MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Managing the Digital Firm

Laudon and Laudon, 16th Edition

Chapter 5
IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND EMERGING
TECHNOLOGIES
IT Infrastructure
• IT infrastructure:
• Set of physical devices and software required to operate enterprise
• Set of firmwide services including:
• Computing platforms providing computing services
• Telecommunications services
• Data management services
• Application software services
• Physical facilities management services
• IT management, standards, education, research and development services
• “Service platform” perspective more accurate view of value of
investments
IT Infrastructure
Connection between
the firm, IT
infrastructure, and
business capabilities

Figure 5.1
The services a firm is capable
of providing to its customers,
suppliers, and employees are
a direct function of its IT
infrastructure. Ideally, this
infrastructure should support
the firm’s business and
information systems strategy.
New information technologies
have a powerful impact on
business and IT strategies, as
well as the services that can
be provided to customers.
IT Infrastructure
• Evolution of IT infrastructure
• General-purpose mainframe & minicomputer era: 1959 to present
• 1958 IBM first mainframes introduced
• 1965 Less expensive DEC minicomputers introduced
• Personal computer era: 1981 to present
• 1981 Introduction of IBM PC
• Proliferation in 80s, 90s resulted in growth of personal software
• Client/server era: 1983 to present
• Desktop clients networked to servers, with processing work split between clients and
servers
• Network may be two-tiered or multitiered (N-tiered)
• Various types of servers (network, application, Web)
IT Infrastructure
STAGES IN IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
EVOLUTION

Figure 5.2
Illustrated here are the typical
computing configurations
characterizing each of the five
eras of IT infrastructure
evolution.
IT Infrastructure
• Evolution of IT infrastructure (cont.)
• Enterprise computing era: 1992 to present
• Move toward integrating disparate networks, applications using
Internet standards and enterprise applications
• Cloud Computing: 2000 to present
• Refers to a model of computing where firms and individuals
obtain computing power and software applications over the
Internet or other network
• Fastest growing form of computing
IT Infrastructure
STAGES IN IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
EVOLUTION (cont.)

Figure 5.2
Illustrated here are the typical
computing configurations
characterizing each of the five
eras of IT infrastructure
evolution.
IT Infrastructure
A MULTITIERED CLIENT/SERVER NETWORK (N-TIER)

Figure 5.3
In a multitiered
client/server
network, client
requests for
service are
handled by
different levels
of servers.
IT Infrastructure
• Technology drivers of infrastructure evolution
• Gordon Moore, director of Fairchild Semiconductor’s
Research and Development Laboratories, wrote in
Electronics magazine.
• Moore’s law and micro processing power
• The power of micro processors doubles every 18 months
• The computing power doubles every 18 months
• The price of computing falls by half every 18 months
IT Infrastructure
MOORE’S LAW AND
MICROPROCESSOR
PERFORMANCE

Figure 5.4
Packing more than 5 billion
transistors into a tiny
microprocessor has
exponentially increased
processing power. Processing
power has increased to more
than 250,000 MIPS (about 2.6
billion instructions per
second).
IT Infrastructure
FALLING COST OF
CHIPS

Figure 5.5
Packing more transistors into
less 1993 space has driven
dramatic reductions in their
cost and in the cost of the
products they populate.
IT Infrastructure
• Technology drivers of infrastructure evolution
• Nanotechnology
• Shrinks size of transistors to size comparable to size of a
virus

• Law of Mass Digital Storage

• The amount of data being stored each year doubles
IT Infrastructure
EXAMPLES OF
NANOTUBES

Figure 5.6
Nanotubes are tiny tubes about 10,000 times thinner than a human hair. They
consist of rolled up sheets of carbon hexagons and have potential uses as minuscule
wires or in ultra-small electronic devices and are very powerful conductors of
electrical current.
IT Infrastructure
THE COST OF STORING DATA
DECLINES EXPONENTIALLY
1950–2018

Figure 5.7
Since the first magnetic storage device was
used in 1955, the cost of storing a kilobyte
of data has fallen exponentially, doubling
the amount of digital storage for each
dollar expended every 15 months, on
average.
IT Infrastructure
EXPONENTIAL DECLINES IN INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS COSTS

Figure 5.8
One reason for the
growth in the Internet
population is the rapid
decline in Internet
connection and overall
communication costs.
The cost per kilobit of
Internet access has
fallen exponentially
since 1995.
Verizon FiOS (fiber to
the home) delivers 1
kilobit of data for a
retail price less than 2
thousandths of a
penny.
Infrastructure Components
• IT Infrastructure has 7 main components
1. Computer hardware platforms
2. Operating system platforms
3. Enterprise software applications
4. Data management and storage
5. Networking/telecommunications platforms
6. Internet platforms
7. Consulting system integration services
Infrastructure Components
• Computer hardware platforms
• Client machines
• Desktop PCs, mobile devices – PDAs, laptops
• Servers
• Blade servers: ultrathin computers stored in racks
• Mainframes:
• IBM mainframe equivalent to thousands of blade servers
Infrastructure Components
• Computer hardware platforms
• Top chip producers:
• Intel, Samsung, TSMC, AMD, IBM
• Top firms:
• Apple, HP, Dell, Sun Microsystems
• Top mobile chip producers:
• Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm using an architecture designed
by ARM Holdings.
Infrastructure Components
• Operating system platforms
• Operating systems
• Server level: 35% run Windows; 65% run Unix or Linux
• Client level:
• Nearly 90% run Microsoft Windows (10, 8, 7, etc.)
• Handheld device OS’s (Android, iOS)
• Cloud computing OS’s (Joli OS, ZeroPC, Google’s Chrome OS)

