CHAPTER 7
IT INFRASTRUCTURES
Business-Driven Technology
THE CHAPTER IN SHORT FORM…
A good IT infrastructure will support all of an organization’s business and information needs. Topics
covered in this chapter are included in the following table:
Roles and Goals of IT
Increase Employee Productivity
Enhance Decision Making
Improve Team Collaboration
Create Business Partnerships
and Alliances
Enable Global Reach
Facilitate Organizational
Transformation
IT Infrastructure Components
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Client/Server Network
Internet
Intranet
Backup/Recovery
Disaster Recovery Plan
Integration
Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)
Enterprise Application Integration Middleware (EAI Middleware)
Storage Devices
Document Management Systems
Enterprise Information Portals (EIP)
Workflow Systems
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
Sales Force Automation (SFA) Systems
Electronic Catalogueue
Supply Chain Management (SCM) Systems
Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Application Service Provider (ASP)
Collocation Facilities
Server Farms
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Enterprise Software
Data Warehouse
Infrastructure Documentation
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Explain the relationship between the organization’s roles and goals and the IT infrastructure.
List and describe four of the seven factors that help increase employee productivity.
Explain system integration and how it enhances decision-making.
List and describe two different types of workflow systems.
List and describe two IT infrastructure components that create business partnerships and alliances.
List and describe two of the four IT infrastructure components that enable global reach.
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LECTURE OUTLINE
INTRODUCTION (p. 260)
ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS AND STRATEGIES (p. 261)
INCREASE EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY (p. 262)
1. Client/Server Network
2. Internet
3. Intranets and Extranets
4. Backup/Recovery
5. Disaster Recovery Plan
6. Factors that Increase Employee Productivity
ENHANCE DECISION MAKING (p. 268)
1. Integration
2. Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)
3. Enterprise Application Integration Middleware
4. Storage Devices
IMPROVE TEAM COLLABORATION (p. 270)
1. Document Management Systems
2. Enterprise Information Portals
3. Workflow Systems
CREATE BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS AND ALLIANCES (p. 273)
1. Customer Relationship Management Systems
2. Sales Force Automation Systems
3. Electronic Catalogue
4. Supply Chain Management System
ENABLE GLOBAL REACH (p. 278)
1. Internet Service Provider
2. Application Service Provider
3. Collocation Facilities
4. Server Farm
FACILITATE ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION (p. 280)
1. Enterprise Resource Planning and Enterprise Software
2. Data Warehouse
3. Infrastructure Documentation
IT INFRASTRUCTURES AND THE REAL WORLD (p. 284)
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END OF CHAPTER (p. 285)
1. Summary: Student Learning Outcomes Revisited
2. Closing Case Study One
3. Closing Case Study Two
4. Key Terms and Concepts
5. Short-Answer Questions
6. Assignments and Exercises
7. Discussion Questions
8. Real HOT Electronic Commerce
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KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS
KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS
Application service provider (ASP)
Back office system
Backup
Benchmark
Business process reengineering (BPR)
Capacity planning
Client/server network
Cold site
Collaborative processing enterprise information portal
Collocation
Computer-aided software engineering (CASE)
Customer relationship management (CRM)
Data cleansing
Database-based workflow system
Decision processing enterprise information portal
Disaster recovery cost curve
Disaster recovery plan
Document management system
Electronic catalogueue
Enterprise application integration (EAI)
Enterprise application integration middleware
Enterprise information portal (EIP)
Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
Enterprise software
Extranet
Front office system
Global reach
Hot site
Integration
Internet service provider (ISP)
Intranet
IT infrastructure
Legacy system
Messaging-based workflow system
Performance
Recovery
Sales force automation (SFA)
Scalability
Server farm
Service level agreement (SLA)
Supply chain management (SCM) system
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KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS
KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS
Thin client
Web farm
Workflow
Workflow System
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Introduction
OPENING CASE STUDY
What’s the Difference between Napster and Gnutella?
The opening case study represents a prime example of how a solid IT infrastructure is crucial to the
success of any organization.
The primary difference in the IT infrastructure between Napster and Gnutella is that there is no central
location for Gnutella’s network. The users develop the network each time they log on and off the network.
Both companies offer similar products - downloadable software that plays songs in the MP3 format. This
leads to an interesting debate on how the government can shut down one company while allowing the other
to continue to operate.
Key Points:
 IT infrastructure is crucial to the success of any organization.
 Many factors are involved in building an IT infrastructure including hardware, software, and
telecommunications equipment.
 A solid IT infrastructure must handle all of the current and future IT needs of the organization.
 Gnutella continues to operate because there is not a company headquarters or primary location.
SUPPORT
Extended Learning Modules
 XLM/C – if your students have little previous exposure to technology, cover this module which
introduces a variety of technology hardware and software terms.
 XLM/E – this is a great module to cover if your students need an introduction to the World Wide Web
and Internet.
 XLM/D – This module offers a detailed overview of network basics. This module is a great
enhancement for helping your students understand the details of IT infrastructures.
Skills Modules (CD-ROM)
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Skills Module 1 – Using information technology to support decision making is key to building a solid
IT infrastructure. Ask your students to review this module, which covers decision analysis with
spreadsheet software.
Real HOT Group Projects (CD-ROM)
5: Outsourcing Information Technology – outsourcing a customer service department.
7: Should I Buy or Should I Lease? – This project helps students understand the factors involved in buy
vs. lease decisions.
F: Higher Education Planning and Data Processing – introduction to enterprise resource planning and
management by looking at a comprehensive view of the Higher Educational System of Colorado.
Web Support (www.mcgrawhill.ca/college/haag)
 Online magazines
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Introduction
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Entertainment databases
Cooking databases
Highly useful miscellaneous Web sites
Capacity planning
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Introduction
INTRODUCTION
Building a solid IT infrastructure is critical to the success of any organization. An IT infrastructure can
consist of thousands of different components of hardware, software, and telecommunications
equipment. This chapter discusses a few of the primary IT infrastructure components.
Key Points:
 A solid IT infrastructure must handle all of the current and future IT needs of the organization.
 The IT infrastructure must support the organizational goals.
 Organizational goals include strategies, structures, and objectives.
 A few of the IT infrastructure components discussed in this chapter include integrations, workflow
systems, server farms, enterprise resource planning, and supply chain management.
 Review Figure 7.1 on page 260 for an overview of how the IT infrastructure components support
organizational goals.
Key Term: IT Infrastructure – includes the hardware, software, and telecommunications equipment
that, when combined, provide the underlying foundation to support the organization’s goals.
Concept Reinforcement: Extended Learning Module C – Computer Hardware and Software
 This module provides a solid introduction to computer hardware and software.
 Understanding the elements in this module will help students understand the concepts in this
chapter.
Concept Reinforcement: Extended Learning Module D – Network Basics
 This module provides a solid introduction to computer networks.
 Understanding the elements in this module will help students understand the concepts in this
chapter.
ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS AND STRATEGIES
A good IT infrastructure will support all of an organization’s business and information needs. An IT
infrastructure that ignores the organization’s business and information needs will cause certain failure.
Key Points:
 Chapter 1 presents the six primary roles and goals of information technology.
 Figure 7.2 on page 261 lists the six primary roles and goals of information technology and the
corresponding IT infrastructure components.
Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
 Ask your students to review Figure 7.2 on page 261.
 Choose a few of the IT infrastructure components and take a class survey to see if your students
are familiar with any of the terms.
 If your students are unfamiliar with the terms this is a great time to get your students excited
about the chapter by briefly introducing them.
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Organizational Goals and Strategies
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Ask your students to research some of the terms on the Web. Your students will be impressed to
see there is a great deal of information on each of these important concepts.
Emphasizing the importance of understanding IT infrastructure components is sure to get your
students excited about this chapter.
INCREASE EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY
Increasing employee productivity is the primary goal for most organizations. Building a solid IT
infrastructure that supports employees’ needs is crucial for increasing employee productivity.
