IT INFRASTRUCTURE

Defining IT Infrastructure
IT infrastructure - includes the hardware, software, and
telecommunications equipment that, when combined,
provide the underlying foundation to support the
organizations goals

A set of physical devices and software applications that are

required to operate the entire enterprise

Your firm is largely dependent on its infrastructure for delivering

services to customers, employees, and suppliers.

You can think of infrastructure as digital plumbing, but its much

more than that!

IT INFRASTRUCTURE

Evolution of IT Infrastructure: 19502005

Electronic accounting machine era: (19301950)

General-purpose mainframe and minicomputer

era: (1959 to present)

Personal computer era: (1981 to present)

Client/server era: (1983 to present)

Enterprise internet computing era: (1992 to

present)

IT INFRASTRUCTURE

Eras in IT Infrastructure Evolution

Figure 6-3

Evolution of Information Technology Infrastructure

Ability to fill information needs

Web Services
Distributed
d
b

d
b

Client/Server

d
b
d
b

d
b

d
b

PC/LAN

Mainframe

1960

1980
1990

2000

S1

d
b

d
b

INTRODUCTION

IT INFRASTRUCTURE
OVERVIEW
The three primary components of any IT
infrastructure include:
1.Client/server networks
2.Internet
3.N-tier infrastructures

Client/Server Network

Client/server network - a network in which one

or more computers are servers and provide
services to the other computers, which are
called clients

Thin client - a workstation with a small amount

of processing power and costs less than a full
powered workstation

Client/Server Network

The Internet

There are numerous ways that the Internet

enables an organizations success
Organizations must watch for inappropriate use
of the Internet by its employees
Organizations must decide how employees will
access the Internet

n-Tier Infrastructures

Basic client/server computing is a 2-tier

infrastructure

2-tier infrastructure there are only two tiers

the client and the server
3-tier infrastructure contains clients,
application servers, and data servers

IT INFRASTRUCTURE

A Multitiered Client/Server Network (N-tier)

Figure 6-4

Additional IT Infrastructure
Elements
Client/server networks, the Internet, and n-tier
infrastructures are central to an organizations
IT infrastructure
Three general categories of additional IT
infrastructure elements include:
Information views
Business logic
Data storage and manipulation

Additional IT Infrastructure
Elements

INFORMATION VIEWS
Responsible for the presentation of information
and receiving user events and includes:
Intranets

Extranets
Portals
Digital dashboards

INFORMATION VIEWS

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)
Extranet is an intranet that is restricted to an
organization and certain outsiders, such as
customers and suppliers

INFORMATION VIEWS
Enterprise information portals (EIPs) - allow
knowledge workers to access company
information via a Web interface

Collaborative processing enterprise information

portal - provides knowledge workers with access
to workgroup information
Decision processing enterprise information portal
- provides knowledge workers with corporate
information for making key decisions

INFORMATION VIEWS

Digital dashboard displays key information

gathered from several sources on a computer
screen in a format tailored to the needs and
wants of an individual knowledge worker

INFORMATION VIEWS

BUSINESS LOGIC
Responsible for maintaining the business rules
(e.g. application software) and protecting
corporate information from unauthorized
direct access by the clients and includes:

Integrations
Web services
Workflow systems
Applications service providers

BUSINESS LOGIC

Integrations solve the problem with separate

applications
Integration - allows separate applications to
communicate directly with each other by
automatically exporting data files from one
application and importing them into another

BUSINESS LOGIC

BUSINESS LOGIC

Web Services promise to be the next major

frontier in computing

Web services encompass all the technologies

that are used to transmit and process
information on and across a network
Interoperability the concept that different
computer systems and applications can talk to
each other

BUSINESS LOGIC

Microsoft .NET - .Net is Microsofts version of

Web services
Microsofts vision is to make applications
available any time, any place, on any device

.NET Components

The three primary components of .NET:

.NET platform tools, technologies, and

services that support .NET
.NET framework supports Web services
Visual Studio .NET development tools that
create .NET applications

BUSINESS LOGIC

Many companies support Web Services besides

Microsoft
Primary competitor is Sun Microsystems J2EE
Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Sun
Microsystems development tool for building
Web Services applications

