1. E-business infrastructure
Chapter 3
E-business infrastructure

2. 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.

3. 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?

4. E-business infrastructure
Refers to the combination of hardware such as servers and client PCs in an organization, the network used to link this hardware and the software applications used to deliver services to workers within the e-business and also to its partners and customers.
Infrastructure also includes the architecture of the networks, hardware and software and where it is located.
Finally, infrastructure can also be considered to include the methods for publishing data and documents accessed through e-business applications.
A key decision with managing this infrastructure is which elements are located within the company and which are managed externally as third-party managed applications, data servers and networks.

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

6. 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.

7. 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
s not replied to
Customers’ privacy or trust is broken through security problems such as credit cards being stolen or addresses sold to other companies.

8. continue
It will be apparent that although most of these problems are technical, they arise because humans have not managed the infrastructure adequately. They have not invested enough to solve these issues or have not tested solutions adequately to check for deficiencies. Additionally, in the case of some problems such as s not being responded to, this may be entirely a problem in the process created (or not created) by managers to deal with inbound s.

9. Figure 3.1 A five-layer model of e-business infrastructure

10. E-business infrastructure components
Figure 3.1 summarizes how the different components of e-business architecture which need to be managed relate to each other.
The different components can be conceived of as different layers with defined interfaces between each layer. The different layers can best be understood in relation to a typical task performed by a user of an e-business system.

11. For example, an employee who needs to book a holiday will access a specific human resources application or program that has been created to enable the holiday to be booked (Level I in Figure 3.1).
This application will enable a holiday request to be entered and will forward the application to their manager and human resources department for approval.
To access the application, the employee will use a web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome using an operating system such as Microsoft Windows XP or Apple OS X (Level II in Figure 3.1).

12. This systems software will then request transfer of the information about the holiday request across a network or transport layer (Level III in Figure 3.1). The information will then be stored in computer memory (RAM) or in long term magnetic storage on a web server (Level IV in Figure 3.1).
The information itself which makes up the web pages or content viewed by the employee and the data about their holiday request are shown as a separate layer (Level V in Figure 3.1), although it could be argued that this is the first or second level in an e-business architecture.

13. Kampas (2000) describes an alternative five-level infrastructure model of what he refers to as ‘the information system function chain’:
1. Storage/physical. Memory and disk hardware components (equivalent to Level IV in Figure 3.1).
2. Processing. Computation and logic provided by the processor (processing occurs at Levels I and II in Figure 3.1).
3. Infrastructure. This refers to the human and external interfaces and also the network, referred to as ‘extrastructure’. (This is Level III in Figure 3.1, although the human or external interfaces are not shown there.)
4. Application/content. This is the data processed by the application into information. (This is Level V in Figure 3.1.)
5. Intelligence. Additional computer-based logic that transforms information to knowledge. (This is also part of the application layer I in Figure 3.1.)

14. continue
Each of these elements of infrastructure presents separate management issues which we will consider separately. In this chapter, infrastructur management issues are introduced, while more detailed discussion of management solutions is presented in Chapters 10, 11 and 12.
We start our coverage of e-business infrastructure by considering the technical infrastructure for the Internet, extranets, intranets and the World Wide Web which are Levels II and III in Figure 3.1.

15. Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure

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

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

18. Internet technology Internet:
The Internet refers to the physical network that links computers across the globe. It consists of the infrastructure of network servers and communication links between them that are used to hold and transport information between the client computers and web servers.
Client/server:
The client/server architecture consists of client computers, such as PCs, sharing resources such as a database stored on a more powerful server computer.

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

20. Physical and network infrastructure components of the Internet (Levels IV and III in Figure 3.1)
Figure 3.2 shows how the client computers within homes and businesses are connected to the Internet via local Internet service providers (ISPs) which, in turn, are linked to larger ISPs with connection to the major national and international infrastructure or backbones which are managed by commercial organizations such as AT&T, UUNET and Verizon.
In the UK, at the London Internet Exchange in the Docklands area of east London, a facility exists to connect multiple backbones of the major ISPs within the UK onto a single high-speed link out of the UK into Europe and to the world. These high-speed links can be thought of as the motorways on the ‘information superhighway’, while the links provided from ISPs to consumers are equivalent to slow country roads.

