Blog Entry 5.3 Intranet

At Ferrum Medical, when an employee or even a patient needs to access their information on our server, they use something called an intranet. From their home office computer or any laptop they can log onto out website and securely access sensitive information. Then through the interconnectivity of a VPN or virtual private network accessed after establishing a connection to the internet, they can access anything they are given access to under their profile. Their data is stored on our home server and after they have gained admittance and after having passed through all the necessary gateways.

Blog Entry 5.2 Extranet

At Ferrum Medical, when a physician logs on to our secure website, they can connect to any pharmacy using our extranet. The physician, being a client uses our server as a proxy between our facility and the pharmacy's server. This client, connects to the internet through a secure firewall to then send and receive sensitive data across a VPN or virtual private network. They after this secure data travels through the VPN it gets verified by the pharamacy's firewall and then get ferried along to its destination, a drug log on the pharmacy server.

Blog Entry 5.1 Website Analysis

As Ferrum Medical is a business, and all businesses have assets, so too does Ferrum Medical. We like our competitors have a web page, a way to get information out to our clients and inform them of their options. And like any good business we need an advantage, and to gain it we must see what it is that makes our competitors so profitable.  So we must delve into their website and analyze it against the six rules of E Commerce. As one of our competitors we chose Centra Health.

www.centrahealth.com

Rule 1: they have various helpful peices of information pertaining to physician selection to ailment symptom categorization.
(5 of  5 )
Rule 2: it is aesthetically pleasing, it is organized and simplistic, not cluttered or chaotic.
(5 of 5)
Rule 3: The website is responsive and quick making it efficient. It is also user friendly, so that many people not just computer elite can utilize the site.
(5 of 5)
Rule 4: It has various multimedia venues and has ways of keeping the user interested.
(5 of 5)
Rule 5: They have enough advertising although it might be possible to do more.
(4 of 5)
Rule 6: Information about Physicians and Diseases is available for the user to easily utilize to become informed and educated.
(5 of 5)

It seems obvious that our larger competitors, given their extensive advertising and marketing budget can appropriatly depict all the important aspects of a good business online, paying special attentipn to the commerce guidelines.

Blog Entry 4.4 Database Design

In this Entity Relationship Diagram, there are three main Entities : Customer, Invoice, and Product.
Within each entity there are different attribute types such as Name, but a specific name such as John Smith is an Attribute. Each entity can be described as a table each containing rows and columns, the rows being records and columns being attributes. Each attribute type has its own data type dependent upon the type of information, such as name being text. The customer entity, contains attribute types such as Name, Address, and gender. It also contains a customer key, and ID number that is specific to the individual, such that it can be referred to later. The Product entity contains attribute types such as the type of product, the price and the Product key. Like the customer key it is a reference key used to compare and correlate data in other entites.

Blog Entry 4.3 Packet Switching Technology

Due the fact that there are many users online all the time and data is being sent and received simultaneously there needed to be a way in which to send information in a way that computers can understand that can be translated into usable information. Through the TCP many different messages can be sent over the internet via packets in any order that are reassembled later. When computer A wants to share info to computer C in the picture above, the binary data of the message sent from A is broken into manageable packets and delivered to C. This message sent from the computer A,  uses TCP to send its message to computer C using package switching. The IP sets the format for the packet and the location it is to be sent, the IP information tells the router where this location is ad sends it on it s way. These packets travel independently of one another and arrive out of order. Each packet has a header and it contains the destination and sending IP address as well as the order in which things should be arranged.

Blog Entry 4.2 Basic Network

When a network connection is made, several important things happen.
 First the client represented by a laptop connects to the internet, via a wireless network connection(in the figure above). Which is a non-physical connection, where by data transmission between the client and the wireless router takes place by way of  the use of radio waves as a medium with which to transmit and receive. The other type of connection is a physical link where an actual wire connects to a router and is then connected to the internet using similar means to accomplish the same goal.

With different transmission media, comes different bandwidth and different pros and cons. Fiber optic though expensive and difficult to install and maintain, has the best possible bandwidth allowing many Gigabytes of data to be transmitted at literally the speed of light. Wireless, though convenient and reliable is easily hacked and or capable or being eavesdropped upon allowing for serious security issues. Wired using coaxial or twisted pair is more secure although the bandwidth for each is different and reduced.

 Regardless of the transmission media, there are specific input output data transmission protocols which are used while connecting to and maintaining a network connection.

 From the router, an internet connection is maintained by an ISP or internet service provider, where for a monthly fee end users gain high-speed access the World Wide Web. The Internet hub as depicted after the wired link often fiber optic cabling (not wire) links the wired or wireless router to the internet and beyond. From there the client can access a secured or unsecured server represented by the last server box at the end of the diagram. When this happens as represented by the top curved arrow the client requests information or an action of the server and the server responds to the request represented by the bottom curved arrow.