Saturday, September 6, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
SOMS - Store Order Management System
As the "Retail Virus" is slowly engulfing the whole country into its fold, those infected with this "virus" are busy mutating, for competitive advantage, it using whatever resource they have at their discretion.
One such victim is "MOBBED". MOBBED is a city based retail store chain offering its customer with complete mobile solution. From a single store beginning, today, in just less than one year of its operation the company has rapidly grown into a retail chain with the present 20 stores, spread all over Kolkata.
The company has chalked out huge national level growth plans. In the next 2 years the company plans to open another 80 stores in major cities of India.
The company has one Master warehouse in the outskirt of the city and follow the hub and wheel supply chain system in order to cater to its individual store orders.
Considering its future growth plans the MD of the company Mr. Moby would like to place an order management system that would help track its products and keep the warehouse updated at all times.
SOMS - Order Placement
SOMS - Master Log
One such victim is "MOBBED". MOBBED is a city based retail store chain offering its customer with complete mobile solution. From a single store beginning, today, in just less than one year of its operation the company has rapidly grown into a retail chain with the present 20 stores, spread all over Kolkata.
The company has chalked out huge national level growth plans. In the next 2 years the company plans to open another 80 stores in major cities of India.
The company has one Master warehouse in the outskirt of the city and follow the hub and wheel supply chain system in order to cater to its individual store orders.
Considering its future growth plans the MD of the company Mr. Moby would like to place an order management system that would help track its products and keep the warehouse updated at all times.
SOMS - Order Placement
SOMS - Master Log
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE FOR RETAIL
System Architecture
Mr. Shah hurried towards the boardroom well aware that he was late for the meeting that was to decide what “system architecture” is best suited for his organisation. Mr. Shah’s understanding of system architecture was that it was: A representation of a system in which there is a mapping of functionality onto hardware and software components, a mapping of the software architecture onto the hardware architecture, and human interaction with these components.
Mr. Shah’s company, a growing retail chain with stores spread-over in 5 major cities of the country, had long time back computerized their whole system. But understanding the growing need of the business and thereby the evolving market dynamism, required for a more complex and better IT implementation.
As he entered the room he found Mr. Archie, his business partner and also a technology expert, anxiously awaiting his arrival.
Mr. Archie: “Hey, Shah, congratulation our Mumbai store has recorded highest sale this season.”
Mr. Shah: “Congratulation to u too, but I’m afraid this might not come always true in the long run.”
Mr. Archie: “Hmm....I agree, so long we have been going well with our two-tier client server architecture whereby our data server and application server were separate, this made business logic for us.”
Mr. Archie: “Our application server was connected to the data server using TCP/IP and we have been using MySQL as the server software with GUI. This made presentation logic for our business.”
Mr. Shah: “That is very true. And when we opened new stores in other cities we just connected each application server with data server via internet. Although we have issues like bandwidth requirements, maintenances and other WAN related problem, the convenient graphics user interface does not place processing burden on server machine even when we have hundreds of users.”
Mr. Shah: “But Archie, looking ahead, my major concern is that we are a growing firm and the market is also undergoing revolutionary changes. Under these conditions, we need to put in place a system which costs us less yet it should make sense to our business.”
Mr. Archie: “Exactly, and that’s why i have called you here to discuss, three-tier architecture, multi-tier architecture and the role of an ERP in our business.”
Mr. Shah: “Ok, but can you be more specific, please.”
Mr. Archie: “Oh yes. Unlike the two-tier architecture, in three-tier architecture the application is partitioned. What i mean is, the business logic (Data and business critical application) is kept centrally so that changes is done in one location and the presentation (user interface application) is kept locally thereby reducing the data transfer over the network. And please keep in mind whenever i speak of network hereafter, i always mean the internet.”
Mr. Shah: “Ok.”
Mr. Archie: “Now the only thing that differentiates 3-tier with multi-tier architecture is that even the client location application software is located centrally along with data and other business critical application and these can be accessed by the client with the help of web-browser. And although this is inexpensive there is no need for specialist software at the client end, the business application should be web enabled and security software should be in place to make the network secure.”
Mr. Shah: “So, depending upon the business needs we can go for various consolidations present within this multi-tier architecture.”
Mr. Archie: “absolutely.”
Mr. Shah: “Is it true that within 2-tier architecture, both the data and the application client side can further be divided depending upon the requirements on both the side. And these applications can be from different vendors and can be based on different technology platforms like Oracle, Java or C++.”
Mr. Archie: “You are very true, partner.”
Mr. Shah: “But, the point that really confuses is the difference between an RDBMS and ERP.”
Mr. Archie: “In RDBMS, the corporate database is located centrally along with other servers and the application client machines are located locally. This helps in no duplication and inconsistency of data across locations and is also easier to manage.”
Mr. Shah: “Ok.”
