Systems integration across platforms and companies grows more complex with time.
ID: 434768 • Letter: S
Question
Systems integration across platforms and companies grows more complex with time. in a case study from Florida in 2008, an electrical company realtime system detected a minor problem in the power grid and shut down the entire system, plunging over two million people into the dark. The system experts placed the blame on substation software system that detected the minor fluctuation, but had the ability to immediatly shut the entire system down. Although there may be times when such a rapid response is vital (such as the nuclear disasters in Chernobyl Ukraine and Three Mile Island), this was case where such a response was not warranted. Questions 1. Since software controles substation operations, how might a systems analyst approach this problem as a systems project? 2. Are there special considerations that a systems analyst needs to think about when dealing with real-time systems?
Explanation / Answer
A systems failure or errors occur when a system fails to meet its requirements. A systems failure analysis is an investigation to determine the underlying reasons for the nonconformance, usually done by the systems analyst in charge of the operations of the systems.This failure analysis is performed to identify root causes and to recommend appropriate corrective actions.
How it is performed:
1.As and when a failure is confronted, often they begin to disassembling hardware to search for the cause. Safeguards are necessary to prevent losing that information. Here arises a scope of fault tree analysis, which is a graphical technique to sense potential causes. The best approach for developing the fault tree is to assign a team consisting of Subject matter expert with a good knowledge of operations and support functions. The first step to define the problem, i.e the top undesired event in the fault tree. The next step is to look for the very next relevant causes that induces top undesired event and slowly derive the conclusion.
2. In a real time system set up, to ensure that every event's response is generated after tasks are executed within specified deadlines, the analyst has to have a proactive approach towards each step transitions and set their priority levels according to the importance of the tasks.
Related Questions
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.