Client/Server Network (p. 262)
Key Points:
 Building a client/server network is one of the best ways to support employee productivity.
 Client/server networks promote information, application, and hardware sharing among employees.
 Figure 7.3 on page 263 is a good example of a typical client/server network.
Key Term: Client/server network – a network in which one or more computers are servers and
provide services to the other computers, which are called clients.
Key Term: Thin client – a workstation with a small amount of processing power and costs less than a
full-powered workstation.
Concept Reinforcement: Extended Learning Module D – Network Basics
 This module provides an introduction to client/server networks.
 Understanding the elements in this module will help students understand the concepts in this
chapter.
Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
 If you are not sure about your school’s network, ask the IT department for a diagram.
 Ask your students to analyze the school’s client/server network.
 How many clients are there?
 How many servers are there?
 How much bandwidth does the network have?
 Is the network slow or fast?
 How can your school’s network be improved?
Internet (p. 262-264)
Key Points:
 There are hundreds of way the Internet helps to increase employee productivity.
 Most knowledge workers require Internet access in order to perform their job.
 It is important to note that the Internet is not guaranteed to increase employee productivity.
 Sometimes the Internet decreases employee productivity.
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Employees abuse the Internet by playing games, downloading movies, listening to music,
gambling, trading stocks, e-mailing jokes, and even distributing critical company information.
Key Term: Global Reach – the ability to extend a company’s reach to customers anywhere there is an
Internet connection, and at a much lower cost.
Concept Reinforcement: Extended Learning Module E – The World Wide Web and the Internet
 This module provides an overview of the World Wide Web and the Internet.
 Understanding this material is helpful when reviewing this section.
Concept Reinforcement: Industry Perspective – Employee Abuse of the Internet (p. 265)
 This Industry Perspective broadly addresses the issue of employee abuse of the Internet.
 Some employees spend as much as 6 hours a day on the Internet.
 Internet monitoring software is a way to help alleviate the problem of Internet abuse.
 Take a survey to find out how much time each day your students spend on the Internet e-mailing,
surfing, etc.
 Ask your students to discuss the issue of employees abusing the Internet.
 Do they think employee productivity is lost due to Internet abuse?
 Do they think student productivity is lost due to Internet abuse?
 Ask your students how they can alleviate the problem of Internet abuse at your school.
Intranet and Extranet (p. 264)
Key Points:
 The primary characteristic of an intranet is that people outside the organization can’t access it.
 Intranets are used to disseminate company information, promote information sharing, and provide
a central location for company information.
 Extranets are used to help facilitate business with outside customers and suppliers.
Key Term: 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).
Key Term: Extranet – an intranet that is restricted to an organization and certain outsiders, such as
customers and suppliers.
Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
 Intranets and extranets are important components for any organization.
 Ask your students to visit www.intranetjournal.com. This online magazine contains information
about intranets, extranets, and Web pages.
 Ask your student to visit www.extranetnews.com to discover three additional uses for an extranet.
Concept Reinforcement: Skills Module 3 – Building a Web Page with HTML (CD-ROM)
 Building a user friendly GUI is critical to building a successful intranet or extranet.
 This project walks your students through building a Web site with HTML.
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Increase Employee Productivity
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After your students have built their Web sites ask them what features make the Web site easy to
use.
What features make their Web sites difficult to use?
What would they do differently if they rebuilt their Web sites?
Backup/Recovery (p. 264-265)
Key Points:
 Losing information due to a system crash can be devastating to a business.
 Building backup and recovery systems is critical to employee productivity.
Key Term: Backup – the process of making a copy of the information stored on a computer.
Key Term: Recovery – the process of reinstalling the backup information in the event the information
was lost.
Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
 Take a survey of your students and ask how often they backup the information on their
computers?
 Ask your students how often they have lost information due to system crashes.
 Ask your students to research the Web to find three different ways they could backup the
information on their computers.
 Introduce your students to www.mydocsonline.com. This is a great Web site for storing backup
information.
Disaster Recovery Plan (p. 265)
Key Points:
 Disasters such as power outages, floods, and hacking occur daily.
 A good disaster recovery plan takes into consideration the location of the backup information and
the actual facility where knowledge workers will work.
 Figure 7.4 on page 265 illustrates a disaster recovery cost curve.
Key Term: 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.
Key Term: Hot site – a separate and fully equipped facility where the company can move immediately
after the disaster and resume business.
Key Term: Cold site – is a separate facility that does not have any computer equipment but is a place
where the knowledge workers can move after the disaster.
Key Term: Disaster recovery cost curve – charts (1) the cost to your organization of the
unavailability of information and technology and (2) the cost to your organization of recovering from a
disaster over time.
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Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
 Ask your IT department for a copy of your school’s disaster-recovery plan to show your students
after they complete this activity.
 Ask your students to develop a disaster recovery plan for your school.
 Where would the backup information be located?
 Where would the employees go to work after the disaster?
 How would your students be affected by the disaster?
Factors that Increase Employee Productivity (p. 265-268)
Key Points:
 The IT infrastructure must meet the knowledge workers and customers’ schedules.
 Some companies have IT systems available 24x7.
 Accessibility is determining who has the right to access different types of IT systems and
information.
 Reliability ensures that the IT systems are functioning correctly and providing accurate
information.
 The IT infrastructure must be both scalable and flexible.
Concept Reinforcement: Team Work – IT Components and Factors (p. 267)
 This is a good introductory exercise to IT infrastructure components.
 Be sure to have your students justify which factor they choose as 1.
 Be sure to have your students justify which factor they choose as 12.
 Students’ answers to this exercise will vary.
 There is no right or wrong answer to this exercise.
Key Term: Data cleansing – is the term that describes the process of ensuring that all information is
accurate.
Key Term: Scalability – refers to how well your system can adapt to increased demands.
Key Term: Performance – measures how quickly an IT system performs a certain process.
Key Term: Benchmark – is a set of conditions used to measure how well a product or system
functions.
Key Term: Capacity planning - determines the future IT infrastructure requirements for new
equipment and additional network capacity.
Concept Reinforcement: On Your Own – Increase Student Productivity (p. 268)
 This exercise is a great way to get your students thinking about the different IT infrastructure
components at your school.
 Be sure to have your students discuss the three factors they choose as the most important.
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Students’ answers to this exercise will vary.
There is no right or wrong answer to this exercise.
ENHANCE DECISION MAKING
Providing employees with the information they require to make informed, accurate, and timely decisions is
critical to every business.
Integration (p. 268-269)
Key Points:
 A typical business has separate systems for all of the major organizational departments.
 Getting these separate systems to share information is incredibly difficult.
 In order to make good decisions employees typically require information from several different
systems.
 Figure 7.5 on page 269 provides an example of how an organization can integrate customer
information systems.
Key Term: Integration – allows separate systems to communicate directly with each other by
automatically exporting data files from one system and importing them into another.
Concept Reinforcement: Skills Module 1 – Decision Analysis with Spreadsheet Software
 Ask your students to review this module for an overview of decision analysis.
 Ask your students how they would evaluate information that is captured in six different
spreadsheets.
 Assume the spreadsheets are created in different programs.
 Is there any way your students could build integrations between the different spreadsheets?
Enterprise Application Integration (p. 270)
Key Points:
 Business decisions are enhanced by EAI.
 EAI integrates business information and business processes.
 EAI is something businesses try to accomplish, not something that can be purchased.
Key Term: Enterprise application integration (EAI) – the process of developing an IT infrastructure
that enables employees to implement new or changing business processes.
Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
 Building and maintaining integrations is incredibly difficult.
 Ask your students to answer the following questions by researching the Web.
 What is the hardest part of building an integration?
 Why do so many integrations fail?
 What makes an integration project successful?
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 What happens when systems are not integrated?
