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Friday 31 March 2017

MBEL Assignments: Contact us for solutions at assignmentssolution@gmail.com

MBEL-Optical Technology

 Optical Technology



Assignment A



Q1: What is the structure of an Optical Fiber? How does light propagate along a fiber?



Q2: Discuss the Signal Loss or attenuation mechanism in a fiber. What and to what degree does a signal get distorted as it travels along a fiber?



Q3: Discuss the differences between LEDs and LASER. Also discuss the properties that makes the LASER better than LEDs.



Q4: Discuss the implementation of typical WDM network and also discuss its various compenets in detail.



Q5: Discuss the four possible applications of optical amplifier. Of the various amplifiers types, which amplifier is the best and why?



Assignment - B

Q1: Discuss the architecture of SONET and SDH.Discuss its transmission format and Speeds.

Q2: Discuss Inter symbol Interfernce and Crosstalk in Optical Fibers.

Q3: Splices are permanent Joints and Connectors are temporary Joints.



Discuss the various types and the signal loss of each type of Permanent Joints and Connectors.

Case Study



Two SONET rings need to be interconnected at two mutual nodes in order to ensure redundant paths under failure conditions. Draw the interconnection between two bi-directional line-switched (BLSR) SONET rings showing the primary and secondary path setups that designate the signal flows under normal and failure conditions. In designing the interface, consider the following possible failure conditions of two mutual nodes:



a) Failure of a transmitter or receiver in one of the nodes.

b) Failure of an entire node

c) A fiber break in the link between the two nodes.



Assignment C



Q1. The 3-D shape of an Optical Fiber is

a. A cylinder rod

b. Rectangular

c. Square

d. Circle



Q2. The waves that travels through the fiber is

a. Electrical Wanes

b. Radio Waves

c. Light Waves

d. None of the above



Q3. Optical fiber are made up of

a. Sand & Glass

b. Conductor

c. Glass and Plastic

d. None of the Above



Q4. "Bare fibers" are having protection Sheath

a. Yes

b. No

c. Not sure

d. There is no such term



Q5. Can fibers be bent at right angles?

a. Yes

b. No

c. Not sure

d. There is no such term



Q6. The principle on which the optical fiber works is:

a. Total Internal Reflection

b. Critical Angle of Incidence

c. Angle of Inciddence

d. None of the Above



Q7. Transmission media are usually categorized as_______.

a.    fixed or unfixed

b.    guided or unguided

c.    determinate or indeterminate

d.   metallic or nonmetallic



Q8. Transmission media lie below the __________ layer.

a.    physical

b.    network

c.    transport

d.   application



Q9. ________cable consists of an inner copper core and a second conducting outer sheath.

a.    Twisted-pair

b.    Coaxial

c.    Fiber-optic

d.   Shielded twisted-pair



Q10. In fiber optics, the signal is _______ waves.

a.    light

b.    radio

c.    infrared

d.   very low-frequency



Q11. Which of the following primarily uses guided media?

a.    cellular telephone system

b.    local telephone system

c.    satellite communications

d.   radio broadcasting



Q12. Which of the following is not a guided medium?

a.    twisted-pair cable

b.    coaxial cable

c.    fiber-optic cable

d.   atmosphere



Q13. What is the major factor that makes coaxial cable less susceptible to noise than twisted-pair cable?

a.    inner conductor

b.    diameter of cable

c.    outer conductor

d.   insulating material



Q14. In an optical fiber, the inner core is the ________cladding.

a.    denser than

b.    less dense than

c.    the same density as

d.   another name for



Q15. The inner core of an optical fiber is in _________composition.

a)      glass or plastic

b)      copper

c)      bimetallic

d)      liquid



Q16. When a beam of light travels through media of two different densities, if the angle of incidence is greater than the critical angle, ___________occurs.

a.    reflection

b.    refraction

c.    incidence

d.   criticism



Q17. When the angle of incidence is ___________ the critical angle, the light beam bends along the interface

a.    more than

b.    less than

c.    equal to

d.   none of the above



Q18. Signals with a frequency below 2 MHz use _______propagation.

a.    ground

b.    sky

c.    line-of-sight

d.   none of the above



Q19. _________cable consists of two insulated copper wires twisted together.

a.    Coaxial

b.    Fiber-optic

c.    Twisted-pair

d.   none of the above



Q20. _________cable is used for voice and data communications.

a.    Coaxial

b.    Fiber-optic

c.    Twisted-pair

d.   none of the above



Q21. ________cable can carry signals of higher frequency ranges than ____cable.

a.    Twisted-pair; fiber-optic

b.    Coaxial; fiber-optic

c.    Coaxial; twisted-pair

d.   none of the above



Q22. _____cables are composed of a glass or plastic inner core surrounded by cladding, all encased in an outside jacket.

a.    Coaxial

b.    Fiber-optic

c.    Twisted-pair

d.   none of the above



Q23. ______cables carry data signals in the form of light.

a.    Coaxial

b.    Fiber-optic

c.    Twisted-pair

d.   none of the above.



Q24. Transmission media are usually categorized as

a.    Fixed or unfixed

b.    Guided or unguided

c.    Determinate or indeterminate

d.   Metallic or nonmetallic



Q25. Transmission media are closest to the ______layer.

a.    Physical

b.    Network

c.    Transport

d.   Application



Q26. Category 1 UTP cable is most often used in ______networks.

a.    Fast Ethernet

b.    Traditional Ethernet

c.    Infrared

d.   Telephone



Q27. BNC connectors are used by_______cables

a.    UTP

b.    STP

c.    Coaxial

d.   Fiber-optic.



Q28. ________cable consists of an inner copper core and a second conducting outer sheath.

a.    Twisted-pair

b.    Coaxial

c.    Fiber-optic

d.   Shielded twisted-pair Dr. Gihan NAGUIB 2



Q29. In fiber optics, the signal source is________waves

a.    Light

b.    Radio

c.    Infrared

d.   Very low-frequency



Q30. Smoke signals are an example of communication through_________

a.    A guided medium

b.    An unguided medium

c.    A refractive medium

d.   A small or large medium



Q31. Which of the following primarily uses guided media?

a.    Cellular telephone system

b.    Local telephone system

c.    Satellite communications

d.   Radio broadcasting



Q32. Which of the following is not a guided medium?

a.    Twisted-pair cable

b.    Coaxial cable

c.    Fiber-optic cable

d.   Atmosphere



Q33. In an environment with many high-voltage devices, the best transmission medium would be__________

a.    Twisted-pair cable

b.    Coaxial cable

c.    Optical fiber

d.   The atmosphere



Q34. What is the major factor that makes coaxial cable less susceptible to noise than twisted-pair cable?

a.    Inner conductor

b.    Diameter of cable

c.    Outer conductor

d.   Insulating material



Q35. The RG number gives us information about

a.    Twisted pairs

b.    Coaxial cables

c.    Optical fibers

d.   All the above



Q36. In an optical fiber, the inner core is the ___________cladding.

a.    Denser than

b.    Less dense than

c.    The same density as

d.   Another name for



Q37. The inner core of an optical fiber is in composition.

a.    Glass or plastic

b.    Copper

c.    Bimetallic

d.   Liquid



Q39. Optical fibers, unlike wire media, are highly resistant to

a.    High-frequency transmission

b.    Low-frequency transmission

c.    Electromagnetic interference

d.   Refraction



Q40. When the angle of incidence is __________the critical angle, the light beam bends along the interface

a.    More than

b.    Less than

c.    Equal to

d.   None of the above

Thursday 30 March 2017

MBEL Assignments: Contact us for solutions at assignmentssolution@gmail.com

MBEL-Network Planning and Design

 Network Planning and Design



PART - A



Q1. What is the use of Project Management Techniques. Explain PERT/CPM in NPD.

Q2. Discuss Queuing Theory and explain M/M/l and M/M/N Queue models.

Q3. Write note on

A)-Phases of Network Planning and Design. B)-Network Environment.

Q4. What is Delay? What type of Delays is possible in Switches and how you take care of delays when you are designing a Network? In a fully connect topology with n nodes how many links are possible?

Q5. Discuss Centralized and Distributed networks.



PART - B

Q1 Describe RMA. If for a network system MTBF is 5 unit time and MTTR is 1 unit time then find out the availability.

Q2 What is the use of trade off s in Network Design. Discuss Cost and Time trade off and Hierarchical and Interconnectivity trade off.

Q3 Describe single server queue and write the relationship between arrival rate mean service time and utilization.



Case Study

In the modern world, planning efficient routes is essential for business and industry, with applications as varied as product distribution, laying new fiber optic lines for broadband internet, and suggesting new friends within social network websites like Facebook.

This field of mathematics started nearly 300 years ago as a look into a mathematical puzzle (we'll look at it in a bit). The field has exploded in importance in the last century, both because of the growing complexity of business in a global economy and because of the computational power that computers have provided us.

In mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of graphs:   A "graph" in this context refers to a collection of vertices or 'nodes' and a collection of edges that connect pairs of vertices.



Case Study Questions

What is the use of graph theory for designing of efficient routing protocols? Discuss minimum spanning tree and explain Prim's algorithm by taking suitable example.





