E-business infrastructure Chapter 3 E-business infrastructure

Learning outcomes Outline the hardware and software technologies used to build an e-business infrastructure within an organization and with its partners Outline the hardware and software requirements necessary to enable employee access to the Internet and hosting of e-commerce services.

Management issues What are the practical risks to the organization of failure to manage e-commerce infrastructure adequately? How should staff access to the Internet be managed? How should we evaluate the relevance of web services and open source software?

Why the jargon? Why do business managers need to know about the jargon and technology?

Activity – Internet infrastructure components Write down all the different types of hardware and software involved from when a user types in a web address such as www.google.com to the web site being loaded

Activity 3.1 Infrastructure risk assessment Make a list of the potential problems for customers of an online retailer You should consider problems faced by users of e-business applications who are both internal and external to the organization Base your answer on problems you have experienced on a web site that can be related to network, hardware and software failures or problems with data quality

Typical problems Web site communications too slow Web site not available Bugs on site through pages being unavailable or information typed in forms not being executed Ordered products not delivered on time E-mails not replied to Customers’ privacy or trust is broken through security problems such as credit cards being stolen or addresses sold to other companies

E-Commerce Infrastructure Articulate what e-commerce infrastructure include Are there any differences between a large organization and a small one?

Figure 3.1 This model should not be viewed just from layered perspective

Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure

Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure (Continued)

Figure 3.2 Physical and network infrastructure components of the Internet (Levels IV and III in Figure 3.1)

Figure 3.3 Example hosting provider Rackspace (www.rackspace.com)

Figure 3.4 Timeline of major developments in the use of the web

Figure 3.5 The Netcraft index of number of servers Source: Netcraft web Server Survey. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html. Netcraft

Case Study Innovation at Google Read the Google case on pages 115-116 Answer the questions on page 116 What is AdWords? How does it work? What is AdSense? How does it work? How does Google make money? http://investor.google.com/fin_data.html

Intranet and Extranet Applications What applications can an Intranet support? What applications can an extranet support?

Figure 3.6 Firewall positions within the e-business infrastructure of the B2B company

Activity – a common problem with intranets and extranets A B2B Company has found that after an initial surge of interest in its intranet and extranet, usage has declined dramatically. The e-business manager wants to achieve these aims: Increase usage Produce more dynamic content Encouraging more clients to order (extranet) What would you suggest?

Suggested answers Identify benefits Involve staff with development Find system sponsors, owners and advocates Training Keep content fresh, relevant and where possible, fun Use e-mail to encourage usage

Web Technology Browser Server Interactive between a browser and a server P. 125, Fig. 3.7 Box.3.2 pp. 126-127 Web Server Log

Figure 3.8 Transaction log file example

Figure 3. 9 Browsershots (www. browsershots Figure 3.9 Browsershots (www.browsershots.org) – a service for testing cross-browser compatibility

Internet Applications Atomisation concept Widget Blogs Feeds IPTV Peer-to-peer Social networks Tagging VOIP

Internet Applications How are the tools mentioned in the last slide relevant to e-commerce?

Figure 3.11 Personalized feed home page from iGoogle (www.igoogle.com)

Figure 3.12 Joost service

URLS and domain names Web addresses are structured in a standard way as follows: http://www.domain-name.extension/filename.html What do the following extensions or global top level domains stand for? .com .co.uk, .uk.com .org or .org.uk .gov .edu, .ac.uk .int .net .biz .info

Box 3. 3. Identify URL components: http://video. google. co Protocol Host or hostname Subdomain Domain name Top-level domain or TLD Second-level domain (SLD) The port The path URL parameter Anchor or fragment

How does DNS service work?

