Sustainable MIS
Infrastructure
BSAD 141
Dave Novak
BDIS: 5.1 and 5.2
Lecture Overview
MIS Infrastructure
 Supporting operations

Backup plan
 Disaster recovery plan
 Business continuity plan

Agile MIS Infrastructure
 EWaste
 Sustainable IT Infrastructure

MIS Infrastructure

What is it? Plans for how a firm will build,
deploy, use, and share its data, processes, and
MIS assets





Hardware
Software
Network
Client devices & server devices
What is the difference between a client and a
server?
MIS Infrastructure

Data center – A facility used to house
management information systems and
associated components, such as
telecommunications and storage systems

Cisco projections for data center / cloud
traffic to triple over next 3-4 years

http://www.zdnet.com/cisco-projects-data-center-cloud-traffic-to-tripleby-2017-7000021985/
Data Centers

Why would this matter to you?

1) This is the reality of modern IT / IS
operations

2) HUGE $$$

3) HUGE implications with respect to
your organization’s information / data
needs and uses
Data Centers

Design and facilities


Infrastructure


Power, energy efficiency cooling, site selection,
cable infrastructure
Legacy hardware, OS integration, rack –vs- blade,
virtualization, storage and capacity –vsperformance
Operations and best practices

Staffing, disaster recovery, capacity planning
Data Center Tour

Google Data Center
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9AiN7oJaIM

ISWest Green technology Data Center Tour
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlDWMg49z_U

A not-so-impressive Data Center
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBUYIv1DTYI
• Notice the:
•
•
•
•
Cabling – rat’s nest, clothes line, rainbow of colors
Removed floor panels with fans resting on them
Tripping hazards
‘sticky notes’ on servers
Sustainable Data Centers

In addition to cost and performance
considerations, may focus on:

Reducing carbon emissions

Reducing required floor space

Choosing a very specific geographic
location based on more than just cost
minimization strategies
Data Center –vs- Cloud

Data centers – enterprise IT,
organization specific IT resources /
assets

Public cloud providers (Amazon,
Facebook, Google) – provide IT-related
resources and services to anyone for a
fee
Cloud Computing

Refers to the use of resources and
applications hosted remotely on the Internet
Cloud Computing

Why would an organization choose this
option?
Lack of technical expertise
 Cost savings (capital costs and
maintenance)
 Flexibility
 Scalability

Cloud Computing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS
6w5KYlHko&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae_D
KNwK_ms
 This sounds great! Why would your
organization build and maintain their
own enterprise IT?
 Maintaining an enterprise IT system
allows the organization complete
control – cloud computing does not
Data Center –vs- Cloud

All storage, security, and service
solutions are not equal….

Cloud providers tend to rely on
inexpensive, older (not cutting edge)
hardware solutions

No tier 1 storage vendors in the public
cloud (these are largest, most wellknown vendors in the field)
Data Center –vs- Cloud

Cloud providers tend to rely on Direct
Attached Storage (DAS) as opposed to
Storage Area Networks (SAN) and do
not use Redundant Array of Inexpensive
Disks (RAID)

DAS is inexpensive and simple

“Best practices” for fault tolerance and
performance utilize some level of RAID –
cloud providers tend to replicate
complete data to multiple locations
Data Center –vs- Cloud

Cloud providers tend to rely less on
virtualization


Virtualization solutions tend to be open
source as opposed to commercial
Cloud data centers focus on cost
minimization and tend to locate where
resources are least expensive
Supporting Operations

1) Backup plan


Strategy for copying and archiving data
2) Disaster recovery/business continuity plan

Describes how the organization will deal with
any potential disaster
• Minimize impact
• Prevention
• Maximize ability to resume mission critical
functions
1) Backup and Recovery



Full Backup – An exact copy of a system’s
information
Differential Backup – Copies only subset of
files or parts of files that have changed since
last full backup
Incremental Backup – Copies all files or parts
of files that have changed since previous
backup of any type
1) Backup and Recovery
Type
Pros
Cons
Full Backup
• Restoration is fastest –
need only one set of
backup data
• Backup process is
slowest
• High storage
requirements
Differential
Backup
• Backup process is faster
than full
• Restoration is faster than
incremental
• Storage requirements
less than full
• Restoration is slower than
full
• Backup process is slower
than incremental
Incremental
Backup
• Fastest backup process
• Least storage space
needed
• Restoration is slowest
and requires several sets
of data
Source: http://www.backup.info/difference-between-full-differential-and-incremental-backup
2) Disaster Recovery Plan

A detailed process for recovering
information or an IT system in the event of
natural or man-made disasters

Disaster recovery cost curve - Charts (1)
the cost to the organization of the
unavailability of information and technology
and (2) the cost to the organization of
recovering from a disaster over time
2) Disaster Recovery Curve
2) Disaster Recovery Plan

