Chapter 7
IT INFRASTRUCTURES
Business-Driven Technologies
OPENING CASE STUDY
• Make the Call
• Many people are using the Internet to
make free phone calls
• Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) is the
technology that makes Internet phone
calls possible
• VoIP transmits over 10 percent of all
phone calls
2
OPENING CASE STUDY
• Many vendors are offering VoIP
• All vendors are providing the same
service, but depending on their IT
infrastructure the service features vary
significantly from vendor to vendor
3
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
4
INTRODUCTION
5
IT INFRASTRUCTURE
OVERVIEW
•
The three primary components of any IT
infrastructure include:
1. Client/server networks
2. Internet
3. N-tier infrastructures
6
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
7
Client/Server Network
8
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
9
n-Tier Infrastructures
• Basic client/server computing is a 2-tier
infrastructure
– 2-tier infrastructure – there are only two tiers
– the client and the server
– 3-tier infrastructure – contains clients,
application servers, and data servers
10
Additional IT Infrastructure
Elements
• Client/server networks, the Internet, and ntier 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
11
Additional IT Infrastructure
Elements
12
INFORMATION VIEWS
• Responsible for the presentation of
information and receiving user events and
includes:
– Intranets
– Extranets
– Portals
– Digital dashboards
13
INFORMATION VIEWS
• Intranet - an internal organizational
Internet that is guarded against outside
access by a special security feature called
a firewall (which can be software,
hardware, or a combination of the two)
• Extranet – is an intranet that is restricted
to an organization and certain outsiders,
such as customers and suppliers
14
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
15
INFORMATION VIEWS
• Digital dashboard – displays key
information gathered from several sources
on a computer screen in a format tailored
to the needs and wants of an individual
knowledge worker
16
INFORMATION VIEWS
17
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
18
BUSINESS LOGIC
 Integrations solve the problem with
separate applications
 Integration - allows separate applications
to communicate directly with each other by
automatically exporting data files from one
application and importing them into
another
19
BUSINESS LOGIC
20
BUSINESS LOGIC
• Web Services promise to be the next
major frontier in computing
– Web services – encompass all the
technologies that are used to transmit and
process information on and across a network
– Interoperability – the concept that different
computer systems and applications can talk to
each other
21
BUSINESS LOGIC
• Microsoft .NET - .Net is Microsoft’s
version of Web services
• Microsoft’s vision is to make applications
available any time, any place, on any
device
22
.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
23
BUSINESS LOGIC
• Many companies support Web Services
besides Microsoft
• Primary competitor is Sun Microsystems
J2EE
• Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) – Sun
Microsystems development tool for
building Web Services applications
24
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
25
BUSINESS LOGIC
Two primary types of workflow systems
include:
– Messaging-based workflow systems - send
work assignments through an e-mail system
– Database-based workflow systems - store
the document in a central location and
automatically asks the knowledge workers to
access the document
26
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
27
ASP Configuration
28
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
29