Assignment - C



1. During the analysis phase, the project team:

a)   describes the functional features of the system chosen for development in the previous phase

b)   studies the organization's current procedures and the information systems used to perform organizational tasks

c)   determines the scope of the proposed systems and produces a specific plan for the proposed project

d)   codes, tests, and installs the new system



2. Network analysis, architecture, and design are processes used to produce designs that are logical

a)   logical

b)   reproducible

c)   defensible

d)   All of the above



3. Network design is also about applying

a)   the trade-offs

b)   dependencies

c)   constraints developed as part of the network architecture.

d)   All of the above



4. The various sources of delay are

a)   propagation,

b)   transmission,

c)   queuing

d)   None of the above



5. Which of the following are performance characteristics of Services?

Ø  Capacity

Ø  Delay

Ø  RMA

Ø  All of the above



6. The post implementation phases of a network's life cycle can be broken into

a)   Operations

b)   Maintenance

c)   Human knowledge

d)   None of the above



7. The key characteristics of a network architecture and design that affect the post implementation costs are

a)   Network and system reliability

b)   Network and system maintainability

c)   Training of the operators to stay within operational constraints

d)   All of the above



8. The terms are associated with capacity are

a)   Bandwidth

b)   throughput,

c)   goodput.

d)   All of the above



9. A threshold is a value for

a)   a performance

b)   a delay

c)   a reliability

d)   none of the above



10. The network behaviour describes with help of

a)   delay (end-to-end and round-trip)

b)   latency

c)   delay variation

d)   All of the above



11. Devices can act as both data sources and sinks, depending on the application and flow. Which of the following devices (for the applications given) are data sinks?

a)   A storage device receiving streaming video from a camera

b)   A video editing unit, using video from the storage device in (a)

c)   A Web server and its clients

d)   A storage disk farm



12. Which flow models apply to each set of flows described below?

a)   Users on the Internet accessing the same Web server

b)   Forty workstations processing batch jobs overnight, managed by a central mainframe

c)   Email use across the Internet

d)   A transaction-processing application, authorizing credit card transactions between a company's retail stores and its headquarters



13. Flow specifications describe flows

a)   best-effort

b)   predictable

c)   guaranteed requirements

d)   All of the above



14. Flow model based on the relationship between

a)   the task manager

b)   the computing devices

c)   what the task is

d)   None of the above



15. Some common approaches to identifying flows include:

a)   Focusing on a particular application

b)   application group

c)   device or function

d)   None of the above



16. Flows are becoming increasingly important in the fields including

a)   Analysis

b)   Architecture

c)   design processes

d)   Data process



17. Flowspec has a different level of detail, based on whether the flows have

a)   best-effort

b)   predictable

c)   guaranteed requirements.

d)   All of the above



18. A service plan describes network performance in terms of

a)   Capacity

b)   Delay

c)   RMA

d)   All of the above



19. The primary characteristics of flow models are

a)   Directionality

b)   Hierarchy

c)   diversity

d)   None of the above



20. The most favourable solution to non-uniform demand is probably to:

a.    Always maintain excess capacity

b.    Hire or lay off workers as required

c.    Use overtime or part-time workers

d.   Employ a mixed capacity management plan



21. Capacity is usually expressed in terms of:

a.    The Master Production Schedule

b.    A production forecast

c.    Potential output from an operations system

d.   The design life of an operations process



22. The maximum output of a system in a given period is called:

a.    The designed capacity

b.    The master production schedule

c.    The economic order quantity

d.   The production efficiency



23. The first steps of capacity planning and control do not include:

a.    Measuring aggregate demand and capacity?

b.    Identifying the alternative capacity plans?

c.    Studying the effect of queueing theory

d.   Choosing the most appropriate capacity plan?



24. Which of the following is not one of the assumptions of an M/M/l model?

a)   Arrivals are independent of preceding arrivals but the arrival rate does not change over time.

b)   Arrivals are served on a last-in, first-served basis.

c)   Service times follow the negative exponential probability distribution.

d)   Arrivals follow the Poisson distribution and come from an infinite population.



25. The utilization factor for a system represents

a)   the steady state average waiting time.

b)   the probability that no one is in the system.

c)   the probability that the service facility is being used.

d)   the average number of customers in the queue.



26. At the start of football season, the ticket office gets very busy the day before the first game. Customers arrive at the rate of four every ten minutes. The customer would be better off if the stadium employed

a)   a single ticket seller who could service a customer in two minutes.

b)   two ticket sellers each of whom could service a customer in three minutes.

c)   The two situations produce the same wait times.

d)   All of the above.



27. The minimal-spanning tree technique would best be used

a)   by an architect to lay out corridors between offices in a new office building.

b)   by a telephone company attempting to lay out wires in a new housing development.

c)   by an airline laying out flight routes.

d)   all of the above.



28. The maximal-flow technique might be used

a)   to help design the moving sidewalks transporting passengers from one terminal to another in a busy airport.

b)   by someone designing the traffic approaches to an airport.

c)   by someone attempting to design roads which would limit the flow of traffic through an area.

d)   none of the above.



29. Small size network problems can usually be solved by

a)   the simplex method.

b)   Inspection

c)   calculus and advanced sophisticated techniques.

d)   none of the above



30. A tree is

a)   any graph that is connected and every edge is a bridge.

b)   any graph that has no circuits.

c)   any graph with one component.

d)   any graph that has no bridges.



31. The Gantt Chart is used to:

a)   control cost of all the activities.

b)   provide a schedule of the activities .

c)   track the cost of the activities.

d)   provide a schedule and track costs of activities.



32. The critical path in a network of activities:

a)   will be the path with the most number of activities.

b)   must have at least three activities.

c)   will always have all activities with positive slack.

d)   cannot be delayed or else the entire project will be delayed.

33. Which of the following statements is true?

a)   PERT and CPM are both probabilistic techniques.

b)   PERT is considered as a probabilistic techniques and CPM is considered as a deterministic approach.

c)   PERT and CPM are both considered as deterministic approaches.

d)   PERT is considered as a deterministic approach and CPM is a probabilistic techniques.



34. The immediate predecessors of any node in a project network drawn as a AON diagram:

a)   may be one or more node(s).

b)   may be two or more nodes.

c)   is always only one node.

d)   may be no nodes to many nodes.



35. The standard deviation for a PERT diagram is calculated by:

a)   taking the sum of the standard deviations on the nodes on the critical path.

b)   taking the sum of the variances on the nodes on the critical path, then find the square root.

c)   taking the sum of the variance on all the nodes, then find the square root.

d)   taking the sum of the standard deviations on all the nodes.



36. Which of the following can shorten the duration of an activity or project?

a)   Overtime

b)   Subcontracting

c)   Hiring extra labour

d)   All answers are correct.



37. Which of the following statements is true?

a)   The EFT for an activity is equal to the EST minus the slack for that activity.

b)   Dummy activities do not require any resources.

c)   When considering the possible crashing of a project, the normal time equals the length of the shortest path prior to any crashes.

d)   For the beta distribution, m will always be exactly in the middle of a and b.



38. An expected project completion time follows a normal distribution with a mean of 21 days and a standard deviation of 4 days. What is the probability that the project will be completed in a time between 22 to 25 days inclusive?

a)   0.8413

b)   0.7734

c)   0.0819

d)   0.2426



39. The latest finish time for an activity:

a)   equals the min. of LFT - t for all immediate successors.

b)   equals the min. of EST + t for all immediate successors.

c)   equals the max. of LFT -1 for all immediate predecessors.

d)   equals the max. of EST + t for all immediate predecessors.



40. Which of the following statements is true?

a)   The variance of the time taken to complete an activity is equal to (b - a)/6.

b)   Three time estimates are necessary so that we can estimate the parameters of the Beta distribution.

c)   The standard deviation of a project completion time is the sum of the standard deviations for the critical path activities.

d)   The critical path is the path with the largest probability of being completed on time

Wednesday 29 March 2017

MBEL Assignments: Contact us for solutions at assignmentssolution@gmail.com

MBEL-Fundamental of Computer System

 Fundamental of Computer System

Part - A

Question 1): What is a computer? Write in your words how you have experienced in your day to work and life

Question 2): Write any two characteristics of computer comparing the advantageous factor with traditional way of doing the particular task.

Question 3): Name any two input devices and one I/O device which works as data input as well output in same device

Question 4): What is secondary memory? Name three secondary storage devices compare them based upon the capacity and access speed.

Question 5): What is meant by operating system?





Part - B

Question 1: What is Computer network Explain Wide Area Network (WAN). Research on Cloud Computing

Question 2: Write a note on future generation computers. Write the applications of those computers in business.

Question 3: Define RAM and ROM Optical media. Spread sheet functions. Computer virus E-mail.

