MOSS VALE is a town with 15000 inhabitants. The fire department wishes to develop a system that automates the despatch of fire engines to attend fires. The ERD below describes the system.
The fire department leases three fire engines and employs 14 people. Each year, there are approximately two hundred despatches. Currently, the system is manual and all records are retained in a file system. The fire department has a duty manager on duty 24 hours a day for each day of the year and the duty manager is in charge of all despatches. If the system is automated, it is unlikely that there will ever be more than two concurrent users.
The mayor has hired an outside consultant who recommended that the town council purchase a despatch package developed by a software company. This package comes with the ORACLE DBMS and the smallest configuration allows for a maximum of ten concurrent users. The package covers all the requirements very well - indeed, it has many functions that the fire department will never use. The council does not use ORACLE at present and would need to use contract staff for DBA tasks. The total cost of the package is approximately $150000 per annum, excluding contract staff, who should cost no more than $10000 per annum.
Very few people on the town council understand the database approach and many believe that the current manual system does not require upgrading.
You are the CIO for the town council. Write a memorandum to the mayor and comment on the solution provided by the consultant as well as the option of retaining the current manual system. If you believe that neither solution is optimal or most cost efficient, recommend an alternative solution. Whether or not you choose to use a database, briefly explain the database approach and provide an overview of benefits / advantages and potential costs relevant to a database solution. Your memorandum should be no longer than 500 words.