Project Management

This blog is here to help me and others if they wish to remember a small part of what I have learned in Project Management. Most of the material I will post here is cited from the book Information Technology and Project Management fifth addition by Kathy Schwalbe.

Introduction to this chapter will give you a better understanding for Project Management. Objectives include:

• Understanding the growing needs of project management
• Explain what a project is and lists attributes of projects and triple constraints
• Discuss key elements of PM framework including project stakeholders, common tools
• Relationship between project, program, and portfolio management
• Understanding the role of the Project Manager
• History of Project Management and the importance of certifications and ethics

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What is a project?

The term "project" is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. Often people get this confused with the operation of something, but they are different because in projects they have a ending when the objectives are reached, where a operations might be something that could go on forever.

Projects can be very large or small, they may involve one person or even as many as thousands. They can be done in one day or even take years to complete. Some examples of Information Technology Project Management includes help desk or technical worker, software developmental team, infrastructural issues, development of new systems and more.

A 2006 baseline magazine survey pf 1,440 executives list the top ten technology projects to be VoIP, outsourcing, data networking, customer relationship management, desktop upgrades, application performance management, business analytic, and compliance tracking. These are a wide variety of projects and and organizations rely on those technologies for their success.

Project Attributes

A project has a unique purpose: Every project should have a well defined objective. For example a project management office might sponsor an information technology collaboration project to devolop a list and initial analysis of potential information technology projects that might improve operations for the company. The unique purpose of this project would be to create a collaborative report with ideas from people throughout the company. Results would provide the basis for further discussions and projects.

A project is temporary and has a definite beginning and definite end. Information technology project someone might form a team of people to work immediately and get updates every so often.

A project is developed using progressive elaboration. Projects are often defined broadly when they begin, and time passes, the specific details of the project become clearer. Therefore , projects should be developed in increments. A project team should develop initial plans and then update them with more detail based on new information.

A project requires resources, often from various areas. Resources include people, hardware, software and other assets. Many projects cross departmental or other boundaries to achieve their unique purposes.
For the information technology collaboration project, people from information technology, marketing, sales, distribution, and other areas of the company would need to work together to develop ideas. A company might also hire outside consultants to provide input. Once the project team has selected key projects for implementation, they will require additional hardware, software, and network resources. People from other companies like product suppliers and consulting companies, these will become resources for meeting new project objectives. Resources are limited, they must be used effectively to meet project and other corporate goals.

A project should have a primary customer or sponsor. Most projects have many interested parties or stakeholders, but someone must take the primary role of sponsorship. The Project sponsor usually provides direction and funding for the project. The sponsors for those projects would be senior managers in charge of the main parts of the company affected by the projects. An effective project manager is crucial to a project's success. Project managers work with the sponsors, project team, and the other people involved in a project to meet the project goals.

How basic networking works

CCNA Internetwork Basics

I have got my information from my CCNA book sixth Edition by Todd Lammle.

Networks and networking has grown exponentially over the last 15 years, they have evolved to light speed to keep up with huge increases in basic mission critical user needs such as sharing data and network printing.

If you have two computers connected to hub this would be a basic LAN connection, this is one collision domain and one broadcast domain. If you don't know what these terms are so doing fret, I will be going over them at a later time.

So Bob's computer wants to talk to Sally's computer, they are on the same LAN with a multi-port repeater (HUB), so how does Bob's computer talk to Sally's computer? Does Bob say, hey Sally are you there, or hey 192.168.x.x are you there? Not since it is on the same LAN it would be using the MAC addresses that are burned into the network interface card (NIC).

So how does Bob know what Sally’s mac address is if they have never communicated before? Bob will start with name resolution (hostname to IP address resolution), this is accomplished by using the Domain Naming Service (DNS). Really since they are on the same LAN, they don't need DNS; they can broadcast asking for Sally for her information. Bob can ask everybody on the subnet who has the host name sally? Sally will respond with I am over here and here is all my information. Then Bob can store that information in what is called the prefetch file. Prefetch is like a DNS for the computer, the computer will look up his own "prefetch" file and if it cannot find what it needs there then it will ask the default gateway.

Network segmentation is how we break up bigger networks into smaller ones, you do this with devices like routers, switches, and bridges. Hubs do not break up collision or broadcast domains, switches will break up collision domains but still keep one big broadcast domain. Big broadcast domains can cause network congestion, below are some common LAN traffic congestion.

1.     To many hosts in a broadcast domain

2.     Multicast

3.     Broadcast storms

4.     Low bandwidth

5.     Adding hubs for connectivity (to many hosts)

6.     Tons of ARP or IPX traffic 

Routers are used to connect network together and route packets of data from one network to another. Routers by default break up collision and broadcast domains. Routers also provide a WAN connection as well. Breaking up broadcast domains are important because when a host or server sends a network broadcast, every device within that broadcast domain has to stop what they are doing to hear the message.

When a router's interface receives a broadcast on a port, it says thanks but no thanks and drops the packet(s). Routers also break up collision domains; there are a few advantages of using routers on a network. They do not forward broadcasts; they can filter the network based on a layer 3 information (IP address), packet switching, packet filtering, internetwork communication and path selection.

We sometimes call routers layer 3 switches, unlike layer 2 switches, which forward or filter frames, routers use logical addressing and provide what is called packet switching. Routers can also provide packet filtering by using access lists, and when routers connect two or more networks together, they use logical addressing, this is called an internetwork. Routers use routing tables (map of the internetwork) to make path selections and to forward packets to remote networks. Switches do not create internetworks; they are employed to add functionality to a network LAN. The main purpose of a switch is to make the LAN work better or to optimize its performance, providing more bandwidth to the users on that subnet. Switches do not forward packets to other networks as routers do; instead they only "switch" frames from one port to another within the switched network. 

Bridging was introduced before routers and hubs were introduced, so its pretty common to hear people referring to bridges as switches. They basically do the same thing; break up collision domains on a LAN.