Part - C



1) The access method used for magnetic tape is____

a) Direct

b) Random

c) Sequential

d) None of the above



2) By Processing we understand__________

a) Processing string of only words

b) None of the above

c) String manipulation only

d) Processing string of numbers and special symbols



3) The difference between memory and storage is that the memory is___ and storage is____________________

a) Temporary, permanent

b) Permanent, temporary

c) Slow, fast

d) None of the above



4)   Which of the Following holds the ROM, CPU, RAM and expansion cards?

a) Hard disk

b) Floppy disk

c) Mother board

d) None of the above



5)       The language that the computer can understand and execute is called

a) Machine language

b) Application software

c) System program

d) None of the above



6)       Which of the following devices can be used to directly input printed text a) OCR

b) OMR

c) MICR

d) None of the above



7)       A floppy disk contains

a) Circular tracks only

b) Sectors only

c) Both circular tracks and sectors

d) None of the above



8) CD-ROM is a

a) Semiconductor memory

b) Memory register

c) Magnetic memory

d) None of the above



9) Actual execution of instructions in a computer takes place in
a) ALU

b) Control Unit

c) Storage unit

d) None of the above



10)     Which of the following is used as a primary storage device
a) Magnetic tape

b) PROM

c) Floppy disk

d) None of the above



11) Information retrieval is faster from

a) Floppy disk

b) Magnetic tape

c) Hard disk

d) None of the above



12) Operating system is

a)   A collection of hardware components

b)   A collection of software routines

c)   A collection of input-output devices

d)   none of the above



13) Operating system

a)   Link a program with the subroutines it references

b)  Provides a layered, user-friendly interface

c)       Enables a programmer to draw a flowchart

d)      None of the above



14) Execution of two or more programs by a single CPU is known as:
a) Multiprocessing

b) Time sharing

c) Multiprogramming

d)      None of the above



15) Modem stands for

a) A type of secondary memory

b) Modulator demodulator

c) Mainframe operating device memory

d) None of the above

16) Typical data transfer rate in LAN are of the order of

(a) Bits per sec

(b) Kilo bits per sec

(c) Mega bits per sec

(d) None of the above



17) Ethernet uses

(a) Bus topology

(b) Ring topology

(c) Mesh topology

(d) None of the above



18) Wide area networks (WANs) always require

(a) High bandwidth communication source link

(b) High speed processors

(c) Same type

(d) None of the above



19) Typical bandwidth of optical fibers is

(a) Order of GHz

(b) Order of KHz

(c) Order of Hz

(d) None of the above



20) A large number of computers in a wide geographical area can be efficiently connected by

(a) Twisted pair lines

(b) Coaxial cables

(c) Communications satellites

(d) None of the above



21) Which of the following topologies is not of broadcast type ?

(a) Star

(b) Bus

(c) Ring

(d) None of the above



22) Bug means

(a) A logical error in a program

(b) Documenting programs using an efficient Documentation too

(c) A difficult syntax error in a program

(d) None of the above



23) The part of machine level instruction, which tells the central processor what was to be Done is

(a) Operation code

(b) Address

(c) Operand

(d) None of the above



24) Indicate which, of the following is not true about 4GL.

a) 4GL does not support a high -level of screen interaction

b) Many database management system packages support 4GLs

c) A 4GL is a software tool which is written, possibly, in some third generation language

d) None of the above



25) Indicate which of the following, best describes the term "software"

a)Systems programs only

b)Application programs only

c)Both (a) and (b)

d)None of the above



26) A translator is best described as

a) An Application software

b) A system software

c) A hardware component

d) None of the above



27) Indicate which of the following is not true about an interpreter

a) Interpreter generates an object program from the source program

b) Interpreter is a kind of translator

c) Interpreter analyses each source statement every time it is to be executed

d) None of the above



28) The errors that can be pointed out by the compiler are

a)Syntax errors

b)Semantic errors

c)Logical errors

d)None of the above



29) C is

a) An assembly language

b) A third generation high level language

c) A machine language

d) None of the above



30) A graph prepared by a computer

a) is its output

b) is the piece of information to use

c)is a hard copy

d) all of the above



31) Which of the following does not represent on I/O device

a) speaker which beeps

b) joystick

c) plotter

d) ALU



32) The communication line between the CPU, memory and peripherals is called

a) Bus

b) line

c) media

d) none of these



33) Memories which can be read only are called memories

a) RAM

b) ROM (read only memory)

c) PROM

d) EPROM



34) Example of non-numerical data is

a) Employee address

b) Examination score

c) Bank balance

d) None of the above



35) One thousand bytes represent a

a) Megabyte

b) Gigabyte

c) Kilobyte

d) None of the above



36) The language that the computer can understand and execute is called

a) Machine language

b) Application software

c) System program

d) None of the above



37) A step by step procedure used to solve a problem is called

a) Operating system

b) Algorithm

c) Application Program

d) None of the above



38) Which of the following holds the ROM, CPU, RAM and expansion cards?

a) Hard disk

b) Cache memory

c) Mother board

d) None of the above



39) The errors that can be pointed out by the compiler are

a) Syntax errors

b) Semantic errors

c) Logical errors

d) None of the above



40) A computer cannot "boot" if it does not have the

a) Compiler

b) Loader

c) Operating system

d) Assembler

Tuesday 28 March 2017

MBEL Assignments: Contact us for solutions at assignmentssolution@gmail.com

MBEL-Emerging Technologies
 Emerging Technologies



Assignment A:



Question 1: What are the benefits of using multiple HBAs on a host?

Question 2: Why do formatted disks have less capacity than unformatted disks?

Question 3: How can a block-level virtualization implementation be used as a data migration tool?

Question 4: The marketing department at a mid-size firm is expanding. New hires are being added to the department and they are given network access to the department's files. IT has given marketing a networked drive on the LAN, but it keeps reaching capacity every third week. Current capacity is 500 gigabytes (and growing), with hundreds of files. Users are complaining about LAN response times and capacity. As the IT manager, what could you recommend to improve the situation?

Question 5: An application specifies a requirement of 200 GB to host a database and other files. It also specifies that the storage environment should support 5,000 IOPS during its peak processing cycle. The disks available for configuration provide 66 GB of usable capacity, and the manufacturer specifies that they can support a maximum of 140 IOPS. The application is response time sensitive and disk utilization beyond 60 percent will not meet the response time requirements of the application. Compute and explain the theoretical basis for the minimum number of disks that should be configured to meet the requirements of the application.



Assignment B:

Question 1: A large company is considering a storage infrastructure-one that is scalable and provides high availability. More importantly, the company also needs performance for its mission-critical applications. Which storage topology would you recommend (SAN, NAS, IP SAN) and why?

Question 2: An application has 1,000 heavy users at a peak of 2 IOPS each and 2,000 typical users at a peak of 1 IOPS each, with a read/write ratio of 2:1. It is estimated that the application also experiences an overhead of 20 percent for other workloads. Calculate the IOPS requirement for RAID 1, RAID 3, and RAID 5.

Question 3: To access data in a SAN, a host uses a physical address known as a logical block address (LBA). A host using a CAS device does not use (or need) a physical address. Why?







Assignment - C



Q1. Which cache management algorithm is based on the assumption that data will not be requested by the host when it has not been accessed for a while?

A. LRU

B. HWM

C. LWM

D. MRU



Q2. What does the area ID of the FC address identify?

A. Group of ports within a switch

B. An individual port within a fabric

C. Location of the name server within the fabric

D. Unique number provided to each switch in the fabric



Q3. An organization performs copy on first access (CoFA) replication to create a local replica of application data. To perform a successful restore, what should be considered?

A. Source devices must be healthy

B. Save location size must be larger than the size of all source devices

C. Save location size must be equa l to the size of all source devices

D. All changes to the source and replica must be discarded before the restore starts



Q4. Which host component eliminates the need to deploy separate adapters for FC and Ethernet communications?

A. Converged network adapter

B. TCP Offload Engine NIC

C. FCIP bridging adapter

D. iSCSI host bus adapter



Q5. What is a function of unified management software in cloud computing?

A. Defining cloud service attributes

B. Consolidating infrastructure resources scattered across one or more data centers

C. Metering based on usage of resources by the consumer

D. Providing an interface to consumers to request cloud services



Q6. Which EMC product provides the capability to recover data up to any point-in-time?

A. RecoverPoint

B. NetWorker

C. Avamar

D. Data Domain



Q7. What is needed to perform a non-disruptive migration of virtual machines (VMs) between hypervisors?

A. Hypervisors must have access to the same storage volume

B. Physical machines running hypervisors must have the same configuration

C. Hypervisors must be running within the same physical machine

D. Both hypervisors must have the same IP address



Q8. Which iSCSI name requires an organization to own a registered domain name?

A. IQN

B. EUI

C. WWNN

D. WWPN



Q9. Which data center requirement refers to applying mechanisms that ensure data is stored and retrieved as it was received?

A. Integrity

B. Availability

C. Security

D. Performance



Q10. What describes a landing zone in a disk drive?

A. Area on which the read/write head rests

B. Area where the read/write head lands to access data

C. Area where the data is buffered before writing to platters

D. Area where sector-specific information is stored on the disk



Q11. Clients use which protocol to discover SMI Agents on Storage Area Network?

a. SLP (Service Location Protocol)

b. AGP(Agent Discovery Protocol)

c. SMIP (SMI Protocol)



Q12. __________ is the capability to continue as if nothing has happened, even after a major component failure.

A) redundancy

B) interoperability

C) fault tolerance

D) backup



Q13. Striping with parity is also known as RAID __________.

A) 0

B) 1

C) 4

D) 6



Q14. A storage device that is connected directly to a network is an example of __________.

