Systems Design Techniques

Live Virtual Training available

(Course includes examination fee)

Course Overview

The Systems Design Techniques course is aimed at system designers and software architects wishing to gain a hands-on knowledge of current best practice techniques used in the design of software solutions to meet business requirements. The course considers how requirements specified in a set of deliverables produced by business and systems analysts can be realised using models from the Unified Modeling Language (UML) supported by more traditional approaches such as data normalisation. Key course areas are:

Interface between analysis and design
Input and output design
Data-driven versus component-driven design
Logical data design and normalisation
Logical process design
Component based design and n-tier software architectures
System controls and security
Physical design (including de-normalisation and star schemas)
Testing and systems implementation

The course is particularly appropriate for designers working in various software environments, including those primarily working on system enhancements. At the end of the course participants will not only have a good understanding of the models and methods used, but will be confident of applying them in project situations.

Course Content

Introduction

Objectives and constraints of design
The place of design in the systems development life cycle
Using the products of analysis to drive systems design
The work of the designer
The scope of design
Design methodologies
Architectural issues in design
Introduction to design patterns

Input and output design

Identifying inputs and outputs
Output design, management information systems & business intelligence
Data capture, preparation and input design
System to system data interchange
Selection of appropriate output and input technologies
An understanding of user issues

User-interface (UI) design

Objectives of UI design
Design of input and output interfaces
Dialogue types
Usability and style guides
Prototyping the interface
Modelling the user interface

Component-based design

Introduction to components & software architectures
Component design principles: cohesion, coupling, responsibility and reusability
Using analysis models (use case diagram and class diagram) to create a logical component architecture
Use case realisation with UML interaction diagrams
Defining component interfaces
Component engineering
MVC (Model, View, Controller), choreography and orchestration design patterns

Logical data design (normalisation)

Notation and conventions of relational data analysis (normalisation)
Principles of progressive normalisation through first, second and third normal forms
Rationalising results from normalisation of multiple data sources
Building the normalised (Third Normal Form) data model
Defining the final logical data design using Entity-Relationship Diagrams

Logical process design

Activity Diagrams (UML)
Structured English / pseudocode
Data Navigation Diagrams

Physical Design

Optimising the logical design
Principles of physical data design
Principles of physical process design
Design and architecture
Packaging the design for delivery using Deployment Diagrams (UML)

Systems controls

Risk in systems development
Verification and validation of data
Object controls
Data controls & self-checking codes
Function and state controls
Visibility and encapsulation in object-oriented design (UML class diagrams)
Audit trails
Output controls
Clerical controls
Access controls, physical and logical security
Backup and recovery
Business continuity and disaster planning
Legal requirements of the designer

BCS certificates

This course prepares participants to sit a one-hour, open book, examination leading to the certificate in Systems Design Techniques offered by BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT. This certificate is a specialist practitioner module for the BCS Diploma in Solution Development.

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