Chapter 3. How to manage infrastructure and services?

Companies who operate in the digital world need comprehensive information system infrastructure to support their business strategy. In order to get a great return on IS investments, companies have to manage their IS infrastructure.

What is the information systems infrastructure?

Infrastructure is defined as the technical structures that enable the provision of services. An infrastructure is needed in any area where people work or live. People are often not aware of all the components of the infrastructure since these are invisible for people. For instance, people often do not know where their water comes from. Both the people and businesses located in an area depend on the infrastructure of a city. Cities with a good infrastructure are more livable and attract more inhabitants and businesses.

Each area has its own characteristics and infrastructure and these create challenges for global organizations. The decisions of an organization depend on the provision of services in an area. In some emerging economies there is no continuous supply of water and no electricity. If a company is moving its activities to such an emerging economy then it must keep those things in mind.

When making decisions and strategy, companies rely on information systems infrastructure. This infrastructure consists of software, hardware, storage, data centers and networking. Organizations depend on three capabilities supported by information systems to enable their business processes. These three capabilities are storage, transmission of data and processing. Almost all the business processes rely on an information system infrastructure.

The business environment is changing every day and therefore it is necessary that companies can adapt quickly to these changes. As new competitors can arise quickly, competitive advantages are often of short duration. To adapt quickly an organization must be flexible and agile. To be flexible and agile a company has to align its business processes with the information systems infrastructure. As the business environment is changing there is a continuous process where business goals are adjusted in line with the information systems infrastructure.

The data that a company has is essential for gaining business knowledge and performing business activities. For every business process data are used or generated. The data can be analyzed to gain insights that can make the company more productive. However, just having data is not enough. A company must also be able to use the data effectively.

To effectively use data companies use software. Software is used to automate processes to reduce costs or to generate more revenue. With application software, companies are able to automate business processes. With this software a company can perform processes that otherwise would not have been possible. Websites such as Bol.com would not be possible without a system for automatically processing transactions.

Microsoft Office is also an application software that people use. There are many more different application software that individuals or companies use. The application software interacts with databases. The software stores the data that is needed for business processes and for gaining business intelligence.

A database is defined as a collection of related data that is organized in such a way that it enables data searches, and is crucial to the operations and competitive advantage of a company. It is therefore important for the success of a company. Often several business processes make use of the same data. If the data can be accessed quickly by the applications then these business processes can be optimized.

Database management systems are a type of software that enables an organization to more easily retrieve, store and analyze data. These systems are used by organizations in order to harness the power of the databases. How the data is gathered, stored and manipulated has a large effect on the success of organizations.

What are the components of information system infrastructure?

A company must decide which software, hardware, storage, networking and data centers it will choose. It is important to make the right choice since this can support the success of the firm.

Hardware are the computers that run the databases and applications that are necessary for analyzing the business and processing transactions. In a company there are many different business processes and therefore the company needs different types of computers to support these processes. The computers can be divided into classes. The five general classes are:

• Supercomputer
  This computer is used to solve massive scientific problems. It is the most powerful and expensive computer and is generally not used by business organizations.
• Mainframe
  These computers are the main computing system for most organizations. They are optimized for resource utilization, security and high availability. Mainframes are used for mission-critical applications like transaction processing.
• Server
  A sever is a computer on a network. Users of the network have access to all the files, communications and other services of the network. These computers are used in large organizations so that many users can access the network at the same time. Organizations often have different servers for different parts of the organization.
• Workstation
  These computers are designed for engineering, animation and graphic design users. They are optimized for visualization and you can make 3D models with these computers. The memory of these computers is generally very large and they have video cards and fast processors.
• Personal computer
  Personal computers (PCs) are used for personal or business computations. Over the last years portable PCs, like tablets and notebooks, have become more popular. They have become a part of organizations.

Mainframes and servers are designed so that many people can use them at the same time while workstations and personal computers are designed to be used by one user at a time. One can have an embedded system on the computer that is designed to perform a specific set of tasks. The application software interacts with the software system and the software system interacts with the hardware.

