Hi,

I read some posts from other site and they were talking about Ski resort scenario from real exam. Is this a new scenario? They said was very hard from real exam.

Thanks for any input

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SKI INFO INC.

Background:

Ski Info Inc. (SKII) is an international company that specializes in developing equipment for ticketing and access control for ski resorts. The company’s turnstile-gate technology uses smart-card reading units. These units can unobtrusively access information from smart cards to authenticate users. The units can also add or subtract values from the cards.

For example, the unit can track the number of times a user skies a particular ski run. The units can read the cards from a distance, so that users can simply pass by the units with the cards. Monetary amounts can also be added to or subtracted from the smart-card accounts, so that the card can be used to purchase items.

Ski Info Inc. now wants to expand its scope to serve the informational needs of ski facilities and all of its customers that it serves.

The company recently acquired a large amount of investment money. It will use this money to support an aggressive project to make itself a premier information service provider to the most prestigious ski resorts in the world.

The purpose of this project is to build the large membership of individuals who have common interests and active lifestyles and provide them with new and unique services.

Ski Info Inc. will customize its services to meet specific needs of each resort by promoting each independently. However, SKII will also provide a benefit known as the passport that any member can use at any resort served by the SKII infrastructure.

The passport will provide many services to the members. SKII also intends to use its membership list to promote products.

Problem Statement:

Ski Info Inc. currently has only one type of turnstile smart-card tracking equipment located at ski resorts. The company must acquire the technical expertise to develop a new IT system that will support its new mission. It has concluded that Windows 2000 and Active Directory will be important components of its success.

Ski Info Inc. plans to implement its goals in three phases:

Phase 1 will occur during the next 12 months. During this phase, the company will build the member Web site. During this phase, the company will also install at one resort location a resort IT employee that will be integrated with the member Web site.

The company will test this system, and then install the system at five additional resorts. The goal is to have the global member IT system and six resort IT systems operational within 12 months.

Phase 2 will occur during the following year. During phase 2, SKII plans to add 14 more resort locations and achieve a total membership of more than one million.

Phase 3 will occur during the following year. During this phase, the company plans to double the number of resort locations and members. Ski Info Inc. intends to gain recognition in the market by using the newest technologies.

The company is willing to take risks if the ideas are feasible and will provide services that will promote customer loyalty and company recognition.

Business Goals:
Members will be able to purchase tickets for ski lifts and reserve rental equipment from their home computers or at the resorts. Individual user details will be stored so that ski sizes, the quality of equipment, and other details will need to be added only once.

When customers arrive at the resort, they will need not to wait. All equipment will be prepared and stored in the locker. Provisions will also be made for the storage and transport of customer-owned equipment to any resort served by SKII.

Ski Info Inc. does not want its customers to have to wait for any services at any ski resorts. Customers will also be able to purchase tickets for ski lifts online from kiosks. As a part of a membership, SKII will issue smart cards attached to the stretchable cords. At the ski resorts, members will be able to use cards to open their lockers. They will also use the cards to gain access to ski lifts and to make restaurant reservations.

Members who are staying at resorts will use cards as keys to their rooms and will not need to register with the resort. Points will also be accumulated for services that are purchased. These points will be used to earn gifts and awards. Members using the smart card to purchase at the ski lodge or store will enjoy discounts.

Three membership classifications will be available: Premier, Active Skier, and Standard. Higher membership levels will receive increased discounts.
Members will also have voice mail and e-mail services. Computers for the services will be located in each room and at many locations in the lodge and on the slopes.

When members pass the ski lift turnstile, it will make a sound if they have any new e-mail or voice mail messages. At the top of the lift, they can retrieve their messages. This service will provide a convenient way for members to locate other skiers and communicate with them. Additionally, family and friends at home who know a member’s account ID will be able to send e-mails/voice mails to that member.

Reports of the current ski left usage will be broadcast on the Web sites and on displays in the lodges. Resorts will have the option of instituting a premium classification for access to the lifts. Members in the classification will never need to wait to get on the lifts.

Members who share account IDs will be able to add the IDs to their family lists or friend list. This will make it convenient for members of a household to make reservations for the entire family, or for the individuals to see which of the friends are skiing on any given day.

Members will be eligible for the discount packages, and will be able to use their smart cards at any of the resorts served by SKII. Members will also have the ability to add medical information to their cards. All ski patrol teams members will have wireless smart-card readers.