Hot site - A separate and fully equipped
facility where the company can move
immediately after a disaster and resume
business

Cold site - A separate facility that does not
have any computer equipment, but is a
place where employees can move after a
disaster
Agile MIS Infrastructure

Characteristics of an agile (clever,
coordinated) MIS infrastructure
1) Accessibility
 2) Availability
 3) Maintainability
 4) Portability
 5) Reliability
 6) Scalability
 7) Usability

1) Accessibility

Refers to the ease of accomplishing
objectives: defines different “levels” or
categories of user in terms of what each
user can access, view, or create/delete
when using a system

Administrator access – Unrestricted
access to the entire system
2) Availability

Availability – Refers to the time when
the system is operational or ready for use

Unavailable – Time frames when a
system is not operating and cannot be
used

High availability – System is
continuously operational at all times
3) Maintainability

Refers to how quickly, or the ease a system
can transform to support changes as well
as the time/effort to repair or upgrade

Organizations must watch today’s business,
as well as tomorrow’s, when designing and
building systems

Systems must be flexible enough to meet all
types of business changes
4) Portability

Refers to the ability of an application to operate
on different devices or software platforms: how
quickly/easily an application be moved from one
environment to another
5) Reliability

Refers to the proportion of time a system is
functioning correctly and the accuracy of the
information being provided

Reliability is another term for accuracy when
discussing the correctness of systems within
the context of efficiency IT metrics
6) Scalability

Refers to how well a system can adapt to
the increased demands of growth

Performance - Measures how quickly a
system performs a process or transaction

Capacity planning - Determines future
environmental infrastructure requirements
to ensure high-quality system performance
7) Usability

Refers to the degree to which a system is
easy to learn and efficient and satisfying to
use

How would you measure this?
E-Waste

Discarded, obsolete, or broken
electronic devices

CDs, DVDs, thumb drives, printer
cartridges, cell phones, TVs, DVD
players, etc…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Zq
Sige34c
E-Waste
Americans discard 30 Million computers
each year
 Europeans discards 100 Million phones
each year
 Only 15-20% of all E-waste is recycled
 E-Waste is 2% of the physical waste
produced in the US


This 2% is the source of 50-70% of the
toxins released from our waste stream
Source: Green IT, Velte, Velte and Elsenpeter. Mcgraw Hill. 2008
Why is E-waste different
from other waste streams?



Anticipated increase, decrease or leveling off of
this material?
Lifespan of Electronics compared to other
appliances?
Up-cycling parts or components?


Ease of assembly and modularization of parts?
Same materials?
Sustainable IT
Infrastructure

What does this even mean?

Pursuing goals such as:

Improving “efficiency”

Reduce green house gas emissions

Reduce electricity usage

Reduce e-waste

Educate the public and users
Sustainable IT
Infrastructure

The book focuses on “technological”
solutions, but in reality usage policies are
the most cost effective approaches to
sustainability

Energy star purchases

Exchanges for outdated equipment

Turning off monitors – putting computers in
sleep mode

Using smart power strips
Sustainable IT
Infrastructure

The components of a sustainable MIS
infrastructure can include

Grid computing

Cloud computing

Virtualized computing
Grid Computing

A collection of computers, often
geographically dispersed, that are
coordinated to solve a common problem

Applying resources from many computers to
share processing power, memory, and data
storage
Virtualization

Creating a software-based representation
of something (rather than the actual thing)
Making one resource appear as many (one
physical file server appear as multiple file
servers) or making many resources appear
as one
 Mimicking the behavior of another system
using simulation
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9AiN7oJ
aIM

Virtualization

For example, a virtual OS is the concept of
having more than one OS (more than the
native OS) on a single computer
•
•
•
•
Parallels
VMWare
VirtualBox
Virtual Win
Windows OS can be run in a virtual
environment on a MAC
 Linux on a PC

Virtualization

Virtualization technology fundamentally strives
for the same thing regardless of vendor..
Reducing the technological footprint by
enabling more virtual machines (VM’s) to run
on a single hardware device.
Virtualized server
architecture
Traditional Standalone Server. May
be Intel or RISC
P to V process
Virtualization
Physical World
Virtualized World
Hardwar
e
Traditional x86 Architecture
• Single OS image per machine
• Software and hardware tightly
coupled
• Multiple applications often conflict
• Underutilized resources
Virtualization:
• Separation of OS and hardware
• OS and application contained in
single file
• Applications are isolated from one
another
• Hardware independence & flexibility
Driving Reasons for Virtual
Infrastructure
Economic
 Environmental

Less power consumed
 Less toxic electronic devices

System Portability
 Enhanced Management

Summary
MIS Infrastructure
 Supporting operations components
 Agile MIS Infrastructure components
 EWaste
 Sustainable IT Infrastructure components