21. Figure 3.3 Example hosting provider Rackspace (www.rackspace.com)
While it is possible for companies to manage their own services by setting up web servers within their own company offices, or to use their ISP, it is common practice to use a specialist hosting provider to manage this service.
For example, Rackspace (Figure 3.3) describe itself as ‘Europe’s fastest growing hosting company’. Since 2001 Rackspace has been hosting and supporting mission critical web sites, Internet applications, servers, security and storage services for over 4,000 customers. Rackspace also has US offices.

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

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

24. The Internet timeline
The Internet is only the latest of a series of developments in the way that the human race has used technology to disseminate information.
Kampas (2000) identifies ten stages that are part of five ‘megawaves’ of change. The first six stages are summarized in Table 3.2.
It is evident that many of the major advances in the use of information have happened within the last hundred years.
This indicates that the difficulty of managing technological change is likely to continue.
Kampas goes on to speculate on the impact of access to lower-cost, higher-bandwidth technologies.

25. Figure 3.5 The Netcraft index of number of servers Source: Netcraft web Server Survey. Netcraft
There are over one billion Internet users worldwide; but how big is the infrastructure they are accessing? One measure is the number of web servers. Netcraft has regularly surveyed the servers since 1995 to give a picture of the growth of the Internet through time (Figure 3.5).
The first survey it ran, launched in 1995, found only 18,957 sites, but by August 2008, there were 176 million! Note that Netcraft measures registered domains or Internet IP addresses (explained later in this chapter).
Some of these domains may not be active with regularly updated content, as the chart shows.

26. Figure 3.5 The Netcraft index of number of servers Source: Netcraft web Server Survey. Netcraft

27. Intranet applications
Intranets are used extensively for supporting sell-side e-commerce from within the marketing function. They are also used to support core supply-chain management activities as described in the next section on extranets.
A marketing intranet has the following advantages:
1. Reduced product lifecycles – as information on product development and marketing campaigns is rationalized we can get products to market faster.
2. Reduced costs through higher productivity, and savings on hard copy.
3. Better customer service – responsive and personalized support with staff accessing customers over the web.
4. Distribution of information through remote offices nationally or globally.

28. 1. Staff phone directories; 2. Staff procedures or quality manuals;
Intranets are also used for internal marketing communications since they can include the following types of information:
1. Staff phone directories;
2. Staff procedures or quality manuals;
3. Information for agents such as product specifications, current list and discounted prices, competitor information, factory schedules, and stocking levels, all of which normally have to be updated frequently and can be costly;
4. Staff bulletin or newsletter;
5. Training courses.

29. Firewall
A specialized software application mounted on a server at the point where the company is connected to the Internet.
Its purpose is to prevent unauthorized access into the company from outsiders.
Firewalls are necessary when creating an intranet or extranet to ensure that outside access to confidential information does not occur. Firewalls are usually created as software mounted on a separate server at the point where the company is connected to the Internet.

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

31. Figure 3.6 Firewall positions within the e-business infrastructure of the B2B company
The use of firewalls within the infrastructure of a company is illustrated in Figure 3.6.
It is evident that multiple firewalls are used to protect information on the company.
The information made available to third parties over the Internet and extranet is partitioned by another firewall using what is referred to as the ‘demilitarized zone’ (DMZ).
Corporate data on the intranet are then mounted on other servers inside the company.

32. 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?

33. Suggested answers Identify benefits Involve staff with development
Find system sponsors, owners and advocates
Train on benefits
Keep content fresh, relevant and where possible, fun
Use to encourage usage

34. Figure 3.8 Transaction log file example

35. Figure 3.8 Transaction log file example
Inside transaction log files – why hits stands for ‘how idiots track success’ Figure 3.8 shows the detail recorded within a transaction log file. This shows the level of work that web servers have to do. This server extract is from
DaveChaffey.com which uses the open-source Apache server to serve content. This example shows 10 requests received over a period of 5 seconds. Each line represents a GET request from a web browser for a file on the server. For each page, there are multiple lines or hits since each image or an embedded reference to a script or stylesheet in the page is downloaded separately.

