Introduction
In the recent past, technology has increasingly been adopted in organizations. It assists in developing efficiency and thus customer satisfaction. The competitiveness of a business is vested on the quality of its management decisions. A number of systems that aim at meeting a certain objective in the business arena have been developed. They are either home-made or all user systems (commercial systems). Fault Tolerance is the ability of a system to continue operating normally and effective in case of any misfortune or an in eventuality. It ranges from a simple power failure back up to complex system for retrieving data which may have been destroyed in one way or another. The failure can be from hardware or software failures. In all systems adopted as a fault tolerance there is a two system maintained whereby if one fails the other one takes over (Fischer, Lynch, and Paterson, 1985). This paper takes a look into fault tolerance; it will focus on pattern for distributed systems. It will also evaluate a commercial system, SAP BW system. It will identify the system vendor’s vendors, approximate costs, advantages, disadvantages, benefits, and limitations of such strategies to safeguard information and applications on information systems.
Categories of Fault Tolerance
Fault Tolerance can be broadly categorized into software and hardware fault tolerance. In a soft fault tolerance focus is on data security incase an eventuality that hinder general functioning of the system is witnessed. This system should recover any lost data and ensure that the general functioning of the system is maintained. When an abnormality occurs there is danger of loss of data and the operation of a company can be paralyzed by the entire system failure. Failures are as a result of errors that find their way into the operating system and affect the general functioning. A company that employs a fault system is less likely to experience system failures – in case of an eventuality. The other category of fault tolerance is hardware safety devises. They are the most simple since they only involve connection of the entire system and more centered on power failures (Lyu, 1995).
A Fault-Tolerant Pattern for Distributed Systems
This is a system that is adopted by large institutions with a computer connection where there is one central server. These organizations follow a Star topology; star topology adapts a system whereby there is a central server where all the other users are connected. It has a current-like connection whereby when one transmission line fails; it does not affect the other connections. There are various advantages that are associated with this topology that make me prefer it than the others. They are better performance; although the topology is made in such a way that the transmission line are dependent to the central server, with a high capacity server, it can serve a high utilizing device without affecting the others. With this it separates one system from the other and non-centralized failure cannot affect a well functioning connection. Secondly, the topology gives the benefit of centralization; this is because it allows for other devises to be connected to the system without affecting the other networks. On the other hand, it is easy to follow a certain link from the central point and establish the area of weakness if any. It is a straight forward way to connect and wire. When adding or removing a connection the other connections are not affected. The topology has some disadvantages though the topology is highly dependent on the hub or the central server. The failure of the hub affects the entire system. It is also dependent on the capacity that the hub can handle at one time. If the devices are highly utilized, the system may be slow in the processes. The disadvantages can be mitigated by using a high tech hub depending on the need of the organization (Becker, 2009).
SAP BW System Background
Business intelligence (BI) is a term used to refer to a collection of applications that aim at keeping and making available a data bank in a certain industry or organization; the bank is referred to when decisions are made. These data are kept through computer warehouse; incase of any failure there is need for data to be retrieved. When developing the database, the initial stage is information gathering, then sorting the information, analyzing it, and finally making is accessible for use. Business intelligence can be used in the general strategy of a business or a certain area/department in an organization. The major benefit that a company derives from using business intelligence tools in the right way is competitive advantage. This is because a firm has access to information that assist in making informed, current, and futuristic decisions. SAP BW system is a system that has been developed to ensure that data is not lost in case of any eventuality. It records a lot of data that may have been lost.
SAP BW system
Despite that not all data warehouse are used for business intelligence tool, the level of their accuracy and fullness is important for a successful BI. Realizing this deficit, SAP developed a data warehouse, it was developed in 1997. The system merges external and internal data to one repository. From the repository organizations can get preconfigured data; the preconfigured data is used for data management and archiving. The approach has a wider base than an individual business database and extends its services to administrators/maintainers of data reserves.
SAP BW system is based on five info-objects, which are used to describe business variable relationships. They come in different languages, hierarchy, currency, weights among others. The five Info-objects are
- Data Sources: they contain general data, which is related in one way or another. It is data in flat/raw form.
