MIS107: Computer Information Systems

Dr. Samim Al Azad (SAA2)

Post-doc (LU), PhD (SNU), MBA and BBA (DU)
Assistant Professor, Department of Management, NSU
 Management Information Systems
MANAGING THE DIGITAL FIRM, 12TH EDITION

Chapter 5
ETHICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES IN
IT INFRASTRUCTURE
INFORMATION AND EMERGING
SYSTEMS
TECHNOLOGIES
 Management Information Systems

Learning Objectives

 IT infrastructure and its components

 Assess contemporary computer hardware platform
trends
 Assess contemporary software platform trends
 Evaluate the challenges of managing IT infrastructure
 Competitive forces model for IT infrastructure
investment

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1. IT Infrastructure

 IT infrastructure
– Set of physical devices and software applications required
to operate the whole enterprise
– A set of firm-wide services including
 Computing services
 Telecommunications services
 Data management services
 Application software services
 Physical facilities management services
 IT management, standards, education, research and development services

– “Service platform” perspective shows more accurate view of

value of investments

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Infrastructure Components

 IT Infrastructure has 7 main components

1. Computer hardware platforms
2. Operating system platforms
3. Enterprise software applications
4. Data management and storage
5. Networking/telecommunications platforms
6. Internet platforms
7. Consulting system integration services

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Infrastructure Components

1. Computer hardware platforms

– Client machines: Desktop PCs, mobile devices – PDAs, laptops
 Top chip producers: AMD, Intel, IBM
 Top firms: IBM, HP, Dell, Sun Microsystems

2. Operating system platforms

– Server level: 35% run Windows; 65% run Unix or Linux
– Client level:
 90% run Microsoft Windows (XP, 2000, 7,8, Vista, etc.)
 Mobile device OS’s (Android, iPhone OS)
 Cloud computing OS’s (Google’s Chrome OS)

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Infrastructure Components

3. Enterprise software applications

– Enterprise application providers: SAP and Oracle
– Middleware software providers: IBM and Oracle
• Achieving firm-wide integration by linking the firm existing
application systems

4. Data management and storage

– Database software:
• IBM (DB2), Oracle, Microsoft (SQL Server), Sybase, MySQL
– Physical data storage:
• EMC Corp (large-scale systems), Transcend, Seagate, Maxtor, Western
Digital, Samsung

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Infrastructure Components

5. Networking/telecommunications platforms
– Telecommunication services offer voice and data connectivity, Wide Area
Network, wireless services, and Internet access
• Leading Vendors : AT&T, Verizon
– Network operating systems: Windows Server, Novell, Linux, Unix
– Network hardware providers: Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel, Juniper Net

6. Internet platforms
– Hardware, software, management services to support company Web sites,
intranets, extranets
– Web development tools/suites suppliers: Microsoft (FrontPage, .NET) IBM
(WebSphere) Oracle-Sun (Java)

7. Consulting and system integration services

– Leading consulting firms: Accenture, IBM Global Services, HP, Infosys, Wipro

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IT Infrastructure ECOSYSTEM

FIGURE: There are seven major components that must be coordinated to

provide the firm with a coherent IT infrastructure

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2. Contemporary Hardware Platform Trends

 The emerging mobile digital platform

– Cell phones, smartphones (BlackBerry, iPhone)
 Facilitate some of the functions of PC such as data transmission,
Web surfing, e-mail and IM duties
– Netbooks:
 Small, low-cost lightweight notebooks optimized for wireless
communication and core computing tasks
– Tablets (iPad)
– Digital e-book readers (Kindle)
– Wearable computing devices

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Contemporary Hardware Platform Trends

 Consumerization of IT and BYOD:

– New technology that first emerges in the consumer market spreads into
Business organization
– BYOD: One aspect of consumerization of IT
 Grid computing
– Connects geographically remote computers into a single network to combine
processing power and create virtual supercomputer
– Provides cost savings, speed, agility