A) network attached storage

B) storage area network

C) direct attached storage

D) RAID



Q15. Identify a network file protocol in the below mentioned set.

a. FC

b. CIFS

c. SCSI

d. NAS



Q16. More than one of the same component is an example of a __________ system.

A) scalable

B) redundant

C) RAID

D) back-up



Q17. Which one of the below is measured by MTBF?

a. Tolerance

b. Life time

c. Reliability

d. Quality



Q18. The purpose of backup is:

a. To restore a computer to an operational state following a disaster

b. To restore small numbers of files after they have been accidentally deleted

c. Is to free space in the primary storage

d. None of the above

Answer: Both A & B



Q19. Backup of the source data can be created

a. On the same device

b. On another device

c. At some other location

d. All the above



Q20. Which of the following backup technique is most space efficient?

a. Full backup

b. Incremental backup

c. Differential backup

Q21. Which of the following statements are true?

a. Data can be recovered fastest in online backup

b. Tape library is an example of nearline storage

c. Data recovery can take hours for offline backup

d. All the above



Q22. Which of the following qualifies as best DR (Disaster Recovery) site?

a. DR site in the same campus

b. DR site in the same city

c. DR site in the same country

d. DR site in a different country



Q23. In SAN storage model, the operating system view storage resources as —— devices

a. FC

b. SCSI

c. SAN

d. None of the above



Q24. To decide on a backup strategy for your organization, which of the following should you consider?

a. RPO (Recovery Point Objective)

b. RTO (Recovery Time Objective)

c. Both RPO & RTO

d. None of the above



Q25. Which of the following can be used for reducing recovery time?

a. Automatic failover

b. By taking backup on a faster device

c. Taking multiple backups – one in same location, another at different location

d. All the above



Q26. Which storage technology requires downtime to add new hard disk capacity

a. DAS

b. SAN

c. NAS

d. None of the above



Q27. Which of the following is Backup software?

a. Amanda

b. Bacula

c. IBM Tivoli Storage Manager

d. All the above



Q28. Data protection is required to recover from

a. Disk/System failures

b. Software corruption through virus

c. Human errors

d. All the above



Q29. The challenges for data protection are

a. Taking care of the old data

b. Backing up the dynamic data

c. All the above



Q30. Name the mechanism which provides the highest level of data protection

a. RAID 0

b. RAID 1

c. RAID 6



Q31. Disk controller driver in DAS architecture is replaced in SAN either with ——

a. FC Protocol

b. iSCSI

c. TCP/IP stack

d. Any one of the above



Q32. The drawback of data mirroring is

a. Backing up the data

b. Performance degradation

c. Difficulty involved in configuring the mirrored volume



Q33. With reference to Volume Manager, is the following statement TRUE or FALSE under specific configuration?

- Volume manager provides protection against multiple disk failures

a. True

b. False



Q34. Which are all the statements valid statements w.r.t volume manager

a. Achieve protection against single/multiple disk failures

b. Sustain system/node failure

c. Get better performance compared to using individual disk

d. All the above



Q35. Point out the false statement. Volume can

a. Span across different partitions/disks

b. Span across different disk arrays

c. Be created on tape device

d. Be a shared volume



Q36. Identify the correct statements w.r.t. Journal File System (JFS)

a. JFS keeps pointers to all the stale data

b. While recovering data on a system, JFS helps in quicker recovery

c. All the above



Q37. Which topology is best suited for medium sized enterprise.

a. NAS

b. SAN

c. DAS



Q38. What is the most basic level of storage

a. SAN

b. DAS

c. NAS

d. ISCSI



Q39. Which three statements describe differences between Storage Area Network (SAN) and Network Attached Storage (NAS) solutions? Choose three.

a. SAN is generally more expensive but provides higher performance

b. NAS uses TCP/IP for communication between hosts and the NAS server

c. NAS requires additional hardware on a host: a host bus adapter for connectivity

d. SAN uses proprietary protocols for communication between hosts and the SAN fabric



Q40. Demerits of DAS are. Choose two.

a. Interconnect limited to 10km

b. Excessive network traffic

c. Distance limitations

d. Inability to share data with other servers

Monday 27 March 2017

ISBM Assignments: Contact us for solutions at assignmentssolution@gmail.com

MBEL-Emerging Technologies
 Emerging Technologies



Assignment A:



Question 1: What are the benefits of using multiple HBAs on a host?

Question 2: Why do formatted disks have less capacity than unformatted disks?

Question 3: How can a block-level virtualization implementation be used as a data migration tool?

Question 4: The marketing department at a mid-size firm is expanding. New hires are being added to the department and they are given network access to the department's files. IT has given marketing a networked drive on the LAN, but it keeps reaching capacity every third week. Current capacity is 500 gigabytes (and growing), with hundreds of files. Users are complaining about LAN response times and capacity. As the IT manager, what could you recommend to improve the situation?

Question 5: An application specifies a requirement of 200 GB to host a database and other files. It also specifies that the storage environment should support 5,000 IOPS during its peak processing cycle. The disks available for configuration provide 66 GB of usable capacity, and the manufacturer specifies that they can support a maximum of 140 IOPS. The application is response time sensitive and disk utilization beyond 60 percent will not meet the response time requirements of the application. Compute and explain the theoretical basis for the minimum number of disks that should be configured to meet the requirements of the application.



Assignment B:

Question 1: A large company is considering a storage infrastructure-one that is scalable and provides high availability. More importantly, the company also needs performance for its mission-critical applications. Which storage topology would you recommend (SAN, NAS, IP SAN) and why?

Question 2: An application has 1,000 heavy users at a peak of 2 IOPS each and 2,000 typical users at a peak of 1 IOPS each, with a read/write ratio of 2:1. It is estimated that the application also experiences an overhead of 20 percent for other workloads. Calculate the IOPS requirement for RAID 1, RAID 3, and RAID 5.

Question 3: To access data in a SAN, a host uses a physical address known as a logical block address (LBA). A host using a CAS device does not use (or need) a physical address. Why?







Assignment - C



Q1. Which cache management algorithm is based on the assumption that data will not be requested by the host when it has not been accessed for a while?

A. LRU

B. HWM

C. LWM

D. MRU



Q2. What does the area ID of the FC address identify?

A. Group of ports within a switch

B. An individual port within a fabric

C. Location of the name server within the fabric

D. Unique number provided to each switch in the fabric



Q3. An organization performs copy on first access (CoFA) replication to create a local replica of application data. To perform a successful restore, what should be considered?

A. Source devices must be healthy

B. Save location size must be larger than the size of all source devices

C. Save location size must be equa l to the size of all source devices

D. All changes to the source and replica must be discarded before the restore starts



Q4. Which host component eliminates the need to deploy separate adapters for FC and Ethernet communications?

A. Converged network adapter

B. TCP Offload Engine NIC

C. FCIP bridging adapter

D. iSCSI host bus adapter



Q5. What is a function of unified management software in cloud computing?

A. Defining cloud service attributes

B. Consolidating infrastructure resources scattered across one or more data centers

C. Metering based on usage of resources by the consumer

D. Providing an interface to consumers to request cloud services



Q6. Which EMC product provides the capability to recover data up to any point-in-time?

A. RecoverPoint

B. NetWorker

C. Avamar

D. Data Domain



Q7. What is needed to perform a non-disruptive migration of virtual machines (VMs) between hypervisors?

A. Hypervisors must have access to the same storage volume

B. Physical machines running hypervisors must have the same configuration

C. Hypervisors must be running within the same physical machine

D. Both hypervisors must have the same IP address



Q8. Which iSCSI name requires an organization to own a registered domain name?

A. IQN

B. EUI

C. WWNN

D. WWPN



Q9. Which data center requirement refers to applying mechanisms that ensure data is stored and retrieved as it was received?

A. Integrity

B. Availability

C. Security

D. Performance



Q10. What describes a landing zone in a disk drive?

A. Area on which the read/write head rests

B. Area where the read/write head lands to access data

C. Area where the data is buffered before writing to platters

D. Area where sector-specific information is stored on the disk



Q11. Clients use which protocol to discover SMI Agents on Storage Area Network?

a. SLP (Service Location Protocol)

b. AGP(Agent Discovery Protocol)

c. SMIP (SMI Protocol)



Q12. __________ is the capability to continue as if nothing has happened, even after a major component failure.

A) redundancy

B) interoperability

C) fault tolerance

D) backup



Q13. Striping with parity is also known as RAID __________.

A) 0

B) 1

C) 4

D) 6



Q14. A storage device that is connected directly to a network is an example of __________.

A) network attached storage

B) storage area network

C) direct attached storage

D) RAID



Q15. Identify a network file protocol in the below mentioned set.

a. FC

b. CIFS

c. SCSI

d. NAS



Q16. More than one of the same component is an example of a __________ system.

