Select: A decision support system for computer family selection

The growing complexity of corporate information systems has prompted many organizations to seek applicable solutions for integrating their information systems. While the current enterprise information infrastructure in most corporations consists of a hodgepodge of hardware and software, requiring disparate supporting infrastructures and offering little in the way of integration, many organizations are trying to develop their core client/server competency around a unified hardware environment Consequently, the marked tendency toward selecting scaleable, flexible, platforms rather than specific hardware for a given purpose, makes the decision to acquire new hardware increasingly complex. This paper attempts to address the need for an integrated framework for selecting enterprise-wide hardware by presenting a comprehensive methodology for a computer family selection. The proposed methodology is incorporated into a decision support system that aims to help organizations select a family of computers from a manufacturer's product line, rather than choose a specific computer model for a given purpose. A case study follows the outline of the proposed decision support system and demonstrates its applicability and use in a real-life scenario.