- Info-Sources: they contain data that is general but more focused in business. They retrieve data from previous records mostly online transactional processes (OLTP) and master data
- ODS-objects: this merges data from more than one info-source. The data are direct but still in flat form. From them reports that lead to quality assurance can be derived.
- Info-Cubes they are multi-dimensional data storage that give organized data that can be easily analyzed or interpolated from a micro point of view. For example data can be analyzed on geographical location of a business.
- Info-Providers they contain all the data objects found in a SAP BW.
- Multi-Providers they do not contain any data but are used to combine data from different providers (Michael Management Corporation, 2007).
Advantages and benefits of using SAP BW system
The major advantage that SAP BW system has is that it ensures that there is continuity of reliable data for decision making. To evaluate benefits acquired, we will look in the advantages that a business has when it has adequate information at all time;
The success of a business is dependent on the quality of decisions that managers at different levels make. High quality decision leads to competitive advantage. One of the most critical decisions that managers should make is one that reduces cost of production. SAP BW system assists a company to develop a cost cutting policy by recognizing areas of inefficiency and rectifying them. With a reduced cost of production, then it can sell at a lower price than its competitors.
When making decisions, managers need to be informed and have reliable past, current, and futurist data. With futuristic decisions, a company is likely to satisfy its current and future customers. When making strategy for a company, there are generally three approaches; cost strategy, differential strategy, and flow strategy. In a cost strategy a company aims at improving its efficiency to a level that it becomes the least cost producer. In a differential strategy, the business aim at getting unique products that will attract the greatest number of customers and meet their need. A SAP BW system ensures that past records are maintained and thus making of decisions is facilitated.
Other than data on the trends of business, SAP BW system assists a company to gauge its level of relationships with suppliers and customers. The enhanced relationship assists in making decisions that aim at strengthening the relationship and eventually gain customer loyalty. In a SAP BW environment, there is data from other companies in the same industry thus a company can gauge itself with others in same industry more effectively, this will assist in marketing decisions; Marketing strategies are well made if current business position is known.
Disadvantages limitations of SAP BW system
When a company decides to adopt a certain Business intelligence tool, it has to incur huge capital investments in terms of buying computer hard-wares, buying/developing the soft-wares and training of staff. This is incurred with the hope that the benefits to be derived from the system will be higher than costs. However, this is not always the case. There are certain issues that are associated with the system. SAP BW is an expensive system.
When developing a database, data is gotten from different institutions and companies that have different reporting styles and standards. This influences the reliability of the data stored. If the data had been skewed in a certain direction, then it is more likely to influence decision making toward/outwards that direction that may not be necessarily the right direction. Biasness from a certain area can be transferred from a company of inefficiency to other companies in the same industry.
A reliable data warehouse is the most important part in SAP BW. It is dependent on the quality and relevance of data that is stored. If the data is not right, then decisions will be based on flawed data (Olszak & Ziemba, 2004).
Cost of SAP BW system
To download a SAP BW system a company is supposed to invest $6,995. This download can be done at SAP EcoHub website. The cost covers 5 Concurrent Access Licenses that allow its use.
Conclusion
Fault Tolerance is the ability of a system to continue operating normally and effectively in case of any misfortune or an eventuality. It ranges from a simple power failure back up to complex system for retrieving data which may have been destroyed in one way or another. One of the ways to ensure that data is not lost and that follows a hardware system is topology; star topology adapts a system whereby there is a central server where all the other users are connected. There are systems that have been developed to ensure that data is not lost. An example of software fault tolerance system is SAP BW system. When adopted it ensures that data is available at any one time for decision making.
Reference List
Becker, J. (2009). Wireless Technology Unlocks Possibilities. Power 153.2: 48-52. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web.
Fischer, M., N. Lynch, and M. Paterson. (1995). Impossibility of Distributed Consensus with One Faulty Process,” Journal of the ACM, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 374-382.
Lyu, R. ed. (1995). Software Fault Tolerance Chichester. England: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Michael Management Corporation. (2007). SAP BW Business Warehouse. Web.
Olszak, C. M., & Ziemba, E. (2004). Business intelligence systems as a new generation of decision support systems. Proceedings PISTA 2004, International Conference on Politics and Information Systems: Technologies and Applications. Orlando: The International Institute of Informatics and Systemic.