Reference no: EM132307786

Assignment Specification

Overview

Banks and other financial institutions rely on speed, capacity, intelligence, security, and accountability for success. Since its introduction 50 years ago, the mainframe has played a vital role in the financial/banking industry. For example, a mainframe computer is capable of handling more than 2.5 billion financial transactions per day. That's one reason mainframes remain a core component of banking data practices. Cloud computing also plays a significant role in a bank's efforts to reinvent its business and operating models. For example, banks use cloud services for analytics where a probabilistic score is calculated real-time to each financial transaction for its likelihood to being fraudulent.

For this assignment, you will apply the skills and knowledge covered in the first nine (9) weeks of the course with the purpose to investigate why and how enterprises from the Banking sector use mainframe and cloud technologies to support their day-to-day operations.

This is an individual assignment. Your investigation will be focused on usage of mainframe and cloud technologies by a Banking enterprise (a bank or number of banks). The investigation should be supported by trusted on-line resources and based on real life case studies, reports, on-line newspapers, videos and academic resources available from the Internet. The findings should be written in a report document of approximately 1200 - 1500 words and the report should be summarised in a video recording of 3 to 5 minutes in duration in which you will personally presents an overview of the findings.

Learning Outcomes

The following course learning outcomes are assessed by completing this assessment:

• K1. Identify the key elements in cloud and mainframe computing;
• K2. Explain the importance of cloud and mainframes in contemporary business models;
• K3. Adapt the need of security and privacy in cloud and mainframes;
• K4. Reproduce various services provided by cloud and mainframes;
• S2. Describe mainframe workloads for business needs;
• S4. Interpret security and privacy needs in shared environment.

Assessment Details

The purpose of this assignment is to provide you with the opportunity to investigate why and how enterprises from the Banking sector use mainframe and cloud technologies to support their day-to-day operations. You are required to investigate usage of mainframe and cloud technologies by an enterprise (a bank or number of banks) from the Banking sector.

Your investigation should be supported by trusted Internet resources containing real life case studies, reports, on-line newspapers, videos, technical/research papers and academic journals. As a starting point it is advised to use FedUni on-line library eResources via "QuickSearch" and "Databases".

In light of the investigation your findings should address the following requirements:

1. Describe (at least THREE) core business services offered by a bank;

2. Provide a brief description of security and privacy needs in relation to the bank's core business services;

3. Explain the bank's needs for ICT workload types (batch, transactional and analytics);

4. Describe how banks benefit of using cloud technologies;

5. Explain which cloud services are used in the banking sector and how they support one or more ICT workload types;

6. Describe why major banks and financial institutions have mainframes at the centre of their technological strategies;

7. Explain how mainframes support one or more ICT workload types;

8. Provide at least five (5) references/resources used in your investigation (APA reference style) and a link to your YouTube video presentation

Report Document Format

The findings should be written in a report document of approximately 1200 - 1500 words equivalent to three (3) to four (4) pages (without the cover page and list of references). The report should contain a cover page with course code, course name, assignment title, your student ID, your full name and the number of words (without the cover and reference pages).

The report text format must be single spaced with font size Arial, 12 and larger font size for the headings.

The report text should be divided into the following five (5) headings (sections):
1. Core business services offered by a bank (at least half a page)
a. A short description of at least three (3) core business services offered by a bank (requirement 1.)
b. A brief description of security and privacy needs in relation to the bank's core business services (requirement 2.)

2. Bank's needs for ICT workload types (at least half a page)
a. Explain with two (2) examples of how banks use ICT batch workload type (requirement 3.a)
b. Explain with two (2) examples of how banks use ICT transactional workload type (requirement 3.b)
c. Explain with two (2) examples of how banks use ICT analytics workload type (requirement 3.c)

3. Benefits of using cloud technologies in banking sector (at least one page)
a. Briefly describe how banks benefit of using cloud technologies (requirement 4.)
b. Your description should link one or more cloud services to one or more ICT workload types used in banking (requirement 5.)

4. Why major banks use mainframes (at least one page)
a. Briefly describe why banks use mainframes (requirement 6.)
b. Your description should link one or more mainframe technologies/services to one or more ICT workload types used in banking (requirement 7.)

5. References
a. Provide at least five (5) references/resources used in your investigation
b. Your references of trusted Internet sources should be listed by using APA reference style
c. A link to your YouTube video presentation

Video Presentation Format

Once you have completed your report, you are required to create a video recording of three (3) to five (5) minutes duration in which you personally present a summary of your findings as per your report.

Important: Your presentation is the final product in which you talk about the assessment topic and your findings as presented in your report document. However, in your presentation you do not talk about your report, but summarise content of the report as per assessment requirements.

Using a mobile phone or similar quality camera is perfectly acceptable and will help keep the size of the presentation file small. You must be actively presenting throughout the video, with your face clearly visible and identifiable for the duration of the presentation. It is acceptable to briefly move away from your face to show a more clear representation of supporting materials from your documentation, but you must otherwise ensure that you are visible and presenting throughout the video.

In three (3) to five (5) minutes of video duration you have to describe the following:

1. At least three (3) core business services offered by a bank including security and privacy issues

2. Bank's needs for batch, transactional and analytical ICT workload types

3. How banks benefit of using cloud technologies linking one or more cloud services to one or more ICT workload types

4. Why major banks use mainframe technologies linking one or more mainframe services to one or more ICT workload types