BUSINESS LOGIC

Workflow systems help to automate the process

of presenting and passing information around
an organization
Workflow - defines all of the steps or business
rules, from beginning to end, required for a
process to run correctly
Workflow systems - automate business
processes

BUSINESS LOGIC

Two primary types of workflow systems include:

Messaging-based workflow systems - send work

assignments through an e-mail system
Database-based workflow systems - store the
document in a central location and
automatically asks the knowledge workers to
access the document

BUSINESS LOGIC

An organization can outsource business logic

through an application service provider

Application service provider (ASP) supplies

software applications over the Internet that would
otherwise reside on its customers in-house
computers

ASP Configuration

BUSINESS LOGIC

Customers typically sign an agreement with the

ASP for service

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) - define the

specific responsibilities of the service provider
and set the customer expectations

DATA STORAGE AND

MANIPULATION
Responsible for data storage and manipulation
and includes:
Network area storage

Storage area networks

Server farms
Collocation

DATA STORAGE AND

MANIPULATION
Network area storage (NAS) is a special
purpose server aimed at providing file storage
to users who access the device over a network

DATA STORAGE AND

MANIPULATION
Storage area network (SAN) is an
infrastructure for building special, dedicated
networks that allow rapid and reliable access
to storage devises by multiple servers

SAN Configuration

DATA STORAGE AND

MANIPULATION
NAS and SAN architectures share several
objectives including:
Large amounts of storage capacity
Serve multiple users
24 X 7 support

Primary difference is the location of the

network that connects users, file servers, and
disk drives

DATA STORAGE AND

MANIPULATION
Server farm - the name of a location that stores
a group of servers in a single place
Web farm is either a Web site that has
multiple servers or an ISP that provides Web
site outsourcing services using multiple
servers

DATA STORAGE AND

MANIPULATION
Collocation - a company rents space and
telecommunications equipment from another
company, or a collocation vendor
Collocation facilities typically contain server
farms and Web farms

SUPPORTING AN IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
An organization can support its IT
infrastructure components with:
Backup/recovery

Disaster recovery
Infrastructure ilities

SUPPORTING AN IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
Backup- the process of making a copy of the
information stored on a computer
Recovery - the process of reinstalling the
backup information in the event the
information was lost

SUPPORTING AN IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
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
A disaster recovery plan typically includes hot
and cold sites

SUPPORTING AN IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
Disaster recovery cost curve charts
1.The cost to your organization of the
unavailability of information and technology
2.The cost to your organization of recovering from
a disaster over time

Disaster Recovery Cost Curve

SUPPORTING AN IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
Factors to consider when developing an IT
infrastructure (These factors are commonly
referred to as the ilities)
Availability
Accessibility
Reliability
Scalability
Flexibility
Performance
Capacity planning

SUPPORTING AN IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
Availability - determining when your IT system
will be available for knowledge workers to
access
Accessibility - determining who has the right to
access different types of IT systems and
information

SUPPORTING AN IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
Reliability - ensures your IT systems are
functioning correctly and providing accurate
information
Data cleansing - the process of ensuring that all
information is accurate

SUPPORTING AN IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
Scalability how well your system can adapt to
increased demands
Flexibility - the systems ability to change
quickly

SUPPORTING AN IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
Performance -measures how quickly an IT
system performs a certain process

Benchmark baseline values a system seeks to

attain
Benchmarking a process of continuously
measuring system results

SUPPORTING AN IT
INFRASTRUCTURE
Capacity planning - determines the future IT
infrastructure requirements for new
equipment and additional network capacity

IT INFRASTRUCTURES AND
THE REAL WORLD
When approving designs for an IT infrastructure
be sure to ask the following:
How big is your department going to grow?
Will the system handle additional users?
How are your customers going to grow?
How easy is it to change the system?
How flexible is the system?

IT INFRASTRUCTURES AND
THE REAL WORLD

How much additional information do you expect to

store each year?
How long will you maintain information in the
systems?
How much history do you want to keep on each
customer?
What are the hours you need the system to be
available?
How often do you need the information backed up?