Try visiting the EAI toolbox to find the answers to the above questions. http://eai.ittoolbox.com/
Enterprise Application Integration Middleware (p. 270)
Key Points:
 EAI middleware are systems available for purchase that help the integration between front-office
customers and back-end business systems.
 Activeworks is one of the primary EAI middleware packages available today.
Key Term: Enterprise application integration middleware (EAI middleware) – allows organizations
to develop different levels of integration from the information level to the business process level.
Concept Reinforcement: Global Perspective – 1,900 Gap Stores Communicating (p. 271)
 This Global Perspective gives a great overview of how the Gap used integrations to share and
view information the 1,900 international stores.
 CORBA stands for Common Object Request Broker Architecture.
 CORBA middleware was used to build the integrations between the 1,900 Gap stores.
 Ask your students if they can define three additional reasons why all of the stores needed to
communicate.
Storage Architecture (p. 270)
Key Points:
 Historical information is sometimes required to make decisions.
 Viewing historical information allows an organization to perform analysis on trends.
 A storage architecture must take into account the ability to archive and retrieve information.
Concept Reinforcement: Real HOT Group Project #3 (CD-ROM)
 Break your students into groups between 4 and 6.
 Ask your students to review why the investment portfolio required two years of weekly price data
on 10 different stocks.
 How does looking at the historical data of stocks help make future decisions?
 Where can you find historical information?
 What happens when historical information is missing?
 How can looking at historical information help enhance decision making?
IMPROVE TEAM COLLABORATION
Almost anything your students do in an organization will be performed in a team. IT infrastructure
components that support team collaboration will be vital to success.
Document Management Systems (p. 271-272)
Key Points:
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It’s not uncommon to find 15 or 20 knowledge workers editing the same document.
Document management systems are used to ensure the integrity of the document.
The document management system helps with creation, modification, security, approval,
distribution, and archiving of the document.
Key Term: Document management system – manages a document though its life cycle.
Concept Reinforcement: Industry Perspective – Managing Multiple Web Sites (p. 272)
 This industry perspective provides a look at how a document management system is used in the
real world.
 Dow Corning is a great example of how a company used a document management system to
ensure all information published on the Web was consistent and correct.
Enterprise Information Portals (p. 272)
Key Points:
 An EIP is similar to an Internet search engine except only company information is stored on the
EIP.
 An intranet is more of a corporate newsletter or static database.
 An EIP is dynamic and serves as an electronic workspace.
Key Term: Enterprise information portal (EIP) - allows knowledge workers to access company
information via a Web interface.
Key Term: Collaborative processing enterprise information portal - provides knowledge workers
with access to workgroup information such as e-mails, reports, meeting minutes, and memos.
Key Term: Decision processing enterprise information portal – provides knowledge workers with
corporate information for making key business decisions.
Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
 Ask your students to create a list of requirements for an EIP for your school.
 What types of information would they want to see on the EIP?
 Who would be able to access the EIP?
 What type of EIP would they choose to implement?
Workflow Systems (p. 272-273)
Key Points:
 Workflow systems help manage the flow of information through the organization.
 Workflow systems track where the information is and its status.
Key Term: Workflow – defines all of the steps or business rules, from beginning to end, required for a
process to run correctly.
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Improve Team Collaboration
Key Term: Workflow systems – automate business processes.
Key Term: Messaging-based workflow systems – send work assignments through an e-mail
system.
Key Term: Database-based workflow systems – store the document in a central location and
automatically ask the knowledge workers to access the document when it’s their turn to edit the
document.
Concept Reinforcement: On Your Own – Working Together as a Team (p. 273)
 Your students must understand the importance of information sharing among employees.
 Workflow systems help facilitate information sharing.
 Student answers to this exercise will vary.
 There is no right or wrong answer to this exercise.
CREATING BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS AND ALLIANCES
Building an IT infrastructure that supports performing business over the Internet is critical to any
organization’s success. This section discusses the IT components required to support electronic
business partnerships and alliances.
Customer Relationship Management Systems (p. 274)
Key Points:
 Keeping and retaining current and potential customers is one of the primary goals of any
organization.
 CRM is one of the hottest buzzwords in business today.
 Workflow systems track where the information is and its status.
 Figure 7.6 on page 275 is a sample of a customer relationship management system infrastructure.
Key Term: Customer relationship management (CRM) systems – use information about customers
to gain insight into their needs, wants, and behaviours in order to serve them better.
Key Term: Front office systems – the primary interfaces to customers and sales channels, and send
all of the customer information to the data warehouse.
Key Term: Back office systems – are used to fulfil and support customer orders, and send all of the
customer information to the data warehouse.
Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
 CRM is everywhere and in every industry.
 Ask your students to research the Web and find a CRM vendor.
 Ask your students to review the different types of companies that are using the vendor to
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Creating Business Partnerships and Alliances
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implement CRM systems.
Compile a list of the different types of companies found on the board.
This exercise will demonstrate to your students that CRM is everywhere and in every industry.
Sales Force Automation Systems (p. 274-275)
Key Points:
 The sales process includes contact management, sales lead tracking, sales forecasting, order
management, and product knowledge.
 SFA systems must integrate the sales, marketing, customer service, and billing departments.
 There are many SFA systems available today.
 Clarify, Siebel, Vantive, and Salesforces are a few of the big SFA vendors.
Key Term: Sales force automation (SFA) systems – automatically track all of the steps in the sales
process.
Concept Reinforcement: Real HOT Group Project #10 (CD-ROM)
 Ask your students to review this project in groups of 4 – 6 students.
 Assume Pony Espresso is going to open stores all over the country and is looking into hiring sales
personnel to sell the stores.
 Ask your students the following questions:
 How could an SFA system help Pony Espresso perform its business operations?
 Would you recommend Pony Espresso implement a SFA system?
 Student answers to these questions will vary.
 There is no right or wrong answer to this question..
Electronic Catalogue (p. 276)
Key Points:
 Electronic catalogues provide greater detail than a paper catalogue.
 A big advantage to an electronic catalogue is the search functionality.
 One of the biggest issues with electronic catalogues is the difficulty in searching for an item if you
don’t know the exact name.
 Actinic, Mercado, and Requisite Technology are some of the big providers of electronic catalogue
systems.
Key Term: Electronic catalogue – designed to present products to customers or partners all over the
world via the Web.
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Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
Ask your students to compile a list of items to be placed in an electronic catalogue for a sporting
goods store.
What types of features would they add to the catalogue?
How would they make the electronic catalogue better than a paper catalogue?
How would they deal with the issue of search functionality?
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How would they organize the catalogue?
Student answers to this exercise will vary.
Supply Chain Management System (p. 276-278)
Key Points:
 Managing the supply chain is fundamental to the success of any business.
 Companies can purchase SCM systems.
 I2 and Manugistics are two big vendors of SCM systems.
 Dell is a prime example of a company that has become an expert in SCM.
 Figure 7.7 on page 277 provides an overview of how an organizations IT infrastructure can
support SCM.
Key Term: Supply chain management (SCM) systems– track inventory and information among
business processes and across companies.
Concept Reinforcement: Industry Perspective – FedEx Streamlines Shipping (p. 276)
 FedEx has become an expert at supply chain management.
 This industry perspective provides an example of how one company used its IT infrastructure to
create a competitive advantage.
 FedEx customers have complete control over shipping preparation, which helps to eliminate
shipping errors.
ENABLE GLOBAL REACH
Today, we live in a global world. This section takes a detailed look at a few of the components required
to support global business operations.
Internet Service Provider (p. 278)
Key Points:
 ISPs are used to connect to the Internet.
 UUNet, MCI, and AT&T WorldNet are a few of the bigger ISPs.
Key Term: Internet service provider (ISP) – a company that provides individuals, organizations, and
businesses access to the Internet.
Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
 Most of your students are probably already using an ISP.
 Ask your students to visit the Web and find three different ISPs.
 What are the primary differences between the ISPs?
 What are the similarities between the ISPs?
