CHAPTER THREE.pptx
- 1. CHAPTER THREE Managing the Essential Technologies and Operations 1
- 2. Introduction An IT architecture is a blueprint. A blueprint shows how a system, house, vehicle, or product will look and how the parts interrelate. An IT infrastructure is the implementation of an architecture. The IT infrastructure includes the processors, software, databases, electronic links, and data center as well as the standards that ensure the components work together, the skills for managing the operation etc. Telecommunications is the flow of information among individuals, work groups, departments, customer sites, regional offices, between enterprises, and with the outside world. 2
- 3. 3.2. Distributed systems: overall architecture Four Attributes of Distributed Systems Degree to which a system is distributed can be determined by answering four questions: Where is the processing done? How are the processors and other devices interconnected? Where is the information stored? What rules or standards are used? 3
- 4. Where is the processing done? Distributed processing is the ability for more than one interconnected processor to be operating at the same time, typically for processing an application on more than one computer at a time. Goal: move the appropriate processing as close to the user as possible and to let other machines handle the work they do best. Two forms of interoperability (capability for different machines to work together on tasks): Communication between systems Two-way flow between user applications 4
- 5. How are the processors and other devices interconnected? Connectivity among processors means that each processor in a distributed system can send data and messages to any other processor through electronic communication links Desirable to have at least two independent paths between two nodes to provide automatic alternate routing (Planned Redundancy) 5
- 6. Where is the information stored? Distributed databases either: Divide a database and distribute its portions throughout a system without duplicating the data. Users do not need to know where a piece of data is located to access it, because the system knows where all the data is stored. Store the same data at several different locations, with one site containing the master file Issue: synchronization of data is a significant problem. 6
- 7. What rules or standards are used? System wide rules mean that an operating discipline for the distributed system has been developed and is enforced at all times. These rules govern communication between nodes, security, data accessibility, program and file transfers, and common operating procedures. 7
- 8. Two Guiding Frameworks 1. An Organizational Framework A driving force behind distributed processing is to give people more control over their work. This autonomy can happen at any of seven levels: 8
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- 10. Business ecosystem or value chain (inter-enterprise) Enterprise Country or region Site (plants, warehouses, branch offices) Department or process Work group or team Individuals 10
- 11. Locate processing power and DB at each level in the organization Top level deals with organizations that work closely together as buyer-seller, partner etc. Next three levels (Enterprise, Region and Site) are traditional domain of IS, where computers resided in the past. Bottom three levels (Department, Team and Individual) are where the bulk of employees. Intent: give autonomy and decision-making power to better serve customers. 11
- 12. 2. A Technical Framework Migration of computer power to end users will be driving force for network-based information system. SUMURU - single user, multiple user, remote utility. 1. Processors: SU: single user, stand-alone and connected to LNs; clients MU: multiple user, serve local groups of users; server. Also heavy duty computation for SUs, backups for MUs, program libraries for SUs, and database management. RU: remote utility, heavy-duty computing, corporate DB management, corporation mainframes and value-added network services 12
- 13. 2. Networks: LN: local networks, high-speed information transfer, LAN. RN: remote networks, lower transfer speeds, WAN, MAN, Internet. 3. Services that this network architecture provides: access file transfer e-mail 4. Standards needed in three areas: OS communication protocols: TCP/IP DBMS: SQL 13
- 14. Components of SUMURU Distributed System Architecture 14
- 15. 3.3. Managing Telecommunications Telecommunications is the flow of information among individuals, work groups, departments, customer sites, regional offices, between enterprises, and with the outside world. The Internet has also opened up a “cyberspace” where people can be in a virtual world, where organizations can conduct business, and in fact, a place where organizational processes exist. This is providing the foundation for the e-business economy, as just about everything about telecom is shifting. 15
- 16. Telecommunications = electronically sending data in any form from one place to another between People Machines, or Objects Generally, Information System departments have been responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the information highway in the same way that governments are responsible for building and maintaining streets, roads, and freeways. Once built, the network, with its nodes and links, provides infrastructure for the flow of information and messages. Telecom is the basis for the way people and companies work today. It provides the infrastructure for moving information and messages. 16
