Question 1 (a):

Network infrastructure and technology are part of IT infrastructure in my workplace. We

believe technology is all about connection. Ideally, technology is deployed in such a way that it

brings people together and enables them to communicate seamlessly. Networking is not only

connecting people; it is connecting between two devices. In my workplace, we have different

types computers that operate under different OS (Windows, Linux and IOS), tablets,

smartphones, and smart device. It is important for us to get all connected together on the same

network.

Types of Network Infrastructure and technology in my workspace:

Explanation of types and functions of network infrastructure and technology in my workspace:

I: Ethernet/TCP/IP network:

In my workplace, not every workstation is wireless. We use the network cables for desktop,

printer and physical server that carry the data travels across, while the network cards and

software in workstation is allow them to connect to a network cable and transfer data across

it, all workstation devices that connect small groups of workstations together and devices

that connect organizations across the internet. This connection will allow all workstation

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 devices access to printer, emailing, share files, internet and databases.

II: Hub & Bridges

Functions of hubs and bridges is to forward traffic to connected devices or to combine

multiple networks into a single network. LAN (Local Area Network) is a group of

computers that are linked together in a star topology via a hub. Example, all desktop and

printer in my workstation are connected to hub. Network cable from the hub plugs into

each desktop, printer and physical server at its Network Interface Card (NIC). NIC is an

expansion card that enables a computer to connect to our company network. The hub’s role

is simply to accept a signal from one of the computers attached to it and repeat or duplicate

this signal out of every port on the hub.

III: Router

Router is to analyze the destination network address of a data packet and help to move it

one step closer to its final destination. Routers work by forwarding traffic, allowing my

workplace computers, smart devices and networks to connect together. For wireless

network infrastructure, a router is going to be essential.

In my workplace, we are using Linksys brand because the security software (called

firmware) of router manufacturer able to act as first line of security from intrusion into our

company network, it keeps our computer system and information safe from unauthorize

network attack.

IV: File server and print server

File server and print server both are the most common of server applications in a

workplace. Let’s say I am accessed a document from my colleague’s computer through a

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 network, and I print a document but that printer is not directly attached to my computer,

then I am a using file and print servers.

The function of file servers is managed files stored in a hard drive and process requests

from the network to access them. To accomplish this, the client computer and the file

server need to share a common network file system, that’s a common way of naming files

and describing directory structures. In my workplace, we set the authentication (user login

and password) to ensure unauthorize person cannot access a file from our server or

colleague computer. Only the authorize person have the rights to view, edit and copy the

file from our server or colleague computer.

Print server is software that manages the printing of documents to one or more printers.

Most standalone network printers come with their own printer server that manages requests

from different computers to print a document, the caching of documents in printer memory

and the order in which documents print. The print server will report back to the client on

the progress of the print job. In my workplace, we use the network operating systems to

configure and control which users can print to which printers and what type of printing

they can do there. Example, in my workplace accounting department is allowed to print

documents, but call center and data entry workstation is not allowed to do any printing,

because there is unnecessary for them to do any printing.

V: Physical Server OS – Microsoft Window Server 2016.

Physical server is a single-tenant computer server, meaning that a specific physical server

is designated to a single user. In my workplace, our physical server OS is Microsoft

Window Server 2016. Reason we use Windows Server 2016 because it has an integrated

protection system that can detect suspicious activity against a company's systems. It also

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 limits the damage in an environment if ever an intrusion is noticed.

Security features that suite our usage are as follows:

a: Securing administrator credentials: helps protect administrative account credentials

by using the Credential Guard and Remote Credential Guard features. It's also possible to

control administrator privileges.

b: Operating system protection: Resists breaches by using the Control Flow Guard

security feature that helps prevent memory corruption attacks and Windows Defender.

With the Device Guard, we can ensure that only trusted applications will run on the server.

c: Application's isolation: helps protect applications with Windows Server containers that

do not share kernels with other containers. There is also the option to use Distributed

Firewall, a software-defined network capability to control internal and externa network

traffics to the machines.

Our server is operating 24/7, we also make set the auto backup timer at 6:00 pm daily.

VI: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)

SMTP is a network protocol used for the sending and receiving of text-based messages or

email messages between one server and another. The SMTP is similar to a mailman who

gets a mail from the post office to my office mailbox. This postman has no capability to

receive, read, respond to or throw my mails away. In other words, the postman cannot

manage my emails. His job is delivering the mail and that's it.

