Chapter 7
Infrastructure, Cloud
Computing, Metrics,
and Business
Continuity Planning
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STUDENT LEARNING
OUTCOMES
1.
2.
3.
Describe how an SoA can be used
as a philosophical approach to help
the organization of the future.
Define and describe the various
hardware and software
infrastructure considerations.
Describe cloud computing, its
various implementations, and its
advantages.
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STUDENT LEARNING
OUTCOMES
4.
5.
Compare and contrast commonly
used metrics for assessing the
success of IT systems.
Describe business continuity
planning (BCP) and its phases.
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MONEY WILL ALWAYS BE
MONEY
The use of
paper money is
on the decline;
the use of
electronic
money has
more than
doubled in the
past 10 years.
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Questions
1.
2.
3.
Do you use an electronic form of
money such as Google wallet or a
smartphone app? If so, which one?
Which do you think is easier—the
counterfeiting of paper money or
the counterfeiting of electronic
money? Why?
Why does the government continue
to mint pennies when the process
costs more than a penny?
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CHAPTER ORGANIZATION
1.
Introduction: SoA

2.
Hardware and Software Infrastructure

3.
Learning outcome #3
IT Success Metrics

5.
Learning outcome #2
Cloud Computing

4.
Learning outcome #1
Learning outcome #4
Business Continuity Planning

Learning Outcome #5
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INTRODUCTION: SoA
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Service-oriented architecture
(SoA) - perspective that focuses on
the development, use, and reuse of
small self-contained blocks of code
(called services) to meet all
application software needs
Software code is not developed solely
for a single application
Rather services are built that can be
reused
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INTRODUCTION: SoA

Can extend SoA to the entire
organization to be
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Lean and agile using resources in the
best way
Proactive in addressing changes in the
market
Quick to respond and adapt to advances
in technology
Transformational in its processes,
structure and HR initiatives to match a
changing and dynamic workforce
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INTRODUCTION: SoA

SoA focused specifically on IT
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Customers
End users
Software development
Information needs
Hardware requirements
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INTRODUCTION: SoA
Customers should be able to “plug and
play” into your organization and have the
same pleasurable experience regardless
of the channel
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INTRODUCTION: SoA
End users should have access to whatever
information and software they need
regardless of where they (the end users)
are
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INTRODUCTION: SoA
Software development should focus on reusable
components (services) to accelerate systems
development. This means using componentbased development methodologies and taking
advantage of exciting Web 2.0 applications.
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INTRODUCTION: SoA
Information would be treated appropriately as
a valuable organizational resource –
protected, managed, organized, and made
available to everyone who needs it.
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INTRODUCTION: SoA
Hardware is both integrated and transparent.
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HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE
INFRASTRUCTURE


Infrastructure – the structure beneath
a structure
IT infrastructure is the implementation of
your organization’s architecture
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ERP Revisited

From Chapter 2, Enterprise
resource planning (ERP) system
– collection of integrated software for
business management, accounting,
finance, supply chain management,
inventory management, customer
relationship management, ecollaboration, etc
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ERP and SoA
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For ERP to integrate everything,
everything must be plug-and-play
components or services
All modules of an ERP vendor must
be interoperable
Software from multiple ERP vendors
must be interoperable
The infrastructure beneath must be
hidden from users and customers
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ERP and SoA
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Supporting Network
Infrastructures

Computer network – fundamental
underlying infrastructure for any IT
environment
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Distributed
Client/server
Tiered
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Distributed Network
Infrastructure
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
Distributed – distributing the
information and processing power
of IT systems via a network
First true network infrastructure
Processing activity is allocated to
the location(s) where it can most
efficiently be done
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Distributed Network
Infrastructure
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Client/Server Infrastructure

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Client/server infrastructure
(network) – one or more computers
that are servers which provide services
to other computers, called clients
Servers and clients work together to
optimize processing, information
storage, etc
When you surf the Web, the underlying
network infrastructure is client/server
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Client/Server Infrastructure
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Tiered Infrastructure

Tiered (layer) – the IT system is
partitioned into tiers (layers) where each
tier performs a specific type of functionality
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1-tier – single machine
2-tier – basic client/server relationship
3-tier – client, application server, data or
database server
N-tier – scalable 3-tier structure with more
servers
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Tiered Infrastructure
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CLOUD COMPUTING


Hottest term in technology today
Cloud computing – model in which
any and all IT resources are delivered
as a set of services via the Internet
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Application software
Processing power
Data storage
Backup facilities
Development tools
Literally everything
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CLOUD COMPUTING
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Cloud Computing Goals

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Pay for only what you need and use
Real-time scalability (up or down)
Align computing costs with level of
business activity
Reduce fixed costs in IT
infrastructure
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Many Implementations of the
Cloud
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Software-as-a-service (SaaS)
Platform-as-a-service (PaaS)
Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)
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Software-As-A-Service



SaaS - delivery model for software in
which you pay for software on a payper-use basis instead of buying the
software outright.
Most well known
Supports multi-tenancy - multiple
people can simultaneously use a
single instance of a piece of
software.
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SaaS and Multi-Tenancy
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Platform-As-A-Service

PaaS – delivery model for software
identical to SaaS with the additional
features of
1.
2.
The ability to customize data entry
forms, screens, reports, and the like
Access to software development tools
to alter the way in which the software
works by adding new modules
(services) and/or making modifications
to existing modules
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PaaS
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Infrastructure-As-A-Service