A) scalable

B) redundant

C) RAID

D) back-up



Q17. Which one of the below is measured by MTBF?

a. Tolerance

b. Life time

c. Reliability

d. Quality



Q18. The purpose of backup is:

a. To restore a computer to an operational state following a disaster

b. To restore small numbers of files after they have been accidentally deleted

c. Is to free space in the primary storage

d. None of the above

Answer: Both A & B



Q19. Backup of the source data can be created

a. On the same device

b. On another device

c. At some other location

d. All the above



Q20. Which of the following backup technique is most space efficient?

a. Full backup

b. Incremental backup

c. Differential backup

Q21. Which of the following statements are true?

a. Data can be recovered fastest in online backup

b. Tape library is an example of nearline storage

c. Data recovery can take hours for offline backup

d. All the above



Q22. Which of the following qualifies as best DR (Disaster Recovery) site?

a. DR site in the same campus

b. DR site in the same city

c. DR site in the same country

d. DR site in a different country



Q23. In SAN storage model, the operating system view storage resources as —— devices

a. FC

b. SCSI

c. SAN

d. None of the above



Q24. To decide on a backup strategy for your organization, which of the following should you consider?

a. RPO (Recovery Point Objective)

b. RTO (Recovery Time Objective)

c. Both RPO & RTO

d. None of the above



Q25. Which of the following can be used for reducing recovery time?

a. Automatic failover

b. By taking backup on a faster device

c. Taking multiple backups – one in same location, another at different location

d. All the above



Q26. Which storage technology requires downtime to add new hard disk capacity

a. DAS

b. SAN

c. NAS

d. None of the above



Q27. Which of the following is Backup software?

a. Amanda

b. Bacula

c. IBM Tivoli Storage Manager

d. All the above



Q28. Data protection is required to recover from

a. Disk/System failures

b. Software corruption through virus

c. Human errors

d. All the above



Q29. The challenges for data protection are

a. Taking care of the old data

b. Backing up the dynamic data

c. All the above



Q30. Name the mechanism which provides the highest level of data protection

a. RAID 0

b. RAID 1

c. RAID 6



Q31. Disk controller driver in DAS architecture is replaced in SAN either with ——

a. FC Protocol

b. iSCSI

c. TCP/IP stack

d. Any one of the above



Q32. The drawback of data mirroring is

a. Backing up the data

b. Performance degradation

c. Difficulty involved in configuring the mirrored volume



Q33. With reference to Volume Manager, is the following statement TRUE or FALSE under specific configuration?

- Volume manager provides protection against multiple disk failures

a. True

b. False



Q34. Which are all the statements valid statements w.r.t volume manager

a. Achieve protection against single/multiple disk failures

b. Sustain system/node failure

c. Get better performance compared to using individual disk

d. All the above



Q35. Point out the false statement. Volume can

a. Span across different partitions/disks

b. Span across different disk arrays

c. Be created on tape device

d. Be a shared volume



Q36. Identify the correct statements w.r.t. Journal File System (JFS)

a. JFS keeps pointers to all the stale data

b. While recovering data on a system, JFS helps in quicker recovery

c. All the above



Q37. Which topology is best suited for medium sized enterprise.

a. NAS

b. SAN

c. DAS



Q38. What is the most basic level of storage

a. SAN

b. DAS

c. NAS

d. ISCSI



Q39. Which three statements describe differences between Storage Area Network (SAN) and Network Attached Storage (NAS) solutions? Choose three.

a. SAN is generally more expensive but provides higher performance

b. NAS uses TCP/IP for communication between hosts and the NAS server

c. NAS requires additional hardware on a host: a host bus adapter for connectivity

d. SAN uses proprietary protocols for communication between hosts and the SAN fabric



Q40. Demerits of DAS are. Choose two.

a. Interconnect limited to 10km

b. Excessive network traffic

c. Distance limitations

d. Inability to share data with other servers

Sunday 26 March 2017

ISBM Assignments: Contact us for solutions at assignmentssolution@gmail.com

Marketing Management-ISBM



MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Case-1

The use of the marketing mix in product launch

Introduction

NIVEA® is an established name in high quality skin and beauty care products. It is part of a range of brands produced and sold by Beiersdorf. Beiersdorf, founded in 1882, has grown to be a global company specialising in skin and beauty care.

In the UK, Beiersdorf s continuing goal is to have its products as close as possible to its consumers, regardless of where they live. Its aims are to understand its consumers in its many different markets and delight them with innovative products for their skin and beauty care needs. This strengthens the trust and appeal of Beiersdorf brands. The business prides itself on being consumer-led and this focus has helped it to grow NIVEA into one of the largest skin care brands in the world.

Beiersdorf s continuing programme of market research showed a gap in the market. This led to the launch of NIVEA VISAGE® Young in 2005 as part of the NIVEA VISAGE range offering a comprehensive selection of products aimed at young women. It carries the strength of the NIVEA brand image to the target market of girls aged 13-19. NIVEA VISAGE Young helps girls to develop a proper skin care routine to help keep their skin looking healthy and beautiful.

The market can be developed by creating a good product/range and introducing it to the market (product-orientated approach) or by finding a gap in the market and developing a product to fill it (market-orientated approach). Having identified a gap in the market, Beiersdorf launched NIVEA VISAGE Young using an effective balance of the right product, price, promotion and place. This is known as the marketing mix or 'four Ps'. It is vital that a company gets the balance of these four elements correct so that a product will achieve its critical success factors. Beiersdorf needed to develop a mix that suited the product and the target market as well as meeting its own business objectives.

The company re-launched the NIVEA VISAGE Young range in June 2007 further optimising its position in the market. Optimised means the product had a new formula, new design, new packaging and a new name. This case study shows how a carefully balanced marketing mix provides the platform for launching and re-launching a brand onto the market.

Product:

The first stage in building an effective mix is to understand the market. NIVEA uses market research to target key market segments which identifies groups of people with the same characteristics such as age/gender/attitude/lifestyle. The knowledge and understanding from the research helps in the development of new products. NIVEA carries out its market research with consumers in a number of different ways. These include:

• using focus groups to listen to consumers directly

• gathering data from consumers through a variety of different research techniques

• product testing with consumers in different markets.

Beiersdorf s market research identified that younger consumers wanted more specialised face care aimed at their own age group that offered a 'beautifying' benefit, rather than a solution to skin problems. NIVEA VISAGE Young is a skin care range targeted at girls who do not want medicated products but want a regime for their normal skin.

Competitor products tend to be problem focussed and offer medicated solutions. This gives NIVEA competitive advantage. NIVEA VISAGE Young provides a unique bridge between the teenage market and the adult market.

The company improved the product to make it more effective and more consumer-friendly. Beiersdorf tested the improved products on a sample group from its target audience before finalising the range for re-launch. This testing resulted in a number of changes to existing products. Improvements included:

•  Changing the formula of some products. For example, it removed alcohol from one product and used natural sea salts and minerals in others.

•  Introducing two completely new products.

•  A new modern pack design with a flower pattern and softer colours to appeal to younger women.

•  Changing product descriptions and introducing larger pack sizes.

Each of these changes helped to strengthen the product range, to better meet the needs of the market.

Some of these changes reflect NIVEA's commitment to the environment. Its corporate responsibility approach aims to:

•  reduce packaging and waste - by using larger pack sizes

•  use more natural products - by including minerals and sea salts in the formula

•  increase opportunities for recycling - by using recyclable plastic in its containers.

Price :

Lots of factors affect the end price of a product, for example, the costs of production or the business need to maximise profits or sales. A product's price also needs to provide value for money in the market and attract consumers to buy.

There are several pricing strategies that a business can use:

•  Cost based pricing - this can either simply cover costs or include an element of profit. It focuses on the product and does not take account of consumers.

•  Penetration price - an initial low price to ensure that there is a high volume of purchases and market share is quickly won. This strategy encourages consumers to develop a habit of buying.

•  Price skimming - an initial high price for a unique product encouraging those who want to be 'first to buy' to pay a premium price. This strategy helps a business to gain maximum revenue before a competitor's product reaches the market.

On re-launch the price for NIVEA VISAGE Young was slightly higher than previously. This reflected its new formulations, packaging and extended product range. However, the company also had to take into account that the target market was both teenage girls and mums buying the product for their daughters. This meant that the price had to offer value for money or it would be out of reach of its target market.

As NIVEA VISAGE Young is one of the leading skin care ranges meeting the beautifying needs of this market segment, it is effectively the price leader. This means that it sets the price level that competitors will follow or undercut. NIVEA needs to regularly review prices should a competitor enter the market at the 'market growth' point of the product life cycle to ensure that its pricing remains competitive.

The pricing strategy for NIVEA is not the same as that of the retailers. It sells products to retailers at one price. However, retailers have the freedom to use other strategies for sales promotion. These take account of the competitive nature of the high street. They may use:

•  loss leader: the retailer sells for less than it cost to attract large volume of sales, for example by supermarkets

•  discounting - alongside other special offers, such as 'Buy one, get one free' (BOGOF) or 'two for one'. NIVEA VISAGE Young's pricing strategy now generates around 7% of NIVEA VISAGE sales.

Place

Place refers to:

•  How the product arrives at the point of sale. This means a business must think about what distribution strategies it will use.

•  Where a product is sold. This includes retail outlets like supermarkets or high street shops. It also includes other ways in which businesses make products directly available to their target market, for example, through direct mail or the Internet.

NIVEA VISAGE Young aims to use as many relevant distribution channels as possible to ensure the widest reach of its products to its target market. The main channels for the product are retail outlets where consumers expect to find skin care ranges. Around 65% of NIVEA VISAGE.