IT INFRASTRUCTURE

The Connection between the Firm, IT Infrastructure, and

Business Capabilities

Figure 6-1

IT INFRASTRUCTURE

Levels of IT Infrastructure
Three major levels of infrastructure:

Public

Enterprise

Business unit

IT INFRASTRUCTURE

Levels of IT Infrastructure

Figure 6-2

INFRASTRUCTURE COMPONENTS

Seven Key Infrastructure Components

Computer Hardware Platforms

Operating System Platforms

Enterprise Software Applications

Data Management and Storage

INFRASTRUCTURE COMPONENTS

Seven Key Infrastructure Components (Continued)

Networking/Telecommunications Platforms

Internet Platforms

Consulting and System Integration Services

INFRASTRUCTURE COMPONENTS

The IT Infrastructure Ecosystem

Competitive Forces Model for IT Infrastructure

Enabling a Dynamic IT Infrastructure

The Situation: Look Familiar?

IT Architecture Challenges
ERP

CRM

Middleware

Middleware

EMAIL
Middleware

Application infrastructure
silos lead to:

Poor server and storage utilization

Higher maintenance costs
Difficulty adapting to changing
needs
A struggle meeting SLAs
Inability to scale as data grows

Trends Address Challenges

Flexibility

Service Oriented
Architecture
Infrastructure
Services Consolidation
Enterprise
Grid Computing
Range
of solutions

Virtualization

The Dynamic IT Infrastructure

ERP

CRM

Middleware

Middleware

Middleware

Database

Servers

EMAIL
Middleware

Consolidate and pool

hardware resources
Leverage virtualization
technologies
Use SOA to integrate
and automate business
processes

Storage

Increased flexibility & higher availability at reduced costs

Improve Scalability and Utilization

with Virtualization
Middleware

Database
VIRTUAL LAYER

Servers
VIRTUAL LAYER

Storage

Abstraction of resources
Decouple the physical
hardware from the operating
system
Deliver greater resource
utilization and flexibility

What is SOA?

Evolution of distributed computing

Application functions are modularized and
presented as services
Services are loosely coupled
Service interface is independent of the
implementation

SOA: A Paradigm Shift

SOA

Traditional Architecture
Functionality Driven

Process Oriented

Designed to last
Long development
cycles
Tightly Coupled

Designed for change

Iterative development

Loosely Coupled

Application Specific

Heterogeneous

Object Oriented

Message Oriented

Grid + Virtualization + SOA =

Dynamic IT Infrastructure

"The virtualization and automation of applications

presents organizations with a tremendous opportunity
to consolidate workloads, reduce operational costs,
and adapt more quickly to changing customer
requirements and industry demands the
organizations that move to a robust, scalable adaptive
computing platform first can gain a competitive
advantage."

Jean S. Bozman, Vice President

IDC's Global Enterprise Solutions Group

The Dynamic IT Infrastructure

ERP

CRM

Middleware

Middleware

EMAIL

ERP

CRM

Middleware

Middleware

Database

TO
Servers

Storage

Increased flexibility and agility at reduced costs

EMAIL

Storage
ERP
Easy Provisioning
Dynamic Scaling
High Availability
Simplified Data Management
Improved Productivity

CRM

Middleware

Database

Servers

Storage

Storage is the foundation of a dynamic IT infrastructure

EMAIL

Servers
ERP
Optimize Resource Utilization
Increase Quality of Service
Reduce TCO

CRM

Middleware

Database

Servers

Storage

Optimized use of cost effective blade server technology

EMAIL

Database and Middleware

ERP
Interoperability
Comprehensive lifecycle support
Performance and scalability
Standards-based

CRM
Middleware

Database

Servers

Storage

Develop SOA using comprehensive software

EMAIL

Grid + Virtualization + SOA =

Dynamic IT Infrastructure
Real and available today
Dramatically improves resource utilization
Significantly improves availability
Scales with your data growth
Enhances business agility
Improves staff productivity
Reduces costs

The Dynamic IT Infrastructure

Enterprises with higher profitability over the

long term have greater IT infrastructure
capability than less successful competitors.