CHAPTER – 5
IT Infrastructure and
Emerging Technologies
Submitted to Dr. Vivek Gupta
Team 6
Arijit Sarkar (PGPSM08007)
Bharat Gangwar (PGPSM08012)
Prantik Chakraborty (PGPSM08024)
Prithwijit Bandopadhyay(PGPSM08028)
Soumyaditya Kar (PGPSM08034)
IT Infrastructure
Shared technology resources that provide the platform for the firm's
specific information system, applications.
• Investment in Hardware
• Investment in Software
• Investment in services (Consulting, Education and Training)
IT Infrastructure provides the foundation for serving customers,
working vendors and managing internal firm business process.
Evolution of IT Infrastructure
The IT Infrastructure in organizations today in an
outgrowth of more than 50 years of evolution in
computing platforms.
General-
Purpose
Mainframe and
Minicomputer
Era (1959 to
Present)
Personal
Computer Era
(1981 to
Present)
Client/Server
Era (1983 to
Present)
Enterprise
Computing Era
(1992 to
Present)
Cloud and
Mobile
Computing Era
(2000 to
Present)
Technology Drivers of Infrastructure Evolution
Moore's law and
Microprocessing Power -
It refers that the number
of transistors on a
microchip doubles every
two years, though the
cost of computers is
halved, we can expect
the speed and capability
of our computers to
increase every couple of
years, and we will pay
less for them.
Power of
Microprocessor
doubles every
18 months
Computing
power doubles
every 18
months
Price of
computing falls
by half every
18 months
Mass Digital Storage
The Law of Mass
Digital Storage deals with
the exponential decrease
in the cost of storing data,
stating that the number of
kilobytes of data that can
be stored on magnetic
media for $1 roughly
doubles every 15 months.
Metcalfe's Law - The value
of a network is
proportional to the square
of the number of nodes in
the network. Computers,
servers, and even users can
be end nodes.
For example, if a network
has 10 nodes, its inherent
value is 100 (10×10=100).
Add one more node, and
the value is 121. Add
another and the value
jumps to 144. Non-linear,
exponential, growth.
Components of
IT
Infrastructure
IT Infrastructure Ecosystem
Presently, Firm's IT infrastructure will
increasingly be an amalgamation of
components and services that are
partially owned, partially rented or
licensed, partially located on site and
partially supplied by vendors or
cloud services
Source- amnet.com
Current
Trends in
Computer
Hardware
Platforms
The Mobile Digital Platform
iPhone and Android have taken on many functions of PCs.
They have become the primary means of accessing the internet and are increasingly used for
business computing as well as consumer applications.
-iPhones, Android phones, iPad, kindle etc.
Consumerization of IT and BYOD
Bring your own device - Allowing employees to use their personal mobile devices in the
workplace
BYOD is one aspect of consumerization of IT, in which new information technology that first
emerges in the consumer market spreads into business organizations.
Consumerization of IT includes not only mobile personal devices but also services that
originated in the consumer marketplace such as Google and Yahoo search, Gmail, Dropbox ..
Forcing the businesses to rethink the way they obtain and manage information technology
equipment and services
Quantum Computing
Uses the principles of quantum physics to represent and perform operations on these data
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 power through this ability and be able to solve
some scientific and business problems a million times faster than can be done today.
Current
Trends in
Computer
Hardware
Platforms
Cloud Computing
Essential Characteristics of Cloud
1-Computing
2-On-demand self-service
3-Ubiquitous network access
4-Location-independent resource pooling
5-Rapid Elasticity
6-Measured Service
Types of services
Infrastructure as a service ( IaaS)
Customers use resources from cloud service providers to run their information systems
Users pay only for the amount of computing and storage capacity they actually use
Software as a service (SaaS)
Customers use software hosted by the vendor on the vendor's cloud infrastructure and
delivered as a service over a network. Example- Google's G Suite
Platform as a service ( PaaS)
Customers use infrastructure and programming tools supported by the cloud service provider
to develop their own applications. Example- Salesforce platform
Current
Trends in
Computer
Hardware
Platforms
Edge Computing
A method of optimizing cloud computing system by performing some performance on a set of
linked servers at the edge of the network, near the source of the data.