Young sales are through large high street shops such as Boots and Superdrug. Superdrug is particularly important for the 'young-end' market. The other 35% of sales mainly comes from large grocery chains that stock beauty products, such as ASP A, Tesco and Sainsbury's. Market research shows that around 20% of this younger target market buys products for themselves in the high street stores when shopping with friends. Research also shows that the majority of purchasers are actually made by mums, buying for teenagers. Mums are more likely to buy the product from supermarkets whilst doing their grocery shopping.

NIVEA distributes through a range of outlets that are cost effective but that also reach the highest number of consumers. Its distribution strategies also consider the environmental impact of transport. It uses a central distribution point in the UK. Products arrive from European production plants using contract vehicles for efficiency for onward delivery to retail stores. Beiersdorf does not sell direct to smaller retailers as the volume of products sold would not be cost effective to deliver but it uses wholesalers for these smaller accounts. It does not sell directly through its website as the costs of producing small orders would be too high. However, the retailers, like Tesco, feature and sell the NIVEA products in their online stores.

Promotion

Promotion is how the business tells customers that products are available and persuades them to buy. Promotion is either above-the-line or below-the-line. Above-the-line promotion is directly paid for, for example TV or newspaper advertising.

Below-the-line is where the business uses other promotional methods to get the product message across:

•  Events or trade fairs help to launch a product to a wide audience. Events may be business to consumer (B2C) whereas trade fairs are business to business (B2B).

•  Direct mail can reach a large number of people but is not easy to target specific consumers cost-effectively.

•  Public relations (PR) includes the different ways a business can communicate with its stakeholders, through, for example, newspaper press releases. Other PR activities include sponsorship of high profile events like Formula 1 or the World Cup, as well as donations to or participation in charity events.

Branding - a strong and consistent brand identity differentiates the product and helps consumers to understand and trust the product. This aims to keep consumers buying the product long-term.

• Sales promotions, for example competitions or sampling, encourage consumers to buy products in the short-term.

NIVEA chooses promotional strategies that reflect the lifestyle of its audience and the range of media available. It realises that a 'one way' message, using TV or the press, is not as effective as talking directly to its target group of consumers. Therefore NIVEA does not plan to use any above-the-line promotion for NIVEA VISAGE Young.

The promotion of NIVEA VISAGE Young is consumer-led. Using various below-the-line routes, NIVEA identifies ways of talking to teenagers (and their mums) directly.

•  A key part of the strategy is the use of product samples. These allow customers to touch, feel, smell and try the products. Over a million samples of NIVEA VISAGE Young products will be given away during 2008. These samples will be available through the website, samples in stores or in 'goody bags' given out at VISAGE roadshows up and down the country.

•  NIVEA VISAGE Young launched an interactive online magazine called FYI (Fun, Young & Independent) to raise awareness of the brand. The concept behind the magazine is to give teenage girls the confidence to become young women and to enjoy their new-found independence. Communication channels are original and engaging to enable teenagers to identify with NIVEA VISAGE Young. The magazine focuses on 'first time' experiences relating to NIVEA VISAGE Young being their first skincare routine. It is promoted using the Hit40UK chart show and the TMF digital TV channel.

• In connection with FYI, NIVEA VISAGE Young has recognised the power of social network sites for this young audience and also has pages on MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. The company is using the power of new media as part of the mix to grow awareness amongst the target audience.

Conclusion

NIVEA VISAGE Young is a skincare range in the UK market designed to enhance the skin and beauty of the teenage consumer rather than being medicated to treat skin problems. As such, it has created a clear position in the market. This shows that NIVEA understands its consumers and has produced this differentiated product range in order to meet their needs.

To bring the range to market, the business has put together a marketing mix. This mix balances the four elements of product, price, place and promotion. The mix uses traditional methods of place, such as distribution through the high street, alongside more modern methods of promotion, such as through social networking sites. It makes sure that the message of NIVEA VISAGE Young reaches the right people in the right way.

Answer the following questions:

1.     Describe what is meant by a business being 'consumer led'.

2.     What are the key parts of the marketing mix? Explain how each works with the others.

3.     Explain why the balance of the marketing mix is as important as any single element.

4.     Analyse the marketing mix for NIVEA VISAGE Young. What are its strongest points? Explain why you think this is so.

Case-2

SWOT analysis in action at Skoda

Introduction

In 1895 in Czechoslovakia, two keen cyclists, Vaclav Laurin and Vaclav Klement, designed and produced their own bicycle. Their business became Skoda in 1925. Skoda went on to manufacture cycles, cars, farm ploughs and airplanes in Eastern Europe. Skoda overcame hard times over the next 65 years. These included war, economic depression and political change. By 1990 the Czech management of Skoda was looking for a strong foreign partner. Volkswagen AG (VAG) was chosen because of its reputation for strength, quality and reliability. It is the largest car manufacturer in Europe providing an average of more than 5 million cars a year - giving it a 12% share of the world car market. Volkswagen AG comprises the Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda, SEAT, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti brands. Each brand has its own specific character and is independent in the market. Skoda UK sells Skoda cars through its network of independent franchised dealers.

To improve its performance in the competitive car market, Skoda UK's management needed to assess its brand positioning. Brand positioning means establishing a distinctive image for the brand compared to competing brands. Only then could it grow from being a small player. To aid its decision-making, Skoda UK obtained market research data from internal and external strategic audits. This enabled it to take advantage of new opportunities and respond to threats.

The audit provided a summary of the business's overall strategic position by using a SWOT analysis. SWOT is an acronym which stands for:

• Strengths - the internal elements of the business that contribute to improvement and growth

• Weaknesses - the attributes that will hinder a business or make it vulnerable to failure

• Opportunities - the external conditions that could enable future growth

• Threats - the external factors which could negatively affect the business.

This case study focuses on how Skoda UK's management built on all the areas of the strategic audit. The outcome of the SWOT analysis was a strategy for effective competition in the car industry.

Strengths

To identify its strengths, Skoda UK carried out research. It asked customers directly for their opinions about its cars. It also used reliable independent surveys that tested customers' feelings. For example, the annual JD Power customer satisfaction survey asks owners what they feel about cars they have owned for at least six months. JD Power surveys almost 20,000 car owners using detailed questionnaires. Skoda has been in the top five manufacturers in this survey for the past 13 years. In Top Gear's 2007 customer satisfaction survey, 56,000 viewers gave their opinions on 152 models and voted Skoda the 'number 1 car maker'. Skoda's Octavia model has also won the 200% Auto Express Driver Power 'Best Car'.

Skoda attributes these results to the business concentrating on owner experience rather than on sales. It has considered 'the human touch' from design through to sale. Skoda knows that 98% of its drivers would recommend Skoda to a friend. This is a clearly identifiable and quantifiable strength. Skoda uses this to guide its future strategic development and marketing of its brand image.

Strategic management guides a business so that it can compete and grow in its market. Skoda adopted a strategy focused on building cars that their owners would enjoy. This is different from simply maximising sales of a product. As a result, Skoda's biggest strength was the satisfaction of its customers. This means the brand is associated with a quality product and happy customers.



Weaknesses

A SWOT analysis identifies areas of weakness inside the business. Skoda UK's analysis showed that in order to grow it needed to address key questions about the brand position. Skoda has only 1.7% market share. This made it a very small player in the market for cars. The main issue it needed to address was: how did Skoda fit into this highly competitive, fragmented market?

This weakness was partly due to out-dated perceptions of the brand. These related to Skoda's eastern European origins. In the past the cars had an image of poor vehicle quality, design, assembly, and materials. Crucially, this poor perception also affected Skoda owners. For many people, car ownership is all about image. If you are a Skoda driver, what do other people think?

From 1999 onwards, under Volkswagen AG ownership, Skoda changed this negative image. Skoda cars were no longer seen as low-budget or low quality. However, a brand 'health check' in 2006 showed that Skoda still had a weak and neutral image in the mid-market range it occupies, compared to other players in this area, for example, Ford, Peugeot and Renault. This meant that whilst the brand no longer had a poor image, it did not have a strong appeal either. This understanding showed Skoda in which direction it needed to go. It needed to stop being defensive in promotional campaigns. The company had sought to correct old perceptions and demonstrate what Skoda cars were not. It realised it was now time to say what the brand does stand for. The marketing message for the change was simple. Skoda owners were known to be happy and contented with their cars. The car-buying public and the car industry as a whole needed convincing that Skoda cars were great to own and drive.

Opportunities and Threats

Opportunities

Opportunities occur in the external environment of a business. These include for example, gaps in the market for new products or services. In analysing the external market, Skoda noted that its competitors' marketing approaches focused on the product itself.

Audi emphasises the technology through its strapline, 'Vorsprung Durch Technik' ('advantage through technology'). BMW promotes 'the ultimate driving machine'. Many brands place emphasis on the machine and the driving experience. Skoda UK discovered that its customers loved their cars more than owners of competitor brands, such as Renault or Ford.

