Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: INF5210 Informasjon Infrastructures l About the course »Lectures »2 Mandatory deliveries –26.9 and –Articles to be presented –Themes for group work »The formation of groups »Final exam (Essay) – 5.12 l Introduction to Information Infrastructure theories l Brief overview of II in Norwegian public sector

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Informasjon Infrastructures An introduction Issues : l Why infrastructures - some different perspectives l A brief overview of the course l What is an infrastructure - 1 l The economics of infrastructures l Infrastructures in Norwegian public sector # public infrastructures Background literature: »Hanseth, Ole: Ciborra et al: From Control to drift, kap. 2,4 and 5 Issues : l Why infrastructures - some different perspectives l A brief overview of the course l What is an infrastructure - 1 l The economics of infrastructures l Infrastructures in Norwegian public sector # public infrastructures Background literature: »Hanseth, Ole: Ciborra et al: From Control to drift, kap. 2,

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Some questions l What do you understand by infrastructure »Give examples of (information ) infrastructure »Similarities between physical and electronic infrastructure l What is the difference between an infrastructure and an information system l Why do you think infrastructures are important ? l What specific challenges is tied to developing and maintaining an infrastructure? l What specific challenges is inherent in maintaining an infrastructure

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: What is an infrastructure A general definition (Webster dictionarry) l A substructure or underlying foundation; esp., the basic installations and facilities on which the continuance and growth of a community, state, etc. depends as roads, schools, power plants, transportation and communication systems, etc."

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Why talk about II l Define /describe a set of ‘entities’ having common characteristics »Why are II different from IS l Explain the history/trajectories of existing II »Internet, OSI, SAP, l Understand how to develop and maintain new II »Help us understand the of these specific characteristics l Can (possible) predict about future II building: »Electronic Patient Record, UMTS, Public Key Infrastructure,..

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Different types of infrastructures l National and global II »Internet, the phon enetwork, GSM, UMTS (?) l Business (sector) networks »EDI, electronic pation records, flight ticket booking systems (Amanda,..).. l Corporate infrastructure »Enterprise Resource Planning like, SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft,.. and other ERP packages

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Infrastructure – a misleading concept? l Legacy from the industrial society: »Emphasizes the physical and material underlying basis »Stable, heavy, difficult to modify/slow changes »Closed, limited in space (and time?) l The new information society »Global »Flexible, dynamic »Everything is changing, increasing speed »Open, unclear boundaries, –Ecologies of infrastructures »Changes implies learning – learning implies changes

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Information systems or infrastructures? Information systems – the traditional approach: »One main purpose (solve one specific task) »Limited (homogeneous) user group »Assumes (often) centralised control by one organisation or group »Standards are either neglected or taken as granted »Specific birth day and day of death –Installed base are neglected »Need not be always available (down time is acceptable or even desirable)

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Infrastructures l Serves large (umlimited ) communities of users and usages patterns l Has to conform to certain standards l Infrastructures are never build from scratch l No clear date of birth – cannot die (!) »Must be gradually l Implementations  Surprises, side effects, unexpected outcomes of technology and organisation

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: What characterises an infrastructure The US Government when building an National II: (based on McGarty among others) »Open and common »Shared (sharable) »Enabling »Standardized »Evolving »Socio-technical »Heterogeneous »Installed Base Hanseth ( 2002) emphasizes the ’italic’ characteristics!

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: What characterises an infrastructure-2 Star and Ruhleder (1996): Steps to an ecology of knowledge) l Embeddedness l Transparency l Reach of scope l Learned as part of membership l Links with conventions of practice l Embodiments of standards l Built on an installed base l Becomes visible upon breakdown

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Installed base l Infrastructures are never designed from scratch (?) »Something always exist »We cannot bypass the history  Can only be modified and extended l The installed base includes: »Nodes in the network; equipment and software, vendors,.. »Protocols, standard and standard bodies, documentations, routines, »Operations and support, documentations, »Knowledge and experience, textbooks  The installed base as a heterogeneous actor- network

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Installed base as an actor l Re-enforcing mechanisms »In order to work, it must be aligned with the existing l Larger installed base l More complements produced Further adoption l Greater credibility of standards l Reinforces values to users

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Decomposing heterogeneous infrastructures l The structure of infrastructures

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Decomposing heterogeneous infrastructures l l Ecologies of infrastructures

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Universialism and installed Base Is universal design possible and desirable l Examples: OSI-protocols (X.25, X.400), EDIFACT, SAP, electronic patient-journal »Top-down development, »Uniform and standardized network on all levels »The goal is the perfect solution including most facilities »’Closed world »Centralized control »Monolithic organization

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: An alternative strategy: The Internet model l The TCP/IP approach: »Need to connect different networks –Connectivity at meta-level –Best efforts approach »Balancing standards and flexibility –Openness, –Duplication, gateways »Minimal standards –Incompleteness, gradually improvement »What aspects are relevant –Technical –Humans »Internet has gained momentum and become an actor that influences society at all levels –Serves many different user communities,...

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: The case of Internet- some basic characteristics l The idea of packet switching and datagrams (Kleinrock) »Distributed, digital and redundancy (Baran) »IMPs : how to avoid n*(n-1)/2 (Kahn) »Symmetric protocols (NCP, SMTP. FTP….) l Open Architecture Networking »TCP/IP and black boxes: routers/gateways (Cerf, Kahn) »Open network of independent network and No global control »Best offer service – transmit and retransmit »End-to-End responsibilities for error check, flow control »Domain Name System l Incorporation of TCP/IP in Unix BSD l WWW: URL, HTTP and HTML

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Basic ideas -2 l Its roots in academic tradition and basic research philosophy l The openness: free flow of ideas and innovations »Open access to all documents »RFC (Request for proposals) l The public funding of the development (and diffusion ) »Academic and research network infrastructures like NSFnet, HEPnet, JANET, NordUNet,.. l The formation of open communities l Peer institutions as IAB, IETF, W3C l Open source movement l The gift economy

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Strategies l Flexibility »Flexible standards and technical solutions l Modularisation and encapsulation »E.g. The Internet IMPS and layered structure l Minimal solutions »E. g Internet versus OSI-protocols l Gateways »From N*(n-1) to M (= different protocols or subnets) l Transitions strategies

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Information Infrastructures in Norwegian public sector l II that are developend and maintained by the control of public agencies »State government agencies or local administrations l Their goal is to serve (all or part of) the citiziens l Examples »ODIN, ’Forvaltningsnett’, etc »-Helsenettet, Skolenett, Biblioteks/kulturnett,.. »-Kostra (Kommune-stat rapportering) …. »-More specialist infrastructures aas e.g. PKI (Publik Key Infrastruktur), Studentweb, SO,...

Arild JansenAFIN & IfI, UiO /: Some Important links l ODIN: l Norge.no/Norway.no l Standardisering/NOSIP: l Helsenett: »Det nasjonale helsenettet bygges opp gjennom regionale helsenett i de 5 helseregionene l Utdanning.no 104/_pa.104/111?reset=true