Question: In the fast-paced, evolving enterprise environment, there is a need to integrate systems, whether with recently acquired organizations or with the latest off-the-shelf technology. The challenge seems insurmountable without some formalized approaches, tools, techniques, and best practices to support the effort. You will select a manageable systems integration project so that you will have practice with all phases of the systems integration process, from determining enterprise integration requirements through the final implementation planning.

Project Selection: The first step will be to select an enterprise as the target for your systems integration project, along with a list of the major systems to be integrated within the target organization. This project will be used as the basis for each of the assignments throughout the course and should conform to the following guidelines:

• Nontrivial: The selected enterprise should be large enough to reflect the need to integrate systems.

• Domain knowledge: You should be familiar enough with the organization to allow you to focus on its system's integration needs.

Select an enterprise that fits these requirements, and submit your proposal to your instructor before proceeding further with the assignments in the course. Approval should be sought within the first few days of the course. Your instructor will tell you how to submit this proposal and what notification will be given for project approval.

Assignment Guidelines: For the assignments in this course, you will be developing a comprehensive Systems Integration Design Proposal as your project. Your first task in this process will be to select an enterprise to use as the basis of your project. You will also create the shell document for the final project deliverable, which you will be working on during each unit. As you proceed through each project phase, you will add content to each section of the final document to gradually complete the final project delivery. Appropriate research should be conducted to support the analysis in your report, and assumptions may be made when necessary.

Following is an outline for the comprehensive design proposal that will evolve throughout the course. This deliverable will be created in incremental steps. For week 1, submit for review by your instructor, the proposal shell and completed Section Headings Project Information, Project Plan, and System Integration Best Practices, labeled week 1. The Requirements Specifications section will be completed and delivered during Week 2, etc.

• Create the Systems Integration Project Proposal shell.

? Use Word

? Title Page

? Course number and name

? Project name

? Your name

? Date

? Table of Contents (TOC)

? Use an autogenerated TOC.

? This should be on a separate page.

? Update the fields of the TOC so that it is up-to-date before submitting your project.

? Section Headings (create each heading on a new page with TBD as content, except for sections listed under New Content below)

? Project Information (Week 1)

? Project Plan (Week 1)

? System Integration Best Practices (Week 1)

? Requirements Specifications (Week 2)

? Enterprise System Integration Analysis (Week 3)

? Systems Integration Approach Evaluation and Selection (Week 3)

? Proposed System Integration Components Architecture (Week 4)

? Implementation Framework (Week 4)

? System Integration Implementation Plan (Week 5)

• New Content (Week 1)

? Project Information

? Provide a brief description of the enterprise (can be hypothetical) where the system integration design proposal has the potential of being adopted.

? Describe the overall project objectives.

? List the business or technical needs that will be met by the project.

? List the major components of the project (major systems that will be integrated).

? This list may change after further analysis is completed.

? List the boundaries of the project (what the project will not address).

? Material can be taken from the approved proposal that you submitted.

? Be sure that this project is approved by the instructor.

? Project Plan

? This contains the work breakdown structure (WBS) for all of the tasks that will be required to complete the project.

? Determine the start and completion dates (within the course's start and end dates).

? List other resources that are required to complete the project.

? System Integration Best Practices

? Based on what you learned during completion of the Discussion Board activity, identify best practice areas you will cover in your project.

Provide a diagram that shows the process flow that you intend to use for designing the systems integration architecture.