• Enterprise software applications

• Enterprise application providers: SAP and Oracle
• Middleware providers: BEA
Infrastructure Components
• Data management and storage
• Database software:
• IBM (DB2), Oracle, Microsoft (SQL Server), Sybase (Adaptive
Server Enterprise), MySQL
• Physical data storage:
• EMC Corp (large-scale systems), Seagate, Nutanix, Western
Digital
• Storage area networks (SANs):
• Connect multiple storage devices on dedicated network
Infrastructure Components
• Networking/telecommunications platforms
• Telecommunication services
• Telecommunications, cable, telephone company charges for
voice lines and Internet access
• AT&T, Verizon, GP, Banglalink, Airtel, Robi
• Network operating systems:
• Windows Server, Linux, Cisco NX, Novell, Unix
• Network hardware providers:
• Cisco, Juniper Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel
Infrastructure Components
• Internet platforms
• Hardware, software, management services to support
company Web sites, (including Web hosting services)
intranets, extranets
• Internet hardware server market:
• Dell, HP/Compaq, IBM
• Web development tools/suites:
• Microsoft (Microsoft Visual Studio, .NET, Oracle-Sun (Java),
independent software developers: Adobe (Creative Suite)
Infrastructure Components
• Consulting and system integration services
• Even large firms do not have resources for a full range of support
for new, complex infrastructure
• Software integration:
• Ensuring new infrastructure works with legacy systems
• Legacy systems:
• Older TPS created for mainframes that would be too costly to replace or
redesign
• Accenture, IBM Global Services, EDS, Infosys, Wipro
Infrastructure Components
THE IT INFRASTRUCTURE ECOSYSTEM

Figure 5.9
There are seven major components that must
be coordinated to provide the firm with a
coherent IT infrastructure. Listed here are
major technologies and suppliers for each
component.
Contemporary Hardware Platform
Trends
• The emerging mobile digital platform
• Smartphones have taken on many functions of PCs
• transmitting data, surfing the web, transmitting e-mail and instant
messages, displaying digital content, and exchanging data with
internal corporate system
• New mobile platform (tablet computers)
• Apple’s iPad, Amazon’s Kindle
• Wearable computing devices
• Smartwatches, smart glasses, smart ID badges, and activity trackers
Contemporary Hardware Platform
Trends
• Grid computing
• Connects geographically remote computers into a single network
to combine processing power and create virtual supercomputer
• Provides cost savings, speed, agility
• Virtualization
• Allows single physical resource to act as multiple resources (i.e.,
run multiple instances of OS)
• Reduces hardware and power expenditures
• Facilitates hardware centralization
Contemporary Hardware Platform
Trends
• Quantum Computing
• Quantum computing uses the principles of quantum physics to
represent data and perform operations on these data.
• While conventional computers handle bits of data as either 0 or 1
but not both; quantum computing can process units of data as 0,
1, or both simultaneously.
• A quantum computer would gain enormous processing power to
be in multiple states at once.
• Quantum computing is still an emerging technology, but its real-
world applications are growing.
Contemporary Hardware Platform
Trends
• Cloud computing
• On-demand (utility) computing services obtained over network
• Infrastructure as a service
• Platform as a service
• Software as a service
• Cloud can be public or private
• Allows companies to minimize IT investments
• Drawbacks:
• Concerns of security
• Reliability
Contemporary Hardware Platform
Trends
• Green computing
• Practices and technologies for manufacturing, using, disposing of computing
and networking hardware
• Autonomic computing
• Industry-wide effort to develop systems that can configure, heal themselves
when broken, and protect themselves from outside intruders
• Similar to self-updating antivirus software; Apple and Microsoft both use
automatic updates
• High performance, power-saving processors
• Multi-core processors
Contemporary Software Platform
Trends
• Linux and open-source software
• Open-source software: Produced by community of programmers, free and
modifiable by user
• Linux: Open-source software OS
• Software for the Web
• Java:
• Object-oriented programming language
• Operating system, processor-independent
• Oracle Corporation (previously owned by Sun Micro.)
• Ajax
• Asynchronous JavaScript And XML (AJAX)
• Allows client and server to exchange small pieces of data without requiring the page to
be reloaded
Contemporary Software Platform
Trends
• Web Services
• Software components that exchange information using
Web standards and languages
• XML: Extensible Markup Language
• More powerful and flexible than HTML
• Tagging allows computers to process data automatically
Contemporary Software Platform
Trends
• Software outsourcing and cloud services
• Three external sources for software:
1. Software packages and enterprise software
2. Software outsourcing (domestic or offshore)
3. Cloud based software services and tools
Contemporary Software Platform
Trends
• Software packages
• Enterprise software (enterprise application)
• SAP, Oracle
Contemporary Software Platform
Trends
• Software outsourcing (domestic or offshore)
• Domestic:
• Primarily for middleware, integration services, software support
• Offshore:
• Primarily for lower level maintenance, data entry, call centers,
although outsourcing for new-program development is
increasing
Infrastructure Components
CHANGING SOURCES OF FIRM SOFTWARE

Figure 5.12
In 2017, U.S. firms spent an estimated $380
billion on software. About 47 percent
($179 billion) of that originated outside the
firm, provided by a variety of vendors.
About 13 percent ($49 billion) was
provided by SaaS vendors as an online
cloud-based service.
Contemporary Software Platform
Trends
• Cloud based software services and tools
• Cloud computing and storage
• Mashups
• Combinations of two or more online applications, such as combining
mapping software (Google Maps) with local content
• Apps
• Small pieces of software that run on the Internet, on your computer,
or on your cell phone
• iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile
• Generally delivered over the Internet
Thank you
Chapter 5