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

37. Figure 3. 9 Browsershots (www. browsershots
Figure 3.9 Browsershots ( – a service for testing cross-browser compatibility
An example of a tool for designers to test compatibility is shown in Figure 3.9.

38. Figure 3.10 E-consultancy Blog (www.econsultancy.com/news-blog)
An example of a useful blog which can keep marketing professionals up-to-date about e-business developments is the E-consultancy blog (Figure 3.10).

39. Understanding Internet access tools and concepts – match the definitions
Atomisation concept
Blogs
Feeds
IPTV
Peer-to-peer
Social networks
Tagging
VOIP

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

41. Figure 3.11 Personalized feed home page from iGoogle (www.igoogle.com)
Figure 3.11 shows an example of a technology trial to deliver different personalized content into a personalized home page.

42. Figure Joost service
The growth in popularity of IPTV or ‘Internet TV’, where TV and video are streamed via broadband across the Internet, is one of the most exciting developments in recent years.
In 2007 services offering streamed viewing of hundreds of channels from providers such as the Europe-based Joost (Figure 3.12, and the US service Hulu ( launched, and there are many competitors such as Babelgum, Vuze and Veoh. IPTV is sometimes referred to as non-linear TV or on-demand broadcasting to contrast it with the traditional broadcasting to schedule.

43. Figure Joost service

44. URLS and domain names
Web addresses are structured in a standard way as follows:
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

45. 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

46. 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

47. Figure 3.13 The TCP/IP protocol
Since this protocol is important for delivering the web pages, the letters are used to prefix all web addresses.
HTTP messages are divided into HTTP ‘get’ messages for requesting and web page and HTTP ‘send’ message as shown in
Figure 3.13.

48. Figure 3.13 The TCP/IP protocol

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

50. Figure 3.14 Home page index.html for an example B2B company in a web browser showing HTML source in text editor.
A brief example of HTML is given for a simplified home page for an example B2B company in Figure 3.14.
The HTML code used to construct pages has codes or instruction tags such as <TITLE>. to indicate to the browser what is displayed. The <TITLE>. tag indicates what appears at the top of the web browser window. Each starting tag has a corresponding end tag usually marked by a ‘/’, for example, <B>plastics</B> to embolden ‘plastics’.
The simplicity of HTML compared to traditional programming languages makes it possible for simple web pages to be developed by non-specialists such as marketing assistants, particularly if templates for more complex parts of the page are provided. Interactive forms and brochures and online sales are more complex and usually require some programming expertise, although tools are available to simplify these.

51. Figure 3.15 Architecture of semantic web system
used at EDF

52. Figure 3.15 Architecture of semantic web system used at EDF.
Each time a service produces a new document, the storage system is notified by the plug-ins of our mediation architecture, saves its RDF data instantaneously and merges it with other data using the architecture shown in Figure 3.15.
This allows us to benefit from a unique view of the many integrated data sources (e.g. blogs, wikis, RSS) and to have access to up to date information.
Then, using the SPARQL query language and protocol, we can query across the many data sources, and services can be plugged on top of the central storage system.

53. Table 3.3 Internet tool Summary Applications of different Internet tools:
Blogs Web-based publishing of regularly updated information in an online diary-type format using tools such as Blogger.com, Type pad or WordPress.
Electronic mail or Sending messages or documents, such as news about a new product or sales promotion between individuals is a key Internet capability. In a 2007 report on global volume, IDC predicted that a staggering 97 billion s would be sent daily in 2007, over 40 billion of which were spam (which we discuss in Chapter 4).
Feeds Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a well-known XML-based content distribution format commonly used for syndicating and accessing blog information. Standard XML feed formats are also used by merchants updating price comparison sites.
FTP file transfer The File Transfer Protocol is used as a standard for moving files across the Internet. Commonly used to upload HTML and other files to web servers. FTP is still used for e-business applications such as downloading files such as product price lists or specifications.
Gophers, Archie and WAIS These tools were important before the advent of the web for storing and searching documents on the Internet. They have largely been superseded by the web and search engines.

