Lan Technologies
Chapter 2 Mini case 1 Deal-R-Us Brokers (Part 1)
Case Description:
Fred Jones, a distant relative of yours and president of Deals-R-Us Brokers (DRUB), has come to you for advice. DRUB is a small brokerage house that enables its clients to buy and sell stocks over the Internet, as well as place traditional orders by phone or fax. DRUB has just decided to offer a set of stock analysis tools that will help its clients more easily pick winning stocks, or so Fred tells you. Fred’s information systems department has presented him with two alternatives for developing the new tools. The first alternative will have a special tool developed in C++ that clients will download onto their computers to run. The tool will communicate with the DRUB server to select data to analyze. The second alternative will have the C++ program running on the server, the client will use his or her browser to interact with the server.
Option #1 Summary -> Special C++ tool resides on client machines and downloads information from server to analyze.
Option #2 Summary -> Special C++ program runs on the server, client uses browser to interact with the server.
Question 1: Classify the two alternatives in terms of what type of application architecture they use.
Answer 1:
Both Option 1 and 2 are client-server architecture because they utilize a client machine, and server to communicate. This is in contrast with peer to peer, in which all machines are equal; all considered servers.
Option 1 is a Thick Client architecture, whereby the application logic resides on the client, data is downloaded to the client, and the processing occurs with the application on the client. This thick client would execute and run on the user’s workstation and make connections to the server to fetch data to be processed and analyzed. In this scenario, each user that needs to use the application would need to install the application on their workstation.
Option 2 is a Thin Client architecture, whereby there is
Case Description:
Fred Jones, a distant relative of yours and president of Deals-R-Us Brokers (DRUB), has come to you for advice. DRUB is a small brokerage house that enables its clients to buy and sell stocks over the Internet, as well as place traditional orders by phone or fax. DRUB has just decided to offer a set of stock analysis tools that will help its clients more easily pick winning stocks, or so Fred tells you. Fred’s information systems department has presented him with two alternatives for developing the new tools. The first alternative will have a special tool developed in C++ that clients will download onto their computers to run. The tool will communicate with the DRUB server to select data to analyze. The second alternative will have the C++ program running on the server, the client will use his or her browser to interact with the server.
Option #1 Summary -> Special C++ tool resides on client machines and downloads information from server to analyze.
Option #2 Summary -> Special C++ program runs on the server, client uses browser to interact with the server.
Question 1: Classify the two alternatives in terms of what type of application architecture they use.
Answer 1:
Both Option 1 and 2 are client-server architecture because they utilize a client machine, and server to communicate. This is in contrast with peer to peer, in which all machines are equal; all considered servers.
Option 1 is a Thick Client architecture, whereby the application logic resides on the client, data is downloaded to the client, and the processing occurs with the application on the client. This thick client would execute and run on the user’s workstation and make connections to the server to fetch data to be processed and analyzed. In this scenario, each user that needs to use the application would need to install the application on their workstation.
Option 2 is a Thin Client architecture, whereby there is