 If your students were choosing an ISP what would be the three primary factors for making the
decision?
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Application Service Provider (p. 278-279)
Key Points:
 Outsourcing is the delegation of specific work to a third party for a specified length of time.
 Organizations can hire ASPs for storage, operation, maintenance, and upgrade responsibilities for
hardware and software.
 Companies can outsource the applications and IT infrastructure services.
 Application services include payroll, accounting, intranets, and e-mail.
 Infrastructure services include CRM systems, ERP systems, and call centres.
 Figure 7.8 on page 279 provides a sample application service provider infrastructure.
Key Term: Application service provider (ASP) – a company that provides an outsourcing service for
business software applications.
Key Term: Service level agreements – define the specific responsibilities of the service provider and
set the customer expectations.
Concept Reinforcement: Global Perspective – Euroresins’ Unique Strategy (p. 280)
 Using an ASP can help a company produce better results than if it built the systems itself.
 Euroresins is the leader in the European chemical market.
 Euroresins outsourced its IT department to IBM Global Services.
 The ASP Multrix provided Euroresins with applications, management, security, and support for its
IT systems.
Collocation Facilities (p. 279-280)
Key Points:
 Using a collocation facilities saves a company money.
 Using a collocation facility to set up a network may be cheaper and easier than building or leasing
the infrastructure.
Key Term: Collocation - simply means that a company rents space and telecommunications
equipment from another company.
Concept Reinforcement: Skills Module 3 – Building a Web Page with HTML (CD-ROM)
 Ask your students to review this module in a group of 6 to 8 students.
 If your students decided to put a Web page on a server could they use a collocation facility?
 Ask your students to visit http://www.collocationsolutions.com/ and research how they could put
their Web sites on a server in this collocation facility.
Server Farm (p. 280)
Key Points:
 Server farms provide centralized access and control to files, printers, and backups for each server.
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CHAPTER 7
Enable Global Reach

If a single server fails, there are other servers that can perform the work.
Key Term: Server farm - is the name of a location that stores a group of servers in a single place.
Key Term: Web farm – is either a Web site that has multiple servers, or an ISP that provides Web site
outsourcing services using multiple servers.
Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
 There are numerous advantages and disadvantages to using server farms and Web farms.
 Ask your students to determine two advantages to using server farms and Web farms.
 Ask your students to determine two disadvantages to using server farms and Web farms.
 Student answers to this exercise will vary.
 There is no right or wrong answer to this exercise.
FACILITATE ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION
Change is inevitable. Everything changes. The IT infrastructure for any business must be able to
handle change.
Enterprise Resource Planning and Enterprise Software (p. 280-283)
Key Points:
 Each system must be developed using a holistic view of the entire organization.
 SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and J.D. Edwards are some of the large ERP software vendors.
 Enterprise software suites will replace CASE tools in the future.
 Figure 7.9 on page 282 displays a sample enterprise software infrastructure.
Key Term: Enterprise resource planning (ERP) – the method of getting and keeping an overview of
every part of the business ( a bird’s eye view, so to speak), so that production, development, selling,
and servicing of goods and services will all be coordinated to contribute to the company’s goals and
objectives.
Key Term: Enterprise software – a suite of software that includes (1) a set of common business
applications, (2) tools for modeling how the entire organization works, and (3) development tools for
building applications unique to your organization.
Concept Reinforcement: Industry Perspective – How Orlando Saved 10,000 Hours a Year (p.
283)
 This business case will give your students an idea of how much power implementing an ERP
system can give a company.
 Implementing enterprise software helped the state of Florida save 10,000 hours a year on
systems development.
 J.D. Edwards software was the ERP system chosen.
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Facilitate Organizational Transformation
Key Term: Computer-aided software engineering (CASE) – software suites that automate systems
development.
Key Term: Legacy systems – IT systems previously built using older technologies such as mainframe
computers and programming languages such as COBOL.
Key Term: Business process reengineering (BPR) – the reinventing of processes within a business.
Concept Reinforcement: Team Work – Choosing an ERP Vendor (p. 284)
 This exercise is geared towards helping your students understand how many ERP vendors are
available today.
 Student answers to this exercise will vary.
 There is no right or wrong to this exercise.
Data Warehouse (p. 283)
Key Points:
 ERP systems are great for capturing and storing data, but they lack the ability to analyze the data.
 Data warehouses consolidates ERP information and other sources of information.
Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
 The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) is the premier association for data warehousing
professionals.
 Ask your students to visit TDWI Web site for additional information on data warehousing.
 http://www.dw-institute.com/
Infrastructure Documentation (p. 283)
Key Points:
 All aspects of the IT infrastructure should be documented
 Documentation helps companies understand the current system and how it was designed.
Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
 Creating documentation is a task that most people avoid.
 It is important to ensure that every part of the IT infrastructure is documented.
 Ask your students to compile a list of the topics maintained in your school’s IT infrastructure
documentation.
 Ask your IT department for your school’s IT infrastructure documentation and compare its
contents with your students’ list.
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CHAPTER 7
IT Infrastructure and The Real World
IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE REAL WORLD
This section concludes the chapter with an overview of several questions knowledge workers must ask
when designing an IT infrastructure.
Key Points:
 Deciding which IT infrastructure components to implement is a complicated decision.
 The questions in this section should help remind knowledge workers to think about the goals of
the organization and how the IT infrastructure can support them.
Concept Reinforcement: Adding Value – Class Participation
 This is a great exercise to wrap up the chapter.
 Ask your students to form groups between 4 and 6.
 Inform your students they have been assigned the role as student infrastructure manager. Their
first assignment is to approve the designs for the new on-campus Internet infrastructure. There is
a meeting at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning to review the designs. In order to prepare for the
meeting ask your students to compile a list of questions that they will ask to the Internet
infrastructure designers.
 Potential questions include:
 Is there a disaster recovery plan created?
 Does the system require backup equipment?
 When will the system be available to your students?
 What types of access levels will your students need?
 How will they ensure the system is reliable?
 How will they build scalability into the system?
 How will they build flexibility into the system?
 What are the minimum performance requirements for the system?
 How will the system handle future growth?
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Summary: Student Learning Outcomes Revisited
SUMMARY: STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES REVISITED
In each chapter and module, we revisit the student learning outcomes as a mechanism and format for
summarizing the chapter.
You’ll find this content for Chapter 7 on pages 285-286.
Following the adage of, “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you
told them,” you should walk through the summary with your students.
You should also inform your students that the summary is great support for studying for exams.
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CHAPTER 7
Closing Case Study One
CLOSING CASE STUDY ONE
University Infrastructure (p. 286-287)
The primary goal of this case study is to understand how fast technology changes. Many of your students
probably don’t even think twice about using a computer. Twenty years ago this simply was not the case.
Universities today have to offer a complex IT infrastructure as a major selling point for the university.
Students today are taking into consideration the IT infrastructure of a university when considering which
university to attend.
QUESTIONS
1. Walking around your university you probably see all kinds of technological gadgets that didn’t even
exist 20 years ago including PDA’s, cell phones, and wireless networks. How have these
technological gadgets increased student productivity? How have these technological gadgets
decreased student productivity?
DISCUSSION
 Student answers to this question will vary.
 Students today increase their productivity by the following:
 access to unlimited information including libraries all over the world, search engines, and
company Web sites.
 can electronically schedule group meeting.
 work on the same electronic document.
 e-mail information instead of meeting to distribute information.
 change a document without having to retype the entire document.
 Students today decrease their productivity by the following:
 spending too much time using e-mail.
 sending e-mail during class time.
 surfing the Web during class time.
 cheating by plagiarizing information found on the Web.
 cheating on an exam by instant messaging a friend.
2.
