Accounting Information Systems

CHAPTER 10
INFORMATION SYSTEMS CONTROLS FOR SYSTEMS
RELIABILITY PART 3: PROCESSING INTEGRITY AND
AVAILABILITY

10.3 Excel Problem

The Moose Wings Cooperative Flight Club owns a number of airplanes and gliders. It
serves fewer than 2,000 members, who are numbered sequentially from the founder,
Tom Eagle (0001), to the newest member, Jacques Noveau (1368). Members rent the
flying machines by the hour, and all must be returned on the same day. The following
six records were among those entered for the flights taken on September 1, 2010:
Flight Date
Member #
MM/DD/YY
Plane Used
Takeoff time Landing time
1234
09/10/10
G
6:25
8:46
4111
09/01/10
C
8:49
10:23
1210
09/01/10
P
3:42
5:42
0023
09/01/10
X
1:59
12:43
012A
09/01/10
P
12:29
15:32
0999
09/01/10
L
15:31
13:45
Valid plane codes (plane used column): C = Cessna, G = glider, L = Lear Jet, P = Piper
Cub)
a. Identify and describe any errors in the data.
Five of the six records contain errors as follows:
1st - Wrong date is used (September 10 instead of September 1).
2nd - Member number is outside range (4111 is greater than 1368).
4th - Plane code X is not valid.
5th - Member number contains a character (A).
6th - Plane landing time (13:45) is earlier than the take off time (15:31).
b. For each of the five data fields, suggest one or more input edit controls that could be
used to detect input errors.
Field 1 - Member number:

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Ch. 10: Information Systems Controls for Systems Reliability Part 3: Processing Integrity and
Availability

Range check to verify that the field contains only four digits within the range of
0001 to 1368.
Validity check on member number if a file of valid member numbers is
maintained.
Field 2 - Date of flight start:
Check that day, month, and year corresponds to the current date.
Field check that value is a date
Field 3 - Plane used:
Validity check that character is one of the legal characters to describe a plane (G,
C, P, or L).
Field check to verify that only a single character is used.)
Field 4 - Time of take off:
Field check to verify that the field contains valid time format.
Field 5 - Time of landing:

Field check to verify that the field contains valid time format.

Reasonableness test that field 5 is greater than field 4.

10.6 The ABC Company is considering the following options for its backup plan:
1. Daily full backups:
Time to perform backup = 60 minutes
Size of backup = 50 GB
Time to restore from backup = 30 minutes
2. Weekly full backups plus daily incremental backup:
Same time, storage, and restoration as above to do a weekly backup on Friday,
plus
o Time to perform daily backup = 10 minutes
o Size of daily backup = 10 GB
o Time to restore each daily backup file = 5 minutes
3. Weekly full backups plus daily differential backup:
Same time, storage, and restoration as above to do a weekly backup on Friday,
plus
o Time to perform daily backup = 10 minutes first day, growing by 5 minutes
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Accounting Information
Systems

each day thereafter

o Size of daily backup = 10 GB first day, growing by 10 GB each day
o Time to restore differential backup file = 5 minutes first day, increasing by
2 minutes each subsequent day
Which approach would you recommend? Why?

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Ch. 10: Information Systems Controls for Systems Reliability Part 3: Processing Integrity and
Availability

Solution: Management must weigh the trade-offs shown below.

Full daily backups take the most time to perform and require most storage, but in the event of a
disaster have the quickest restore time.
Daily incremental backups on average take less time and use less storage than daily differential
backups, but restoration is faster for the differential backups.
Type of Backup
Plan

Time spent weekly to

backup

Storage
requirements

Time to Restore

250 GB (5 days * 50
GB/day)

30 Minutes to restore
most recent full
backup

250 GB

30 Minutes

Option 1: Full Daily Backup

300 Minutes (5 days *
60 minutes)
Total 300 Minutes

Option 2: weekly full backup plus daily incremental backup

Full Weekly
Backup on Friday

60 Minutes

50 GB

30 Minutes to restore
last full backup

Daily Incremental
Backup

40 Minutes (4 days *
10 minutes/day)

40 GB (4 days * 10
GB/day)

5- 20 Minutes (5
minutes per day since
last full backup)

90 GB

35-50 Minutes

Total 100 Minutes

Option 3: weekly full backup plus daily differential backup

Full Weekly
Backup

60 Minutes

50 GB

30 Minutes to restore
last full backup

Daily Differential
Backup

70 Minutes (10
minutes first day,
increasing by 5
minutes/day but on
Friday, just make the
full weekly backup) =

100 GB (10 GB for

first day, 20 GB for
second day, etc. but
on Friday, just make
the full weekly
backup)=

10+15+20+25=70

10+20+30+40=100

5- 11 Minutes (5
minutes first day, 2
minutes more each
subsequent day but
on Friday, just make
the full weekly
backup)

150 GB

35-41 Minutes

Total 130 Minutes

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Systems

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Ch. 10: Information Systems Controls for Systems Reliability Part 3: Processing Integrity and
Availability

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2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall