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Chapter 5
IT Infrastructure and Emerging Technologies
Learning Objectives
1. What is IT infrastructure and what are its components?
2. What are the stages and technology drivers of IT infrastructure evolution?
Chapter Outline
5.1 IT Infrastructure
Defining IT Infrastructure
Evolution of IT Infrastructure
Technology Drivers of Infrastructure Evolution
5.2 Infrastructure Components
Computer Hardware Platforms
5.3 Contemporary Hardware Platform Trends
The Emerging Mobile Digital Platform
Grid Computing
5.4 Contemporary Software Platform Trends
Linux and Open-Source Software
Software for the Web: Java, HTML, and HTML5
Web Services and Service Oriented Architecture
Software Outsourcing and Cloud Services
5.5 Management Issues
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Key Terms
The following alphabetical list identifies the key terms discussed in this chapter. The
page number for each key term is provided.
Android, 207
Green computing, 216
Grid computing, 211
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), 220
HTML5, 220
Hybrid cloud, 216
Multitouch, 208
Nanotechnology, 202
On-demand computing, 215
Open source software, 219
Operating system, 207
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Storage area network (SAN), 208
Tablet computers, 210
Technology standards, 205
Total cost of ownership (TCO), 227
Teaching Suggestions
Your students’ knowledge and comfort level with technology is likely to vary, making
this chapter difficult to teach and test. The technically-adept know most of this material,
and some of the nontechnical types may not find the chapter’s contents particularly
interesting. You may want to approach the chapter from a business standpoint—the role
of technology in the success of an organization.
One way to begin the chapter discussion is to present several horror stories. (Your
students may even be able to provide stories of their own.) For example, many firms have
found moving to a client/server architecture is not the dream they were led to believe.
Section 5.1, “IT Infrastructure” Introduces students to essential computer hardware
terminology and concepts. The trek through the five evolutionary stages in computing
platforms provides a backdrop for explaining how we got to the current phase of
Section 5.2, “Infrastructure Components” Explains seven major components that make
up an IT infrastructure. These include: computer hardware platforms, operating systems
platforms, enterprise software applications, networking and telecommunications
technology, consultants and system integrators, data management and storage, and
Internet platforms (see Figure 5-9, page 206). Each component is briefly explained in this
section with a broader explanation provided in later parts of the text. What’s important
here is that students understand there’s more to a firm’s IT infrastructure than merely
hardware and software.
Section 5.3 “Contemporary Hardware Platform Trends” Consider spending most of
your time on the newest hardware trends: netbooks, grid computing, cloud computing,
autonomic computing, virtualization, and multicore processors. That’s where many
businesses are headed and students are likely to bump into these trends when they enter
the workforce. All of these technologies are designed to help businesses reduce their IT
Interactive Session: People: Should You Use Your iPhone for Work?
Case Study Questions
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1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of allowing employees to use their
personal smartphones for work?
Advantages: Employees using their own smartphones would allow companies to
enjoy all of the same benefits of a mobile workforce without spending company funds
2. What management, organization, and technology factors should be addressed
when deciding whether to allow employees to use their personal smartphones for
work?
Management: When employees make changes to their personal phone, such as
switching cellular carriers, changing their phone number, or buying a new mobile
3. Allowing employees to use their own smartphones for work will save the
company money. Do you agree? Why or why not?
Allowing employees to use their own smartphones, won’t necessarily save money
when you consider the TCO and the extra efforts required on the part of the IT staff,
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Interactive Session: Organizations: Nordea Goes Green with IT
Case Study Questions
1. What business, personal, and social costs are involved when traveling by airplane
between Copenhagen and Helsinki?
The cost of normal economy ticket is approx. 400 Euro plus the labour cost of having a
2. How can IT be both the culprit and the solution to environmental problems?
IT is a necessary tool to conduct most business activities, including getting customers,
3. What are the arguments against corporate social responsibility?
A business should focus on business activities and try to maximise its profit – any
4. Why should firms be engaged in making the world more sustainable?
We are all part of the world and therefore responsible for the world.
Section 5.4, “Contemporary Software Platform Trends” introduces students to emerging
software platforms that they probably are not familiar with. Most of these software
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Most students use the Web and Internet daily so have them explore how new software
technologies are making their experiences richer and more efficient. Have them research
mashups and apps on the Web sites they use the most. If any students use MySpace,
Facebook, or other social networking sites, ask them to demonstrate how they use these
new technologies.
Outsourcing is always a hot topic because most people associate it with job losses in the
U.S. Software outsourcing is more than just moving jobs to foreign countries. It also
includes commercial software packages and software-as-a-service from online providers.
These software sources provide jobs in many new ways for U.S.-based technology
workers.
Section 5.5 “Management Issues.” This section helps students understand that there is
more to managing IT infrastructure than just deciding which hardware and software
components to purchase and use. Ask students how difficult it is for them to keep up with
Review Questions
1. What is IT infrastructure and what are its components?
Define IT infrastructure from both a technology and a services perspective.
• Technical perspective is defined as the shared technology resources that provide
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List and describe the components of IT infrastructure that firms need to
manage.
IT infrastructure includes hardware, software, and services:
• Computing platforms: Includes mainframes, midrange computers, desktop and
laptop computers, and mobile handheld devices—anything that connect
employees, customers, and suppliers into a coherent digital environment.
2. What are the stages and technology drivers of IT infrastructure evolution?
List each of the eras in IT infrastructure evolution and describe its
distinguishing characteristics.
Five stages of IT infrastructure evolution include:
• General-purpose mainframe and minicomputer era (1959 to present): Consists of
a mainframe performing centralized processing that could be networked to
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Define and describe the following: Web server, application server, multitiered
client/server architecture.
• Web server: Software that manages requests for Web pages on the computer
where they are stored and that delivers the page to the user’s computer.
Describe Moore’s Law and the Law of Mass Digital Storage
• Moore’s Law: The number of components on a chip with the smallest
manufacturing costs per component (generally transistors) had doubled each year.
Describe how network economics, declining communications costs, and
technology standards affect IT infrastructure.
Network economics: Metcalfe’s Law helps explain the mushrooming use of
computers by showing that a network’s value to participants grows exponentially as
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3. What are the current trends in computer hardware platforms?
Describe the evolving mobile platform, grid computing, and cloud computing.
Mobile platform: More and more business computing is moving from PCs and
desktop machines to mobile devices like cell phones and smartphones. Data
transmissions, Web surfing, email and instant messaging, digital content displays, and
Explain how businesses can benefit from autonomic computing, virtualization,
green computing, and multicore processors.
Autonomic computing
Benefits of autonomic computing include systems that automatically do the
following:
• Configure themselves
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Virtualization
Benefits of server virtualization include:
• Run more than one operating system at the same time on a single
machine.
• Increase server utilization rates to 70 percent or higher.
Green computing
Businesses can minimize their impact on the environment by adopting better practices
and technologies for designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers,
servers, and other computing devices. Reducing power consumption in data server
centers is the leading practice in the green computing movement.
Multicore processors
Benefits of multi-core processors:
4. What are the current trends in software platforms?
Define and describe open source software and Linux and explain their business
benefits.
Open-source software provides all computer users with free access to the program
code so they can modify the code, fix errors in it, or to make improvements. Open-
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Define Java and HTML5 and explain why they are important.
Java is used for building applications that run on the Web and HTML is used for
creating Web pages. Java is an operating system that is processor-independent. Its
HTML5 makes it possible to embed images, audio, video, and other elements
directly into a document without processor-intensive add-ons. It also makes it easier
for Web pages to function across different display devices, including mobile devices
as well as desktops, and it will support the storage of data offline for apps that run
over the Web. Web pages will execute more quickly, and look like smartphone apps.
Define and describe Web services and the role played by XML.
Web services offer a standardized alternative for dealing with integration across
various computer platforms. Web services are loosely coupled software components
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Name and describe the three external sources for software.
Software packages and enterprise software: Prewritten commercially available set
of software programs that eliminates the need for a firm to write its own software
program for certain functions like payroll processing or order handling. Large-scale
enterprise software systems provide a single, integrated, worldwide software system
for firms at a cost much less than they would pay if they developed it themselves.
Cloud-based software services and tools: A business that delivers and manages
applications and computer services from remote computer centers to multiple users
Outsourcing custom application development: An organization contracts its
custom software development or maintenance of existing legacy programs to outside
firms, frequently firms that operate offshore in low-wage areas of the world An
Define and describe software mashups and apps.
