CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHOLOGY

This chapter covers the project design, project development, operation

and testing procedures and evaluation procedure.

PROJECT DESIGN

The proposed Open Source Server Maintenance System will monitor each

server performance and access. The system will use different system integrity

check and scanning, to ensure data security of the system allowing only

authorized access to avoid hacks and intrusion. Also the system will optimize

resources for faster and stable data access for users. Meaning the more

resource that it can save, it will be use for other request to speed up process. It

will regularly check the ports available and will kill unknown access or breach.

Logs are kept and will report to the administrators of the server.

The system will watch its network to provide network balance. Warning will

be sent to administrators that someone is abusing once network or process that

is abusive. All performance check will be done on schedule that was set by the

administrators as part of their agreed term that was set to implement on the said

network.

Files and data will be kept securely and hide it by limiting on the access of

such information. The system will only allow certain level of access to get or use
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the file as requested by its process. Locking its script for allowed users will be its

basic security indicators. The project will be using scripting language like PHP,

Perl and GCC. Generally this script can run on any Open Source Platform using

different Linux distribution.

Allowable Access
Report and Logs

Network Server
Administrator Permit to use
Network Open Report Improper Access and
Resource Source Abuse

Centralized
Server
Permit to use
Resources Maintenan HOST Address
System ce System User
Administrator (Level 0)
Resource Access Pages/ Files

Figure 1. Context Diagram of Open Source Centralized Server Maintenance

System

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

In developing this kind of system, different things must be performed.

Such process can be identified the right analysis and design of the project. Now,

given the most common practice by system and network administrators in

instance of server maintenance and security background. This methodology

features several phases as shown in Figure 2 on the next page that mark the

progress of the system analysis and design effort. Although any life cycle

appears at first glance to be a sequentially ordered set of phases, it actually is

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not. The specific steps and their sequence are meant to be adapted as required

for a project.

Project
Identification
and Selection

Project Initiation
and Planning

Analysis

Logical Design

Physical Design

Implementation

Maintenance

Figure 2. Project Development Life Cycle

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Project Identification and Selection

Project identification and selection identifies the need for automated

system maintenance. The main purpose of this phase is to identify the nature

and scope of the business opportunity or problem. Identifying problems,

opportunities and objectives as well as the information needed of the

administrators, as a whole must be examined. It requires the analysis on the new

trends occurring on the internet on how security has been breach or was taken

by certain person or hackers. Therefore, the common practice on securing server

and its resource will be studied and identified on this phase.

Project Initiation and Planning

It is in this phase that scope definition of the proposed system will happen.

Specific plans and objectives that will solve the problems of the common problem

occurring on a server must be formulated and will serve as a guide for the

continuation of succeeding phase of SDLC. It is also important that in this phase,

correct process handling, network requirements and server resources needed for

the development of the project must be established.

In this phase, planning must be documented properly. The researcher has

to analyse whether the costs of developing the system will outweigh the benefits

it could provide. Essential system features and limitations have to be determined

to complete the project development.

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Analysis

During this phase, the researcher will thoroughly study the current

procedures and the systems used in performing several tasks. In this phase,

users of the system must define the requirements that they want to be met by the

proposed system. This also involves definition of other alternatives that can be

compared to determine which best meets the system requirements within the

cost, labor and technical levels the researcher is willing to commit. Enough data

will be gathered and analyzed to guarantee clients and tester satisfaction and

comment.

Logical Design

Logical Design is not tied to any specific hardware platform. Theoretically,

the system could be implemented on any hardware and system software that

pertains to open source. The idea is to make sure that the system functions as

intended for any distro or flavours.

Basically, this involves creating a logical view of entities needed in the

development of the centralized server maintenance system.

Physical Design

In physical design, you turn the logical design into physical, or technical,

specifications. It is important to design the various parts of the system to perform

the physical operations necessary to facilitate system logs and records,

processing by means of scripting, and information output. During this phase, the
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researcher will decide which programming languages the computer instructions

will be written in, which database systems and file structure will be used for the

data, and which hardware platform, operating system it can run to, and network

environment the system will run under. These decisions finalize the hardware

and software plans initiated at the end of the analysis phase. Also, new

technology not present in the users and implementers can be acquired to further

improve the proposed system.

It is also important to create the layout of the system to make the said system

friendly and ease for users who will deploy it.

Several considerations and concerns will be considered to make the

selection of hardware and software platform be accurate. PHP, Perl and GCC

programming languages will be used in the system development stage. This can

be more on a less GUI type of application to save more resource on the server

side while more graphical on the reporting end of the project.

Implementation

This phase includes coding, testing and installation of the system. After

having concrete logical and physical design, the researcher will write the

programs that will make up the system. Complete details about system features

and functionalities must be considered in completing system development. Once

the system is finished, the project will be implemented on servers that run Linux

distribution and will be tested for a certain period of time. The system will be
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examined for errors and bugs and comments and suggestions will also be

collected from the sample users and can be discuss using online forum. These

data will then be used to further improve the system before the network and

system administrator decided to finally use the proposed system.

Maintenance

Necessary changes defined after the system implementation will be

recorded as part of the maintenance phase. These changes will then be modified

to keep the system running and useful and to meet the changing network and

system security conditions. In a way, maintenance is not a separate phase but a

repetition of the other life cycle phases required to study and implement the

needed changes.

OPERATION AND TESTING PROCEDURE

All of the working scripts will be tested and commented as if it was really

intended to protect once network and data integrity.

At the start of the system, primarily it will check on all basic aspect of

securing once server. By means of the developed script, it will scan and add new

feature on to the server system to strength its core and protect from any form of

intrusion.
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If the system was successful on the first process it will now start logging

everything that will affect its performance. Once it hit a certain level of usage for

its process, automatically the system will call another script to kill and stabilized

server resources. It will again log and email the current happening on the system

to its administrator. Who will eventually trace what happened and why it

happened.

In testing the system, the system will be installed on a Linux platform and

will be evaluated by system and network administrator to test if it is really doing

it’s task as it was discuss on tour logical and physical design stage.

EVALUATION PROCEDURE

Preliminary evaluation will be conducted to assess the completeness and

functionality of the system based on the system requirements. Output will be

examined to determine if all the desired requirements are met.

Evaluation of the open source centralized server maintenance system will

be tested at servers from Ortigas (Regal Films, Help Centric Inc. and Gentrade

International) Including three (3) servers in the US. A sample of 10 users will try

the system and this will be composed of IT experts, network administrators,

systems administrators and teachers. Their comments and suggestions will be

utilized to improve the system. This evaluation will be implemented for one

month so as to check if the system generates accurate output or desired

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information. This evaluation procedure will adopt the TUP Evaluation instrument;

refer to Appendix two (2) for the sample evaluation instrument.

Table 4 below shows the numerical rating and its corresponding

interpretation to measure the result of the evaluation. This is a tool that will be

used to interpret the output of the evaluation and has a scale of 1 to 5; 5 as the

highest and 1 being the lowest.

The gathered data will be interpreted by the use of Mean range Formula to

determine if the proposed system passes the Software Quality Factors Standard

for Acceptance. The acceptability of the system will be based on the following

standard criteria: efficiency, functionality, reliability, maintainability, content,

security and portability.

Table 4
System Evaluation Sheet Numerical and Descriptive Scale

Numerical Scale Descriptive Scale

4.51 – 5.00 Excellent
3.51 – 4.50 Very Good
2.51 – 3.50 Good
1.51 – 2.50 Fair
1.00 – 1.50 Poor
Figure 3 Data Flow Diagram Level 0