Business Related Challenges
Multiprogramming – Top Secret, Inc. (TSI) requires the ability to run multiple productivity and management applications concurrently, such as Microsoft Project for enterprise-level resource scheduling, task assignment, and progress tracking. However, the organization faces limitations in efficiently running multiple tasks simultaneously on its proprietary operating system (TSI OS). For example, dynamically updating the Project Manager application across all workstations while simultaneously handling file input/output operations can lead to process contention, resource allocation conflicts, and degraded performance. These inefficiencies create scheduling delays and diminish overall operational throughput.
Multiprocessing – TSI is constrained to purchasing outdated single-core processors, even though the modern processor market is dominated by multi-core architectures. This creates a technological mismatch, where available hardware cannot fully align with the organization’s proprietary software ecosystem. Running mission-critical applications on decommissioned hardware introduces risks such as reduced processing capacity, incompatibility with current workloads, and potential obsolescence. These deficiencies directly slow down day-to-day business workflows, particularly those requiring parallelism, high computational power, or real-time responsiveness.
Multithreading – To maintain system stability and compatibility, TSI mandates the removal of multithreading capabilities from its open-source software stack. This requires dedicating a team of in-house developers to disable thread-level parallelism across applications, thereby ensuring that workloads execute in a strictly single-threaded manner. This practice not only reduces the efficiency of software execution but also diverts technical staff away from more strategically valuable initiatives such as feature development, user experience improvements, and enterprise integration projects. The opportunity cost of this resource allocation poses a significant business challenge.
Virtual Memory– Frequent memory exhaustion within the TSI OS forces department heads and staff to reboot systems repeatedly. The absence of efficient virtual memory management mechanisms, such as paging and dynamic allocation, results in inadequate handling of large or simultaneous workloads. This directly disrupts critical administrative tasks, project planning, and reporting activities, as employees lose valuable time and productivity during recovery from system crashes or forced restarts.
System Call Interface – The limited functionality of the TSI OS’s system call interface requires developers to manually modify kernel-level traps to transition into privileged execution modes. These manual interventions introduce unnecessary workflow disruptions and increase the likelihood of human error. Furthermore, the lack of a standardized, comprehensive system call architecture reduces developer efficiency, complicates application portability, and ultimately restricts the organization’s ability to scale or integrate with modern software ecosystems.
Security– One of the most pressing business challenges for TSI is the lack of robust access control. The current network configuration allows any user with network connectivity to log into back-office servers, exposing the company to severe security vulnerabilities. This deficiency not only increases the risk of unauthorized access, data breaches, and compliance violations but also poses potential financial and reputational damage if exploited by malicious actors. Implementing enterprise-grade authentication, authorization, and auditing mechanisms is essential to mitigate these risks.
Device Drivers – TSI developers face technical limitations in creating custom device drivers for back-office hardware, including peripheral devices and storage subsystems. As a result, the organization must rely on costly external vendors or third-party solutions to maintain hardware compatibility. Outsourcing device driver development increases operational expenses and introduces dependencies on external entities, undermining the company’s long-term technical self-sufficiency.
Fault Tolerance – The inability of TSI developers to design resilient device drivers, combined with reliance on legacy storage technologies such as SATA and SCSI, severely hampers the system’s fault tolerance. In the event of hardware component failures, the operating system may lack the mechanisms necessary to ensure continuous operation, recover from errors, or preserve data integrity. This vulnerability places critical business operations at risk, as system downtime or data loss could result in missed deadlines, reduced productivity, and potentially catastrophic financial losses.
#Four-
Features listed above that play a role in my work and school are the following: Security- At my workstation here at home, I do business and schoolwork on one main laptop, although I have another for browsing. The main laptop holds my files and folders for all my projects locally. Although I have a password to access the operating system, it is not a strong password. Virtual Memory-Although not a virtual memory issue, I frequently get a “scratch disk” warning from the operating system and cannot save my graphics in Illustrator because it can not allocate enough RAM. I have to stop working, hoping it does not close and not save hours of work before clearing the disk.