System software is defined as the collection of programs that control the basic operations of the computer hardware. The operation system is the primary used system software. This system coordinates interaction between application software, users and peripherals. Peripherals are things like printers. Examples of operation systems are OS X and Windows 10.

These systems are often written such that the computer can operate quickly and efficiently. The computer can communicate with several different hardware devices which is possible because of the device drivers. All the day-to-day operations are performed by the operating system. There are several tasks that are performed by almost all computers:

• Input from mouse or keyboard
• Presenting information via monitor
• Writing to a storage device, like a hard disk drive

The storage of data is crucial for the success of the organization. Organizations store data for three purposes on the basis of life span, access speed and timeliness. These three purposes are:

• Operational (like processing transactions)
• Backup (short-term copies of organizational data)
• Archival (long-term copies of organizational data)

For these three purposes we need different storage technologies. Operational data is often stored in databases or files on a disk or hard drive. Companies make backups such that they can ensure that their business operations will continue in case of a disaster. The data is then stored to a redundant system which the company can use if the primary system fails.

Technologies and computers have to be connected to be valuable. For instance, a database is not valuable if it is not accessible to the right people. There is networking hardware and software that enables computers to connect. This allows interconnection within and between organizations around the world.

Human communication is the sharing of information and messages between senders and receivers. The sender formulates its message in a code which is then transmitted through a communication path to the receiver. The receiver decodes the message. This process is similar to the process of computer networking.

Computer networking is defined as the sharing of data and services. The information is encoded, transmitted via a communication channel and then decoded by the receiver. For computer networking we need three things:

• A sender and a receiver
• A transmission medium
• Rules or protocols about the communication between senders and receivers

Transmission media is defined as the physical pathway used to carry the network information. This physical pathway can be cables or be wireless. For the receiver and the sender to understand each other a language of communication must be established. The protocols are the procedures that computers perform when they transmit and receive data. For instance, a French speaking person and a German speaking person decide that the communication protocol will be English, which they can both understand.

Even though computer communication and human communication are alike, there is an important difference. Human communication consists of words while computer communication consists of bits. Bits are the information units of a computer. With a computer it is possible to transmit any type of information (art, music, documents). However, the transmission of each different type is different. Some information is much larger of size than other information. For instance, a page of 10 KB is while a photograph can be more than 200 MB. The requirements for transmission of these two are different.

The bandwidth of a computer or communications channel is defined as the transmission capacity measured in bits per seconds. It shows how much binary data the computer or channel can transmit reliably in one seconds.

Each computer in a network has one of the three following roles:

• Server: a computer makes it possible for the users of the network to access files, communications, printing and other services.
• Client: a computer that uses the services that are provided by the server, like a PC, laptop, Outlook email. Clients usually have one user and can only request services. Tin clients are microcomputers that have little memory, processing capabilities and storage.
• Peer: a computer that can both provide and request a service.

In many businesses we see client-server networks in which the roles of the client and the server are defined. Another network is the peer-to-peer network, which are used by small homes and offices. These networks enable that all the computers and devices on the network can request and provide services.

Computing networks are often classified into three types:

• Personal area network (PAN): wireless communication between devices, like Bluetooth
• Local area network (LAN): users share data, software applications and other resources. Generally the size of a LAN is a building 
• Wide area network (WAN): connects multiple LANs and distributes management and ownership. The physical distance of this network is large and ranges from multiple buildings (campus area network) to a city (metropolitan area network) or even worldwide (Internet).

Many organizations install wireless local area networks (WLANs) to enable the connection between devices. These are also known as Wi-Fi networks.

The World Wide Web is a very powerful and is defined as a system of documents that are interlinked on the Internet. To locate and display these documents a software application, the Web Browser, is used. Hyperlinks are references or links to other documents which are often included in a document. Such documents are called hypertext. Web pages are structured with the standard method Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).

The pages of the web are stored on the Web servers, which process the requests of users using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). To locate and identify a page on the Web a Uniform Resource Locater (URL) is used. The URL consists of three parts; the domain name, the host name and the top-level domain name. For www.google.nl; www is the host name, Google is the domain name and .nl is the top-level domain name.