 Virtualization
– Presenting a set of computing resources that that can be accessed beyond the
geographical locations
 Allows single physical resource to act as multiple resources
– Facilitates hardware centralization and reduction of IT expenditure

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Contemporary Hardware Platform Trends

 Quantum Computing:
– Boosting computer processing power to find answers to problems by
replacing traditional bits (0,1) with quantum bits or qubits.
– Uses the principle of quantum physics to represent data and
perform operations on that data

 Cloud computing: On-demand (utility) computing services

obtained over network
 IAAS: Infrastructure as a service (infrastructure/ Amazons)
 PAAS: Platform as a service (infrastructure and programming tools/IBM)
 SAAS: Software as a service (Google apps)

– Benefit: Allows companies to minimize IT investments

– Drawbacks: Concerns of security, reliability

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Contemporary Hardware Platform Trends

 Green computing
– Practices and technologies for designing, manufacturing, using,
disposing of computing and networking hardware to minimize impact
on the environment
 Autonomic computing
– Industry-wide effort to develop systems that can configure, heal
themselves when broken, and protect themselves from outside
intruders
– Example: Self-updating antivirus software; Apple and Microsoft both
use automatic updates
 High performance, power-saving processors
– Multi-core processors

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3. Contemporary Software Platform Trends

1. Open-source software
– Produced by community of programmers, free and modifiable by
user
Example: Linux OS
2. Software for the Web (Java, HTML, HTML5)
– Java:
• Operating system-independent, processor-independent
– HTML:
• A page description language for specifying how text, graphics,
video and sound are placed on a web page
• Create dynamics links to other web pages and objects

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Contemporary Software Platform Trends

3. Web Services
– Software components that exchange information using
Web standards and languages
– Example: Retrieving an online bank statement

SOA: Service-oriented architecture (collection of WS)

– Set of self-reliant services that communicate with each other to
create a working software application
– Example: Rent-a-car companies use web services to link with
airlines company's’ website

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Contemporary Software Platform Trends

4. Software outsourcing and cloud services: Three sources for

software:
I. In-house Development: Software packages and enterprise software
II. Software outsourcing (domestic or offshore)
• Domestic: Primarily for middleware, integration services, software support
• Offshore: Primarily for lower level maintenance, data entry, call centers

III. Cloud-based software services (Software as a service: SaaS)

 Accessed with Web browser over Internet
 Ranges from free or low-cost services for individuals to businesses
 Service Level Agreements (SLAs): formal agreement with service providers

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Contemporary Software Platform Trends

FIGURE : Changing Sources Of Firm Software

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4. Challenges of Managing IT Infrastructure

1. Dealing with platform and infrastructure change

– As firms shrink or grow, IT needs to be flexible and scalable
– Scalability: Ability to expand to serve larger numbers of users
– Policies for mobile computing and cloud computing
• New policies and procedures for managing these new platforms
• Contractual agreements with firms running clouds and distributing
software required

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2. Management and governance

– Who controls IT infrastructure?
– How should IT department be organized?
• Centralized
– Central IT department makes decisions
• Decentralized
– Business unit IT departments make own decisions
– How are costs allocated between divisions, departments?

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3. Making wise infrastructure investments

– Amount to spend on IT is complex question
 Rent vs. buy, outsourcing
– Total cost of ownership (TCO) model
 Analyzes direct and indirect costs (hardware, software account for only
about 20% of TCO)
 Other costs: Installation, training, support, maintenance,
infrastructure, downtime, space and energy
– TCO can be reduced through use of cloud services, through greater
centralization and standardization of hardware and software resources

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Competitive Forces Model

 Competitive forces model for IT infrastructure investment

1. Market demand for firm’s services
2. Firm’s business strategy
3. Firm’s IT strategy, infrastructure, and cost
4. Information technology assessment
5. Competitor firm services
6. Competitor firm IT infrastructure investments

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COMPETITIVE FORCES MODEL FOR IT INFRASTRUCTURE

FIGURE : There six factors can be used to answer the question, “How much
should a firm spends on IT infrastructure?”

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