In conclusion, in order to maintain the network infrastructure in workplace, company need

to have right resources, right level of IT expertise, and stronger security measure. Indeed,

enterprise-level infrastructure management is a full-time job unto itself.

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Question 1 (b):

Revolution in technology will drive long-term economic growth, productivity and

improvement in living standards. According to research, the emergence and diffusion of new

ideas, products and production techniques throughout the economy entails a process of “creative

destruction” (Bergek, Anna, Christian Berggren, Thomas and Michael 2013).

My opinion, new technologies are destroying jobs in some industries, especially among the

low-skilled, but it creating new jobs which are often in different industries and require different

skills. Automation and technology revolution are changing the very nature of many jobs, as well

as creating new ones that didn’t exist before. Example: mobile apps developer and Youtuber is a

new job that never exist in last decade. Mobile apps developer is typically open to graduates in

computer science or software related degrees, and able to drive to keep up to date with

developments and trends in the tech and modern media world. While Youtuber need a solid

content research skill to fulfill the platform needs, and they also need a video editing skills and

social media and digital awareness, such as Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook.

Jobs landscape in 2022

(Picture source from: Future of Jobs Report 2018, World Economic Forum)

According the future of jobs report (World Economic Forum 2018), the advancement of

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technologies, robotics and AI (Artificial Intelligence) will make 75 million jobs obsolete by the

year 2022, and it will predict the creation of 133 million new jobs over the same period, for a

net increase of 58 million jobs. It seems is good news, but this extraordinary swing in jobs will

pose a challenge to both employers and workers. For employers, it means making the right

investments in technology; for employees, it means acquiring the right skills.

According to WEF survey (World Economic Forum 2018), 500 of the world’s biggest

companies, such as Google, Nestle, P&G, Shell, Walmart, Pepsi Co, DHL and others that

representing over 15 million workers in 20 developed and emerging economies. These

companies represent a diverse set of industries from automotive, aerospace, retails, financial

services, supply chain and transport, healthcare, IT, oil and gas, travel, professional services,

and others.

The report identified 4 major drivers of change that will dominate from now until 2022:

1: High-speed mobile internet,

2: Artificial Intelligence (AI),

3: Big data analytics, and

4: Cloud technology.

These changes will happen in conjunction with other trends, such as the expansion of

education among the middle classes (particularly in developing economies), and the shift

toward a greener global economy.

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Job Skills Outlook in 2022
(Picture source from: Future of Jobs Report 2018, World Economic Forum)

Among the companies surveyed, 85 percent they’ll likely expand their use of big data

analytics between now and 2022. An equally large proportion of companies said they’re likely

to adopt and expand their use of such technologies as the IoT (internet-of-things), apps and

web-enabled markets (e-marketing), and cloud computing. And in near-future investments

included machine learning and virtual reality.

There are between 23% to 37% of the companies surveyed said they plan to make

investment of robots. Robotics is one of the attracting significant business interests, namely

stationary robots, non-humanoid land robots, and fully automated aerial drones, in addition to

machine-learning algorithms and AI. Of cause, it is subject to the company business nature.

From the WEF survey (World Economic Forum 2018), they found that nearly 50% of

companies expect that automation will lead to some reduction in their full-time workforce by

2022, based on the job profiles of their employee base today. However, 38% of businesses

surveyed expect to extend their workforce to new productivity-enhancing roles, and more than a

quarter expect automation to lead to the creation of new roles in their enterprise. We can foresee

that these companies are plan to expand their use of contractors and remote workers. They’re

also expecting big shifts in regards to existing work tasks.

Last year, an average of 71% of total task hours across the 12 industries covered in the

report are performed by humans, compared to 29% by machines. And WEF also predict by
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2022, this average is expected to have shifted to 58% task hours performed by humans and 42%

by machines. The layman job opportunity will reduce in next five years.

New faces of Robot Revolution in 2022

(Picture source from: Future of Jobs Report 2018, World Economic Forum)

Based on WEF 2018 analysis, by 2022, they expect that job losses due to automation will

decrease from 31% to 21%, a 10% decline. Half of today’s core jobs should remain stable until

2022. A whopping 54% of all employees will require “significant” training to either upgrade

their skills or acquire new skills altogether. Of these, 35% will require an additional six months

of on job training, and 10% will need more than a year to upgrade their skill set.