Reduces the amount of data flowing back and forth between local computers and other devices
and central cloud data center
Reduces delay in transmitting and processing data
Green Computing
Refers to practices and technologies for designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of IT
devices to minimize the impact on the environment
High Performance and Power-Saving Processors
A Multicore processor is an integrated circuit to which many processor cores have been
attached for enhanced performance, reduced power consumption, and multitasking.
- dual-core, quad-core, 6,8,16,32-core , A9, A10, A11 processors etc.
Virtualization
The process of presenting a set of computing resources so that they can all be accessed in ways
that are not restricted by physical configuration or geographical location
Enables a single physical resource to appear to the user as multiple logical resources(SDS)
VMware is the leading virtualization software vendor for Windows and Linux servers
Current Computer
Software Platforms
and Trends
Four major trends in software platform
evolution:
• Linux & Open-Source software
• Java, HTML & HTML5
• Web Services & Service-oriented
architecture
• Software outsourcing & Cloud services
LINUX and Open-Source software
Open-Source Software
• Used by a community of more than 100,000 programmers
• Free and modifiable by users
• Not restricted to any OS or hardware technology
• Android OS and Chrome browser are based on open-source tools
Linux Operating System
• Most well-known open-source software
• Linux apps embedded in cell phones, tablet computers, etc.
• Available freely on the internet including tools from Red Hat
• Leading OS for servers, mainframe computers & supercomputers
• IBM, HP, Intel, Dell and Oracle being prominent users
• Applications include cost reduction, reliability and resilience
Software for the web
Java
• Platform-independent, object-oriented programming language
• Serving interactive content and pay-per-view services for phones, automobiles, music players, game machines
and set-top boxes
• A Java Virtual Machine (JVM) interprets Java code which is written once and can be reused on any machine
which has JVM
• Developers create small applet programs embedded in web pages
HTML & HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language )
• Page-description language for specifying how text, graphics, video and sound are placed on a web page
• Originally used for creating static documents which evolved now
• Currently has multimedia elements integrated via third-party apps like Flash, Silverlight and Java
• HTML5 came with the possibility to embed multimedia without any processor-intensive add-onns
• HTML5 made easier accessibility of web pages across devices and supported offline storage of data for apps
Web Services and Service-Oriented
Architecture
• Used to exchange information between two
systems regardless of the OS or programming
language
• Founded from XML (Extensible Markup
Language) considered more powerful and
flexible than HTML
• Apart from presentation in HTML, XML can
perform communication and data storage as
well
• XML provides a standard format for data
exchange and enabling web services
• Collection of web services that communicate
with each other is called Service-oriented
architecture
Software Outsourcing and Cloud Services
Three external sources for software:
1. Software packages & Enterprise software
2. Software outsourcing
3. Cloud-based software services
Cloud-based software services
Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Accessed with web browser over internet
• Ranges from free/low-cost services for
individuals to businesses & enterprise software
• Uses pay on subscription or per-transaction
• Example: Salesforce.com
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs):
-- formal agreement with service providers
Mashups
o Combination of two or more online applications, such as
combining Google Maps with local content
Apps
o Small pieces of software that run on the Internet, on your
computer or cell phone (iPhone, BlackBerry, Android)
o Generally delivered over the Internet
Challenges of
managing IT
Infrastructure
Dealing with Platform and Infrastructure Change
Scalability
Mobile Device Management
Management and Governance
Control and management of the firm’s IT Infrastructure
o Centrally managed or Independent (managed at
Department level)
o Infrastructure costs allocation
o Relationship between the Central Information Systems
Management and Business Unit Systems Management
Making Wise Infrastructure Investments
How much should be spent on IT Infrastructure – considering
the competitors performance and delivery
Rent-vs-Buy Decision - Purchase and maintain its own IT
Infrastructure or Rent them to external suppliers
Security requirements and evaluation – Cloud computing
Challenges of
managing IT
Infrastructure
Total Cost of Ownership of Technology Assets
Total cost of Ownership = Original cost of acquiring and installing
hardware and software + ongoing administration costs + utility
costs
TCO Model used to analyze and help fimrs determine the actual
cost of specific technology implementations
The administration costs account for a significant proportion of the
TCO, while hardware & software acquisition costs ~ 20%
Switching to cloud services can benefit the firms by
o reducing the TCO through greater centralization and
standardization of resources
o Reducing the size of information systems staff
o Systems administration and troubleshooting from a central
location