present in the database design these are JOB to CONFIGURATION and JOB to TASK These relationships mean the design does not conform to the first normal form of database design To be in first normal form a table cannot have more than one entry in any field Dawson 2001 88 To resolve this a relationship table can be placed between each of these relationships To resolve the problem between JOB and TASK a new entity called JOBTASK was created The relationship between TASK and JOBTASK is 1 1 to 0 n as a TASK may or may not be used in a JOBTASK but for JOBTASK to exist it must contain one task The relationship between JOB and JOBTASK is 1 1 to 1 n asa JOB must contain at least one JOBTASK to exist and a JOBTASK can only belong to one JOB lt consists of a isin TASK Figure 4 10 JOBTASK discovered entity The solution to the CONFIGURATION and TASK relationship is similar although if a JOB exists it must belong to a configuration so the relationship between JOB and CONFIGURATIONJOB is 1 1 to 1 n CONFIGURATION consists of 4 n CONFIGURATION isin 14 JOB JOB a aa Figure 4 11 CONFIGURATIONJOB discovered entity 25 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specifica
61. technician and the website as if the ADS sever is controlling the computers the system can ffs Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 3 Research and risk assessment be more autonomous Finally the deployment method is advantageous in ADS as it can perform more simultaneous deployments at greater soeeds because of the use of multicasting 3 2 2 ADS vs Novell ZENworkes 6 and Altiris SPS In a product review by Harbaugh 2003 Microsoft ADS was judged not to be as good overall as ZENworkes 6 or SPS due to a very low score for Interoperability see Figure 3 1 This was because of a lack of features ADS has compared to its competitors see Figure 3 2 Altiris SPS Microsoft ADS Novell ZENworks 6 Altiris altiris com Microsoft microsoft com Novell novell com ERY GOOD 8 3 ERY GOOD 7 0 ERY GOOD 8 4 Interoperability 2596 O Interoperability 25 O Interoperability 25 O Manageability 25 O Manageability 25 O Manageability 25 Scalability 25 8 Scalability 25 O Scalability 25 O Setup 15 O Setup 15 O Setup 15 D Value 10 O Value 1096 O Value 10 COST Starts at 300 per node COST Free COST ZENworks 6 130 per user PLATFORM Runs on Windows Server 2000 distributes Windows NT 2000 2003 Linux Solaris HP UX and AIX ZENworks for Servers 59 per user or 3 000 per server PLATFORM Windows Server 2003 deploys Windows Server 20
62. testing is concerned with the programming and creation of additional files needed in order for the proposed system to work and the trade offs that had to be made during the creation of the system e Testing and evaluation concerned with how the system meets the users requirements and how well it matched the original specification In addition to the trade offs that were included in the design and implementation part of the project this section covers additional trade offs made The testing ensured the stability functionality and usability of the system e Conclusion and further developments discuss problems encountered during the project and the over all effectiveness of the project and possible future developments for the system 1 8 Work plan To help the time management of the project a Gantt chart was produced to give a time frame for each section of the project shown in Appendix 1 5 a revised and easier to read Gantt chart was also produced shown in Appendix 1 6 This gave a clear indication of when each section of the project needed to be completed to finish the project on time 1 9 Technologies overview The following are brief overviews of the technologies used in this project Microsoft Automated Deployment Services ADS Microsoft Automated Deployment Services ADS is a new Microsoft service that runs on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition to aid with the deployment of Microsoft server operating systems AD
63. thNoTasks For each checked check box 106 LOC e Copy the Jobs task boxes e Check to see if at least one of them has a task selected e Return True if a Job is selected without any tasks selected and False if all Jobs checked have tasks selected 3 ComputersOnly_ e Copy the computer list boxes SelectedOnce e Set OnlySelectedOnce true 75 LOC e For each list box e For each list box after the current list box e Check each selected computer in the current list box to the selected computers in the list boxes after e lf the same computer is selected in both boxes display an error and set OnlySelectedOnce false e Return OnlySelctedOnce 4 SaveConfigToDatabase e Insert the config information in to 270 LOC webConfig e Read back the new ConfigID e Loop through each job that is selected e Copy the tasks selected in the current job e lf there are tasks selected Insert the job into webJob e Read back the new JobID e Insert a link to the config into webConfigJob e lf there is an OS task selected Insert a link into webJobTask e Loop though the other tasks and Insert a link into webJobTask if they are selected e Set the JustSaved state variable to true 5 On page reload as e Load the configuration from the JustSaved True database Table 5 2 Steps taken to save a configuration 34 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 5 Implementation As checking every comp