Information from the SWOT analysis helped Skoda to differentiate its product range. Having a complete understanding of the brand's weaknesses allowed it to develop a strategy to strengthen the brand and take advantage of the opportunities in the market. It focused on its existing strengths and provided cars focused on the customer experience. The focus on 'happy Skoda customers' is an opportunity. It enables Skoda to differentiate the Skoda brand to make it stand out from the competition. This is Skoda's unique selling proposition (USP) in the motor industry.

Threats

Threats come from outside of a business. These involve, for example, a competitor launching cheaper products. A careful

analysis of the nature, source and likelihood of these threats is a key part of the SWOT process.

The UK car market includes 50 different car makers selling 200 models. Within these there are over 2,000 model derivatives. Skoda UK needed to ensure that its messages were powerful enough for customers to hear within such a crowded and competitive environment. If not, potential buyers would overlook Skoda. This posed the threat of a further loss of market share.

Skoda needed a strong product range to compete in the UK and globally. In the UK the Skoda brand is represented by seven different cars. Each one is designed to appeal to different market segments. For example:

•  The Skoda Fabia is sold as a basic but quality 'city car'

•  The Skoda Superb offers a more luxurious, 'up-market' appeal

•  The Skoda Octavia Estate provides a family with a fun drive but also a great big boot.

Pricing reflects the competitive nature of Skoda's market. Each model range is priced to appeal to different groups within the mainstream car market. The combination of a clear range with competitive pricing has overcome the threat of the crowded market.

The following example illustrates how Skoda responded to another of its threats, namely, the need to respond to EU legal and environmental regulations. Skoda responded by designing products that are environmentally friendly at every stage of their life cycle. This was done by for example:-

•  Recycling as much as possible. Skoda parts are marked for quick and easy identification when the car is taken apart.

•  Using the latest, most environmentally-friendly manufacturing technologies and facilities available. For instance, areas painted to protect against corrosion use lead-free, water based colours.

•  Designing processes to cut fuel consumption and emissions in petrol and diesel engines. These use lighter parts making vehicles as aerodynamic as possible to use less energy.

•  Using technology to design cars with lower noise levels and improved sound quality. Outcomes and benefits of SWOT analysis.

Skoda UK's SWOT analysis answered some key questions. It discovered that:

•  Skoda car owners were happy about owning a Skoda

•  the brand was no longer seen as a poorer version of competitors' cars.

However,

•  the brand was still very much within a niche market

•  a change in public perception was vital for Skoda to compete and increase its market share of the mainstream car market.

The challenge was how to build on this and develop the brand so that it was viewed positively. It required a whole new marketing strategy.

Skoda UK has responded with a new marketing strategy based on the confident slogan, 'the manufacturer of happy drivers.' The campaign's promotional activities support the new brand position. The key messages for the campaign focus on the 'happy' customer experience and appeal at an emotional rather than a practical level. The campaign includes:

•  he 'Fabia Cake' TV advert. This showed that the car was 'full of lovely stuff with the happy music ('Favourite things') in the background.

•  An improved and redesigned website which is easy and fun to use. This is to appeal to a young audience. It embodies the message 'experience the happiness of Skoda online'.

Customers are able to book test drives and order brochures online. The result is that potential customers will feel a Skoda is not only a reliable and sensible car to own, it is also 'lovely' to own.

Analysing the external opportunities and threats allows Skoda UK to pinpoint precisely how it should target its marketing messages. No other market player has 'driver happiness' as its USP. By building on the understanding derived from the SWOT, Skoda UK has given new impetus to its campaign. At the same time, the campaign has addressed the threat of external competition by setting Skoda apart from its rivals.

Conclusion

Skoda is a global brand offering a range of products in a highly competitive and fragmented market. The company must respond positively to internal and external issues to avoid losing sales and market share.

A SWOT analysis brings order and structure to otherwise random information. The SWOT model helps managers to look internally as well as externally. The information derived from the analysis gives direction to the strategy. It highlights the key internal weaknesses in a business, it focuses on strengths and it alerts managers to opportunities and threats. Skoda was able to identify where it had strengths to compete. The structured review of internal and external factors helped transform Skoda UK's strategic direction.

The case study shows how Skoda UK transformed its brand image in the eyes of potential customers and build its competitive edge over rivals. By developing a marketing strategy playing on clearly identified strengths of customer happiness, Skoda was able to overcome weaknesses. It turned its previously defensive position of the brand to a positive customer-focused experience. The various awards Skoda has won demonstrate how its communications are reaching customers. Improved sales show that Skoda UK's new strategy has delivered benefits.

Answer the

1.      What was the key weakness that Skoda was able to identify?

2.     What strength did Skoda use to turn its brand weakness into an opportunity?

3.     How has Skoda strategically addressed external threats?

4.     What in your view are the important benefits of using a SWOT analysis

Case-3

Marketing strategy for growth

Introduction

Businesses must respond to change in order to remain competitive. Developing appropriate strategies which allow them to move forward is essential. Wilkinson is a prime example of a business that has responded to changing customer needs throughout its history. It is one of the UK's long-established retailers of a wide range of food, home, garden, office, health and beauty products. James Kemsey (JK) Wilkinson opened his first Wilkinson Store in Charnwood Street, Leicester in 1930. After the Second World War, the 1950s saw a rise in the use of labour-saving devices and DIY. Wilkinson responded by making this type of product the focus of its sales. In the 1960s customers wanted more convenience shopping. Wilkinson started selling groceries and supermarket goods and created the Wilko brand. In the 1980s Wilkinson extended its range of low-cost products to include quality clothing, toys, toiletries and perfumes. In 1995 it opened a central distribution centre in Workshop, serving stores in the north of England and in 2004, a new distribution centre opened in Wales. In 2005 Wilkinson launched its Internet shopping service, offering over 800,000 product lines for sale online. Wilkinson currently has over 300 stores, which carry an average of 25,000 product lines. 40% of these are Wilko 'own-brand' products. The company's target is to see this element grow and to have over 500 stores by 2012.

Wilkinson's growth places it in the top 30 retailers in the UK. Recently it has faced increasing challenges from competitors, such as the supermarket sector. Wilkinson needed to combat this and identify new areas for growth. Over two years it conducted extensive market research. This has helped it create a marketing strategy designed to continue growing by targeting a new market segment - the student population. This case study focuses on how Wilkinson created and implemented this strategy, using the findings of its market research to drive the strategy forward.

Marketing strategy aims to communicate to customers the added-value of products and services. This considers the right mix of design, function, image or service to improve customer awareness of the business' products and ultimately to encourage them to buy. An important tool for helping develop an appropriate marketing strategy is Ansoff s Matrix. This model looks at the options for developing a marketing strategy and helps to assess the levels of risk involved with each option. Marketing strategies may focus on the development of products or markets. Doing more of what a business already does carries least risk; developing a completely new product for a new audience carries the highest risk both in terms of time and costs.

Based on its research, Wilkinson committed to a market development strategy to sell its products to a new audience of students. This is a medium risk strategy as it requires the business to find and develop new customers. It also carries costs of the marketing campaigns to reach this new group. The main focus of the strategy was to increase awareness of the brand among students and encourage them to shop regularly at Wilkinson stores.

Market research

Market research is vital for collecting data on which to base the strategy. Market research takes one of two main forms -primary research and secondary research. Primary research (also called field research) involves collecting data first hand. This can take many forms, the main ones being interview, questionnaires, panels and observation. Secondary research (also called desk research) involves collecting data which already exists. This includes using information from reports, publications, Internet research and company files.

Both methods have advantages and disadvantages. The advantages of primary research are that it is recent, relevant and designed specifically for the company's intended strategy. The main disadvantage is that it is more expensive than secondary research and can be biased if not planned well. Secondary research is relatively cheap, can be undertaken quickly and so enables decision-making sooner. However, secondary research can go out-of-date and may not be entirely relevant to the business' needs.

Wilkinson undertook primary market research using questionnaires from students across the UK and secondary research using government and university admissions data. The statistics revealed that there were three million potential student customers.

They had a combined annual spend of around £9 billion per year. This research confirmed that the choice of focusing on the student market as a means of growth was valid. Wilkinson undertook further research to identify how to reach students and persuade them to start shopping at Wilkinson stores. This information was used to formulate a focus strategy. This was aimed specifically at the needs of the student 'market segment'. Marketing to students

Wilkinson involved 60 universities in research, using questionnaires distributed to students initially in Years 2 and 3 of a range of universities and then to 'freshers' (new students) through the University and Colleges Admission Service. This ensured the widest range of students was included to eliminate bias. It also gave a wide range of responses. From this initial



group, students were asked a second set of questions. Participants were rewarded with Amazon vouchers to encourage a good take-up. The research focused on two areas:

1.     student awareness of the Wilkinson brand and

2.     reasons why students were currently not using the stores regularly.

The market research enabled Wilkinson to put together its marketing strategy. The aim was to ensure the student population began shopping at Wilkinson stores early in their student experience. This would help to maintain their customer loyalty to Wilkinson throughout their student years and also to develop them as future customers after university. Repeat business is key to sustained growth. Wilkinson wanted to create satisfied customers with their needs met by the Wilkinson range of products. A marketing campaign was launched which focused on a range of promotional tactics, specifically designed to appeal to university students:

•  Wilkinson being present at freshers' fairs - and giving free goody bags with sample products directly to students

•  direct mail flyers to homes and student halls, prior to students arriving

•  advertisements with fun theme, for example, showing frying pans as tennis racquets

•  web banners

•  offering discounts of 15% with first purchase using the online store

•  gift vouchers

•  free wallplanners.

