System analysis

System: An organized relationship among the functioning units or components, which work in
sync to achieve a common goal.
System Study: A study of operations of a set of connected elements and the inter connections
between these elements. It clearly shows that no one can ignore an element while doing a system
study.
System Approach: Shows a set of procedure to solve a particular problem, It applies scientific
methods to understand the inter relationship between the elements to solve the problem.
System analysis: It is a management exercise, which helps us in designing a new system or
improving the existing system.
Characteristics of a System
1. Organization: It says the Structure or order of built.
2. Interaction: Procedure in which the components interact.
3. Interdependence.
4. Integration
5. Central Objective
Elements of System Analysis
There are 4 basic elements of System analysis, they are
1. Outputs

2. Inputs : The essential elements of Inputs are

Accuracy of data
Timeliness
Proper format
Economy.

3. Files
4. Process
Types of Systems
1. Physical or abstract systems
2. Open or closed systems
3. Deterministic or probabilistic
4. Man made systems
Formal systems – Organization representation
Informal systems – Employee based system
Computer based information systems – Computer handling business applications. These are
collectively known as Computer Based Information systems (CBIS).
a. Transaction Processing System (TPS)
b. Management Information System (MIS)
c. Decision Support System (DSS)
d. Office Automation System (OAS)
SDLC is a cycle to develop software, basic steps are
1. Preliminary Investigation
Request clarification
Feasibility Study
a. Technical feasibility
b. Economical
c. Operational