54. Table 3.3 Internet tool Summary Applications of different Internet tools
Secure Shell (SSH) and Telnet These allow remote command-line access to computer systems. SSH is a more secure replacement for Telnet. For example, a retailer could check to see whether an item was in stock in a warehouse using SSH.
Peer-to-peer file sharing Peer-to-peer file-sharing technology used to enable sharing of large audio and video files in BitTorrent or approaches such as Kontiki.
Podcasting A method of downloading and playing audio or video clips (webcasts), targeting portable devices such as the iPod or MP3 players or fixed devices.
Voice over Internet Protocol Technology for digitally transmitting voice over a LAN or Internet. (VOIP)
Widget A badge or button incorporated into a site or social network space by its owner, with content or services typically served from another site, making widgets effectively a mini-software application or web service. Content can be updated in real time since the widget interacts with the server each time it loads.
World Wide Web Widely used for publishing information and running business applications over the Internet accessed through web browsers.

55. Table 3.3 Internet tool Summary Applications of different Internet tools
Instant Messaging (IM) and These are synchronous communications tools for text-based ‘chat’ between different Internet Relay Chat (IRC) users who are logged on at the same time. IM, from providers such as Yahoo and MSN and Twitter (described in Mini Case Study 3.4), has largely replaced IRC and provides opportunities for advertising to users.
IPTV Digital TV channels are made available via broadband Internet either as streamed live broadcasts or as archived broadcasts of TV programmes. This is discussed towards the end of this chapter.
Usenet newsgroups Forums to discuss a particular topic such as a sport, hobby or business area. Traditionally accessed by special newsreader software, but now typically accessed via a web browser from
Content: The design, text and graphical information that forms a web page. Good content is the key to attracting customers to a web site and retaining their interest or achieving repeat visits.
Wiki: A collaborative interactive web service which enables users to modify content contributed by others.

56. XML example Product> <Action Value5”Delete”/>
<ProductID> </ProductID>
</Product>
<Product Type5”Good” SchemaCategoryRef5”C ”>
<ProductID> </ProductID>
<UOM><UOMCoded>EA</UOMCoded></UOM>
<Manufacturer>Compaq</Manufacturer>
<LeadTime>2</LeadTime>
<CountryOfOrigin>
<Country><CountryCoded>US</CountryCoded></Country>
</CountryOfOrigin>

57. 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.

58. Figure (a) Fragmented applications infrastructure, (b) integrated applications infrastructure Source: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000)

59. Managing e-business applications infrastructure
Management of the e-business applications infrastructure concerns delivering the right applications to all users of e-business services. The issue involved is one that has long been a concern of IS managers, namely to deliver access to integrated applications and data that are available across the whole company. Traditionally businesses have developed applications silos or islands of information, as depicted in Figure 3.17(a).
This shows that these silos may develop at three different levels: (1) there may be different technology architectures used in different functional areas, giving rise to the problems discussed in the previous section, (2) there will also be different applications and separate databases in different areas and (3) processes or activities followed in the different functional areas may also be different.

60. continue
To avoid the problems of a fragmented applications infrastructure, companies attempted throughout the 1990s to achieve the more integrated position shown in Figure 3.17(b).
Here the technology architecture, applications, data architecture and process architecture are uniform and integrated across the organization. To achieve this many companies turned to enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors such as SAP, Baan, PeopleSoft and Oracle.

61. Figure (a) Fragmented applications infrastructure, (b) integrated applications infrastructure (Continued) Source: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000)

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

63. Figure 3.18 Differing use of applications at levels of management within companies
Figure 3.18 only shows some types of applications, but it shows the trial of strength between the monolithic ERP applications and more specialist applications looking to provide the same functionality.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications:
Software providing integrated functions for major business functions such as production ,distribution, sales, finance and human resource management.