Mr. Archie: “In ERP, the various functional module is integrated and a identical software across the client side just helps in connecting for faster processing and hence for better performance.”
Mr. Shah: “But how do we handle special requirements.”
Mr. Archie: “In that case we can set up a special data server which can only be accessed by a special data/ERP client. And to protect our rest of the data from hackers, we can use firewalls in strategic locations.”
Mr. Shah: “How do we develop a good application system?”
Mr. Archie: “We have Oracle, SQL, MySQL and ZOHO! To design a database and the development can be based on relational model. For application design and developments we have Java/C++, visual basic, Ruby-on-Rails and ZOHO!”
Mr. Shah: “Good, now since we are quite clear on these terms, we better get started.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Shah hurried towards the boardroom well aware that he was late for the meeting that was to decide what “system architecture” is best suited for his organisation. Mr. Shah’s understanding of system architecture was that it was: A representation of a system in which there is a mapping of functionality onto hardware and software components, a mapping of the software architecture onto the hardware architecture, and human interaction with these components.
Mr. Shah’s company, a growing retail chain with stores spread-over in 5 major cities of the country, had long time back computerized their whole system. But understanding the growing need of the business and thereby the evolving market dynamism, required for a more complex and better IT implementation.
As he entered the room he found Mr. Archie, his business partner and also a technology expert, anxiously awaiting his arrival.
Mr. Archie: “Hey, Shah, congratulation our Mumbai store has recorded highest sale this season.”
Mr. Shah: “Congratulation to u too, but I’m afraid this might not come always true in the long run.”
Mr. Archie: “Hmm....I agree, so long we have been going well with our two-tier client server architecture whereby our data server and application server were separate, this made business logic for us.”
Mr. Archie: “Our application server was connected to the data server using TCP/IP and we have been using MySQL as the server software with GUI. This made presentation logic for our business.”
Mr. Shah: “That is very true. And when we opened new stores in other cities we just connected each application server with data server via internet. Although we have issues like bandwidth requirements, maintenances and other WAN related problem, the convenient graphics user interface does not place processing burden on server machine even when we have hundreds of users.”
Mr. Shah: “But Archie, looking ahead, my major concern is that we are a growing firm and the market is also undergoing revolutionary changes. Under these conditions, we need to put in place a system which costs us less yet it should make sense to our business.”
Mr. Archie: “Exactly, and that’s why i have called you here to discuss, three-tier architecture, multi-tier architecture and the role of an ERP in our business.”
Mr. Shah: “Ok, but can you be more specific, please.”
Mr. Archie: “Oh yes. Unlike the two-tier architecture, in three-tier architecture the application is partitioned. What i mean is, the business logic (Data and business critical application) is kept centrally so that changes is done in one location and the presentation (user interface application) is kept locally thereby reducing the data transfer over the network. And please keep in mind whenever i speak of network hereafter, i always mean the internet.”
Mr. Shah: “Ok.”
Mr. Archie: “Now the only thing that differentiates 3-tier with multi-tier architecture is that even the client location application software is located centrally along with data and other business critical application and these can be accessed by the client with the help of web-browser. And although this is inexpensive there is no need for specialist software at the client end, the business application should be web enabled and security software should be in place to make the network secure.”
Mr. Shah: “So, depending upon the business needs we can go for various consolidations present within this multi-tier architecture.”
Mr. Archie: “absolutely.”
Mr. Shah: “Is it true that within 2-tier architecture, both the data and the application client side can further be divided depending upon the requirements on both the side. And these applications can be from different vendors and can be based on different technology platforms like Oracle, Java or C++.”
Mr. Archie: “You are very true, partner.”
Mr. Shah: “But, the point that really confuses is the difference between an RDBMS and ERP.”
Mr. Archie: “In RDBMS, the corporate database is located centrally along with other servers and the application client machines are located locally. This helps in no duplication and inconsistency of data across locations and is also easier to manage.”
Mr. Shah: “Ok.”
Mr. Archie: “In ERP, the various functional module is integrated and a identical software across the client side just helps in connecting for faster processing and hence for better performance.”
Mr. Shah: “But how do we handle special requirements.”
Mr. Archie: “In that case we can set up a special data server which can only be accessed by a special data/ERP client. And to protect our rest of the data from hackers, we can use firewalls in strategic locations.”
Mr. Shah: “How do we develop a good application system?”
Mr. Archie: “We have Oracle, SQL, MySQL and ZOHO! To design a database and the development can be based on relational model. For application design and developments we have Java/C++, visual basic, Ruby-on-Rails and ZOHO!”
Mr. Shah: “Good, now since we are quite clear on these terms, we better get started.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, February 29, 2008
RETAILIA - 2.0
in MM 1 (trimestor 1), as part of my project i had conducted a market research survey for Shoppers Stop Ltd. The following link would take you to the online version of this survey.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Compiler compiled to make my compiled life complicated
I browsed through Wikipedia.org and found the definition of computer, it said: A computer is a machine that manipulates data according to a list of instructions.
