INF5210
Informasjon Infrastructures
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About the course
» Lectures
» 2 Mandatory deliveries
– 26.9 and 24.10
– Articles to be presented
– Themes for group work
» The formation of groups
» Final exam (Essay) 14.11 – 5.12
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Introduction to Information Infrastructure
theories
Brief overview of II in Norwegian public sector
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Informasjon Infrastructures
An introduction
Issues :
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Why infrastructures - some different perspectives
A brief overview of the course
What is an infrastructure - 1
The economics of infrastructures
Infrastructures in Norwegian public sector # public
infrastructures
Background literature:
» Hanseth, Ole:
http://www.ifi.uio.no/~oleha/Publications/ib_ISR_3rd_resubm2.html
2,4 and 5
Ciborra et al: From Control to drift, kap. 2,
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Some questions
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What do you understand by infrastructure
» Give examples of (information ) infrastructure
» Similarities between physical and electronic infrastructure
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What is the difference between an infrastructure
and an information system
Why do you think infrastructures are important ?
What specific challenges is tied to developing and
maintaining an infrastructure?
What specific challenges is inherent in maintaining
an infrastructure
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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What is an infrastructure
A general definition (Webster dictionarry)
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A substructure or underlying foundation; esp., the
basic installations and facilities on which the
continuance and growth of a community, state, etc.
depends as roads, schools, power plants,
transportation and communication systems, etc."
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Why talk about II
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Define /describe a set of ‘entities’ having common
characteristics
» Why are II different from IS
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Explain the history/trajectories of existing II
» Internet, OSI, SAP,
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Understand how to develop and maintain new II
» Help us understand the of these specific characteristics
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Can (possible) predict about future II building:
» Electronic Patient Record, UMTS, Public Key
Infrastructure,..
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Different types of infrastructures
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National and global II
» Internet, the phon enetwork, GSM, UMTS (?)
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Business (sector) networks
» EDI, electronic pation records, flight ticket booking
systems (Amanda,..) ..
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Corporate infrastructure
» Enterprise Resource Planning like, SAP, Oracle,
PeopleSoft,.. and other ERP packages
http://www.cio.com/research/erp/edit/erpbasics.html
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Infrastructure – a misleading concept?
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Legacy from the industrial society:
» Emphasizes the physical and material underlying basis
» Stable, heavy, difficult to modify/slow changes
» Closed, limited in space (and time?)
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The new information society
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Global
Flexible, dynamic
Everything is changing, increasing speed
Open, unclear boundaries,
– Ecologies of infrastructures
» Changes implies learning – learning implies changes
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Information systems or infrastructures?
Information systems – the traditional approach:
» One main purpose (solve one specific task)
» Limited (homogeneous) user group
» Assumes (often) centralised control by one organisation or
group
» Standards are either neglected or taken as granted
» Specific birth day and day of death
– Installed base are neglected
» Need not be always available (down time is acceptable or
even desirable)
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Infrastructures
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Serves large (umlimited ) communities of users and usages
patterns
Has to conform to certain standards
Infrastructures are never build from scratch
No clear date of birth – cannot die (!)
» Must be gradually
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Implementations Surprises, side effects,
unexpected outcomes of technology and organisation
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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What characterises an infrastructure
The US Government when building an National II:
(based on McGarty among others)
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Open and common
Shared (sharable)
Enabling
Standardized
Evolving
Socio-technical
Heterogeneous
Installed Base
Hanseth ( 2002) emphasizes the ’italic’
characteristics!
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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What characterises an infrastructure-2
Star and Ruhleder (1996): Steps to an ecology of
knowledge)
 Embeddedness
 Transparency
 Reach of scope
 Learned as part of membership
 Links with conventions of practice
 Embodiments of standards
 Built on an installed base
 Becomes visible upon breakdown
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Installed base
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Infrastructures are never designed from scratch(?)