Does your university have a client/server network? If so, where are the clients located? Where is the
server located? What kind of access do you have to the Internet? What type of activity do you think
takes up the most capacity on the network? If your university does not have a client/server network,
determine a design for the infrastructure to support one. Be sure to think about the factors that
increase student productivity along with the IT infrastructure components. How big is your
department going to grow? Will the system be able to handle additional users?
DISCUSSION
 Student answers to this question will vary.
 Contact your university IT department to find out the specifics to the universities client/server
network. Ask if they have any diagrams you can show in class. Ask if they have any forecasts for
future growth.
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CHAPTER 7
Closing Case Study One
3.
Imagine it’s 2004 and your university has grown by 50 percent since 2000. How many students are
now attending your university? Would the support departments such as accounting and human
resources need to grow also as the number of students increases? What would happen to the
university’s IT infrastructure with the increased growth? What are some of the issues the university
will encounter with its information systems due to this unexpected growth? What could your
university have done to help prepare for this kind of unexpected growth?
DISCUSSION
 Student answers to this question will vary.
 If the university grew without updating the IT infrastructure, the system would not be able to handle
the increased demand. Chances are the systems would become slow, unavailable, and
congested.
 The university should already have taken into account student growth. Contact your university IT
department to find out the specifics on how the university is prepared to handle growth.
4.
Many different departments work at your University. Can you name the different departments or are
they listed on your school’s Web site? What types of systems do the different departments use? Do
you see any reason for these systems to be integrated?
DISCUSSION
 Student answers will vary.
 Departments could include marketing, sales, accounting, student relations, alumni relations,
financial services, purchasing, and so forth.
 Each department potentially uses a different system. Accounting and finance use financial
packages, marketing uses publishing packages, purchasing uses inventory management
packages.
 Yes, the systems need to be integrated in order to understand the holistic picture of the university.
If we integrate the marketing and sales systems, we can then determine which marketing
promotion was successful and generated sales. If we integrate the purchasing and accounting
systems, we can correlate what was purchased with what was paid.
5.
Your university has decided to implement an electronic catalogue for prospective students to view
when considering attending your school. What types of information would be saved in the catalogue?
What would be three advantages of using an electronic catalogue over a paper brochure? What
would be one of the primary problems people would encounter with the electronic catalogue?
DISCUSSION
 Student answers will vary.
 The catalogue would save majors offered, tuition rates, professor information, admission
information, campus maps, athletic information, and so forth.
 An electronic catalogue offers video, sound, pictures, and search functionality.
 One problem would be searching for information without knowing the correct terminology. For
example, if you wanted information on the IT department you might not find it if the department was
called electronic commerce department.
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CHAPTER 7
Closing Case Study One
6.
Try to imagine what a university will be like 20 years from now. What types of new technological
gadgets will drastically change the lives of students in the year 2022? How will student productivity
be affected by the new gadgets? Use the Internet to see if you can find any articles on where
universities are headed in the future.
DISCUSSION
 Student answers will vary.
 This exercise is great for creative students.
 Potential answers include video professors, virtual classrooms, Internet classes, and talking
textbooks.
 We believe one of the biggest advantage in the future will be the ability to attend a university
virtually.
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CHAPTER 7
Closing Case Study Two
CLOSING CASE STUDY TWO
Document Management Solutions in the Automotive Industry (p. 287-288)
This case study offers a detailed view into how Ford Motor Company drastically improved its operations by
implementing a document management system. Ford implemented Documentum 4iTM eBusiness
Platform. The biggest benefit Ford received from the new system was that it captured the company’s
intellectual capital and business processes, which maximized reuse and encouraged best practices.
QUESTIONS
1.
Almost anything you do in an organization is performed in teams. Very few tasks and assignments
are performed individually in the working world. Improving knowledge workers’ ability to collaborate
can be a huge benefit for companies. Do you think Ford would benefit from improving team
collaboration? If so, how could it use Documentum to perform team or group tasks?
DISCUSSION
 Yes, any company will benefit from improving team collaboration.
 Ford could use Documentum for file sharing, workflow, and knowledge transfer.
2.
There are several alternatives to Documentum for document management systems. Do some
research on the Internet to find a competitor to Documentum. What are the differences between the
competitor and Documentum? If you had to choose one of the two document management systems
to implement which would you choose and why? Do you think Documentum was the best choice for
Ford?
DISCUSSION
 Student answers will vary.
 Documentum’s Web site is www.documentum.com.
 Two competitors include Corel Office for Java – officeforjava.corel.com, and Qualtrax Document
Management System – www.qualtrax.com.
3.
What is workflow? What is a workflow system? How has Ford used a workflow system to help
improve its employee productivity and team collaboration?
DISCUSSION
 Workflow – defines all of the steps or business rules, from beginning to end, required for a
process to run correctly.
 Workflow system – automates business processes.
 Ford used a workflow system to ensure its documentation complies with the legal automotive
industry requirements and industry standards.
 After a document is completed, it’s automatically transferred to Ford’s legal department for final
approval before it’s posted to the information portal.
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CHAPTER 7
Closing Case Study Two
4.
What are the two primary types of workflow infrastructures? Explain the difference between the two
primary types of workflow infrastructures including an example of how Ford might use each. What
type of workflow infrastructure has Ford implemented? What type of workflow infrastructure would
you recommend Ford implement?
DISCUSSION
 Database-based workflow system – stores the document in a central location and automatically
asks the knowledge workers to access the document when it’s their turn to edit the document.
 Messaging-based workflow system – sends work assignments through an e-mail system.
 The difference between the two systems is that one sends the document to the users via e-mail
and one stores the documents in a repository and the users access the document in the stored
location.
 Ford could use a database-based workflow system to send documents from the marketing
department to the sales department.
 Ford could use a messaging-based workflow system to send messages automatically to sales
representatives.
 Ford has implemented both types of systems. In the engineering department it implemented a
database-based workflow system and the designs are routed to marketing directly. On the
information portals Ford implemented a messaging-based workflow system where the work is
placed on the Web and accessed via the information portal.
 Ford should use both types of workflow systems. In some instances it makes sense to pass the
actual document around and in other cases it makes sense to store the document in a central
location. Most companies use both types of workflow systems.
5.
Enterprise information portals (EIP) allow knowledge workers to access company information via a
Web interface. How did Ford implement its EIP? Was the EIP successful? What was one of the
major issues with Ford’s EIP? How did Ford resolve the issue?
DISCUSSION
 Ford implemented an employee information portal, which allowed Ford’s employees with intranet
access the ability to search all of the company’s and employee's documentation.
 The information portal was extremely successful.
 The major problem with Ford’s EIP was that it was not open to customers and suppliers.
 Ford created part of the site available to customers and suppliers. Customers and suppliers can
access Ford company information directly.
6.
There are two primary types of EIPs including collaborative processing and decision processing.
Explain the primary difference between the two different types. Which type of EIP did Ford
implement? Did Ford make the right decision implementing EIP’s?
DISCUSSION
 Collaborative processing enterprise information portal – provides knowledge workers with
access to workgroup information such as e-mails, reports, meeting minutes, and memos.
 Decision processing enterprise information portal – provides knowledge workers with
corporate information for making key business decisions.
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Closing Case Study Two
 The primary difference is the decision processing enterprise information portal offers detailed
corporate information. The collaborative processing enterprise information portal only offers
employee information such as e-mails and reports.
 Ford implemented both types of EIPs.
 Yes, Ford implemented both systems as the company required both types in order to be
successful.
7.
Congratulations, you have been hired as Ford’s IT infrastructure expert. Ford would like you to
explain how a solid IT infrastructure can help the company support its primary goals. Ford also wants
to determine the best IT infrastructure components for increasing employee productivity and
enhancing decision-making.
DISCUSSION
 Student answers will vary.
 This question is a great capstone to the entire chapter. Your student should include a discussion
on a different IT component within each of the major roles and goals areas.
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CHAPTER 7
Short-Answer Questions
SHORT-ANSWER QUESTIONS (p. 289)
1.
What is an IT infrastructure?