This was a bit confusing to me, since i could not digest the term “manipulates data according to a list of instructions”. So i went on to get a peek-a-boo about the evolution of computers, i found that computers has come a long way, from the stone men using stones and marking symbols to calculate to ABACUS to the presently and widely used windows run computer (MAC, LINUX etc are also included in the list) to NASA run super-computer CRAY.
But this actually didn’t answer my question, how could computer manipulate data according to a list of instructions that is given in Human language which itself contradicts the statement that computers cannot understand human language.
Finally i discussed the same issue with my “IT specialist friends” and discovered that, in the computer world, the human language is known as High Level Language (HLL) and the language that the computers understand –set of binary numbers (0’s and 1’s) is known as Low Level language (LLL).
Therefore to convert the HLL to LLL we require something called a COMPILER. And the reverse process is called as DECOMPILER.
Describing a compiler as described in a known site: It is a computer program (or set of programs) that translates text written in a computer language (the source language) into another computer language (the target language). The original sequence is usually called the source code and the output called object code. Commonly the output has a form suitable for processing by other programs (e.g., a linker), but it may be a human-readable text file.
Putting the same in simpler words i would say, a compiler is a program that is used to convert the text language to machine language.
Going back to history, during the 50s, machine-independent programming languages were first proposed. Subsequently, several experimental compilers were developed. The A-0 system was the first compiler written by Grace Hopper, in 1952, for the A-0 programming language. The FORTRAN team led by John Backus at IBM is generally credited as having introduced the first complete compiler, in 1957. COBOL was an early language to be compiled on multiple architectures, in 1960. Early compilers were written in assembly language.
The C compiler, developed by Dennis Richie is considered as the complete compiler. The first C compiler is written using X286 assembler, which is designed for a 16 bit processor. Once the basic module of compiler has been developed, further development of the language was done using C language itself!
Source: Wikipedia.org, Blogspot.com and Informal Discussions with my “IT specialist friends”.
This was a bit confusing to me, since i could not digest the term “manipulates data according to a list of instructions”. So i went on to get a peek-a-boo about the evolution of computers, i found that computers has come a long way, from the stone men using stones and marking symbols to calculate to ABACUS to the presently and widely used windows run computer (MAC, LINUX etc are also included in the list) to NASA run super-computer CRAY.
But this actually didn’t answer my question, how could computer manipulate data according to a list of instructions that is given in Human language which itself contradicts the statement that computers cannot understand human language.
Finally i discussed the same issue with my “IT specialist friends” and discovered that, in the computer world, the human language is known as High Level Language (HLL) and the language that the computers understand –set of binary numbers (0’s and 1’s) is known as Low Level language (LLL).
Therefore to convert the HLL to LLL we require something called a COMPILER. And the reverse process is called as DECOMPILER.
Describing a compiler as described in a known site: It is a computer program (or set of programs) that translates text written in a computer language (the source language) into another computer language (the target language). The original sequence is usually called the source code and the output called object code. Commonly the output has a form suitable for processing by other programs (e.g., a linker), but it may be a human-readable text file.
Putting the same in simpler words i would say, a compiler is a program that is used to convert the text language to machine language.
Going back to history, during the 50s, machine-independent programming languages were first proposed. Subsequently, several experimental compilers were developed. The A-0 system was the first compiler written by Grace Hopper, in 1952, for the A-0 programming language. The FORTRAN team led by John Backus at IBM is generally credited as having introduced the first complete compiler, in 1957. COBOL was an early language to be compiled on multiple architectures, in 1960. Early compilers were written in assembly language.
The C compiler, developed by Dennis Richie is considered as the complete compiler. The first C compiler is written using X286 assembler, which is designed for a 16 bit processor. Once the basic module of compiler has been developed, further development of the language was done using C language itself!
Source: Wikipedia.org, Blogspot.com and Informal Discussions with my “IT specialist friends”.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
RETAILIA
This data base is based on a retail store. First, i created a table that contains data of products available, their price, the department its available in and the second table had data like the salesperson who is handling the category, the department and the location.
After i had created the tables in excel file i imported it to zoho database. after successfully storing the database, i created three querry based table.
my first query was about the products which are priced above Rs.1000.
My second query was about all stores located outside kolkata with their salemen.
and finally my third query was about category having only womens clothing line.
the link for the data base has been given below.
RETAILIA
After i had created the tables in excel file i imported it to zoho database. after successfully storing the database, i created three querry based table.
my first query was about the products which are priced above Rs.1000.
My second query was about all stores located outside kolkata with their salemen.
and finally my third query was about category having only womens clothing line.
the link for the data base has been given below.
RETAILIA
Monday, February 11, 2008
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