- 17. The Evolving Telecommunications Scene Even with the recent ‘downturn’ in some countries – the changes in Telecom are coming fast and furiously. Here are some major changes taking place: A New Telecommunications Infrastructure is being built: The oldest part of the telecommunications infrastructure is the telephone network. This global network was built on twisted-pair copper wires and was intended for voice communications. It uses analog technology, which although appropriate for delivering high-quality voice, is inefficient for data transmission. Dedicated circuit (switching). The basic traffic-handling mechanism had to change for data. 17
- 18. Today, the new telecommunications infrastructure is being built around the world aimed at transmitting data, and consists of: Wired - fiber optic links. Wireless – radio signals. Both use packet switching, where messages are divided into packets, each with an address header, and each packet is sent separately. No circuit is created; each packet may take a different path through the network. Packets from any number of senders and of any type, whether e- mails, music downloads, voice conversations, or video clips, can be intermixed on a network segment. Making these next generation networks able to handle much more traffic and a great variety of traffic. 18
- 19. This architecture allows new kinds of services to be deployed much more rapidly. The Internet can handle all kinds of intelligent user devices, including: Voice-over-IP (VoIP) phones Personal digital assistants (PDAs) Gaming consoles, and All manner of wireless devices The global telecom infrastructure is changing from a focus on voice to a focus on data 19
- 20. 3.4. Managing Information Resources Managing information resources initially meant managing data, first in files, then in corporate databases. Next = expanded to include “information” (data with meaning). Information in the form of documents (electronic or paper) and Web content has exploded the size of databases organizations now manage. Knowledge management is becoming a key to exploiting “intellectual assets”. Information resources need to be well managed as information becomes an important strategic resource. 20
- 21. Managing Data Database management systems are the main tool for managing computerized corporate data. They have been around since the 1960s and are based on two major principles: A three- level conceptual model and Several alternative ‘data models’ for organizing the data 21
- 22. The Three-Level Database Model Level 1 - The external, conceptual, or local level, containing the various “user views” of the corporate data that each application program uses. Level 2 - The logical or “enterprise data” level: ‘Technical’ (human) view of the database = under control of the DBAs Level 3 - The physical or storage level, specifying the way the data is physically stored. End user not concerned with all these ‘pointers and flags’ (how the data is physically organized). 22
- 23. Managing Data: Four Data Models The second major concept in database management is alternate ways to define relationships among data. Hierarchical model: structures data so that each element is subordinate to another in a strict hierarchical manner Parent, child etc. Network model: allows each data item to have more than one parent, relationships stated by pointers stored with the data Relational model: where the data is stored in tables. Eight relational operations can be performed on this data. Select, Project, Join, Product, Intersection, Difference, Union, Division e.g. Microsoft Access Object model: can be used to store any type of data 23
- 24. Managing Information Once enterprises get their data into shape, that data can more easily be turned into information. “Information is power.” “We are in the Information Age.” These and similar statements would lead you to believe that managing information is a key corporate activity. Technology = infrastructure; asset = information that runs on that infrastructure. 24
- 25. Four Types of Information Internal record-based information, such as those found in databases Internal document-based information, such as reports, opinions, e-mails and proposals. Pertains to concepts: ideas, thoughts, etc. External/record-based information, such as acquisition from external databases. External/document-based: WWW 25
- 26. Managing Information: Data Warehouses Data warehouse: Houses data used to make decisions. This data is obtained periodically from transaction databases. The warehouse provides a snapshot of a situation at a specific time. Data warehouses differ from operational databases in that they do not house data used to process daily transactions. The most common data warehoused are customer data, used to discover how to more effectively market to current customers as well as non-customers with the same characteristics. 26
- 27. Key Concepts of Data Warehouse Metadata: is the part of the warehouse that defines the data. Metadata means “data about data.” it explains the meaning of each data element, how each element relates to each other, etc. Quality data: is the cleaning process to adhere to metadata standards. Data marts: is a subset of data pulled off the warehouse for a specific group of users. 27
- 28. Managing Information: Document Management Even in today’s Internet-rich world, paper still plays a major role in most enterprises. There is also a need to move seamlessly between digital and printed versions of documents; hence, the importance of document management. The field of electronic document management (EDM) uses new technologies to manage information resources that do not fit easily into traditional databases. EDM addresses organizing and managing conceptual, descriptive, and ambiguous multimedia content. 28