ANSWER: An IT infrastructure includes the hardware, software, and telecommunications
equipment that, when combined, provides the underlying foundation to support the organization’s
goals. p. 260
2.
What is an intranet?
ANSWER: An intranet is an internal organizational Internet that is guarded against outside access by
a firewall. p. 264
3.
What is a client/server network?
ANSWER: A client/server network consists of computers called servers, which provide services to
other computers, called clients. p. 262
4.
Why do you need a backup of information?
ANSWER: If you don’t have a backup of your computer information, you cannot restore the
information if it is ever lost. p. 264
5.
Why would you need to recover information?
ANSWER: If a system crashes or a natural disaster occurs and your information is lost, you will need
to recover the information from a backup copy. p. 265
6.
What are two organizational roles/goals?
ANSWER: Organizational roles and goals include: increasing employee productivity; enhancing
decision making; improving team collaboration; creating business partnerships and alliances;
enabling global reach; and facilitating organizational transformation. p. 261
7.
What are two IT infrastructure components that increase employee productivity?
ANSWER: Intranets and extranets, client/server networks, Internet, backup/recovery, and disaster
recovery plans are all components that increase employee productivity. p. 262
8.
What is enterprise application integration middleware?
ANSWER: Enterprise application integration middleware allows organizations to develop
different levels of integration from the data level to the business-process level. p. 270
9.
What are integrations and how are they used to enhance decision making?
ANSWER: An integration allows separate systems to communicate directly with each other by
automatically exporting data files from one system and importing them into another system.
Integrations allow knowledge workers to take a holistic view of the organization’s information. p. 269
10. Why does a business need a disaster recovery plan?
ANSWER: A disaster recovery plan is needed in order to reestablish working conditions in case of a
natural disaster. p. 265
11. What is a customer relationship management system?
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CHAPTER 7
Short-Answer Questions
ANSWER: A customer relationship management system uses information about customers to
gain insights into their needs, wants, and behaviours in order to serve them better. p. 274
12. What is a sales force automation system?
ANSWER: A sales force automation system automatically tracks all of the steps in the sales
process. p. 274
13. What is one advantage of using an electronic catalogue over a paper catalogue?
ANSWER: An electronic catalogue can store pictures, sound, video, competitor information, and so
forth. p. 276
14. What is supply chain management?
ANSWER: Supply chain management works to reduce the amount of inventory a company must
keep on hand by providing the company with a complete view into its suppliers to understand
inventory level levels and production capacity. p. 277.
15. How can you use supply chain management to create business partnerships and alliances?
ANSWER: Supply chain management can assist a company with all aspects of the supply chain.
The supply process becomes easier when a company is connected electronically to its business
partners. p. 277
16. Why would a company implement a document management system?
ANSWER: A document management system enables a company to track all types of documents.
This enables employees to collaborate with other employees. p. 271
17. What is an ISP and how is it different from an ASP?
ANSWER: An internet service provider is a company that provides individuals, organizations, and
businesses access to the Internet. An application service provider provides an outsourcing service
for businesses software applications. An ISP is different from an ASP because it only offers Internet
access, not business software application outsourcing. p. 278
18. How can enterprise resource planning facilitate organizational transformation?
ANSWER: ERP allows a company to change quickly because all of the processes are working
together. Production, development, selling, and servicing of goods and services are coordinated. p.
281
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CHAPTER 7
Short Question-Answers
SHORT-QUESTION ANSWERS
Although they are not included in the book, these Question-Answers can be used by the instructor as an
help to review the concepts covered in the chapter.
1.
CRM
QUESTION: What uses information about customers to gain insights into their needs, wants, and
behaviours in order to serve them better? p. 274
2.
Capacity planning
QUESTION: What determines the future IT infrastructure requirements for new equipment and
additional network capacity? p. 268
3.
Disaster recovery plan
QUESTION: What is a detailed process for recovering information or an IT system in the event of a
catastrophic disaster such as a fire or flood? p. 265
4.
ERP
QUESTION: What is the method of getting and keeping an overview of every part of the business (a
bird’s eye view, so to speak), so that production, development, selling, and servicing of goods and
services will all be coordinated to contribute to the company’s goals and objectives? p. 281
5.
IT infrastructure
QUESTION: What includes the hardware, software, and telecommunications equipment that, when
combined, provides the underlying foundation to support the organization’s goals? p. 260
6.
SCM
QUESTION: What tracks inventory and information among business processes and across
companies? p. 276
7.
Server farm
QUESTION What is a location that stores a group of servers in a single place? p. 280
8.
Performance
QUESTION: What measures how quickly an IT system performs a certain process? p. 267
9.
Integration
QUESTION: What allows separate systems to communicate directly with each other by automatically
exporting data files from one system and importing them into another system? p. 269
10. Disaster recovery cost curve
QUESTION: What charts (1) the cost to your organization of the unavailability of information and
technology, and (2) the cost to your organization of recovering from a disaster over time? p. 265
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CHAPTER 7
Short Question-Answers
11. EIP
QUESTION: What allows knowledge workers to access company information via a Web interface? p.
272
12. Workflow
QUESTION: What defines all of the steps or business rules, from beginning to end, required for a
process to run correctly? p. 272
13. Workflow systems
QUESTION: What automates business processes? p. 272
14. ASP
QUESTION: What provides an outsourcing service for businesses’ software applications? p. 276
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CHAPTER 7
Assignments and Exercises
ASSIGNMENTS AND EXERCISES (p. 289-291)
1.
An EIP for Your Course. Enterprise information portals (EIP) allow knowledge workers to access
company information via a Web interface. You have been asked to create an EIP for this course.
Answer the following questions in order to determine how the EIP should be developed.
 What type of information would be contained on the EIP?
 Who would have access to the EIP?
 How long would information remain on the EIP?
 What is the difference between a collaborative processing EIP and a decision processing EIP?
 Which type of EIP would you implement and why?
DISCUSSION
 Student answers to this question will vary.
 The EIP might contain the syllabus, lecture notes, slide presentations, assignments, e-mail, etc.
 All of your students and faculty involved in the course should have access to the EIP.
 The EIP should be available for the duration of the course.
 Collaborative processing EIPs support information such as e-mail, meeting minutes, and reports.
Decision processing EIPs support decision making and include detailed company information.
 For the course a collaborative processing EIP would be sufficient since its purpose is information
sharing not decision making.
2.
Sponsor of the IT Infrastructure. In order to build a solid IT infrastructure you must have executive
sponsorship. Your current boss doesn’t understand the importance of building a solid IT
infrastructure. In fact, your boss doesn’t even understand the term IT infrastructure. First, explain to
your boss what an IT infrastructure is and why it is critical for any organization. Second, you must
explain each of the following organizational goals to your boss along with two related IT infrastructure
components.
 Increase employee productivity
 Enhance decision making
 Improve team collaboration
 Create business partnerships and alliances
 Enable global reach
 Facilitate organizational transformation
DISCUSSION
 An IT infrastructure includes the hardware, software, and telecommunications equipment that,
when combined, provides the underlying foundation to support the organization’s goals. Without a
solid IT infrastructure the organization will be unable to function in this information age.
 Student answers to the second question will vary. There is no right or wrong to this question.
Ensure your students can explain the goals and the components.
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CHAPTER 7
Assignments and Exercises
3.
ARABIAN NIGHTS VIDEO. Mackenzie Spencer is the director of IT infrastructure at Arabian Nights
Video, a $100M video manufacturing plant. Internally, the company manages video manufacturing
systems and a client/server network that serves more than 1000 knowledge workers. Mackenzie is
reflecting on her decision to hire a third-party vendor (ASP) to implement the new inventory tracking
system. Mackenzie has hired you as an ASP expert. On the basis of your vast knowledge of IT
infrastructure components, what would be your advice to Mackenzie regarding the advantages and
disadvantages of working with an ASP? What would you tell Mackenzie to include in the service level
agreement with the ASP?