Request Approval
2. Determination of system requirements
3. Design system
4. Development of software
5. System testing
6. Implementation, evaluation & maintenance
Operational Evaluation
Organizational Impact
User Manager
Development performance.
System analyst is a person who conducts the system study & identifies the activities &
objectives, formulate a set of rules to achieve the objects. His main activities are
Problem identification, which a crucial part.
Data gathering
Develop a solution for the problem
Co-ordinate to develop all possible solutions.
Develop plans to meet management objectives
System Designing
Co-ordinate the testing procedures.
He should have following Qualities.
1. Knowledge of people
2. Knowledge of Business functions
3. Knowledge of data processing principles
4. Ability to communicate
5. Flexibility
6. Analytical Mind
7. Well educated with sharp mind
System Projects
Selection of System projects Depends on:
1. Capability
2. Control
3. Communication
4. Cost
5. Competitiveness
System project requests may come from, Requests from
1. Dept managers
2. Senior Executives
3. System Analysts
4. Outside groups
Project review & Selection
Group of people do project selection after receiving the requests, the groups are
1. Steering committee
2. Information systems committee
3. User group Committee
Preliminary Investigation is done with by
1. Reviewing the Business records to understand the business
2. On site observations
3. Conducting Interviews
Project feasibility is tested using
1. Operational
2. Technical
3. Economical
Problem Classification & Definition are depends on
1. Problem of Reliability
2. Problem of validity
3. Problem of Accuracy
4. Problem Economy
5. Problem of Timeliness
6. Problem of Capacity
7. Problem of Throughput.
Once a problem has been identified & next step is to evaluate the problem by asking why this
problem? What is the root cause…. This is known as Problem Evaluation.
Organizations usually face problems or have opportunity due to the following
1. A new product or plant or a branch
2. A new market or new process
3. Failure of an existing system
4. Inefficiency of an existing system
5. Structural error in the existing system. Etc….
To identify problems/opportunities, scan thru the
1.The performance of the system
2. The information being supplied & its form
3. The economy of processing
4. The control of the information.
5. The efficiency of existing system
6. The security of the data & software
7. The security of equipment & personnel, etc
The process followed in making a determination is called Feasibility Study. This type of study
clearly specifies that, the project should be taken up or not.
Different types of fusibilities are
1. Technical is the most difficult to determine.
2. Economical
3. Operational
4. Time
5. Legal
6. Social
7. Management
Feasibility Study has to follow 8 steps, they are
1. Form a project team & appoint a PL
2. Prepare system flowcharts
3. Enumerate potential proposed systems
4. Define & identify characteristics of proposed system
5. Determine & evaluate performance & cost effectiveness of each proposed system
6. Weight system performance & cost data
7. Select the best proposed system
8. Prepare & report final project directive to management.
System analysis is the fact finding followed by analysis of the facts. Data analysis is also
considered a pre-requisite condition for cost/benefit analysis.
While considering the design alternatives, one should keep following points in mind to choose a
better alternative.
1. Greater speed of processing
2. Effective procedure to eliminate errors
3. Better accuracy
4. Faster retrieval of data
5. Integration of data
6. Larger capacity of storing data with reduced cost
7. Data Security.
Cost benefit analysis will give a picture of how much cost will be incurred by the project. There
are four benefits of projects about cost,
1. Cost Saving: This lead to reductions in administrative & operational costs.
2. Cost avoidance: These are those which eliminate future in administrative & operational costs
3. Improved Service: Are those where performance of the system is improved by a new computer
based software system
4. Improved Information: Is where computer based methods lead to better information for
decision making.
Cost benefits are classified as
1. Tangible or intangible
2. Fixed or variable
3. Direct or indirect.
Cost benefit can be summarize as
1. Method by which we estimate the value of the gross benefits of a new system specification.
2. Method by which we find & determine the increased operating costs associated with the above
mentioned gross benefits.
3. The subtraction of these operating costs from the associated gross benefits to arrive at net
benefits.
4. Method by which we find & estimate the monetary value of the development costs that
produce the above mentioned benefits.
5. Methods by which we show the time phased relationship between different costs.
Learning as much as from the existing system is called Fact-finding Different methods of Fact
findings are
1. Interviews Personnel
2. Questionnaires, can have multi choice, rating, open ended & Ranking questions.
3. Observing current system
4. Going thru the current forms & documents
5. Find the data flow in the existing system
6. Define the system requirements
After finding the data, analyst prepares a Data Flow Diagram (DFD) which depicts the flow of
data in different elements of the system. Which gives us a graphical Overview representation. To
draw a analysis DFD,
1. Look at the system from the inside to the outside
2. Identify the activities
3. Locate the data flows
4. Show the relationship between activities
5. Find the internal i/p or o/p that exist within the system
6. Level complex process in the DFD into simpler ones
7. Look for duplication of data flows or data stores.
Data Dictionaries defines each term (called a data element) encountered during the analysis &
design of the new system. Data elements can describe files, data flows or processes. It helps
analyst to define precisely what they mean by a particular file, data flow or process. Data
dictionary uses few major symbols, they are
= Equivalent to
+ AND
[ ] either/or
( ) optional entry.
There are four rules to be followed while constructing a Data Dictionary.
1. Words should be defined to stand for what they mean & not the variable names by which they
may be described in the program.
2. Each word must be Unique.
3. Aliases or synonyms are allowed when two or more elements show the same meaning.
4. Self-defining words should not be decomposed.
After following the these rules, define variables with there data types and their properties like
unique or increments automatically. There are two types of Data Dictionaries
1. Integrated: is a related to one DBMS
2. Stand Alone: is not tied to any DBMS, although it may have advantages of DBMS.
Both types of DD can be identified by functions as Passive, Active or in-line.
The functionally passive DD performs only Documentation.
The Active DD supports program and operations development by exporting database definitions
for languages like COBOL & JCL for execution time performance.
An in-line DD is active during program execution, performing such feats as transaction
validation & editing.

