1. Information Systems Management In Practice 5E
Managing Operations
Chapter 8
Information Systems Management In Practice 5E
McNurlin & Sprague

2. A Typical MIS Department Budget
33% Systems and Programming
70% Maintenance
30% New Development
10% Administration and Training
57% Operations - Involve more $ than any other part of the MIS department
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3. What are three solutions to operations problems?
Buy more equipment
Continuously fight fires and rearrange priorities, getting people to solve the problems at hand
Continually document and measure what you are doing, to find out the real problems, not just the apparent ones. Then set standards - the preferred solution
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4. Operational Measures
External: What the customer sees: system uptime, response time, turnaround time equal customer satisfaction
Internal: Of interest to systems people: computer usage as % of capacity, disk storage used
Problems reported by external measures can be explained by deviations in internal measures.
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5. What’s New in Operations
Companies have “cleaned their operational house.”
Operations managers are beginning to manage outward.
Operations are being simplified.
Certain operations are being offloaded.
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6. Outsourcing Information Systems Functions
Outsourcing means turning over a firm’s computer operations, network operations, or other IT function to a vendor for a specified time.
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7. Outsourcing Information Systems Functions: Driving Forces
Focus on core businesses: In the 1980s, this led to huge amount of merger and acquisition activity.
Shareholder value: Companies were “priced” based on their shareholder value, that is, their discounted cash flow, as a result of high-yield bonds that allowed a few people to buy a company and leverage it with debt.
Management must stress value, they must consider outsourcing in all their nonstrategic functions.
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8. Outsourcing Information Systems Functions: Customer-Vendor
Buying their professional services: planning, consulting, building, or maintaining application, network and training
Buying their products:- with or without training
Buying their transactions: e.g., payroll checks, credit rating
Systems integrator: to handle planning, development, maintenance, and training for IS project
Outsourcing: time-based contract for IS activities
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9. Outsourcing Information Systems Functions: Customer-Vendor
Figure 8-2 Shows how IT has moved from the more traditional professional services category to outsourcing. Changes:
IS Management loses an increasing amount of control
Vendors take more risk
Vendors’ margins improve
Choosing the right vendor becomes more important
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10. Outsourcing’s History
IT outsourcing
Transitional outsourcing
Best-of-breed outsourcing
Shared services
Business process outsourcing
E-business outsourcing
Application service providers (ASPs)
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11. Managing Outsourcing: Organizational Structure
Typically, parties establish layers of joint teams.
Top-level team: final word in conflict resolution
Operational team: oversees day-to-day functioning
Joint special purpose teams: created from time to time to solve pressing issues
Committees: oversee the use of formal change management procedures
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12. Managing Outsourcing: Governance
The foundations of governing an outsourcing relationship are laid in the contract.
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Responsibilities, performance requirements, penalties, bonuses
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13. Managing Outsourcing: Day-to-Day Working
Recommendations to manage day-to-day interactions:
Manage expectations, not staff
Realize that informal ways of working may disappear
Loss of informal ways of working may add rigor
Integration of the two staffs requires explicit actions
The best way to manage day-to-day is communicate frequently
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14. Managing Outsourcing: Supplier Development
Buying parts and services that go into one’s own products and services
Assisting one’s suppliers to improve their product and services by generally improving their processes
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15. Security in the Internet Age
Threats (see 2000 Survey – Figure 8-5)
Organizations are under attack from inside and outside their electronic perimeter
Attacks are being detected
Attacks can result in significant losses
Defending from attacks requires more than the use of information security technology
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16. Security in the Internet Age: Hacking
Approaches hackers use:
Cracking the password
Tricking someone
Network sniffing
Misusing administrative tools
Playing middleman
Denial of service
Trojan horse
Viruses
Spoofing
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17. Security in the Internet Age: Security’s Five Pillars
Authentication: verifying the authenticity of users
Identification: identifying users to grant them appropriate access
Privacy: protecting information from being seen
Integrity: keeping information in its original form
Nonrepudiation: preventing parties from denying actions they have taken
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18. Security in the Internet Age: Countermeasures
Three techniques used by companies to protect themselves
Firewalls: Control access between networks
Used to create intranets and extranets, which only employees and authorized business partners can access
Implementation
Packet filtering to block “illegal” traffic, which is defined by the security policy… or
By using a proxy server, which acts as an intermediary
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19. Security in the Internet Age: Countermeasures
Public key encryption: A third party issues two keys for a person and then manages the keys.
Private key: is meant to be kept secret and is used by the person to send and receive encrypted messages.
Public key: it is made public and can be used by anyone to send an encrypted message to the person with the private key, or to read messages from that person.
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20. Security in the Internet Age: Countermeasures
Virtual Private Networks (VPN): maintains data security as it is transmitted by using:
Tunneling: creates a temporary connection between a remote computer and the CLEC’s or ISP’s local data center. Blocks access to anyone trying to intercept messages sent over that link.
Encryption: scrambles the message before it is sent and decodes it at the receiving end.
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21. Security in the Internet Age: Countermeasures
Three ways to use VPNs:
Remote Access VPNs: give remote employees a way to access an enterprise intranet by dialing a specific ISP.
Remote Office VPNs: give enterprises a way to create a secure private network with remote offices. The ISP’s VPN equipment encrypts all transactions.
Extranet VPNs: give enterprises a way to conduct e-business with trading partners.
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22. Disaster Recovery Alternatives Used By Companies:
Multiple data centers
Distributed processing
Backup telecommunication facilities
Local area networks
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23. External Disaster Recovery Available for Companies
Integrated disaster recovery services
Specialized disaster recovery services
Online and off-line data storage facilities
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24. Lessons Learned in Disaster Recovery
Consider the risks of a natural disaster in selecting a data center location.
Create a plan to return to the primary site after a disaster.
Do not expect damaged equipment, disks, and tapes to always be replaced, monitor equipment.
Plan for alternate telecommunications.
Test site under full workload conditions.
Maintain critical data at the alternate site.
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Prentice Hall, Inc.