Mashups are new software applications and services based on combining different
online software applications. Users create new software applications and services by
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Apps are small pieces of software programs that are downloaded to computers or cell
phones. Apps turn mobile handheld devices into general-purpose computing tools.
They cost much less than full-fledged software programs and perform one particular
5. What are the challenges of managing IT infrastructure and management
solutions?
Name and describe the management challenges posed by IT infrastructure.
Creating and maintaining a coherent IT infrastructure raises multiple challenges
including:
Dealing with platform and infrastructure change: As firms grow, they can quickly
outgrow their infrastructure. As firms shrink, they can get stuck with excessive
Making wise infrastructure investments: IT infrastructure is a major capital
investment for the firm. If too much is spent on infrastructure, it lies idle and
constitutes a drag on firm financial performance. If too little is spent, important
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Explain how using a competitive forces model and calculating the TCO of
technology assets help firms make infrastructure investments
The competitive forces model can be used to determine how much to spend on IT
infrastructure and where to make strategic infrastructure investments. What is the
market demand for the organization’s services? What is the organization’s business
Discussion Questions
1. Why is selecting computer hardware and software for the organization an
important management decision? What management, organization, and
technology issues should be considered when selecting computer hardware and
software?
As computer hardware and software significantly impact an organization’s
performance, the selection of IT assets is critical to the organization’s operations and
2. Should organizations use software service providers for all their software needs?
Why or why not? What management, organization, and technology factors
should be considered when making this decision?
The answer to the first question is very dependent upon the organization and its
processing, storage, and business needs. When evaluating software service providers,
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3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing?
Cloud computing is the idea of making computing resources available based on what
a user really needs instead of what they might need.
The advantages include:
• Not dependent on physical location of either resources or users.
The disadvantages include:
• Responsibility for data storage and control is transferred away from the
Hands-On MIS Projects
Management Decision Problems
1. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center: Demand for additional servers and
storage technology was growing by 20 percent each year. UPMC was setting up a
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2. Quantas Airways: Needs to keep costs low while providing a high level of customer
service. Management had to decide whether to replace its 30-year-old IT
infrastructure with newer technology or outsource it. What factors should be
considered in the outsourcing decision? List and describe points that should be
Improving Decision Making: Using a Spreadsheet to Evaluate Hardware and
Software Options
Software skills: Spreadsheet formulas
Business skills: Technology pricing
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Improving Decision Making: Using Web Research to Budget for a Sales
Conference
Software skills: Internet-based software
Business skills: Researching transportation and lodging costs
Video Case Questions
You will find video cases illustrating some of the concepts in this chapter on the Laudon
Collaboration and Teamwork: Identifying Management Decisions and
Systems
Form a group with three or four of your classmates. Choose server or mobile
operating systems to evaluate. You might research and compare the capabilities and
costs of Linux versus the most recent version of the Windows operating system or
UNIX. Alternatively, you could compare the capabilities of the Android mobile
operating system with the most recent version of the iPhone operating system
(IPhone OS). If possible, use Google Sites to post links to Web pages, team
communication announcements, and work assignments; to brainstorm; and to work
collaboratively on project documents. Try to use Google Docs to develop a
presentation of your findings for the class.
Answers for this project will vary as students will select different sources from which to
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Case Study: Should Businesses Move to the Cloud?
1. What business benefits do cloud computing services provide? What problems do
they solve?
• Eliminates need for large up-front capital investments in systems.
• Eliminates lengthy implementations on corporate computers.
2. What are the disadvantages of cloud computing?
The disadvantages include:
• Responsibility for data storage and control is transferred away from the
3. How do the concepts of capacity planning, scalability, and TCO apply to this
case? Apply these concepts both to Amazon and to subscribers of its services.
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Businesses should assess the costs and benefits of the service, weighing all people,
organization, and technology issues. Does the software-as-a-service applications
4. What kinds of businesses are most likely to benefit from using cloud computing?
Why?
Small to medium-size businesses are probably the most likely ones to switch to cloud
computing because of cost factors and the lack of having in-house resources to
provide the same level of computing capacity. Businesses that are trying to increase