E-Business Infrastructure Plan Revised Date: 2/6/2012 Chapter 6 E-Business Infrastructure Plan

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

What is e-Business infrastructure? A system architecture that consists of: hardware, software, content and data used The purpose is to deliver e-business services to employees, customers and partners and other related stakeholders.

What is e-Business infrastructure? 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.

What is e-Business infrastructure? Figure 3.1 A five-layer model of e-business infrastructure

Management Issues Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure

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

What is the Internet? “The Internet, sometimes called simply "the Net," is a worldwide system of computer networks - a network of networks in which users at any one computer can, if they have permission, get information from any other computer” -whatis.com “A global network connecting millions of computers. More than 100 countries are linked into exchanges of data, news and opinions. -webopedia.com “is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons” -FNC

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

What is the Internet? London Internet Exchange Located in Docklands area in East London Second large IX in Europe

What is the Internet? Malaysia and the Internet Internet Usage Statistics: 13,528,200 Internet users as of Sept/2006, 47.8% of the population, according to M.C.M.C. Malaysia Internet Exchange (MyIX) Established in November, 2003 Launched on 15th December 2006 3 nodes connected in AIMS, NCC and TPM Jaring

What is the Internet? World Wide Web – standard method for exchanging information on the Internet Web browsers – a method of accessing and viewing information stored as web documents Web servers – store and present the web pages

Technology Evolution Table 3.2 Six stages of advances in the dissemination of information

Technology Evolution Clay tablets Guternberg Press

How big is the Internet? Over 1 billion Internet users worldwide How big the infrastructure they accessing? Measured by number of servers Number of pages indexed by search engines 2006: 9 billion pages Dec 2010:????

Figure 3.4 The Netcraft index of number of servers Source: Netcraft Web Server Survey. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web server survey.html. Netcraft, http://netcraft.com

Intranet and extranet Intranet: Extranet: A private network within a single company using Internet standards to enable employees to share information Extranet: Formed by extending an intranet beyond a company to customers, suppliers and collaborators

Intranet and extranet Figure 3.5 The relationship between intranets, extranets and the Internet

Intranet applications Used extensively for supporting sell-side e- commerce Also used for internal marketing communications, ex. Directories, staff bulletin, SOP, courses, etc. Marketing Intranet has a few advantages: Reduced product life cycle Reduce cost Better customer service Distribution of information

Intranet applications- example

Extranet applications- example Used to provide online services which are restricted to business customers

Extranet applications- example Premier Dell.com

Extranet applications- Business benefits Information sharing Cost reduction Order processing and distribution Customer service

Extranet applications-issues Questions on the extranet? Are the levels of usage sufficient? Is it effective and efficient? Who has ownership of the extranet? What are the levels of service quality? Is the quality of information adequate?

Extranet application on global basis

Extranet applications on global basis

Extranet application-Firewalls A specialized software mounted on a separate server at the point where the company is connected to the Internet Use to protect information on the company

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

World Wide Web A standard method for exchanging and publishing information on the Internet. Based on standard document formats such as HTML Offers hyperlink Supports a wide range of formatting Can integrate graphics and animations Make interactions possible Benefits: Easy to use Provide a graphical environment Standardization of tools and usages

WWW-How it works Figure 3.7 Information exchange between a web browser and web server

Internet tools E-mail Instant messaging (IM) and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Usenet newsgroups FTP file transfer Telnet Blogs RSS (Really Simple Syndication) World Wide Web IPTV BitTorrent

Internet tools-RSS An Internet standard for publishing and exchanging content using XML Content can be published on a site that originates from another site New method of distributing messages to subscribers

Internet tools-Voice over IP (VOIP) Voice data is transferred across the Internet – it enables phone calls to be made over the Internet. Peer-to-peer Hosted service Complete replacement of all telephone systems Upgrading telephone systems Ex. Skype

URLs and Domain names URL- Uniform resource locaters. Domain names A web address used to locate a web page on a web server. Domain names The name of the web server Usually indicate the company name and the extension shows its type. Ex. www.uniten.edu.my What does it mean?

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? Find out.... .com .co.uk, .uk.com .org or .org.uk .gov .edu, .ac.uk .int .net .biz .info .html

Web Presentation-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. Use to develop B2B integration system ex. Microsoft BizTalk, Rosetta.net

Web Presentation-HTML Figure 3.9 Home page index.html for The B2B Company in a web browser showing HTML source in text editor

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

Who controls the Internet? ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) The Internet Society (www.isoc.org) The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) The World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org) Telecommunications Information Networking Architecture Consortium TINA-C

Managing e-business infrastructure Layer II – Systems software Standardization throughout organization Reduce number of contacts for support and maintenance Reduce purchase price through multi-licenses Layer III – Transport or network Based on internal and external company network Issue: performed by the company or outsource Laver IV – Storage Based on company needs Who is in-charged

Managing e-business infrastructure Figure 3.10 (a) Fragmented applications infrastructure, (b) integrated applications infrastructure Source: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000)

Managing e-business infrastructure Figure 3.11 Differing use of applications at levels of management within companies

Managing e-business infrastructure Figure 3.12 Elements of e-business infrastructure that require management

Internet service providers (ISP) ISP connection method Speed of access Availability Service-level agreements Security

New access devices Mobile access devices Wi-Fi mobile access Bluetooth Next-generation mobile services Interactive digital television What else…. Your inputs… Not considered as new any more…

Access providers Figure 3.13 Mobile access technologies

Summary The e-Business infrastructure need to be well defined and understand to ensure the company aware of its importance and limitations. There are five generic layers of e-Business infrastructure that emphasize on different functions. The Internet technology also evolves and allowed various web based applications to be developed to support various business processes and needs.

Tutorial 6 Distinguish between Intranet, Extranet and Internet. You are a consultant to a small enterprise that interested in setting up a transactional e- commerce site. Create a summary guide for the company about the stages/levels that are necessary in the creation of a web site. Discuss the management issues that may involved.

References Google Image, http://www.google.com accessed on 13 April 2011. Chaffey, D., (2007, 2009), E-Business and e- Commerce Management, 3rd and 4th Edition, Prentice Hall. Rosetta.Net, http://www.rosettanet.org.my/rnstd.asp assessed on 18.4.2011.

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