A coded set of tables describing this information & stored in a computer system on direct access
devices is called a SCHEMA. Which will describe the data aggregate data types & records. All
references to data within the program will be for this description, which is known as
SUBSCHEMA.
The different types DB organizations are
1. Hierarchical Model
2. Network Model
3. Relational Model
In relational model, rows are known as tuples & columns are known as Attributes. A code is an
ordered collection of symbols designed to provide unique identification of an entity or attribute.
The main purpose of codes is to facilitate the identification & retrieval of items of information
from system. Different types of coding system are
1. Classification code
2. Function code
3. Card code
4. Sequence code
5. Significant digit subset code
6. Mnemonic code
7. Acronym
System Development & Implementation
Two important phases of development are:
1. External development: This deals with the implementation, planning, preparation of manuals,
in house training & equipment acquisition & installing.
2. Internal Development: Software development & performance testing are part of Internal
development.
Major activities at System Development phase are
1. Implementation & Planning
Plan to test computer program component as individual & integrated.
Personnel training
Conversion plans to convert to manual to automated.
2. Software development phase, preparing flow chart & pseudocode
3. User review
4. Equipment acquisition
5. Coding, debugging & unit testing
6. System testing
7. Manual preparation
8. Personnel training
9. UAT
Prototype is having two major advantages as
1) Its clarifies the all assumptions & issues with user requirements
2) It verifies the feasibility of system design.
The major criteria for hardware/software selection are
1. Define the capabilities that make sense to business
2. Specify the magnitude of the problem
3. Asses the competence of in-house staff
4. H/w & s/w should be considered as package
5. Specify a time frame for selection process
6. Provide user indoctrination.
Selection process will consists of several steps.
1. Requirement analysis
2. System specifications
3. Request for proposal
4. Evaluation & validation
5. Vendor selection
Software selection depends on two streams like Customized & readymade, The main criteria for
selecting software are
Reliability Functionality Capacity
Flexibility Usability Security
Performance Serviceability Ownership
Minimal costs
Benchmarking is a evaluation technique where the software purchaser compare the software with
other to find the best of Speed & cost for his business. To select a language, main criteria are
1. Volume of data
2. Complexity of processing
3. Compatibility with other systems
4. Types of i/p & o/p
5. Development efforts
Quality factor for SDLC
Correctness Reliability Efficiency Usability
Maintainability Testability Portability Accuracy
Error tolerance Expandability Access control & audit Communicativeness
Quality Assurance for Software using
1) Testing
2) Verification & Validation
3) Certification
Three Reliability approaches are
1) Error avoidance
2) Error detection & correction
3) Error tolerance
Levels of testing are
1. Unit testing
2. System testing
Program testing
String testing
System testing
System documentation

3. UAT
4. Some other special types of testing are
Peak load Storage Performance time
Recovery Procedure Human factor
System control is used to achieve
Accuracy Reliability Security
Efficiency Audit Adherence to company policies

Types of system control are

1. External control: like laws, regulations procedures & policies outside the scope of the system
which affect the operations of the system
2. Internal controls are basically plans, procedures, Guideline, rules & checks under which a
system must function.
Good documentation means
1. Availability
2. Objectivity
3. Cross referable
4. Easy to maintain
5. Completeness
Types of documentation are
1. Program documentation
2. Operation
3. User
4. Management
5. Systems
Software design & documentation Tools are
1. Structured flow chart which will contain flow charts for
Process
Decision
Iteration

2. HIPO diagram
3. Warnier/Orr diagrams
Training should be given to two different categories of people,
1. System operator, persons who take care of systems
2. System user, persons who uses the system to enter data.
Training methods that can be used are
1. Vendor & In service
2. In house
There are 4 main conversion method to replace a old system to new system,
1. parallel system
2. Direct
3. Pilot
4. Phase in
Main conversions plans to be
1. Site preparation
2. File & data conversion
Maintenance, different types are
1. Corrective : Repairing, processing or performance failures or making alterations bcoz of
previous ill-defined problems
2. Adoption: changing the program function. Enhancing the performance or modify the
programs.
Ecological & Green P C, two types of Green PC which doesn’t use chloro fluoro materials,
1. Light Green, consumes 25-30W, its spins IDE & shuts down display
2. Dark green, consumes 15-20W in standby mode, its spins IDE & shuts down display
Disaster recovery is of 4 types
1. Critical
2. Vital
3. Sensitive
4. Non-critical
To fight against the Disaster, we do have 5 different ways to overcome
1. Hot sites
2. Private hot-sites
3. Warm or cold sites
4. Service bureaus
5. Reciprocal agreements
Forms of Software piracy
1. Hard disk loading
2. Soft lifting
3. Software counterfeiting
4. Bulletin board piracy
5. Software rental
Computer crimes are classified as
1. Data related
2. Software related
3. Physical
Ergonomics essentially is the study of the relationship between the human being and the
environmental factors affecting the physiological, psychological or anatomical state. The aims of
Ergonomics are
1. To improve the efficiency of the interaction between the human & machine through enhancing
the effectiveness & efficiency of human activities at work or at home.
2. To maintain the individuality of the worker by considerations of human welfare & human well
being in the design procedure, namely in areas of health, safety, satisfaction & comfort of the
worker.
Multimedia means a combination of Sound, text & graphics. Multimedia development work
follows a path like planning/Design >>>> Production >>>> Distribution. Presentation of
graphics in multimedia is achieved thru many ways
1. Bitmaps
2. Vector images, object oriented format using lines & curves, ex CAD.
3. Animation
4. Morphing & warping
5. Digital Audio & video