From the survey, by 2022 there are nearly one in four organizations said they’re undecided

or unlikely to pursue the retraining of existing employees. 2/3 of employers expect their

workers to either adapt or pick-up skills as their jobs evolve. Anyhow, half to two-thirds of

organizations said they’ll just resort to hiring contractors, temporary staff, and freelancers to

address any deficiencies in work skill.

Question 2 (a):

Alignment considers both how information technology is aligned with the business and

how the business should or could be aligned with information technology (Luftman 2003). Most

of SME and MNC organizations structures all lean towards decentralizing IT, shifting it closer

to end-users and melding the knowledge-base to business strategy (Rathnam, Justin, and Joseph

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2005). Business and IT alignment is vital for market impact and growth.

DHL - a giant of logistics, an iconic global brand with 50 years of market experience,

serving flagship customers such as MotorGP and Formula One they fully utilize and rely on IT

in their daily operational and business processes.

So, what is the factor that make DHL alignment their daily operational and business

strategy with IT services?

1: Communication:

Effective communication is part of the planning. Failure to do so almost guarantees

misalignment down the road. Common communication issues related to strategy misalignment

include failure to determine:

- Who needs to know about plan information?

- When do they need to know it?

- What should the information mean to them?

- What is it that the organization expects them to do with the information?

- How will they be communicated with?

This means that during planning, these topics and many others must be addressed initially

during strategic plan development and throughout operational planning. During plan refresh

cycles, the communication strategy should always be reviewed and updated as necessary.

In order to avoid such misalignment, Mr. Chin Kiat Chim - vice president of DHL saying

that it is important for both department manager (IT and Business) have a mutual understanding

(Henderson, 2019). They need to understand the importance of respective duty and direction.

DHL always provide internal training and meeting for both department staff, so they able to

maintain their knowledge through supervised training program.

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 Example, security is the highest factor for DHL in their daily business operations. Top

security is the key selling point of DHL, and DHL system must make security simple to

implement it globally with consistent quality, while also navigating culture diversity and

security maturity specific to each location.

DHL IT team need to take responsible for the effective management of global IT security,

especially on data protection, data privacy and risk management services for DHL Express, in

alignment with the Express management board. IT services provider need monitor and control

to ensure the least possible risks from cyber disruptions which could impact the organization

negatively.

2: Technology:

Another factor of misalignment is technology. IT role is not developed beyond that of the

provision of conventional office support systems. The integration of IT standards, standard

operation policies and systems is not well done.

In DHL, technology is deeply integrated in all aspects of business activity. They have a

high standard of IT team and the policies are planned with business objectives in mind. DHL IT

department is focused on the development of a core business and security analytics platform,

enabled by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). Their air is to "integrate and

interoperate" with critical security technology components to better “identify, visualize and

priorities” critical security information in near real-time, in addition to providing timely

remediation and responses to reduce possible business disruptions from cyber-attacks.

With an influx of emerging and disruptive technologies such as machine learning (ML),

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artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT), DHL need to attain high

levels of confidence in cybersecurity to compete and dominate in the digital space. This is

bringing the higher level of security confident to their customers.

3: IT Governance:

Plan governance must be a part of the planning process. Misalignment happened when a

plan governance is missing. An active and healthy governance function will take action to bring

initiatives under control when they stray from anticipated deadlines or intended results. Having

strong governance instills leadership and worker accountability to plan goals. Governance

helps avoid business strategy misalignment not only be defining accountability, it also brings

positive impact to employees.

To achieve Business - IT alignment, organizations must make decisions that take into

account both the organizational objectives and the IT disciplines. This is a procedure for

decision-making and control are established in which both the business and IT professionals are

involved. Example, in DHL, the evolving role of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)

from risk manager to business enabler requires a different approach to be able to deal with

business demand and expectations. The CISO now must identify themselves as a business

leader.

According to Mr. Chin interview saying that CISO role is becoming more expansive, with

new responsibilities spanning strategy, management and leadership. Rapid innovation and

change in digital transformation, CISO of DHL need to be equipped with deep technical

expertise, combined with transformational management skills (Henderson, 2019).