64. that up to 70 ofa company s IT budget can be spent on server maintenance With such a large percentage of a budget being spent on keeping current systems operational any time or money saving measure could mean large a saving to a company To help address this numerous systems are available to aid with the deployment of operating systems and other software 3 2 1 Automated Deployment Services ADS vs Remote Installation Services RIS features Both ADS and RIS are Microsoft products and both offer a different way to deploy software to computers There are many differences between the two products the most relevant differences to this project are listed in Table 3 1 Feature ADS RIS Programmatic Yes No extensibility Initiation type Push deployment is Pull deployment is initiated initiated by a central server by the user on each individual computer Deployment Multicast Unicast method Table 3 1 Difference of ADS and RIS Microsoft 2003 As ADS is programmatically extensible and RIS is not ADS is the logical choice out of these two Microsoft technologies to extend An extended system could be build around RIS although this would consist of a complex system of automatically running scripts to perform the users chosen actions The initiation type is also a major consideration as RIS requires a technician to visit each of the computers that require a change Eliminating this need is a major advantage to the
65. the verbal interviews A questionnaire would have only confirmed information that was already known to be true and would have contributed very little new information to the solution The users e mail responses to features they would like on the website can be seen in Appendix A2 8 A list of requirements was generated from the users verbal and e mail responses this was e mailed back to the users to see if the features described fully met their requirements For the preliminary list a feature was assumed to be a critical feature of the website when language such as I want to and it must was used in the responses A feature was assumed to be optional when language such as It would be nice to was used A preliminary list of features can be seen in Appendix A2 9 the users responses to the list can be seen in Appendix A2 10 A final list of the users requirements was then created using the preliminary list and taking in to consideration the users comments Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 2 User requirements and analysis 2 3 3 Users requirements The final primary user requirements are shown in Table 2 6 Requirement Explanation Ability to run ADS tasks remotely Would allow a technician to be anywhere in the world and still allow them to run ADS tasks This could come in useful if a member of staff is off sick training or on holiday and they are needed to
66. the website If the functionally required by the technicians is not present then they will not use the website so the functions to produce statistics for the management would be useless The needs of the external customers were the last to be met as the website could still be used as an infrastructure support system rather then a customer facing system As previously stated without the functionally required by the technicians the customer would be entering a request into a website that will not produce any output 10 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 3 Research and risk assessment Chapter 3 Research and risk assessment 3 1 Introduction This chapter covers research into the technologies and risks associated with this project This was completed as a better understanding of the technologies used in this project was needed to produce a functioning website and also to reduce the risk of the project failing 3 2 Research Research came from a number of sources including official websites white papers academic papers and books There is a large amount of information on websites relating to many of the subjects covered by this research Despite this the use of websites other than official product websites for sources of information was avoided where possible due to the high amount of inaccurate information present on websites Microsoft s Galen Hunt 2005 cited in Sutton 2003 estimates
67. their systems to an operational state following a catastrophic event 1 2 Definition of terms To help clarify the subjects of discussion in this report the terms in Table 1 1 will be used consistently throughout A Glossary of Terms can also be found in Appendix 1 1 ILS Team Members of staff working for the Microsoft UK Infrastructure and Laboratory Support ILS team Computer Refers to any desktop or server computer system User Any person who uses the website Customer A person who is paying for the use of the ILS labs Technician A person who is responsible for the computers maintenance including data centre workers and system administrators Table 1 1 Terms used throughout the report 1 3 Background This project is a result of an investigation into the working practices of the Infrastructure and Laboratory Support ILS team at Microsoft UK The ILS team is responsible for the deployment and maintenance of an 800 machine computer laboratory The Laboratory is used by internal and external customers for testing purposes typically for a one or two week period During their daily work the ILS team must ensure that customers machines have the correct software installed and must build specific system setups for them This project found the current problems facing Microsoft ILS team and produced a suitable solution to solve these problems In addition to a computer program this project includes resear
