Systems Upgrade for an Accounting Firm Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Systems Upgrade for an Accounting Firm - Essay Example Hardware Requirements of ComputersWith respect to the accounting firm in subject, it is undeniable that the smaller firm use old computer systems in conducting their accounting practices. Use of circa 2005 models and Windows XP indicates that the small firm misses out on opportunity cost and convenience associated with new systems in the market. At this juncture, the essay will evaluate on the hardware needs of the small firm in terms of recommended computer models. In their earlier research, Kenneth, James and Mansfield (2012) found out that Mac computers feature as the leading products in terms of superiority, quality and reliability In order to upgrade the accounting firm, every employee will have to work with a Mac desktop computer. Since Mac computers possess different hardware specifications, it will be appropriate to select a model that not only possess the requisite features but also budget friendly. In this context, I would recommend model A1347 Apple Mac Mini Desktop for ev ery employee within the marketing department. On the other hand, auditors, ticket agents and accountants would work well with model A3870. Currently, the A1347 model retails at $390 while the A3870 goes for $25 and all prices are inclusive of shipping charges.Choice of each model depends on functionality requirements and professional purpose of the departmental computers. Conventionally, functional requirements for the marketing department differ considerably from those of the auditing or accounting departments.

Cloud Computing Energy Efficiency Research Proposal - 1

Cloud Computing Energy Efficiency - Research Proposal Example result, companies have been moving their operations such as emails, word processing and spreadsheets as well as CRM to the cloud in order to server energy [5]. Generally, the concerns regarding the environmental impacts as well as the energy needs of data centers such as the cloud has been growing with the exponential increase in data centers. Consequently, the potential gains in energy efficiency by moving the software of businesses to the cloud are largely attributed to the fact that the data centers and servers currently hosting cloud services are significantly more efficient and green than the IT infrastructure that is currently used by most companies [8]. These energy savings are particularly significant for smaller companies which often tend to possess some of the most inefficient IT services. Despite the general agreement that cloud computing is currently more efficient than many of its alternatives, the implementation of cloud computing has faced a number of power and energy consumption concerns particularly with regard to the power and energy consumed by the modern cloud computing systems and data center equipment as well as the connected cooling systems [5]. The energy is mainly consumed when transporting the required data from the users to the cloud data centers and then back. Data centers currently consume nearly 1.4% of the entire global electrical energy with an average growth rate of 12% annually [11]. Skeptics argue that the greenhouse gas production associated with the power consumption at data centers is will double in the near future if the current popularity of cloud services continues. Moreover, the high consumption of power also often results in the release of heat which may further cause energy inefficiencies due to increased amount of energy required for removing the heat(cooling) as well as the high probability of hardware system failures [1]. Another potential cloud computing energy efficiency problem is the increasing greenhouse gas