Proper governance will guide the organization firmly away from strategic misalignment

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and towards plan goal achievement

4: Metrics

Most of the SME or SMI companies are stay in lower lever IT metrics, they are purely

technical. They seldom or hardly invest in IT for improvement, unless there is a necessary

change on a particular item. The Service Level Agreements (SLAs) may not be used and there

is no benchmarking system.

In MNC organization, IT metrics incorporate measurements of subscriptions to business

opportunities and customers. In DHL, all assessment must get involves both Business and IT

activities. IT is routinely benchmarked and assessed, resulting in valuable practices and well-

understood measurement.

Example, DHL dealing with digital transformation in any form are enforcing cybersecurity

in every technology surface to ensure secure operations and meeting data privacy compliance.

At the same time, cybersecurity industries are also adopting artificial intelligence (AI), sensor

and blockchain solutions to collect, analyses and enrich significant number of events and

intelligence to better prevent, detect and respond to business and security threats.

According the Mr. Chin last interview, he said that developments in AI has driven smart

autonomous cyber defense systems which are able to learn and train themselves. Exploiting the

flavors of ML and AI software in dealing with Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) and drawing

the parallels alongside big data has become simpler. In fact, AI algorithms are valuable for

recognizing security anomalies from regular behaviors (Henderson, 2019).

The combination of cybersecurity and AI provides the path in creating a baseline of what is

pg. 12
normal and what’s going wrong with the pattern. This capability enhances the response times

from weeks/months down to minutes/hours, and empowering the Security Operation Centre

(SOC) to provide timely incident response to secure business transactions and its operations.

5: Human Resources

Manpower is the problem that most of SME and SMI business owner need to solve today.

Keep on changing employees is wasting time and money in training process. Most of SME and

SMI business owner never think of “technology innovation”. There seldom provides cross-

functional training in between IT and Business. Thus, a high staff turnover in IT section occurs

because there isn’t any retention plan. They prefer to work with MNC company to enjoy a

better employee’s benefit.

In DHL, they always encourage technology innovation within the business entity. From

time to time, their department head will arrange a job transfers and training in between IT and

its various business partners. The objective is to let both departments understand their job scope

and how to assist each other to achieve the company goal.

The roles within DHL is as diverse as the people who perform them. Many of their

employees spend their careers in various roles - joining as interns or on the shop floor and

working their way up through different departments and divisions.

DHL always provide plenty of opportunities and training to develop employee role and

gain knowledge and experience. DHL provide divisional leadership programs and functional

training curricula across all their business units to cater to specific development needs. That’s

the reason DHL have more than 380,000 employees across over 220 countries and territories.

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Question 2 (b):

Today’s networks need to support more traffic than ever, it provides the highest levels of

availability and performance when operations are predictable and repeatable (Feki, Fahim,

Mathieu, and Lieven 2013). User access corporate data from desktops, smart devices and

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mobile devices. Internet of Things (IoT) devices proliferate everywhere on premises, example:

smart home device. User can monitor and control their premise through smart device, like smart

phone, smart watch and tablets.

Photo of smart home kit

(Picture source from https://www.smartzone.info/logicxplus?
gclid=Cj0KCQjwwb3rBRDrARIsALR3XeZkdueLtfjuwcOAmm-
4gEpgBd2284gu_OYQRyioyA5RTuIWCKHJHQ0aAmoREALw_wcB )

But what is the challenge of managing a network environment? According to research,

the challenge of managing a network support in an organization is the establishment of a

process that can detect, diagnose, and resolve existing or potential problems that prevent the

achievement of the desired availability and performance goals (Pekkola 2013). Other than this,

below are top challenges to manage a network:

1. Network Security 

Network security is another top challenge because the perimeter of today’s network is

unclear, blocking unauthorized outside traffic from the internal network isn’t adequate for

protecting data. Example: high possibility threats make it into the network when employee

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 respond to a phishing email. Denial of service attacks only need to attempt connections to

succeed. Encryption helps protect traffic, but encryption can also make it harder to

monitor network activity. There are many tools that can be used to improve network

security, but ensuring they work together and provide a comprehensive solution is

difficult. In addition, multiple tools require increased monitoring and management.

2. Performance Management

Function of the performance management is to measure the performance of network

components such as network bandwidth, hardware, software and media. The network

services fail when the bandwidth jitter, or when packet loss affects the network. Packet

loss occurs when one or more packets of data travelling across a computer network fail to

reach their destination.