» Something always exist
» We cannot bypass the history
 Can only be modified and extended
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The installed base includes:
» Nodes in the network; equipment and software, vendors,..
» Protocols, standard and standard bodies, documentations,
routines,
» Operations and support, documentations,
» Knowledge and experience, textbooks
The installed base as a heterogeneous actornetwork
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Installed base as an actor
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Re-enforcing mechanisms
» In order to work, it must be aligned with the existing
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Larger installed base
More complements produced
Further adoption
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Greater credibility of standards
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Reinforces values to users
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Decomposing heterogeneous infrastructures
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The structure of infrastructures
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Decomposing heterogeneous infrastructures
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Ecologies of infrastructures
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Universialism and installed Base
Is universal design possible and desirable
 Examples: OSI-protocols (X.25, X.400), EDIFACT,
SAP, electronic patient-journal
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Top-down development,
Uniform and standardized network on all levels
The goal is the perfect solution including most facilities
’Closed world
Centralized control
Monolithic organization
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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An alternative strategy: The Internet model
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The TCP/IP approach:
» Need to connect different networks
– Connectivity at meta-level
– Best efforts approach
» Balancing standards and flexibility
– Openness,
– Duplication, gateways
» Minimal standards
– Incompleteness, gradually improvement
» What aspects are relevant
– Technical
– Humans
» Internet has gained momentum and become an actor that
influences society at all levels
– Serves many different user communities,...
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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The case of Internet- some basic
characteristics
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The idea of packet switching and datagrams (Kleinrock)
» Distributed, digital and redundancy (Baran)
» IMPs : how to avoid n*(n-1)/2 (Kahn)
» Symmetric protocols (NCP, SMTP. FTP….)
Open Architecture Networking
» TCP/IP and black boxes: routers/gateways (Cerf, Kahn)
» Open network of independent network and No global
control
» Best offer service – transmit and retransmit
» End-to-End responsibilities for error check, flow control
» Domain Name System
Incorporation of TCP/IP in Unix BSD
WWW: URL, HTTP and HTML
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Basic ideas -2
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Its roots in academic tradition and basic research
philosophy
The openness: free flow of ideas and innovations
» Open access to all documents
» RFC (Request for proposals)
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The public funding of the development (and
diffusion)
» Academic and research network infrastructures like NSFnet,
HEPnet, JANET, NordUNet,..
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The formation of open communities
Peer institutions as IAB, IETF, W3C
Open source movement
The gift economy
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Strategies
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Flexibility
» Flexible standards and technical solutions
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Modularisation and encapsulation
» E.g. The Internet IMPS and layered structure
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Minimal solutions
» E. g Internet versus OSI-protocols
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Gateways
» From N*(n-1) to M (= different protocols or subnets)
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Transitions strategies
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
20
Information Infrastructures
in Norwegian public sector
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II that are developend and maintained by the
control of public agencies
» State government agencies or local administrations
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Their goal is to serve (all or part of) the citiziens
Examples
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ODIN, ’Forvaltningsnett’, etc
- Helsenettet, Skolenett, Biblioteks/kulturnett,..
- Kostra (Kommune-stat rapportering) ….
- More specialist infrastructures aas e.g. PKI (Publik Key
Infrastruktur), Studentweb, SO,...
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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Some Important links
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ODIN: http://odin.dep.no/odin/norsk/index-b-n-a.html
Norge.no/Norway.no
Standardisering/NOSIP:
http://www.statskonsult.no/prosjekt/standsekr/index.htm
Helsenett:
» Det nasjonale helsenettet bygges opp gjennom regionale helsenett i
de 5 helseregionene. ...
http://www2.telemed.no/telemed_i_bruk/tjenester/helsenett.html
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Utdanning.no
http://www.utdanning.no/dep/portal/.cmd/ResetPage/_pagr/
104/_pa.104/111?reset=true
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: Arildj@ifi.uio.no
22.08.03/
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