- 29. It is hard to think of anything more pervasive and fundamental to an organization than documents. The impact of applying emerging technologies to document management is potentially significant. Numerous EDM applications generate value. The ‘Big 3’ are: To improve the publishing process To support organizational processes To support communications among people and groups 29
- 30. Managing Information: Content Management A major reason content has become important to CIOs (chief Information Officers) is because it is a core management discipline underlying online business. Without production-level Web content, management processes, and technologies, large-scale e-business is not possible. Use of XML moves Web content from being in a human-only readable format to being in a computer-readable format. Thus, the content can be passed to back-end transaction processing systems and cause an action to take place. 30
- 31. To create a content management strategy, companies need to understand the three phases of the content management life cycle: Managing Content Creation and Acquisition Content Administration and Safeguarding Content Deployment and Presentation 31
- 32. 3.5. Managing operations Due to mergers, the Internet, e-commerce, and the terrorist attacks, the subject of computer operations has been receiving a lot of attention. Systems operations are important because, if they are not professionally run a company could suffer a computer or network crash that could shut down their business for some period of time. 32
- 33. Solving Operational Problems Operational problems are obvious to the entire company: response times are slow, networks are down, data isn’t available and data is wrong. Three strategies to improve operations: Buy more equipment Continuously fight fires and rearrange priorities, getting people to solve the problems at hand. Continually document and measure what you are doing, to find out the real problems, not just the apparent ones. Then set standards and manage to them = the preferred solution. 33
- 34. Operational Measures External: What the customer sees: system uptime, response time, turnaround time, program failures and customer satisfaction. Internal: Of interest to systems people: computer usage as % of capacity, disk storage used, job queue length etc. Problems reported by external measures can be explained by deviations in internal measures. 34
- 35. Information Security Need to understand Internet-based threats and countermeasures and continuously fund security work to protect their businesses. Since 1996 the Computer Security Institute have conducted an annual survey of US security managers. Spring 2004 survey report – 2 key findings: The unauthorized use of computers is declining The most expensive cybercrime was denial of service 35
- 36. Information Security: The Threats Threats are numerous Websites are particularly vulnerable Political activism is one motivation for Website defacement Theft of proprietary information is a major concern Financial fraud is still a significant threat 36
- 37. Information Security: Security’s Five Pillars Authentication: verifying the authenticity of users Identification: identifying users to grant them appropriate access Privacy: protecting information from being seen Integrity: keeping information in its original form Nonrepudiation: preventing parties from denying actions they have taken 37
- 38. Information Security: Management Countermeasures The major problem these days: enterprises cannot have both access to information and airtight security at the same time. Companies must make tradeoffs between: absolute information security and the efficient flow of information. Five major findings from the Computer Crime Survey: Most organizations evaluate the return on their security expenditures Over 80% conduct security audits The percentage reporting cybercrimes to law enforcement declined Most do not outsource cybersecurity Most respondents view security awareness training as important 38
- 39. Information Security: Technical Countermeasures The trend in computer security is toward defining security policies and then centrally managing and enforcing those policies via security products and services or policy-based management. E.g. a user authenticates to a network once, and then a “rights based system” gives that user access only to the systems to which the user has been given rights. Three techniques used by companies to protect themselves 1. Firewalls: Control access between networks. Used to separate intranets and extranets from the Internet so that only employees and authorized business partners can access implementation: Packet filtering to block “illegal” traffic, which is defined by the security policy… or By using a proxy server, which acts as an intermediary 39
- 40. 2. Encryption: to protect against sniffing, messages can be encrypted before being sent e.g. over the Internet. Two classes of encryption methods are used today: Secret Key encryption Public Key encryption 40
- 41. 3. Virtual Private Networks (VPN): maintains data security as it is transmitted by using: Tunneling: creates a temporary connection between a remote computer and the Internet Service Provider’s local data center. Blocks access to anyone trying to intercept messages sent over that link. Encryption: scrambles the message before it is sent and decodes it at the receiving end 41
- 42. Three ways to use VPNs: Remote Access VPNs: give remote employees a way to access an enterprise intranet by dialing a specific ISP Remote Office VPNs: give enterprises a way to create a secure private network with remote offices. The ISP’s VPN equipment encrypts all transactions Extranet VPNs: give enterprises a way to conduct e-business with trading partners 42
- 43. THE END 43