Chapter 10

New Century Health Clinic

New Century Health Clinic offers preventive medicine and traditional medical care. In your role as an IT
consultant, you will help New Century develop a new information system.
Background
The New Century clinic associates accepted your interface, output, input, and data designs and
your recommendation to install a server and four personal computers as clients on a local area network.
The network will include a tape backup unit and Internet access via a modem that can exchange data
with insurance companies. A high-speed laser printer and an impact printer for multipart forms will be
accessible by any of the four PCs. Now you will determine system architecture for the New Century
system.
When you created ERDs and record designs for New Century during the data design process in
Chapter 9, you considered whether to use a file-processing or database approach. As you know, each
strategy has advantages and disadvantages, depending on the specific hardware and software
environment and business requirements. At this point, you must decide which way to proceed, and Dr.
Jones will accept your recommendation (with your instructor’s approval). You should start by reviewing
the DFDs and object-oriented diagrams that you prepared in the systems analysis phase, and the ERDs
and table designs that you created in the systems design phase. Then, review the system architecture
checklist at the beginning of this chapter.
Assignments
1. What would be the advantages of selecting an Internet-based architecture for the New Century
system?
2. Should the New Century system be based on file-server or client/server architecture? Why?
3. Could the New Century system use both online and batch processing? How?
4. Prepare an outline for a system design specification and describe the contents of each section.