DISCUSSION
 Why is it so important to have a detailed Service Level Agreement?
 Under what conditions would a company consider using an ASP?
 When would owning your IT infrastructure give you a strategic advantage over your competitors?
4.
IT Infrastructure components and the Real World. Throughout this chapter we discussed several
IT infrastructure components including client/server, reliability, integrations, electronic catalogues,
among other things. Pick two of the components discussed in this chapter and try to find business
examples of how companies are using these components in the real world. We also mentioned that
there are thousands of additional components you can use to build an IT infrastructure. Try to
research the Internet to see if you can find two additional IT infrastructure components that were not
discussed in this chapter along with business examples of how businesses are using the components
in the real world.
DISCUSSION
 This exercise is great for small groups between 2 and 4.
 Additional IT infrastructure components could include security, knowledge management, network
management, web services, .NET, LANs, and WANs.
 Student answers to this exercise will vary.
 There are no right or wrong answers to this exercise.
5.
Creating the Ideal Infrastructure. As a knowledge worker, you’ll be responsible for approving IT
system designs, which ultimately affect your company’s IT infrastructure and its abilities to achieve its
goals. This chapter focused on many different IT infrastructure components including ERP, SCM,
client/server, integrations, and so on. Choose three of the different components discussed in this
chapter and explain how you could use them to improve the IT infrastructure at your university. Be
sure to think of current requirements as well as future requirements for the systems.
DISCUSSION
 This exercise is great for small groups between 2 and 4.
 One example you can use is the integration of the different information systems. If all of your
school systems were integrated together as soon a student registered for school they would
automatically be added to every applicable system including e-mail, housing, parking, courses, etc.
If a student registered for a particular class the book store could be automatically updated with the
required text order, the instructor could be automatically updated with the student information, and
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CHAPTER 7
Assignments and Exercises
the students records could be automatically updated to ensure the class was part of the student’s
core curriculum.
 Student answers to this exercise will vary.
 There are no right or wrong answers to this exercise.
6.
The Complete IT Infrastructure: A document management system manages a document through
its life cycle. The following table lists the document life cycle phases in the first column. Explain what
tasks a document management system would perform during each phase. Explain how you could
use a document management system to help you work on a group project.
DISCUSSION
 Student answers to this exercise will vary.
 Potential answers are included in the following table:
Document Phase
Creation
Modification
Security
Approval
Distribution
Archiving
7.
Tasks Performed
Create documents
Edit and modify the document.
Control knowledge worker access
to the document.
Sent to a knowledge worker for
approval.
Distribute the document via e-mail
or the Web.
Save the document in a storage
facility.
Group Project Tasks Performed
Create documents
Edit and modify the document.
Control student access to the
document.
Sent to another student or
professor for approval.
Distribute the document via e-mail
or the Web.
Save the document on a disk or
CD-ROM.
Creating a Campus IT Infrastructure: Congratulations, you have been assigned the role as student
infrastructure manager. Your first assignment is to approve the designs for the new on-campus
Internet infrastructure. You’re having a meeting at 9:00 am tomorrow morning to review the designs
with the student IT employees. In order to prepare for the meeting you must understand the student
requirements and their current use of the Internet, along with future requirements. The following is a
list of question you must answer before attending the meeting. Please provide you answers to each
question.
 Do you need to have a disaster recovery plan? If so, what might it include?
 Does the system require backup equipment?
 When will the system need to be available to the students?
 What types of access levels will the students need?
 How will you ensure the system is reliable?
 How will you build scalability into the system?
 How will you build flexibility into the system?
 What are the minimum performance requirements for the system?
 How will the system handle future growth?
DISCUSSION
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Assignments and Exercises
Do you need to have a disaster recovery plan? If so, what might it include? The disaster recovery
plan should take into consideration the location of the backup information such as a hot site or cold
site. The plan should also include a disaster recovery cost curve in order to understand the cost to
the organization of the unavailability of the IT systems.
Does the system require backup equipment? Yes, all systems must have backup equipment.
Without backup equipment, there is no way to make copies of all of the critical information. Without
copies of the critical information, there is no way to recover from a disaster.
When will the system need to be available to the students? Student answers to this question will
vary. Typically, you would want your systems available 24x7 since students tend to work at all
different hours of the day and night..
What types of access levels will the students need? Students answers to this question will vary.
Potentially, all students will need access to printers and the Internet. Certain students might require
access to network drives and network applications. Students working in the IT department will need
access to all types of security and administrative services.
How will you ensure the system is reliable? Reliable systems generate accurate information. Your
students can perform data cleansing in order to ensure all of the information is accurate.
How will you build scalability into the system? Scalability refers to how well your system can adapt to
increased demands. The best way to build scalable systems is to estimate future growth
requirements early and plan for these estimates when you are buying hardware and software.
Buying hardware and software that can be easily upgraded is also another great way to ensure your
system is scalable.
How will you build flexibility into the system? A single system can be designed in a number of
different ways to perform exactly the same function. In order to ensure that your system is flexible
you should try to brainstorm all of the different uses for system. For example, is there any chance
your school might start accepting payments in foreign currencies? If so, you need to design the
system to handle multiple currencies. If the system is designed to handle only one type of currency
then you will have a difficult time changing the system if this situation occurred.
What are the minimum performance requirements for the system? Student answers to this question
will vary. Typically, the minimum performance should be that about 80% of the students can be on
the system at the same time without experiencing any performance issues.
How will the system handle future growth? Student answers to this question will vary. If the students
take into account flexibility, scalability, capacity planning, and reliability then their systems should be
able to easily handle future growth. If the students do not take any of these factors into consideration
then their systems probably won’t adapt well to future growth.
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (p. 291-292)
1.
IT infrastructures often mimic organizational hierarchies. Define two different types of organizational
hierarchies and how the IT infrastructure would be built in order to support them.
DISCUSSION
A flat organizational structure has very few managerial layers. It requires an IT infrastructure that
supports knowledge sharing. This type of organization would not password protect documents and
would promote the use of EIPs and Collaboration systems. A hierarchical organization has many
managerial layers. It requires an IT infrastructure that inhibits knowledge sharing and offers the
ability to put many levels of password on documents. This type of organization probably would not
want EAI since this is a form of automatic information sharing.
2.
IT infrastructure components can include anything ranging from software to strategic functions. After
reading this chapter and learning about a few of the primary IT infrastructure components explain why
a company’s IT infrastructure can include so many different components?
DISCUSSION
The IT infrastructure is a combination of hardware, software, and telecommunications’ equipment.
An organization has many strategic goals, multiple information systems, and numerous employees.
There is no way that one system or one single IT infrastructure component could support everything
the organization needs to be successful. A number of different IT infrastructure components are
required in order to support an entire organization and all of its critical functions.
3.
Organizations tend to spend a great deal of time determining its primary goals, objectives, structure,
and strategies. Define your university’s goals. Define your university’s objectives, structure, and
strategies that support these goals. Explain how your university’s IT infrastructure supports your
university’s goals.
DISCUSSION
Student answers to this question will vary. One of the important concepts for your students to grasp
in this chapter is that organizational strategies must be supported by the IT infrastructure. Ensure
your students correlate your university’s IT infrastructure and your university’s goals.
4.
What is a client/server network? Does your university have a client/server network? How does your
university’s client/server network increase student productivity? How does you university’s
client/server network decrease student productivity?
DISCUSSION
Student answers to these questions will vary. A client/server network is a network in which one or
more computers are servers and provide services to the other computers, which are called clients.
Client/server networks increase student productivity by allowing students to easily share information,
applications, and hardware. For example, if a student wanted to send a paper to another student
they could save the paper on the shared network drive and the other student could easily copy the
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paper from the network. The network might decrease productivity if the students are using it to share
unproductive information such as music files or game files.
5.