HTML and XML HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) A standard format used to define the text and layout of web pages. HTML files usually have the extension .HTML or .HTM XML or eXtensible Markup Language A standard for transferring structured data, unlike HTML which is purely presentational

Figure 3.13 The TCP/IP protocol

Figure 3.14 Home page index.html for an example B2B company in a web browser showing HTML source in text editor

XML example Product> <Action Value5”Delete”/> <ProductID>118003-008</ProductID> </Product> <Product Type5”Good” SchemaCategoryRef5”C43171801”> <ProductID>140141-002</ProductID> <UOM><UOMCoded>EA</UOMCoded></UOM> <Manufacturer>Compaq</Manufacturer> <LeadTime>2</LeadTime> <CountryOfOrigin> <Country><CountryCoded>US</CountryCoded></Country> </CountryOfOrigin>

Semantic Web Interrelated content with defined meaning, enabling better exchange of information between computers and between peoples and computers Example-Mini Case Study 3.3. pp. 149-151

Figure 3.15 Architecture of semantic web system used at Electricite de France

Media standards GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) A graphics format and compression algorithm best used for simple graphics JPEG (Joint Photographics Experts Group) A graphics format and compression algorithm best used for photographs Streaming media Sound and video that can be experienced within a web browser before the whole clip is downloaded e.g. Real Networks .rm format Video standards include MPEG and .AVI Sound standards include MP3 and WMA

Internet Governance Net Neutrality Principle What it is Should it be upheld? What two forces are threatening net neutrality? What’s your opinion on this matter?

Internet Governance Internet Corp. for assigning names and numbers-http://www.icann.org What is the equivalency in Canada? http://www.cira.ca/home-en/?lang=en Internet Society-www.isoc.org Internet Engineering Force—www.ietf.org WWW Consortium-www.w3.org

Open Source vs. Commercial Read and discuss p.157 Activity 3.4

Managing e-business Infrastructure What to manage? What are the main challenges Mini Case Study 3.4 Twitter How does twitter make money or not make money?

Managing HW/OS Infrastructure Client and server machines OS Networks Storage

Managing I-Services and Hosting Providers Key issues Connection methods Service quality and prices Speed of access How slow is slow? P.162 box 3.6 Shared or dedicated hardware and bandwidth Availability Service level agreement Security

Managing Application Infrastructures This primarily concerns delivering the right applications to all users of e-business services

Figure 3.17 (a) Fragmented applications infrastructure Source: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000)

Figure 3.17 (b) integrated applications infrastructure (Continued) Source: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000)

Figure 3.18 Differing use of applications at levels of management within companies

Figure 3.19 Elements of e-business infrastructure that require management

Web Services, SaaS, and SOA Web Services—applications are provided though internet but not necessarily on the same machine or the same network SaaS—applications are licensed to customers for use as a service on demand What are the challenges for SaaS?

Web Services, SaaS, and SOA What is cloud computing? What is virtualization? Benefits Challenges Mini Case Study 3.5, p. 173

Web Services, SaaS, and SOA What is SOA? A collection of services that communicate with each other as part of a distributed system The motive is to develop applications that are independent of hardware, OS, language, etc. Case Study 3.2, pp. 174-175

Figure 3.20 Google apps (www.google.com/apps)

Figure 3.21 Salesforce.com (www.salesforce.com)

M-Commerce What is m-commerce? What are its advantages? What are its limits?

M-Commerce Mobile phone Technologies Ref. p.178, Table 3.6

M-Commerce Mobile phone Technologies Mobile phone user market Ref. p.178, Table 3.6 Mobile phone user market http://www.cwta.ca/CWTASite/english/index.html http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/us-catches-up-with-western-europe-in-3g-mobile-device-adoption-5908/

M-Commerce Popular mobile applications Technology Convergence Short Message Services (SMS) applications Wi-Fi mobile access Bluetooth wireless applications Technology Convergence Access device convergence Delivery channel convergence Supplier convergence

M-Commerce Strategies For portal and media sites, they may adopt embrace early or wait and see For B2C e-commerce sites, they may market, sell, and building the brand

Next Class Preview chapter 4 Read the Econsultancy interview on pages 196-198 and be prepared to discuss these questions What’s their business model? How did they plan to develop their business? Do you think they have a good chance to succeed? What can we learn from the interview?