Duty of a network administrators is to monitor the network performance metrics such as

packet loss, jitter, bandwidth, and latency in the real-time across multiple and distributed

sites.

The challenging part is network administrator need to be alert and start thinking of

managing beyond the basic metrics like bandwidth, packet loss or latency alone. As the

revolution of technology rapidly, monitoring too has to be in par with the technology in

real-time systems. This is to ensure the network readiness for implementation of new

applications and services before fully implementing it in the network.

3. Maintenance and monitoring of network traffic

Monitoring a network traffic is the process of reviewing, analyzing and managing network

traffic for any abnormality or any process directly or indirectly can affect network

performance and security.

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Dynamic network traffic is one of the challenges faced by network administrators.

Dynamic network traffic is referring to the high frequency change of data traffic, traffic

pattern, bandwidth utilization, jitter, latency and other measurements elements.

The following are some of the challenges in monitoring the network traffic:

a. To determine network baseline

Frequently network and security practitioners hear that the start of any network-centric

project is to baseline the network. Simplistic approaches concentrate on bandwidth

utilization over time, typically focusing on spikes and troughs. More advanced

approaches try to classify traffic according to flows or even content. Regardless, there

is no single accepted taxonomy for creating a network traffic baseline.

b. To locate the problems in the topology

Assuming the network baseline challenge is related to traffic passing a single

monitoring point, this involves multiple locations. By placing instruments in enough

locations, it should be possible to visualize the network based on observed traffic

patterns. Doing this in an automated way would prove extremely useful to network

administrators and defenders.

c. Visualization at scale

In biggest size of networks, analysts are likely to begin reaching the limits of some

tools to digest and render network data. Tools which comfortably depict dozens or

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 hundreds of nodes face severe limitations when working with thousands or millions of

nodes.

d. Knowledge and experience in problem solving

As techniques and tools derive information from network data, it's often the analyst's

responsibility to derive knowledge from the information. But how should the analyst

capture that knowledge? Consider the "simple" problem of applying tags to network

flows. Depending on the data set and the classification involved, tagging individual

items in a packet or flow record can be difficult.

4. Non-centralized network management

The difficulty to monitor change in network configuration of a conventional network

management is due to lack of centralized control to keep record of changes being made

by individuals in the network team. Time consuming for the new team members to

understand the entire change in the network configuration which have happened hours

earlier in a dynamic network traffic environment.

Reference:

Bergek, Anna, Christian Berggren, Thomas Magnusson, and Michael Hobday. 2013.
"Technological discontinuities and the challenge for incumbent firms: Destruction,

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 disruption or creative accumulation?" Research Policy 42, no. 6-7: 1210-1224.

Channegowda, Mayur, Reza Nejabati, and Dimitra Simeonidou. 2013. "Software-defined

optical networks technology and infrastructure: Enabling software-defined optical
network operations." Journal of Optical Communications and Networking 5, no. 10 :
A274-A282.

Feki, Mohamed Ali, Fahim Kawsar, Mathieu Boussard, and Lieven Trappeniers. 2013. "The
internet of things: the next technological revolution." Computer 2 : 24-25.

Fernandez, German Carro, Sergio Martin Gutierrez, Elio Sancristobal Ruiz, Francisco Mur
Perez, and Manuel Castro Gil. 2012. "Robotics, the new industrial revolution." IEEE
Technology and Society Magazine 31, no. 2: 51-58.

Henderson, J. (2019, May 9). How DHL is securing 'the world's most international company'.
Retrieved from CIO Asia: https://www.cio.com/article/3393174/how-dhl-is-securing-
the-worlds-most-international-company.html

Luftman, Jerry. 2003. "Measure your business-IT alignment." Optimize: Business execution for
CIOs Magazine 26.

Pekkola, Sanna. 2013. "Managing a network by utilizing performance measurement

information." Measuring Business Excellence 17, no. 1: 72-79.

Rathnam, R. G., Justin Johnsen, and H. Joseph Wen. 2005. "Alignment of business strategy and
IT strategy: a case study of a fortune 50 financial services company." Journal of
Computer Information Systems 45, no. 2: 1-8.

Schwab, Klaus. 2017. The fourth industrial revolution. Currency.

World Economic Forum. 2018. "The future of jobs report 2018." World Economic Forum,
Geneva, Switzerland.

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