68. them all The code should also be able to handle 100 of both expected and unexpected errors The integration testing passed all of the test cases and achieved the highest security level on every web page This was helped by the successful unit tests and ensured the user s security requirements were met The user acceptance testing also went very well and the issues were easily solved The website met all of the customer s requirements and the original specification The only limitation of the website is that it imposes a limit of four jobs per configuration on the user This was accepted by the user as the actual functionally behind the website is present and it is not just a dummy website 46 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 7 Conclusion and further developments Chapter 7 Conclusion and future developments 7 1 Introduction The following chapter covers the conclusion of the project and the future improvements that could be made to the website 7 2 Project summary The project as a whole went very well and the solution created was suitable to be used by the Microsoft Infrastructure and Laboratory Support ILS labs All of the users primary requirements were met and ILS team were happy with the extra functionality the website provided Although the website created was primarily designed for the ILS team different organisations were taken in to account which gives the website a greater po
69. tion and design With all of the many to many relationships resolved a final entity relationship diagram was produced for the system as shown in Figure 4 12 tin M o 8 O n creates 1 1 1 1 consisis 0f in 1n 41n JOBTASK CONFIGURATION creates SSE Ss p 1 n consists of Tl 0 n CONFIGURATION U Figure 4 12 Final entity relationship diagram The database conforms to the 1NF 2NF 3NF and BCNF of database design It was decided not to make the database conform to 4NF and 5NF as these an advanced form of normalization and the website is not required for high performance operation 4 7 Data Dictionary With all the tables attributes and relationships identified it is possible to create the data dictionaries that will be used in the database The USER TASK and COMPUTER tables are as described in the original entity identification These are show in Table 4 10 4 11 and 4 12 respectively USER Attribute name Data Type Description UserID Integer Unique auto increment Primary Key Username Varchar 20 Unique username Password Varchar 20 Users password CanView Bit Indicates if the user can view configurations CanEdit Bit Indicates if the user can edit configurations CanApply Bit Indicates if the user can apply configurations CanActivate Bit Indicates if the user can activate configurations CanDeactivate Bit Indicates if the user can deactivate configurations Ca
70. usability of the website Be maintainable Ensures the website will not become out of date and unusable Table 4 2 Non functional specification 16 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 4 Specification and design 4 3 Website design To ensure the website is as easy to use as possible for the users it was designed using Human Computer Interaction HCI principles and with usability in mind If the interface is poorly designed it can severely restrict the user s ability to use the system Ravden and Johnson 1989 4 3 1 HCI principles The main areas of HCI that were looked at in the design of the website were Semiotics and Defensive design These areas were chosen as they were identified as important aspect of design for the website If there were more time available other aspects of HCI could also have been looked at in more detail Semiotics is a very good way of improving design of a user interface Ul as it associates things the user is already familiar with to aspects of the Ul Semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign Eco 1976 cited from Chandler 2004 For example the messages in Table 4 3 do not only tell the user information with written text they also give the user information by their colour and the picture next to them Messages Error You did not type an input i Please type you username The data was