Providing Internet access to employees is a great way to increase employee productivity. It’s also a
great way to decrease employee productivity if the employees abuse their Internet privileges. What
does it mean to have employees abuse the Internet? What can you do as a manager to prevent your
employees from abusing their Internet privileges? What would happen if all of your students in your
university spent 10 hours a day surfing the net? Using the Internet find two different types of network
monitoring software that you would recommend your University purchase in order to help deter
Internet abuse.
DISCUSSION
Employees who use the Internet to play games, gamble, surf, trade stocks, and send personal e-mail
are abusing the Internet. One way to prevent Internet abuse is to implement Internet monitoring
software. If all students in your university surfed the Internet at the same time you would probably
start to experience speed and performance issues. There are many different types of Internet
monitoring software. Visit the following Web site for a complete overview of many different types,
www.monitoring-software.net.
6.
Imagine you are working for a large cookie manufacturing company. The company is 75 years old
and is just starting to implement technology to help improve operations. Your direct manager has
asked you to put together a presentation discussing integrations. In your presentation you must
include the definition of integration, EAI, and EAI middleware. You must also explain each concept in
depth along with a real world example of how the concept will help your company become more
successful.
DISCUSSION
Integration – allows separate systems to communicate directly with each other by automatically
exporting data files from one system and importing them into another. Integrations help
organizations by allowing systems in different departments to communicate. Integrating the
customer, order, and payment databases will allow all customer information to be automatically
passed each time a new customer is added. This will save the company time and money, as it will
only need one data entry clerk. It will also help reduce the number of data entry errors since the
information is only entered once.
Enterprise application integration (EAI) – is the process of developing an IT infrastructure that
enables employees to implement new or changing business processes. Being able to implement
changes quickly offers companies a huge competitive advantage. If all of the business applications
are integrated together, any changes in the business can be quickly implemented in all of the
systems. For example, if you decide to offer a 10% discount on all cookies during the month of
December you can enter this information once and it will automatically update all of the other
systems.
Enterprise application integration middleware (EAI middleware) – allows organizations to
develop different levels of integration from the data level to the business process level. EAI offers
developers an easy way to integrate the different applications. Without this software it would be
extremely difficult to build the any integrations.
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7.
What are the four major categories of EAI? Discuss each category along with an example of how the
EAI could be used in your university. Also, discuss two EAI middleware vendors. You can use the
Internet to learn more detailed information about EAI middleware vendors.
DISCUSSION
Student answer to this question will vary. Enterprise application integration is the process of
developing an IT infrastructure that enables employees to quickly implement new or changing
business processes. The different types of EAI include data integration, database integration,
system integration, and common virtual system integration. Data integration can be used to
integration key pieces of data such as customer name. Database integration connects different
databases together in order to integrate large amounts of data such as entire orders. System
integration integrates entire systems such as the order entry and the billing system. A common
virtual system integrates two systems so well that you can’t tell that they are two different systems.
EAI middleware vendors include ActiveWorks and Tibco.
8.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is the objective of managing the customer’s relationship
with the company thorough all of the different customer business experiences. Supply chain
management (SCM) tracks inventory and information among business processes and across
companies. What is the difference between these two IT infrastructure components? What do these
two components have in common? Would a company implement both of these components? If they
did, why would they want to implement both and what would be the advantage of having both?
DISCUSSION
The primary difference between these two components is that one focuses on customers and the
other focuses on suppliers. Both systems are attempting to help the organization automate important
processes. Companies implement both CRM and SCM systems since both meet different
organizational goals.
9.
Informed decisions sometimes require reviewing past information as well as current information.
Research different types of storage devices and explain which type you would choose and why?
DISCUSSION
Student answers to this exercise will vary. Storage devices can include tapes, zip drives, CDs,
DVDs, and even storage area networks. The primary differences include cost, amount of information
that can be stored, and the time it takes to store the information. These important features should be
included in your student’s answers.
10. With the growing popularity of performing business over the Internet, creating business partnerships
and alliances should become a primary goal for any organization’s IT infrastructure. List two IT
infrastructure components you could use to help a business create business partnerships and
alliances.
DISCUSSION
Customer relationship management (CRM) systems use information about customers to gain insight
into their needs, wants, and behaviours in order to serve them better. Sales force automation (SFA)
systems automatically track all of the steps in the sales process. Supply chain management (SCM)
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systems track inventory and information among business processes and across companies. An
electronic catalogue is designed to present products to customers or partners all over the world via
the Web. All of the above components can be used to help a business create partnerships and
alliances.
11. A fellow student is trying to write a paper on third party vendors for IT infrastructure components.
Throughout this chapter we have discussed several different third party vendors including ISPs,
ASPs, collocation facilities, and server farms. Explain each one of these components to your fellow
student along with a real world example of each.
DISCUSSION
 An Internet service provider (ISP) is a company that provides individuals, organizations, and
businesses access to the Internet. Examples include AOL, Yahoo!, and MSN.
 An application service provider (ASP) is a company that provides an outsourcing service for
business software applications. You could use an ASP to outsource your payroll function. All
payroll activities would be performed by the ASP.
 A collocation facility is a vendor that rents space and telecommunications equipment to other
companies. You could store your servers in the collocation facility if you did not have a location of
your own.
 A server farm is a location that stores a group of servers in a single place. You could store your
servers in a server farm.
12. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the coordinated planning of all an organization’s resources
involved in the production, development, selling, and servicing of goods and services. Describe ERP
and how an organization might benefit from implementing an ERP system.
DISCUSSION
Enterprise resource planning is the method of getting and keeping an overview of every part of the
business (a bird’s eye view, so to speak), so that production, development, selling, and servicing of
goods and services will all be coordinated to contribute to the company’s goals and objectives. A
company can find many benefits from implementing an ERP system. The company can gain a better
understanding of company information because it is easier to view the entire organization.
13. IT infrastructures should support the creation of flexible and scalable IT systems that can quickly
adapt to support new business requirements. What would be an example of an IT infrastructure that
is inflexible and not scalable and a barrier to supporting a changing business? What is an example of
an IT infrastructure that is flexible and scalable and supports expanding a business?
DISCUSSION
Student answer to this question will vary. Examples of IT infrastructures that are inflexible include
the inability to upgrade equipment, no extra capacity for growth, and little thought to the future
expansion of the business such as multiple currencies and languages. Examples of IT
infrastructures that are flexible and scalable include equipment that is easily upgradeable, extra
capacity, and support for multiple currencies and languages.
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REAL HOT ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
Living Life on the Internet (p. 292-295)
Many of your students are probably already living life on the Internet. This project offers some great
information on Web sites that can help with everyday living.
We recommend that you create four groups of students, each one of which will address a different section
in this project. Ideally, there should be about 4 to 5 students per group. If your class is large, all of your
students don’t have to complete this project – you can assign the remaining students to the e-commerce
projects in other chapters.
Online Magazines
 There is no need to pay for magazines when most magazines are available for free over the Internet.
 There are hundreds of magazines available online.
 Some magazines are available only online.
 If you want, you can also ask your class to compile a list of the top ten magazines they view online.
Online Movie Listings and Reviews
 Choosing a movie to see can be a difficult task.
 Nobody like to spend money to see a bad movie.
 It is beneficial to do a little research on the Web prior to seeing a movie. Reading other people’s reviews
might help you pick the right movie to see.
 Ask your students to research the Internet to find the names of the Oscar winning best pictures for the
last ten years.
Cooking From The Internet
 Many of your students are probably surviving on macaroni and cheese and pizza.
 Introducing your students to some exciting cooking Web sites might improve their cooking abilities.
 Cooking Web sites today offer everything from a complete grocery list to the nutritional value of each
meal.
Highly Useful Miscellaneous Sites
 There are so many useful Web sites available today it was difficult to decide which ones to place in this
section.
 Ask your students to search the Internet to find five additional miscellaneous Web sites.
 Compile a list and distribute it to your students.
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