Envisioned IT Environment:

Ski Info Inc. will design and construct the global services to support two interrelated components. One component will be for members, and the other component will be for resorts.

Members will be able to access the member component from the Internet or any resort. The resort component will be used to support each resort and its unique internal business and employee needs.

The company headquarters is located in Denver, Colorado. The headquarters employs 56 people. The company has installed a high-speed connection to its IT center San Jose, California. The IT center is connected to the Internet by means of 45-Mbps DS-3 lines.

SKII does not intend to create a separate employee domain. The Ski Info Inc. phase one design includes the implementation of the member systems and the resort employee systems at the following locations:

Norway
Nevada
Canada
Colorado
Switzerland
Vermont

New members will be able to enroll for SKII services at each resort. They will also be able to complete application forms on the Internet. The member will be affiliated with one resort, but will be able to use services from any other.

The LANs at the resort will be upgraded to the highest feasible bandwidth. Each resort will have a connection to the Internet. The connection speeds will vary depending upon services available. Each resort will have a Virtual Private Network tunnel to the servers located in San Jose.

During phase 2, Ski Info Inc. will open a European office to manage the resorts in Europe. As the company grows during phase 3, it is anticipated that SKII will have businesses and IT management centers in each country in which participating resorts are located.

Interviews:

SKII Chief Information Officer (CIO):

There are two major components of our plan: members and resorts. These components will be constructed at the same time. The members component will provide services to the skiers. The resort component will provide services to the resort businesses and employees.

Active Directory will be crucial to both components of the plan. The schema for the directory serving the members will need to be modified so that the new functionality will be supported. For development and security, the server hosting the member schema master will be located at our headquarters in Denver.

Members accessing SKII services from any other resort will have the same functionality. To achieve the fastest response time, all logon requests must avoid using a WAN line. Even if the members travel from one resort to another, their logon processes will be performed locally and will not require WAN transmission.

Local resort employees will be able to update the member records registered only at their own resort. Requests for changes to records of the members of other resorts will be sent to SKII staff. Consequently, it needs to be easy to move a member user object from one resort to another.

In case of possible server failure, a fault-tolerance design will be implemented at each resort so that local service will continue to run even if one server fails. We must avoid performing directory replication during times of peak usage.

Servers at the IT center will include one domain controller that has a global catalog and one domain controller that has the infrastructure operations master. Both the member and resort network must support wired and wireless devices. These devices can be connected and automatically assigned IP addresses.

For security, other applications must be able to access the devices by means of their DNS names. To help each resort automate its internal operations, we will provide a turnkey system that integrates Active Directory and advanced Windows 2000 functionality into each location. The design will ensure that employee information for one resort will not be visible to the other.

Resort Manager:

The design for the SKII resort infrastructure will provide some great services to employees at my resort. Our employees will access the system for services that include e-mail, human resources information, training and safety programs, the purchase of supplies, equipment inventory and maintenance, and staff scheduling.

Employees will be able to access the system from a variety of client computers and kiosks. The kiosks will be computers that run Windows 2000 Professional and have touch-screen displays. Both smart-card authentication and password authentication will be used for employee security authentication. Specific employees will be assigned the responsibility of issuing smart cards and updating member records.

Our resorts typically employ people in the following positions: ski lift operator, ski patrol member, maintenance worker, kitchen worker, restaurant worker, front desk attendant, business administration specialist, equipment specialist, instructor, emergency staff member, marketing specialist, and manager.

Each position will have specific access privileges. We also want to customize desktop settings for each position. The resort is organized into five departments: hotel, restaurant, operations, maintenance, and business administration.

Because each resort is independently owned and managed, each one will want to be able to add applications that might uniquely change the directory schema. In addition, the resorts do not want any external companies or any other resort to have the authority to change user permissions for their employees. Nor do we need to have our internal domain replicated by means of our WAN line.

Our e-mail addresses need to be unique for each resort. Currently each resort has its own Web site. Each resort Web site is registered under its own domain. The DNS services for our top-level DNS domain will continue to be managed by our external Web presence provider. We do not want our internal Active Directory to remain on our external DNS server. The home page of our resort’s Web site will include a variety of information related to our resort.

We will provide a link from our Web site for members who want to update their records. This link will take our members to a member Web site that is hosted by skiinfoinc.com

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