The domain names and the host names are associated with several Internet protocol (IP) addresses. IP addresses enable us the identify all the devices and computers on the internet. The IP address is essentially the destination address of the computer. Many Web servers are interconnected and form together the Web. To facilitate the transmission of Web pages and information the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is used.

Organizations make use of intranet. This consists of webpages that are behind the firewall of the company, such that information is secured within the local area network or wide range network. The information on the webpages can only be viewed by the authorized users.

There is also the extranet, which enables two companies to use the Internet to do business together. The companies then have a private part of the Internet that is closed for ordinary users. Corporations can benefit from the use of te extranet since it improves communication.

Every organization needs to process and store large amounts of data and for this they need thousands of servers. For storing and processing huge amounts of data you need lots of power and air-conditioning to keep the temperature of the equipment optimal. Since data is nowadays a necessity to companies it is important that the data can be accessed reliably.

What issues can arise?

Computing technology has evolved very rapidly over the past 75 years and will continue to develop. Companies face challenges as technology changes continuously. The information systems have to be upgraded when there are changes in technology to gain or sustain competitive advantage.

In 1936 the first computer was introduced and this led to fundamental changes in the way computing technologies worked. In 1965 Gordon Moore introduced Moore's Law which stated that the number of transistors on a chip would double very two year. Later, in the 1990s, there was the introduction of multimedia and low-cost PC's. The storage capacity increased and processors and networks worked at higher speed. In 2000 the Internet became accessible around the world and in 2010 mobile connectivity was introduced, which included cloud computing and social networking.

For companies it is important to have a large amount of data available because they need to be ahead of competition. This creates challenges for companies. Furthermore, companies face challenges because of the fluctuations in demand. Because of the fluctuating demand they either have too many resources or too few resources.

Another concern of companies is the worldwide increased demand for energy. To process data a computer needs electricity and to control the temperature of the computer we also need devices. To enable this we need a lot of energy. Power and cooling could be huge costs for companies. Organizations have looked for alternative ways to manage their IS infrastructure that are better.

What is cloud computing?

We nowadays see that companies hire other parties to build their applications. They assume that the other party will deliver an application that works. Because of this trend a good infrastructure is needed. In the cloud data is processed, stored and transmitted. A utility computing model is used by the cloud that enables companies to pay for computing resources only when they need them. These resources include processing, networking or data storage. The cloud computing model has several characteristics, which are:

• On-demand self-service
• Rapid elasticity
• Broad network access
• Resource pooling
• Measured service

The cloud provides different services. Furthermore, there are several different cloud computing service models that you can use. These models are:

• Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) model
  This model only provides you the basis capabilities of storage, processing and networking.
• Platform as a service (PaaS) model
  This model enables you to run your own applications and you have control over your applications. However, as a user you have limited control over the underlying infrastructure.
• Software as a service (SaaS) model
  A user of this model you can only use applications that are provided by the cloud infrastructure. Examples of such applications are Gmail and Google Docs.

Scalability is defined as the ability to adapt to changes in demand for data storage or processing. There is a distinction between a public cloud and a private cloud. A public cloud is generally used for applications that need rapid scalability and is for instance used by Amazon.com. A private cloud is internal to an organization and enables the organization to balance demand and supply of the computing resources.

Cloud computing has become popular but it also comes with some issues which the management must consider. The management must choose which services, data or applications it wants to move to the cloud. Organizations need different cloud computing providers since one provider cannot offer all needs of the organization. When evaluating different public cloud services the management must consider the following strategic issues:

• Availability/reliability of the service
• Scalability
• Viability
• Security, privacy and compliance
• Diversity of offerings
• Openness
• Costs

Cloud computing has led to other trends, these trends are:

