e to host our servers in our own facility or contract out with a hosting company to handle it. If we do it in-house we will need to budget for power, air conditioning, security, and connectivity. Hosting with another company will reduce our setup times but will lower our sense of ownership. Purchasing the servers is actually the end-state of a process that will include requirement writing, application availability per platform, initial cost, setup cost, and maintenance costs, and performance over several different usability models. We need to have a good sense of how hard and in what way the servers will be used before we can make a final purchase decision.There are only a limited number of software packages that will do what we need, so it should be fairly quick and easy to get representatives in to give us demonstrations of their products and make a final selection.Security will be a major selling point for our customers. They will want to be able to see their data without too many hassles while at the same time not allow others access to it. We will need to plan for security that keeps unwanted internet hackers off our system as well as keep clients who are allowed on the system to see only the data that they are supposed to have access to.5.2 Difficulties and RisksThe most difficult part of setting up the whole environment will be making sure that all the parts work together. Integrating all the various software components will require extensive testing in both functionality and performance. The system will have to be flexible enough to handle all the software we plan on plugging into it as well as be robust enough to handle the load of a large number of concurrent users hitting the system and straining available resources.The biggest risk we face is having the hardware and software in place but disappointing our users through non-availability, slow response, or offering functionality that they either do not want or do not need. It ...
