E-Business Infrastructure

The Internet Technology

Strategic Business Objectives of Information
Systems
• Firms invest heavily in information systems to achieve six strategic
business objectives:
1. Operational excellence
2. New products, services, and business models
3. Customer and supplier intimacy
4. Improved decision making
5. Competitive advantage
6. Survival

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What Is an Information System? (1 of 3)
• Information system
• Set of interrelated components
• Collect, process, store, and distribute information
• Support decision making, coordination, and control

• Information system is instrument for creating value

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The Business Information Value Chain

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IT Infrastructure
• Set of physical devices and software required to operate an
enterprise
• Set of firm-wide services including:
– Computing platforms providing computing services
– Physical facilities management services
– IT management, education, and other services
• “Service platform” perspective
– More accurate view of value of investments

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Connection Between the Firm, IT
Infrastructure, and Business Capabilities

The centrality of IT infrastructure and services

to the achievement of firm success.

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Computer Hardware Architecture

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Evolution of IT Infrastructure

• 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: 2000 to present

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Mainframe and Minicomputer Era: 1959 to
present
Mainframe computers became
powerful enough to support
thousands of online remote
terminals connected to the
centralized mainframe
using proprietary
communication protocols and
proprietary data lines.

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Personal Computer Era: 1981 to present
90% are thought
to run a version of Windows,
and 10% run a Macintosh OS.

Personal desktop productivity

software tools—word
processors, spreadsheets,
electronic presentation
software, and small data
management programs—that
were very valuable to both
home and corporate users.

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Client/server era: 1983 to present
In client/server computing, desktop or
laptop computers called clients are
networked to powerful server
computers that provide the client
computers
with a variety of services and
capabilities.
Computer processing work is split
between these two types of machines.
The client is the user point of entry,
whereas the server typically processes
and stores shared data, serves up Web
pages, or manages network activities.

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• The simplest client/server network consists of a client computer
networked to a server computer, with processing split between the
two types of machines. This is called a two-tiered client/server
architecture.

• For instance, at the first level, a Web server will serve a Web page to
a client in response to a request for service. Web server software is
responsible for locating and managing stored Web pages.

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• If the client requests access to a corporate system (a product list or price
information, for instance), the request is passed along to an application
server.

• Application server software handles all application operations between a

user and an organization’s back-end business systems. The application
server may reside on the same computer as the Web server or on its own
dedicated computer.

• Client/server computing enables businesses to distribute computing work

across a series of smaller, inexpensive machines that cost much less than
centralized mainframe systems.
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A Multitiered (N-Tier) Client/Server Network

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Enterprise Computing Era: 1992 to present

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• In the early 1990s firms turned to networking standards and software
tools that could integrate disparate networks and applications
throughout the firm into an enterprise-wide infrastructure.
• As the Internet developed into a trusted communications
environment after 1995, business firms began seriously using the
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) networking
standard to tie their disparate networks together.

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Cloud and Mobile Computing: 2000 to
present

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• The growing bandwidth power of the Internet has pushed the client/server
model one step further, towards what is called the “Cloud Computing
Model.”
• Cloud computing refers to a model of computing that provides access to a
shared pool of computing resources (computers, storage, applications, and
services) over a network, often the Internet.
• These “clouds” of computing resources can be accessed on an as-needed
basis from any connected device and location.
• Currently, cloud computing is the fastest growing form of computing, with
companies spending about $109 billion on public cloud services in 2012,
and an estimated $207 billion by the end of 2016 (Gartner, 2012).

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 Key

Organisations
Business Processes
Technology
E-business Infrastructure
• Defining an adequate technology infrastructure is vital to all
companies adopting e-business.
• Affects the quality of service experienced by users of the systems in
terms of speed and responsiveness.
• The e-business services provided through a standardized
infrastructure also determine the capability of an organization to
compete through differentiating itself in the marketplace.
• It refers to the combination of hardware such as servers and client PC
in an organization
• The network used to link this hardware
E-business infrastructure
• Software applications used to deliver services to workers within the e-
business, partners and customers
• Infrastructure also include the methods for publishing data and
documents accessed through e-business application.
• A key decision of with managing infrastructure is – which elements
are located within the company and which are managed externally.
• Mcafee and Brynjolfsson, suggested that to use digital technology to
support competition the mantra should be:
Deploy, Innovate and Propagate

• Deploying IT serves two distinct roles:

As a catalyst for innovative ideas
As an engine for delivering them
Activity - Infrastructure Risk Assessment
• Make a list of the potential problems for customers of an online
retailer
• You should consider problems faced by users of e-business
applications who are both internal and external to the organization
• Base your answer on problems you have experienced on a website
that can be related to network, hardware and software failures or
problems with data quality.
Typical Problems
• Website communications too slow
• Website not available
• Bugs on site through pages being unavailable or information typed in
forms not being executed
• Ordered products not delivered on time
• E-mails not replied to
• Customers’ privacy or trust is broken through security problems such
as credit cards being stolen or addresses sold to other companies.
• Too many unwarranted Ads
E-business infrastructure components

• Consider an example of typical task performed by a user of

(e-)business system.

• An employee applying for a holiday in an organization.

(Both physical or e-enabled)
For example
• An employee will access a specific human resource application or program
that has been created to enable the holiday to be booked (Level I).
• This application enable a holiday request to be entered and will forward
the application to their manager and HR department for approval.

• To access the application, the employee will use a web browser such as
Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or Microsoft Internet Explorer using an
operating system such as Microsoft Windows or Apple OS X (Level II).
• This systems software will then request transfer of information about the
holiday request across a network or transport layer (Level III)
• This information will then be stored in computer memory (RAM) or in
long-term magnetic storage on a web server (Level IV).

• The information itself which makes up the web page or content

viewed by the employee and the data about their holiday request are
shown as a separate layer (Level V). (Can be argued different layer)
Figure 3.1 A five-layer model of e-business infrastructure
Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure (Continued)
Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure (Continued)
Internet Technology
• Internet enables communication between millions of computer
worldwide.

• That is Internet is a large-scale client-server system. Client computers

are connected to the internet via local Internet Service Provider (ISP)
which in turn are linked to larger ISPs with connection to the major
national and international infrastructure or backbones.
 Access by
cable or
wireless

Physical and network infrastructure components of the Internet (Levels IV

Figure 3.2
and III in Figure 3.1)
Hosting of websites and e-business services
• It is possible for companies to manage their own services by setting
up web servers within their own company offices, or to use their ISP,
it is common practice to use a specialist hosting provider to manage
this service.
• For example, in Europe since 2001 Rackspace has been hosting
mission critical websites, Internet applications, e-mail servers,
security and storage services.
Figure 3.3 Example hosting provider Rackspace
Source: www.rackspace.com
The Internet timeline
• It is the latest development in the human race has used technology to
disseminate information.
• Major advances has in the use of information have happened within
the last hundred year > difficulty of managing the technological
change is likely to continue.

• It is the advent of the World Wide Web that is responsible for the
massive growth in business unit of the Internet.
 Timeline of major developments in the use of the Internet and digital
Figure 3.4
technologies
Figure 3.5 The Netcraft index of number of servers
Source: Netcraft web Server Survey. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey. html. Netcraft
• GoDaddy Inc. is an American publicly traded Internet domain registrar
and web hosting company, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, and
incorporated in Delaware.
• As of March 2019, GoDaddy has approximately 18.5 million
customers and over 9,000 employees worldwide.
According to Internet Live Stats, a website of
the international Real Time Statistics Project.
• The Internet is a busy place. Every second, approximately 6,000 tweets are
tweeted; more than 40,000 Google queries are searched; and more than 2
million emails are sent.

• But these statistics hint at the size of the Web: As of September 2014,
there were 1 billion websites on the Internet, a number that fluctuates by
the minute as sites go defunct and others are born.

• According to these calculations, there were at least 4.66 billion Web pages
online as of mid-March 2016. This calculation covers only the searchable
Web, however, not the Deep Web.
 Case Study
Innovation at Google
Context
• Google is largest search engine on Earth, mediating the searches of
tens of billions of searches daily.

• Google is an innovator.

• It is a great company to follow for the e-businesses.

Google’s Mission
• It is encapsulated in the statement
‘to organize the world’s information … and make it universally
accessible and useful’.

• Google Philosophy:

• Focus on the user and else will follow.

• It’s best to do one thing well, really well.
• You can make money without doing evil.
• Some of the key benefits:

• Comprehensive and relevance

• Objectivity
• Global Access
• Ease of Use
• Pertinent
• Improving the web
Commitment to Innovation
• Google TV (announced in 2010) as part of partnership with SONY
• Nexus One Phone using the Google Android mobile operating system in Jan 2010.
• Google Mobile Advertising : Acquired AdMob enables improvement
• Google Chrome OS (a light weight OS targeted for Notebook)
• Google Chrome (A browser announced as a beta in 2008 and a full product for
Windows in 2009)
• n June 2013, Google acquired Waze, a $966 million deal.[75] While Waze’s social
features, such as its crowdsourced location platform, were reportedly valuable
integrations between Waze and Google Maps, Google's own mapping service.
• On January 26, 2014, Google acquired DeepMind Technologies, a privately held
artificial intelligence company from London.
Revenue Model
• Google generated approximately 99% of its revenue in 2007 and 97%
in 2008 and 2009 from its advertisers with the remainder from its
enterprise search products where companies can install search
technology through products such as Google Appliance and Google
Mini.
Some of the main Risk factors
• Add Blocking Technology

• Litigation and confidence loss through click fraud

• Index spammers could harm the integrity of Google’s web search

results
• As of December 2009, Google had 19,835 employees. All of them are
equity-holders, with significant collective employee ownership.
• As a result, many employees are highly motivated to make the
company more successful.
• Google’s employee are encouraged to spend up to 10% of their time
identifying new approaches.

• As of 2019 they had 1,03,549 employees worldwide.

Figure 1.2 The distinction between buy-side and sell-side e-commerce
Intranets
• Intranets are used extensively for supporting sell-side e-commerce
from within the marketing functions.
• They are also used to support core supply-chain management
activities.
• Generally deployed as web – based service
• Tools for workgroup to collaborate on projects
• Self-service human resources (booking holiday, job interview etc)
• Financial Modelling
They are also used for:

• Staff phone directories

• Staff procedures or quality manuals
• Information for agents such as product specification, current list and
discounted prices, competitor information, factory schedule, and
stocking levels, all of which have to be updated frequently and can be
costly.
• Staff bulletin and newsletter
• Training courses
A Marketing intranet has following
advantages
• Reduced product life cycle
• Reduced costs through higher productivity
• Better customer service
• Distribution of information through remote offices nationally or
globally.