1. IT INFRASTRUCTURES Business-Driven Technologies
Chapter 7
IT INFRASTRUCTURES
Business-Driven Technologies

2. STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
Explain the relationship between the organization’s roles and goals and the IT infrastructure
Describe the difference between a 2-tier and 3-tier infrastructure
Describe system integration

3. STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
Describe Web services and Microsoft’s .NET
Explain the difference between network area storage (NAS) and storage area networks (SAN)
List and describe the seven “-ilities”

4. INTRODUCTION
Organizations can choose from thousands of components to build their IT infrastructures
IT infrastructure - includes the hardware, software, and telecommunications equipment that, when combined, provide the underlying foundation to support the organization’s goals

5. INTRODUCTION

6. IT INFRASTRUCTURE OVERVIEW
The three primary components of any IT infrastructure include:
Client/server networks
Internet
N-tier infrastructures

7. Client/Server Network
Client/server network - a network in which one or more computers are servers and provide services to the other computers, which are called clients
Thin client - a workstation with a small amount of processing power and costs less than a full powered workstation

8. Client/Server Network

9. The Internet
There are numerous ways that the Internet enables an organization’s success
Organizations must watch for inappropriate use of the Internet by its employees
Organizations must decide how employees will access the Internet

10. n-Tier Infrastructures
Basic client/server computing is a 2-tier infrastructure
2-tier infrastructure – there are only two tiers – the client and the server
3-tier infrastructure – contains clients, application servers, and data servers

11. Additional IT Infrastructure Elements
Client/server networks, the Internet, and n-tier infrastructures are central to an organization’s IT infrastructure
Three general categories of additional IT infrastructure elements include:
Information views
Business logic
Data storage and manipulation

12. INFORMATION VIEWS
Responsible for the presentation of information and receiving user events and includes:
Intranets
Extranets
Portals
Digital dashboards

13. INFORMATION VIEWS
Intranet - an internal organizational Internet that is guarded against outside access by a special security feature called a firewall (which can be software, hardware, or a combination of the two)
Extranet – is an intranet that is restricted to an organization and certain outsiders, such as customers and suppliers

14. INFORMATION VIEWS
Digital dashboard – displays key information gathered from several sources on a computer screen in a format tailored to the needs and wants of an individual knowledge worker

15. BUSINESS LOGIC
Responsible for maintaining the business rules (e.g. application software) and protecting corporate information from unauthorized direct access by the clients and includes:
Integrations
Web services
Workflow systems
Applications service providers

16. BUSINESS LOGIC
Integrations solve the problem with separate applications
Integration - allows separate applications to communicate directly with each other by automatically exporting data files from one application and importing them into another

17. BUSINESS LOGIC
Web Services promise to be the next major frontier in computing
Web services – encompass all the technologies that are used to transmit and process information on and across a network
Interoperability – the concept that different computer systems and applications can talk to each other

18. BUSINESS LOGIC
Microsoft .NET - .Net is Microsoft’s version of Web services
Microsoft’s vision is to make applications available any time, any place, on any device

19. .NET Components The three primary components of .NET:
.NET platform – tools, technologies, and services that support .NET
.NET framework – supports Web services
Visual Studio .NET – development tools that create .NET applications

20. BUSINESS LOGIC Many companies support Web Services besides Microsoft
Primary competitor is Sun Microsystems J2EE
Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) – Sun Microsystems development tool for building Web Services applications

21. BUSINESS LOGIC
Workflow systems help to automate the process of presenting and passing information around an organization
Workflow - defines all of the steps or business rules, from beginning to end, required for a process to run correctly
Workflow systems - automate business processes

22. BUSINESS LOGIC
An organization can outsource business logic through an application service provider
Application service provider (ASP) – supplies software applications over the Internet that would otherwise reside on its customers’ in-house computers

23. ASP Configuration

24. BUSINESS LOGIC
Customers typically sign an agreement with the ASP for service
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) - define the specific responsibilities of the service provider and set the customer expectations

25. DATA STORAGE AND MANIPULATION
Responsible for data storage and manipulation and includes:
Network area storage
Storage area networks
Server farms
Collocation

26. DATA STORAGE AND MANIPULATION
Server farm - the name of a location that stores a group of servers in a single place
Web farm – is either a Web site that has multiple servers or an ISP that provides Web site outsourcing services using multiple servers

27. DATA STORAGE AND MANIPULATION
Collocation - a company rents space and telecommunications equipment from another company, or a collocation vendor
Collocation facilities typically contain server farms and Web farms

28. SUPPORTING AN IT INFRASTRUCTURE
An organization can support its IT infrastructure components with:
Backup/recovery
Disaster recovery
Infrastructure ‘ilities

29. SUPPORTING AN IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Backup - the process of making a copy of the information stored on a computer
Recovery - the process of reinstalling the backup information in the event the information was lost

30. SUPPORTING AN IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Disaster recovery plan - a detailed process for recovering information or an IT system in the event of a catastrophic disaster such as a fire or flood
A disaster recovery plan typically includes hot and cold sites

31. Hot and Cold Sites
Hot site - a separate and fully equipped facility where the company can move immediately after the disaster and resume business
Cold site - a separate facility that does not have any computer equipment, but is a place where the knowledge workers can move after the disaster

32. SUPPORTING AN IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Factors to consider when developing an IT infrastructure (These factors are commonly referred to as the ‘ilities)
Availability
Accessibility
Reliability
Scalability
Flexibility
Performance
Capacity planning

33. SUPPORTING AN IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Availability - determining when your IT system will be available for knowledge workers to access
Accessibility - determining who has the right to access different types of IT systems and information

34. SUPPORTING AN IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Reliability - ensures your IT systems are functioning correctly and providing accurate information
Data cleansing - the process of ensuring that all information is accurate

35. SUPPORTING AN IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Scalability – how well your system can adapt to increased demands
Flexibility - the system’s ability to change quickly

36. SUPPORTING AN IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Performance - measures how quickly an IT system performs a certain process
Benchmark – baseline values a system seeks to attain
Benchmarking – a process of continuously measuring system results

37. SUPPORTING AN IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Capacity planning - determines the future IT infrastructure requirements for new equipment and additional network capacity

38. IT INFRASTRUCTURES AND THE REAL WORLD
When approving designs for an IT infrastructure be sure to ask the following:
How big is your department going to grow?
Will the system handle additional users?
How are your customers going to grow?
How easy is it to change the system?
How flexible is the system?

39. IT INFRASTRUCTURES AND THE REAL WORLD
How much additional information do you expect to store each year?
How long will you maintain information in the systems?
How much history do you want to keep on each customer?
What are the hours you need the system to be available?
How often do you need the information backed up?

40. CAN YOU…
Explain the relationship between the organization’s roles and goals and the IT infrastructure
Describe the difference between a 2-tier and 3-tier infrastructure
Describe system integration

41. CAN YOU… Describe Web services and Microsoft’s .NET
Explain the difference between network area storage (NAS) and storage area networks (SAN)
List and describe the seven “-ilities”

42. CHAPTER 7
End of Chapter 7