Chapter © 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin Chapter 7 IT INFRASTRUCTURES Business-Driven Technologies 7

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-2 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-3 INTRODUCTION

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-4 IT INFRASTRUCTURE OVERVIEW The three primary components of any IT infrastructure include: 1. Client/server networks 2. Internet 3. N-tier infrastructures 2-tier infrastructure – there are only two tiers – the client and the server 3-tier infrastructure – contains clients, application servers, and data servers

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-5 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-6 Client/Server Network

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-7 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-8 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-9 Additional IT Infrastructure Elements

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-10 INFORMATION VIEWS Enterprise information portals (EIPs) - allow knowledge workers to access company information via a Web interface Collaborative processing enterprise information portal - provides knowledge workers with access to workgroup information Decision processing enterprise information portal - provides knowledge workers with corporate information for making key decisions

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-11 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-12 BUSINESS LOGIC

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-13.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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-14 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-15 BUSINESS LOGIC Two primary types of workflow systems include: Messaging-based workflow systems - send work assignments through an system Database-based workflow systems - store the document in a central location and automatically asks the knowledge workers to access the document

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-16 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-17 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-18 DATA STORAGE AND MANIPULATION Responsible for data storage and manipulation and includes: Network area storage Storage area networks Server farms Collocation

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-19 DATA STORAGE AND MANIPULATION Network area storage (NAS) – is a special purpose server aimed at providing file storage to users who access the device over a network

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-20 DATA STORAGE AND MANIPULATION Storage area network (SAN) – is an infrastructure for building special, dedicated networks that allow rapid and reliable access to storage devises by multiple servers

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-21 SAN Configuration

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-22 DATA STORAGE AND MANIPULATION NAS and SAN architectures share several objectives including: Large amounts of storage capacity Serve multiple users 24 X 7 support Primary difference is the location of the network that connects users, file servers, and disk drives

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-23 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-24 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-25 SUPPORTING AN IT INFRASTRUCTURE An organization can support its IT infrastructure components with: Backup/recovery Disaster recovery Infrastructure ‘ilities

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-26 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-27 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-28 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-29 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-30 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-31 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-32 SUPPORTING AN IT INFRASTRUCTURE Scalability – how well your system can adapt to increased demands Flexibility - the system’s ability to change quickly

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-33 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

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-34 SUPPORTING AN IT INFRASTRUCTURE Capacity planning - determines the future IT infrastructure requirements for new equipment and additional network capacity

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-35 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?

© 2006 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/ Irwin 7-36 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?