71. uter recursively to see if it is selected twice could take a lot of time the ComputerOnlySelectedOnce method uses four nested loops with three additional nested if statements to only check computers that have been selected for efficiency The ComputerOnlySelectedOnce method can be seen in Appendix 5 7 5 7 3 Applying a configuration Applying a configuration was the most challenging part of the project This is where the tasks selected by the user are converted to XML files ADS can understand and the configuration is submitted to ADS to be run As applying a configuration was such a complex process it was split up into a number of smaller tasks of reading all the correct information from the database creating XML files joining XML files creating ADS computer sets and running ADS jobs Once all of the sections worked separately they were bought together to enable a configuration to be applied XML task files The XML task files are sequences of steps that an ADS server will understand and can follow These file were created using the ADS sequences editor a sample file created to install NET framework can be seen in Appendix 5 8 Each one of these XML files completes a number of steps to complete a single task so to enable ADS to run a number of tasks sequentially these XML files must be merged XML wrapper file and XSLT document To merge the XML tasks files together a wrapper document is first created that lists all the XML task files t
72. word CanView CanEdit CanApply CanActivate CanDeactivate CanSave IsAdmin 10 Active Table 5 4 User attribute row numbers 00 N Od 01 GO PO o The final view configurations pages differed from the prototype designs slightly these can be seen in Appendix 5 17 and Appendix 5 16 respectively The page no longer has a view link as the configuration is automatically set to read only if the user does not have permission to edit it Also there is no longer a Reapply link as it was decided it was safer to force the user to view the configuration before they reapplied it to make sure they did not reformat the wrong computers by mistake 5 9 Administration page The administration page simply displays three hyperlinks to the manage tasks users and computer pages A final screenshot of the administration page can be seen in Appendix 5 18 5 10 Manage users tasks and computers pages The manage users tasks and computer pages allow administrators of the website to manage and maintain it Manage users page The manage users pages is similar to the user administration page on many websites This page can add and edit user accounts However the page cannot delete user accounts as this would remove information about users who may have created configurations Instead the page allows administrators to disable user accounts Appendix 5 19 shows the manage users page allowing
73. y were met Functional testing The site was tested against the system specification to see if it was fulfilled Table 6 3 Types of acceptance testing performed on the website 6 3 Unit testing Table 6 4 shows the web pages that passed all of the unit tests These pages are able to handle unexpected errors and prevent bad data from being entered into the database Error and status messages that are displayed by the pages are listed in Appendix 6 1 and Appendix 6 2 respectively Page name Test results Login page Appendix 6 3 Home page Appendix 6 4 View unapplied configurations page Appendix 6 5 View active configurations page Appendix 6 7 View inactive configurations page Appendix 6 8 Statistics page Appendix 6 9 Manage users page Appendix 6 10 Manage computers page Appendix 6 11 Left menu page Appendix 6 13 Table 6 4 Web pages that passed all unit tests Table 6 5 shows the web pages that failed at least one of the unit tests These pages had at least one component that either did not function correctly or allowed errors to be entered into the database Page name Test results New configurations page Appendix 6 6 Manage tasks page Appendix 6 12 Table 6 5 Web pages that did not pass all unit tests Although the new configurations page failed 18 tests all of the failures were due to two over stringent error checking functions For example if the user wante
74. yment Using an ADS server introduces a number of costs benefits over using a RIS server As ADS requires less man hours per computer to create a customer s configuration money can be saved on staffing costs A full discussion on other cost savings and a case study is shown in Appendix 3 3 3 2 5 Advantages of C C was chosen as the language to create the website as the ILS team required a website that used Microsoft technologies to work The website will be an ASP Net page with C code behind C has a number of benefits shown in Table 3 2 Feature Benefit A strong C community Provides lots of tutorials papers and code example XML compatibility Allows easy manipulation of XML files Truly object orientated Provides ease of use for the all program objects Built in error handling Helps capture user and data errors Complied code Provides faster runtime execution Managed code Helps to reduce unsafe code and exploits such as buffer overflows Memory management and Ensures no memory leaks garbage collection Associated class library Reduces the need to reinvent the wheel Table 3 2 Benefits of C Meyne amp Davis 2002 and Williams 2002 13 Andrew Turner Automated Deployment Services Website Chapter 3 Research and risk assessment 3 2 6 Advantages of Visual Studio ASP Net C can be programmed in a number of Integrated Development Environments IDEs or written usin

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