IaaS - model in which you acquire all
your technology needs—storage
hardware and data, network
equipment, application software,
operating system software, data
backups, CPU processing capabilities,
anti-you-name-it software—in the
cloud.
All you need – smartphone/tablet
and peripheral devices (e.g., printer)
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Public and Private Clouds

Public cloud – comprises cloud
services that exist on the Internet
offered to anyone and any business.
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Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Windows Azure
Rackspace Cloud
Google Cloud Connect
ElasticHosts
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Public and Private Clouds


Private cloud – cloud computing
services established and hosted by
an organization on its internal
network and available only to
employees and departments within
that organization.
All benefits of cloud computing,
except held private within an
organization
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Advantages of the Cloud
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Lower capital expenditures
Lower barriers to entry
Immediate access to a broad
range of application software
Real-time scalability
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IT SUCCESS METRICS
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To justify costs of technology, you
need to measure its success
Metrics are also called benchmarks,
baseline values a system seeks to
attain.
Benchmarking – process of
continuously measuring system
results and comparing them to
benchmarks
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Efficiency & Effectiveness
Metrics

Efficiency – doing something right
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In the least time
At the lowest cost
With the fewest errors
Effectiveness – doing the right
things


Getting customers to buy when they
visit your site
Answering the right question with the
right answer the first time
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Efficiency & Effectiveness
Metrics
Bottom-line initiatives typically focus on efficiency, while top-line initiatives
tend to focus on effectiveness.
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Types of IT Success Metrics



Infrastructure-centric metrics
Web-centric metrics
Call center metrics
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Infrastructure-Centric Metrics

Infrastructure-centric metric –
measure of efficiency, speed, and/or
capacity of technology



Throughput – amount of information that
can pass through a system in a given
amount of time
Transaction speed – speed at which a
system can process a transaction
System availability – the average amount
of time a system is down or unavailable
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Infrastructure-Centric Metrics

Infrastructure-centric metric (cont’d)
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Accuracy – measured inversely as error
rate, or the number of errors per
thousand/million that a system generates
Response time – average time to
respond to a user-generated event like a
mouse click
Scalability – conceptual metric related to
how well a system can be adapted to
increased demands
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Web-Centric Metrics

Web-centric metric – success of
your Web and e-business initiatives

Unique visitors – # of unique visitors
to a site
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Total hits – number of visits to a site
Page exposures – average page
exposures to an individual visitor
Conversion rate - % of potential
customers who visit your site and who
actually buy something
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Web-Centric Metrics

Web-centric metric (cont’d)
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Click-through - # of people who click on
an ad and are taken to another site
Cost-per-thousand – sales dollars
generated per dollar of advertising
Abandoned registrations - # who start
to register at your site and then abandon
the process
Abandoned shopping carts - # who
create a shopping cart and then abandon it
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Call Center Metrics

Call center metric – measures the
success of call center efforts
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Abandon rate - % number of callers
who hang up while waiting for their call
to be answered
Average speed to answer (ASA) –
average time, usually in seconds, that it
takes for a call to be answered by an
actual person
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Call Center Metrics

Call center metric (cont’d)
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
Time service factor (TSF) - % of calls
answered within a specific time frame,
such as 30 or 90 seconds
First call resolution (FCR) - % of
calls that can be resolved without
having to call back
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BUSINESS CONTINUITY
PLANNING


Business continuity planning (BCP)
– rigorous and well-informed
organizational methodology for
developing a business continuity
plan, a step-by-step guideline defining
how the organization will recover from
a disaster or extended disruption
BCP is very necessary today given
terror threats, increased climate
volatility, etc
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BUSINESS CONTINUITY
PLANNING METHODOLOGY
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BCP METHODOLOGY
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Organizational strategic plan
Analysis
Design
Implementation
Testing
Maintenance
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Organizational Strategic Plan



It all starts here
The strategic plan defines what is
and what is not important
You must have a business continuity
plan for what is important
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Analysis

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Impact analysis – risk assessment,
evaluating IT assets, their importance,
and susceptibility to threat
Threat analysis – document all possible
major threats to organizational assets
Impact scenario analysis – build worstcase scenario for each threat
Requirement recovery document –
identifies critical assets, threats to
them, and worst-case scenarios
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Design

Build disaster recovery plan,
detailed plan for recovering from a
disaster. May include



Collocation facility – rented space
and telecommunications equipment
Hot site – fully equipped facility where
your company can move to
Cold site – facility where your company
can move to but has no computer
equipment
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Design
Disaster recovery plan should include a disaster recovery cost curve, which
charts the cost of unavailable information/technology compared to the cost to
recover from a disaster over time.
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Implementation

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Engage any businesses that will
provide collocation facilities, hot
sites, and cold sites
Implement procedures for recovering
from a disaster
Train employees
Evaluate each IT system to ensure
that it is configured optimally for
recovering from a disaster
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Testing

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As opposed to traditional SDLC,
testing in BCP methodology occurs
after implementation
Simulate disaster scenarios
Have employees execute disaster
recovery plans
Evaluate success and refine as
necessary
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Maintenance

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Perform testing annually, at a
minimum
Change business continuity plan as
organizational strategic plan changes
Evaluate and react to new threats
No “system” is ever complete
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