• Service-oriented architecture (SOA)
  Organizations use this because it enables them to achieve greater flexibility and agility. SOA breaks business processes into individual components, which are designed to achieve the desired result for the service customer. The individual services are used as building blocks so that the system can easily be reconfigured as the requirements change. To obtain the benefits the service must have the following characteristics; reusability (usable in different applications), interoperability (able to work with other services) and componentization (simple and modular).
• Grid computing
  This is used by organizations to solve large-scale computing problems. Grid computing is defined as combining the computing power of a large number of smaller, independent, networked computers into a system that can solve problems. Before grid computing these problems could only be solved by supercomputers.
• Content delivery networks
  This is used to increase the performance of websites. The longer the geographical distance between a user and web server, the longer it takes to transmit the content. This can be reduced by content delivery networks. These provide a network of servers in several physical locations, which stores a copy of several web sites.
• IP convergence
  Internet protocol (IP) convergence is used for transmitting video and voice communication over the Internet. This enables organizations to use new forms of communication and collaboration.

Voice over IP (VoIP) is the use of the Internet technologies to make a telephone call. The quality of VoIP has improved over the last years. IP can not only be used to transmit voice communications but it can also be used to transmit video data.

Because of the rapid development of the world there has been an increased demand for energy and also the costs of energy have increased. Green efforts can save money on energy and water use. Green computing can help by using computers more efficiently, doing the same with less.

Bulletpoint

• Infrastructure is defined as the technical structures that enable the provision of services. An infrastructure is needed in any area where people work or live.
• When making decisions and strategy, companies rely on information systems infrastructure. This infrastructure consists of software, hardware, storage, data centers and networking. Organizations depend on three capabilities supported by information systems to enable their business processes. These three capabilities are storage, transmission of data and processing. Almost all the business processes rely on an information system infrastructure.
• To effectively use data companies use software. Software is used to automate processes to reduce costs or to generate more revenue. With application software, companies are able to automate business processes.
• A database is defined as a collection of related data that is organized in such a way that it enables data searches, and is crucial to the operations and competitive advantage of a company. It is therefore important for the success of a company.
• A company must decide which software, hardware, storage, networking and data centers it will choose. It is important to make the right choice since this can support the success of the firm.
• Hardware are the computers that run the databases and applications that are necessary for analyzing the business and processing transactions. In a company there are many different business processes and therefore the company needs different types of computers to support these processes. The computers can be divided into classes. The five general classes are:
  • Supercomputer
  • Mainframe
  • Server
  • Workstation
  • Personal computer
• The storage of data is crucial for the success of the organization. Organizations store data for three purposes on the basis of life span, access speed and timeliness. These three purposes are:
  • Operational (like processing transactions)
  • Backup (short-term copies of organizational data)
  • Archival (long-term copies of organizational data)
• Companies make backups such that they can ensure that their business operations will continue in case of a disaster. The data is then stored to a redundant system which the company can use if the primary system fails.
• Each computer in a network has one of the three following roles:
  • Server: a computer makes it possible for the users of the network to access files, communications, printing and other services.
  • Client: a computer that uses the services that are provided by the server, like a PC, laptop, Outlook email.
  • Peer: a computer that can both provide and request a service.
• Computing networks are often classified into three types:
  • Personal area network (PAN)
  • Local area network (LAN)
  • Wide area network (WAN)
• Computing technology has evolved very rapidly over the past 75 years and will continue to develop. Companies face challenges as technology changes continuously. The information systems have to be upgraded when there are changes in technology to gain or sustain competitive advantage.
• In the cloud data is processed, stored and transmitted. A utility computing model is used by the cloud that enables companies to pay for computing resources only when they need them. These resources include processing, networking or data storage. The cloud computing model has several characteristics, which are:
  • On-demand self-service
  • Rapid elasticity
  • Broad network access
  • Resource pooling
  • Measured service
• Cloud computing has become popular but it also comes with some issues which the management must consider. The management must choose which services, data or applications it wants to move to the cloud. When evaluating different public cloud services the management must consider the following strategic issues:
  • Availability/reliability of the service
  • Scalability
  • Viability
  • Security, privacy and compliance
  • Diversity of offerings
  • Openness
  • Costs

Tentamentickets

• Know about the information systems infrastructure and its components.
• Know what cloud computing is