Group 1:

Nguyễn Thị Linh - 18071139

Trịnh Thị Hoà An - 19071279

Lương Thị Ngọc Ánh - 20070677

Lưu Ngọc Thành - 20070325

Nguyễn Ngọc Minh – 21070833

Q1, What is IT infrastructure & what are its components?

• Information technology infrastructure, or IT infrastructure, is a group of IT components—
hardware, software, networks, and resources—that work together to help develop, test, deliver,
monitor, control, and support a business’s IT environment. Well-managed IT infrastructure
enables operational continuity in a business and ensures better connectivity, productivity, and
security.

• IT infrastructure should be regularly updated in line with technological advancements. Up-to-

date infrastructure is reliable, and secure, and helps meet business goals—offering a
competitive market edge. The right IT infrastructure also protects against cyberattacks,
downtime, and other events that hamper smooth business operations.

IT infrastructure is composed of seven major components:

1. Computer hardware platforms include client machines and server machines, as well as modern
mainframes produced by IBM. Blade servers are ultrathin servers, intended for a single
dedicated application, and are mounted in space-saving racks.

2. Operating system platforms include platforms for client computers, dominated by Windows
operating systems, and servers, dominated by the various forms of the UNIX operating system
or Linux. Operating systems are software that manages the resources and activities of the
computer and act as an interface for the user.

3. Enterprise and other software applications include SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft,

and middleware software that link a firm's existing application systems.

4. Data management and storage is handled by database management software and storage
devices include traditional storage methods, such as disk arrays and tape libraries, and newer
network-based storage technologies such as storage area networks (SANs). SANs connect
multiple storage devices on dedicated high-speed networks.
 5. Networking and telecommunications platforms include Windows server operating systems,
Novell, Linux, and UNIX. Nearly all LAN and many wide area networks (WANs) use the TCP/IP
standards for networking.

6. Internet platforms overlap with, and must relate to, the firm's general networking
infrastructure and hardware and software platforms. Internet-related infrastructure includes
the hardware, software and services to maintain corporate Web sites, intranets, and extranets,
including Web hosting services and Web software application development tools. A Web
hosting service maintains a large Web server, or series of servers, and provides fee-paying
subscribers with space to maintain their Web sites.

7. Consulting and system integration services are relied on for integrating a firm's legacy
systems with new technology and infrastructure and providing expertise in implementing new
infrastructure along with relevant changes in business processes, training, and software
integration. Legacy systems are generally older transaction processing systems created for
mainframe computers that continue to be used to avoid the high cost of replacing or
redesigning them.

Q2, What are the stages and technology drivers of IT infrastructure evolution?
Information technology (IT) infrastructure is the component required to operate and manage enterprise
IT environments. IT infrastructure can be deployed within a cloud computing system, or within an
organization's own facilities.
Set of physical devices and software required to operate enterprise
Set of firm-wide services including Computing platforms providing computing services,
Telecommunications services, Data management services, Application software services, Physical
facilities management services, IT management, education, and other services.
• The five stages of IT infrastructure evolution are as follows:

1. the mainframe era

2. the personal computer era

3. the client/server era

4. the enterprise computing era

5. Cloud and mobile computing era.

• The technology drivers of IT infrastructure evolution are:

1. Moore's Law and Micro processing Power :

Moore’s Law deals with the exponential increase in processing power and decline in the cost of
computer technology, stating that every 18 months the power of microprocessors doubles and the
price of computing halves.

2. The Law of Mass Digital Storage

The Law of Mass Digital Storage sees that while the amount of digital information produced worldwide
doubles every year, the cost of storing digital information is falling at an exponential rate.

3. Metcalf's Law and Network Economics:

In 1970, Metcalfe's Law described the value of a network grows exponentially with each increase in
membership to the network. Demand for information technology has been driven by the social and
business value of digital networks, which rapidly multiply the number of actual and potential links
among network members.

4. Declining Communications Costs and the Internet:

The rapid decline of communication costs and the exponential growth in size of the Internet is
transforming IT infrastructure.

Q3, What are the current trends in computer hardware platforms?

Computing is taking place on a mobile digital platform. The hardware/software environment for laptops,
tablets, smartphones, and other portable devices.

Grid computing utilizes the idle computational resources of separate, geographically remote computers
to create a single virtual supercomputer. In this process, a server computer breaks data and applications
into discrete chunks that are parceled out to the grid's machines. Grid computing offers increased cost
savings, computational speed, and agility.

Virtualization is the process of presenting a set of computing resources (such as computing power or
data storage) so that they can all be accessed in ways that are not restricted by physical configuration or
geographic location. Server virtualization enables companies to run more than one operating system at
the same time on a single machine. Most servers run at just 10 to 15 percent of capacity, and
virtualization can boost utilization server utilization rates to 70 percent or higher.

In cloud computing, firms and individuals obtain computing power and software as services over a
network, including the Internet, rather than purchasing and installing the hardware and software on
their own computers.

A multicore processor is an integrated circuit that contains two or more processors. This technology
enables two or more processing engines with reduced power requirements and heat dissipation to
perform tasks faster than a resource-hungry chip with a single processing core.

Green computing includes practices and technologies for producing, using, and disposing of information
technology hardware to minimize negative impact on the environment. In autonomic computing,
computer systems have capabilities for automatically configuring and repairing themselves. Power-
saving processors dramatically reduce power consumption in mobile digital devices.
Autonomic computing is an industry-wide effort to develop systems that can configure, optimize, repair,
and protect themselves against intruders and viruses, in an effort to free system administrators from
routine system management, reduce costly system crashes. Today's virus software with automatic virus
updates is one example of autonomic computing.

Q4, What are the current trends in software platforms?

- There are five major themes in contemporary software platform evolution:

Open-source software:

Open-source software is software produced by a community of several hundred thousand of

programmers around the world, and is available free of charge to be modified by users, with minimal
restrictions. The premise that open-source software is superior to commercial software is based on the
ability of thousands of programmers modifying and improving the software at a much faster rate. In
return for their work, programmers receive prestige and access to a network of other programmers, and
additional for-pay work opportunities. The process of improving open-source software is monitored by
self-organized, professional programming communities. Thousands of open-source programs, ranging
from operating systems to office suites, are available from hundreds of Web sites.

Linux, an operating system related to UNIX, is one of the most well-known open-source software, and is
the world's fastest growing client and server operating system, along with related Linux applications.
The rise of open-source software, particularly Linux and the applications it supports, has profound
implications for corporate software platforms: cost reduction, reliability and resilience, and integration,
because Linux works on all the major hardware platforms from mainframes to servers to clients.
Because of its reliability, low cost, and integration features, Linux has the potential to break Microsoft's
monopoly of the desktop.

Java, an operating system-independent, object-oriented programming language, has become the

leading programming environment for the Web, and its use has migrated into cellular phones, cars,
music players, and more.

Web services, loosely coupled software components that use Web communication standards, can
exchange information between different systems regardless of operating system of programming
language. Web services technology is founded on Extensible Markup Language (XML). XML was
developed as a more powerful markup language than Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), a page
description language specifying how content appears on Web pages. By marking data with XML tags,
computers can interpret, manipulate, and exchange data from different systems.
Using these protocols, a software application can connect freely to other applications without custom
programming for each different application with which it wants to communicate. The collection of Web
services used to build a firm's software systems constitutes a service-oriented architecture (SOA). SOA is
an entirely new way of developing software for a firm. In the past, separate applications were written
for different divisions and tasks and could not communicate with each other. In an SOA environment, a
single application can be used and reused as a "service" that can be used by other services. For example,
an "invoice service" can be written that is the only program in the firm responsible to calculating invoice
information and reports. Virtually all major software vendors provide tools and entire platforms for
building and integrating software applications using Web services.

- Other software trends include:

Web-based applications: Software firms are delivering software services over the Web to client
computers and their customer's sites. Google's Google Apps for Your Domain is a Web-based suite of
productivity tools, including online spreadsheet, word processing, and calendars, aimed at small
businesses.