The challenge was to get students into Wilkinson stores. The opportunity was to capture a new customer group at an early stage and provide essential items all year round. This would lead to a committed customer group and secure repeat business.

Outcomes/evaluation

Wilkinson wanted to know what would inspire students to shop at Wilkinson more and what factors would help to attract non-customers. The research provided significant primary information to analyse the effects of the campaign. Wilkinson used questionnaires collected from the first year undergraduates to gather qualitative data. In addition, Wilkinson obtained quantitative data from various other sources, including:

•  redemption rates - how many people used the discount vouchers when buying

•  sales analysis - how much extra business did the stores handle

•  footfall in stores analysis - how many extra people went into stores.

This information helped Wilkinson to develop its plans for future marketing campaigns. It identified Motivation factors for the student audience which would help to encourage future purchase. Key factors included products being cheaper than competitors and easy access to stores. 23% of students questioned gave 'distance from university' as a reason for not regularly visiting the store. The layout of the store was another major problem affecting repeat visits. These findings have been taken on board by Wilkinson in its future planning of store locations and layouts.

Researching students' opinions after the campaign showed that:

• Awareness of Wilkinson brand had significantly risen from 77% to 95% of those interviewed. This brought it in line with Morrison supermarkets, a key competitor.

Conclusion

Wilkinson's marketing strategy began with its corporate aim to grow and increase stores across the UK. It was facing increased competition from supermarkets and needed to identify an area to focus on. To pursue a growth strategy, Wilkinson used market research to identify new target customers. This enabled it to prepare marketing strategies to fit the audience.

Primary and secondary research was used to find out customer views regarding its brand. Data indicated the student market segment was a significant area to focus on to achieve market development. A marketing campaign using data from a follow-up survey was put in place. The campaign showed significant increase in students' levels of awareness about Wilkinson and its products. It encouraged them either to shop more or to try Wilkinson for the first time. The campaign helped to achieve many of the business' aims, creating increased brand awareness and repeat visits. It also helped to inform the company's future strategies for growth. Market research gathered will help to formulate future plans for new stores. These will be in line with Wilkinson commitment to providing communities with affordable products across the country.

Answer the following questions

1.     What is the difference between primary and secondary research? Identify one example of primary and secondary research carried out by Wilkinson.

2.     Explain why Wilkinson needed a marketing strategy to help them to grow.

3.     Evaluate the benefits of the marketing campaign to Wilkinson.

4.     Analyse how effective the marketing campaign was in helping Wilkinson respond to competitive pressures.



Case-4 : Extending the product life cycle

Introduction

Businesses need to set themselves clear aims and objectives if they are going to succeed. The Kellogg Company is the world's leading producer of breakfast cereals and convenience foods, such as cereal bars, and aims to maintain that position. In 2006, Kellogg had total worldwide sales of almost $11 billion (£5.5 billion). In 2007, it was Britain's biggest selling grocery brand, with sales of more than £550 million. Product lines include ready-to-eat cereals (i.e. not hot cereals like porridge) and nutritious snacks, such as cereal bars. Kellogg's brands are household names around the world and include Rice Krispies, Special K and Nutri-Grain, whilst some of its brand characters, like Snap, Crackle and Pop, are amongst the most wellknown in the world.

Kellogg has achieved this position, not only through great brands and great brand value, but through a strong commitment to corporate social responsibility. This means that all of Kellogg's business aims are set within a particular context or set of ideals. Central to this is Kellogg's passion for the business, the brands and the food, demonstrated through the promotion of healthy living.

The company divides its market into six key segments. Kellogg's Corn Flakes has been on breakfast tables for over 100 years and represents the 'Tasty Start' cereals that people eat to start their day. Other segments include 'Simply Wholesome' products that are good for you, such as Kashi Muesli, 'Shape Management' products, such as Special K and 'Inner Health' lines, such as All-Bran. Children will be most familiar with the 'Kid Preferred' brands, such as Frosties, whilst 'Mum Approved' brands like Raisin Wheats are recognised by parents as being good for their children.

Each brand has to hold its own in a competitive market. Brand managers monitor the success of brands in terms of market share, growth and performance against the competition. Key decisions have to be made about the future of any brand that is not succeeding. This case study is about Nutri-Grain. It shows how Kellogg recognised there was a problem with the brand and used business tools to reach a solution. The overall aim was to re-launch the brand and return it to growth in its market.

The product life cycle

Each product has its own life cycle. It will be 'born', it will 'develop', it will 'grow old' and, eventually, it will 'die'. Some products, like Kellogg's Corn Flakes, have retained their market position for a long time. Others may have their success undermined by falling market share or by competitors. The product life cycle shows how sales of a product change over time. The five typical stages of the life cycle are shown on a graph. However, perhaps the most important stage of a product life cycle happens before this graph starts, namely the

Research and Development (R&D) stage. Here the company designs a product to meet a need in the market. The costs of market research - to identify a gap in the market and of product development to ensure that the product meets the needs of that gap - are called 'sunk' or start-up costs. Nutri-Grain was originally designed to meet the needs of busy people who had missed breakfast. It aimed to provide a healthy cereal breakfast in a portable and convenient format.

1.       Launch - Many products do well when they are first brought out and Nutri-Grain was no exception. From launch (the first stage on the diagram) in 1997 it was immediately successful, gaining almost 50% share of the growing cereal bar market in just two years.

2.       Growth - Nutri-Grain's sales steadily increased as the product was promoted and became well known. It maintained growth in sales until 2002 through expanding the original product with new developments of flavour and format. This is good for the business, as it does not have to spend money on new machines or equipment for production. The market position of Nutri-Grain also subtly changed from a 'missed breakfast' product to an 'all-day' healthy snack.

3.       Maturity - Successful products attract other competitor businesses to start selling similar products. This indicates the third stage of the life cycle - maturity. This is the time of maximum profitability, when profits can be used to continue to build the brand. However, competitor brands from both Kellogg itself (e.g. All Bran bars) and other manufacturers (e.g. Alpen bars) offered the same benefits and this slowed down sales and chipped away at Nutri-Grain's market position. Kellogg continued to support the development of the brand but some products (such as Minis and Twists), struggled in a crowded market. Although Elevenses continued to succeed, this was not enough to offset the overall sales decline. Not all products follow these stages precisely and time periods for each stage will vary widely. Growth, for example, may take place over a few months or, as in the case of Nutri-Grain, over several years.

4.       Saturation - This is the fourth stage of the life cycle and the point when the market is 'full'. Most people have the product and there are other, better or cheaper competitor products. This is called market saturation and is when sales start to fall. By mid-2004 Nutri-Grain found its sales declining whilst the market continued to grow at a rate of 15%.



5. Decline - Clearly, at this point, Kellogg had to make a key business decision. Sales were falling, the product was in decline and losing its position. Should Kellogg let the product 'die', i.e. withdraw it from the market, or should it try to extend its life?

Strategic use of the product life cycle

When a company recognises that a product has gone into decline or is not performing as well as it should, it has to decide what to do. The decision needs to be made within the context of the overall aims of the business. Kellogg's aims included the development of great brands, great brand value and the promotion of healthy living. Strategically, Kellogg had a strong position in the market for both healthy foods and convenience foods. Nutri-Grain fitted well with its main aims and objectives and therefore was a product and a brand worth rescuing.

Kellogg decided to try to extend the life of the product rather than withdraw it from the market. This meant developing an extension strategy for the product. Ansoff s matrix is a tool that helps analyse which strategy is appropriate. It shows both market-orientated and product-orientated possibilities.

Extending the Nutri-Grain cycle - identifying the problem

Kellogg had to decide whether the problem with Nutri-Grain was the market, the product or both. The market had grown by

over 15% and competitors' market share had increased whilst Nutri-Grain sales in 2003 had declined. The market in terms of

customer tastes had also changed - more people missed breakfast and therefore there was an increased need for such a snack

product.

The choice of extension strategy indicated by the matrix was either product development or diversification. Diversification carries much higher costs and risks. Kellogg decided that it needed to focus on changing the product to meet the changing market needs.

Research showed that there were several issues to address:

1.       The brand message was not strong enough in the face of competition. Consumers were not impressed enough by the product to choose it over competitors.

2.       Some of the other Kellogg products (e.g. Minis) had taken the focus away from the core business.

3.       The core products of Nutri-Grain Soft Bake and Elevenses between them represented over 80% of sales but received a small proportion of advertising and promotion budgets.

4.       Those sales that were taking place were being driven by promotional pricing (i.e discounted pricing) rather than the underlying strength of the brand.

Implementing the extension strategy for Nutri-Grain having recognised the problems, Kellogg then developed solutions to re-brand and re-launch the product in 2005.

1.  Fundamental to the re-launch was the renewal of the brand image. Kellogg looked at the core features that made the brand
different and modelled the new brand image on these. Nutri-Grain is unique as it is the only product of this kind that is
baked. This provided two benefits: