MNG 3204

IT Infrastructure and Emerging

Technologies
 Lecturer:
Seon Renville

Text:
Laudon, K. C. & Laudon, J.P.
About the Management Information
Systems
Course
Managing the Digital Firm

Chapter 5
Learning Objectives

● What is IT infrastructure and what are its components?

● What are the stages and technology drivers of IT infrastructure evolution?
● What are the current trends in computer hardware platforms?
● What are the current trends in software platforms?
● What are the challenges of managing IT infrastructure and management
solutions?
 What is IT Infrastructure?

IT infrastructure includes
investment in hardware, software,
and services—such as consulting,
education, and training—that are
shared across the entire firm or
across
entire business units in the firm. A
firm’s IT infrastructure provides the
foundation for serving customers,
working with vendors, and managing
internal
firm business processes
 What is IT Infrastructure?

IT infrastructure consists of a set of

physical devices and software
applications
that are required to operate the entire
enterprise. But IT infrastructure is also
a
set of firmwide services budgeted by
management and comprising both
human
and technical capabilities.
 IT Services?

Computing platforms used to provide

computing services that connect
employees, customers, and suppliers
into a coherent digital environment,
including large mainframes, midrange
computers, desktop and laptop
computers, and mobile handheld
devices.
 IT Services?

Telecommunications services that

provide data, voice, and video
connectivity
to employees, customers, and
suppliers.

Data management services that store

and manage corporate data and
provide
capabilities for analyzing the data.
 IT Services?

Application software services that

provide enterprise-wide capabilities
such
as enterprise resource planning,
customer relationship management,
supply
chain management, and knowledge
management systems that are shared
by
all business units
 IT Services?

Physical facilities management

services that develop and manage the
physical installations required for
computing, telecommunications, and
data management services.
 IT Services?

IT standards services that provide the

firm and its business units with
policies that determine which
information technology will be used,
when,
and how.

IT education services that provide

training in system use to employees
and
offer managers training in how to plan
for and manage IT investments.
 Evolution of IT Infrastructure

The IT infrastructure in
organizations today is an
outgrowth of over 50 years
of evolution in computing
platforms. There have been five
stages in this evolution, each
representing a different
configuration of computing power
and
infrastructure elements
 Evolution of IT
Infrastructure
The five eras are general-purpose
mainframe and minicomputer
computing, personal computers,
client/server
networks, enterprise computing,
and cloud and mobile computing.
TECHNOLOGY DRIVERS OF INFRASTRUCTURE
EVOLUTION
In 1965, Gordon Moore, the directory of
Fairchild Semiconductor’s Research
and Development Laboratories, an early
manufacturer of integrated circuits,
wrote in Electronics magazine that since
the first microprocessor chip was
introduced in 1959, the number of
components on a chip with the smallest
manufacturing costs per component
(generally transistors) had doubled each
year. This assertion became the
foundation of Moore’s Law. Moore later
reduced the rate of growth to a doubling
every two years
Infrastructure Components
IT infrastructure today is composed of
seven major components. Figure 5-9
illustrates these infrastructure
components and the major vendors
within each
component category. These components
constitute investments that must be
coordinated with one another to provide
the firm with a coherent infrastructure.
Computer Hardware Platform
This component includes client
machines (desktop PCs, mobile
computing devices
such as netbooks and laptops but not
including iPhones or BlackBerrys) and
server machines. The client machines
use primarily Intel or AMD
microprocessors.
Operating Systems Platform
An operating system is the most
important software that runs on a
computer. It manages the computer's
memory and processes, as well as all of
its software and hardware. It also allows
you to communicate with the computer
without knowing how to speak the
computer's language. Without an
operating system, a computer is
useless.
Enterprise Software and Applications
Enterprise software, also known as
enterprise application software (EAS), is
a type of computer software that helps
manage various aspects of a business
rather than individuals. For example,
enterprise software can be used to
manage accounting, sales, marketing,
and human resources, analyze data,
handle payments and projects, and
develop custom applications.
Enterprise Software and Applications
Enterprise database management
software is responsible for organizing
and managing the firm’s data so that
they can be efficiently accessed and
used.

Storage area networks (SANs) connect

multiple storage devices on a separate
high-speed network dedicated to
storage. The SAN creates a large central
pool of storage that can be rapidly
accessed and shared by multiple
servers.
Internet Platforms
Internet platforms overlap with, and
must relate to, the firm’s general
networking infrastructure and hardware
and software platforms. Most internet
expenditure would be for hardware,
software, and management services to
support a firm’s Web site, including Web
hosting services, routers, and cabling or
wireless equipment.

A Web hosting service maintains a

large Web server, or series of servers,
and provides fee-paying subscribers
with space to maintain their Web sites.
Consulting and System Integration
Today, even a large firm does not
have the staff, the skills, the
budget, or the
necessary experience to deploy
and maintain its entire IT
infrastructure.
Implementing a new infrastructure
requires
significant changes in business
processes and procedures,
training and education, and
software integration
Consulting and System Integration

Software integration means

ensuring the new infrastructure
works with
the firm’s older, so-called legacy
systems and ensuring the new
elements
of the infrastructure work with one
another.
Consulting and System Integration
Software integration

Legacy systems are generally

older transaction processing
systems created for mainframe
computers
that continue to be used to avoid
the high cost of replacing or
redesigning
them. Replacing these systems is
cost prohibitive and generally not
necessary if these older systems
can be integrated into a
contemporary
infrastructure.
Contemporary Hardware Trends
Grid Computing
Grid Computing can be defined as a
network of computers working together to
perform a task that would rather be difficult
for a single machine. All machines on that
network work under the same protocol to
act as a virtual supercomputer. The task
that they work on may include analyzing
huge datasets or simulating situations that
require high computing power. Computers
on the network contribute resources like
processing power and storage capacity to
the network.
Contemporary Hardware Trends
Virtualisation
Virtualization is the process of
presenting a set of computing
resources
(such as computing power or data
storage) so that they can all be
accessed in
ways that are not restricted by
physical configuration or geographic
location.
Virtualization enables a single
physical resource (such as a server
or a storage
device) to appear to the user as
multiple logical resources.
Contemporary Hardware Trends
Cloud Computing
The U.S. National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST)
defines cloud computing as having
the following essential
characteristics (Mell and Grance,
2009):
● On-demand self-service
● Ubiquitous network access
● Location independent resource
pooling:
● Rapid elasticity
● Measured service
Contemporary Hardware Trends
Green Computing
Green computing or green IT, refers
to practices and technologies for
designing, manufacturing, using,
and disposing of computers, servers,
and associated devices such as
monitors, printers, storage devices,
and networking and communications
systems to minimize impact on the
environment.
Contemporary Software Trends
Open Source Software
This is software produced by a
community of several
hundred thousand programmers
around the world. According to the
leading
open source professional
association, OpenSource.org, open
source software is
free and can be modified by users.
Works derived from the original code
must
also be free, and the software can be
redistributed by the user without
additional licensing
Contemporary Software Trends
Open Source Software Open Source Software

Advantages Disadvantages
● Cost ● Limited Support
● Flexibility ● Compatibility
● Collaboration ● Limited Functionality
● Security ● Lack of Professional Development
● Innovation ● Legal Issues
Contemporary Software Trends
AJAX
Ajax allows a client and server to
exchange small pieces of data
behind the
scene so that an entire Web page
does not have to be reloaded each
time the user requests a change.
Contemporary Software Trends
Web Services
Web services refer to a set of loosely
coupled software components that
exchange information with each
other using universal Web
communication standards and
languages. They can exchange
information between two different
systems regardless of the operating
systems or programming languages
on which the systems are based.
Contemporary Software Trends
Web Services
The collection of Web services that
are used to build a firm’s software
systems
constitutes what is known as a
service-oriented architecture. A
service oriented architecture (SOA)
is set of self-contained services that
communicate with each other to
create a working software
application. Business
tasks are accomplished by executing
a series of these services