Mashups: Part of a movement called Web 2.0, and in the spirit of musical mashups, Web mashups
combine the capabilities of two or more online applications to create a kind of hybrid that provides
more customer value than the original sources alone. For example, housingmaps.com can display real
estate listings in local areas from Craigslist.com overlaid on Google Maps, with pushpins showing the
location of each listing. The result of these techniques is that instead of the Web being a collection of
pages, it becomes a collection of capabilities, a platform where thousands of programmers can create
new services quickly and inexpensively.

Q5, What are the challenges of managing IT infrastructure and management

solutions?
Most of the global tech analysts understand that there are several challenges related to IT infrastructure
that the companies face. The main challenges are regarding computing platforms, data acquisition,
compute provisioning and management, data storage architectures, data analytics, and networks and
communication. We have listed some of the top infrastructure management challenges that your
organization may face in the future and their probable solutions -

1. Lack of Powerful Computing Platforms

- Challenge - The major challenge in growing processing power of computers has been
the lack of energy and space to power supercomputers. IT managers have always been
on the lookout for better and faster systems which will help in the faster processing of
the large amounts of data available today.
- Solution - A simple solution to this challenge would be to employ new general purpose
graphical processors or multi-core platforms. By using better systems, the existing
software will have to be optimized and adjusted to provide the best results. Many
projects have been started to develop faster computers which will be available at low
costs and energy needs.

2. Data Acquisition Problems

- Challenge - Firewalls which protect emails, applications and web browsing can cause
important packet losses in the TCP/IP networks. This can result in important data loss
and reduce the network speeds considerably, making the online collaboration
impossible. Similar losses can occur due to the switches and routers which do not have
the required high-speed memory.
- Solution - IT managers need to look out for high-performance computing resources with
huge data sets and a secure bridge to collaborate with dispersed scientific teams. They
will also need to employ more sophisticated means to collect, filter and store using high-
speed networks.

3. Compute Management and Provisioning

- Challenge - One of the biggest challenges for IT managers is the humongous amounts of
data that is available today. High-performance computing of these large data sets will
require virtualization and automation to avoid adding more people to these processes.
The major challenge for IT managers is to simplify these tasks and speed up the
processing.
- Solution - This challenge can be solved by using distributive systems. These systems
divide complex tasks into smaller independent bits which can be processed by individual
computers which are connected to a network. Grid computing consists of virtualization
of resources and supports computations across multiple administrative domains and
helps in speeding up the processing of complex tasks.

4. Lack of Efficient Data Storage Architectures

- Challenge - Cloud storage has taken over in most of the cases in the modern world.
Though it is a cost-effective and scalable alternative for data storage for IT managers, it
 does not provide the required data storage architectures which can accommodate a
variety of applications. The IT community needs something more flexible which is
beyond space and cost in cloud storage options.
- Solution - It is important that the cloud storage options become more flexible to
improve the IT infrastructure. It should be easy to optimize the cloud storage
architecture according to the application which is being deployed. It needs to be more
reliable, efficient and be able to handle a variety of applications and needs of the user
community. The cloud storage options need to serve as long-term and archival instead
of a short-term solution for the IT community.

5. Dearth of Ways to Improve Data Analytics

- Challenge - Currently there are not many methods in place which can be used by IT
managers to separate quality data from the humongous data sets. It is important to
identify patterns in the data and correctly analyze it and use it to take business decisions
in infrastructure management.
- Solution - The best solution to solve this problem would be to have an ideal system
which would consist of a standards-based framework facilitating easy data transfer
between different tools and layers. This will help in faster data transfer and hence
better data analysis. This analytics would be used for industrial control systems and for
network and IT monitoring.

6. Improper Networks and Connectivity

- Challenge - For any organization to work smoothly, it is important that there is a good
and reliable network in place. Without a reliable network connection, IT infrastructure
management can be a difficult task for any IT manager of the organization. New
software-based methods and network architecture design are required for the
optimization of data.
- Solution - The ability to migrate the IP address would help to allow application services
to be migrated to other hardware. Another solution to this challenge would be to add
intelligence to the wired as well as Wi-Fi network connections. This will help the
networks to optimize the traffic delivery to contain costs and improve the service.