64. Figure 3.19 Elements of e-business infrastructure that require management

65. Figure 3.19 Elements of e-business infrastructure that require management.
Figure 3.19 summarizes some of these management issues and is based on the layered architecture introduced at the start of this section with applications infrastructure at the top and technology infrastructure towards the bottom.

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

67. Figure 3.20 Google apps (www.google.com/apps)
As an indication of the transformations possible through web services . Figure 3.20 which shows how Google’s mission to ‘manage the World’s information’ also applies to supporting organizational processes. Google Apps enables organizations to manage many of their activities.
The basic service is free with the Premier Edition which includes more storage space and security being $50 per user account per year.

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

69. Figure 3.21 Salesforce.com (www.salesforce.com)
Figure 3.21 shows one of the largest SaaS or utility providers Salesforce.com where customers pay from £5 to £50 per user per month according to the facilities used. The service is delivered from the Salesforce.com servers to over 50,000 customers in 15 local languages.

70. Cloud computing
Cloud computing: The use of distributed storage and processing on servers connected by the Internet, typically provided as software or data storage as a subscription service provided by other companies.
In descriptions of web services you may hear confusingly, that they access ‘the cloud’ or the term ‘cloud computing’, where the cloud referred to is the Internet (networks are often denoted as clouds on diagrams of network topology).
For example, if you are accessing your Google Docs then they will be stored somewhere ‘in the cloud’ without any knowledge of where it is or how it is managed since Google stores data on many servers. And of course you can access the document from any location. But there are issues to consider about data stored and served from the cloud: ‘is it secure, is it backed up, is it always available?’. The size of Google’s cloud is indicated by Pandia (2007) which estimated that Google has over 1 million servers running the open-source Linux software.

71. Virtualization
Virtualization: is another approach to managing IT resource more effectively. However, it is mainly deployed within an organization.
VMware was one of the forerunners offering virtualization services which it explains as follows (VMware, 2008):
The VMware approach to virtualization inserts a thin layer of software directly on the computer hardware or on a host operating system.
This software layer creates virtual machines and contains a virtual machine monitor or ‘hypervisor’ that allocates hardware resources dynamically and transparently so that multiple operating systems can run concurrently on a single physical computer without even knowing it.
However, virtualizing a single physical computer is just the beginning. VMware offers a robust virtualization platform that can scale across hundreds of interconnected physical computers and storage devices to form an entire virtual infrastructure.

72. Service-oriented architecture (SOA)
The technical architecture used to build web services is formally known as a ‘service oriented architecture’. This is an arrangement of software processes or agents which communicate with each other to deliver the business requirements.
The main role of a service within SOA is to provide functionality. This is provided by three characteristics:
1. An interface with the service which is platform-independent (not dependent on a particular type of software or hardware). The interface is accessible through applications development approaches such as Microsoft .Net or Java and accessed through protocols such as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) which is used for XML-formatted messages, i.e. instructions and returned results to be exchanged between services.
2. The service can be dynamically located and invoked. One service can query for the existence of another service through a service directory for example an e-commerce service could query for the existence of a credit card authorization service.
3. The service is self-contained. That is, the service cannot be influenced by other services; rather it will return a required result to a request from another service, but will not change state. Within web services, messages and data are typically exchanged between services using XML.

73. Mobile commerce
In Chapter 1 we explained that e-commerce refers to both informational and financial transactions through digital media.
Similarly mobile commerce (m-commerce) refers to the use of wireless devices such as mobile phones for both informational and monetary transactions.
While fixed access to the Internet has dominated to-date in many developed countries, in future this situation will change due to the ubiquity of the mobile phone and the adoption of higher-speed services and more sophisticated handsets. In some countries such as Japan and China, the majority of web access is via mobile phone and we can expect to see increased mobile use in all countries. In China there are more mobile subscribers (over half a billion) than the whole US population (Belic, 2007) and according to the regularly updated Comscore panel dat ( use of the web by mobile devices in Japan is equal to that of traditional computer access.