I’m working on a information technology discussion question and need guidance to help me study.

Before an IT professional or IT department recommends the use of a specific operating system and version, an assessment of the organization’s needs must be done. Every organization, and even different departments within the same organization, will have different needs and requirements. Users within a department might need access to specific software that other users do not. The same might be true for hardware. Some users might need access to a specific server, fax machine, or printer.

For this week’s discussion:

• Review the three scenarios from the perspective of a systems architect.
• Write your initial post about one of the scenarios.
• Respond to at least two of your peers.

Scenario 1: You work for a small software company with four different departments, including Marketing, IT and Business Operations, Product Development, and Customer Support. Marketing currently has its employees use iMovie and Keynote to create their marketing materials and external presentations; there is no intention to change products since they have built their departmental standards around using that software. The IT and Business Operations department needs to use MS Visio to create system diagrams and flowcharts. This department, as well as Product Development, needs access to project management software such as Jira or Asana. Lastly, Customer Support uses a customer relationship management (CRM) program that has been supported by Windows 7 in the past.

Scenario 2: You work for a large organization with 15 departments. A new leadership initiative to centralize systems includes requiring all employees to use the same OS and computers. Currently, some departments use Windows and others use macOS; some desktops within those departments have Linux-based systems. It has been discovered that some departments are still operating older OS versions, which has negatively impacted their productivity. For customer-facing departments, the SalesForce CRM is being implemented. Implementation of this CRM is what encouraged the leadership team to start a centralized initiative to have more systems connect to that CRM.

Scenario 3: You are working for a major publishing company in the U.S. that has recently merged with a smaller company in the U.K. You have uncovered information that the smaller company’s desktop equipment and installed operating system have not been upgraded in a very long time. The editing department has 10 desktops that are still using Windows XP, and two desktops in the graphic design department are currently running the Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, released in 2012. Due to the nature of the organization, these software applications have been proficient in creating newsletters and e-books, and in designing print on demand for self-publishing. All desktop equipment and operating software will need to be audited and mitigated to reflect the system architecture and security model for the parent company.

In your initial post, address the following:

• Make an OS recommendation based on your chosen scenario and provide a strong rationale.
• Answer the following questions:
  • Given what is described in the scenario, what OS and version do you recommend be implemented?
  • Should more than one kind of OS be implemented? If so, which ones?
  • What are software and hardware requirements that support your decision?
  • What else helped you make the decision to recommend specific OSes?
• If you had some difficulty making a recommendation, discuss what additional information you would need to make a well-informed decision.
• If you make assumptions beyond the information in the scenario that you’ve chosen, make sure you state them in your initial post.