E-business infrastructure

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E-business infrastructure
Chapter 3
2
Learning outcomes

• Outline the hardware and software technologies
  used to build an e-business infrastructure within
  an organization and with its partners
• Outline the hardware and software requirements
  necessary to enable employee access to the
  Internet and hosting of e-commerce services.

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Management issues

• What are the practical risks to the organization
  of failure to manage e-commerce infrastructure
  adequately?
• How should staff access to the Internet be
  managed?
• How should we evaluate the relevance of web
  services and open source software?

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Activity Internet infrastructure components

• Write down all the different types of hardware
  and software involved from when a user types in a
  web address such as www.google.com to the web
  site being loaded

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Activity 3.1 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 web site that can be related to network,
  hardware and software failures or problems with
  data quality

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Typical problems

• Web site communications too slow
• Web site 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

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E-Commerce Infrastructure

• Articulate what e-commerce infrastructure include
• Are there any differences between a large
  organization and a small one?

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Figure 3.1 This model should not be viewed just
from layered perspective
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Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business
infrastructure
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Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business
infrastructure (Continued)
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Figure 3.2 Physical and network infrastructure
components of the Internet(Levels IV and III in
Figure 3.1)
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Figure 3.3 Example hosting provider Rackspace
(www.rackspace.com)
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Figure 3.4 Timeline of major developments in the
use of the web
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Figure 3.5 The Netcraft index of number of
serversSource Netcraft web Server Survey.
http//news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_surve
y.html. Netcraft
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Intranet and Extranet Applications

• What applications can an Intranet support?
• What applications can an extranet support?

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Figure 3.6 Firewall positions within the
e-business infrastructure of the B2B company
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Activity a common problem with intranets and
extranets

• A B2B Company has found that after an initial
  surge of interest in its intranet and extranet,
  usage has declined dramatically. The e-business
  manager wants to achieve these aims
• Increase usage
• Produce more dynamic content
• Encouraging more clients to order (extranet)
• What would you suggest?

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Suggested answers

• Identify benefits
• Involve staff with development
• Find system sponsors, owners and advocates
• Training
• Keep content fresh, relevant and where possible,
  fun
• Use e-mail to encourage usage

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Web Technology

• Browser
• Server

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Figure 3.9 Browsershots (www.browsershots.org)
a service for testing cross-browser compatibility
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Applications

• Intranet
• Extranet
• Internet

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Intranet Applications

• Intranets are used extensively for supporting
  sell-side e-commerce from within the marketing
  function. They are also used to support core
  supply-chain management activities as described
  in the next section on extranets..

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• A marketing intranet has the following
  advantages
• Reduced product lifecycles _ as information on
  product development and marketing campaigns is
  rationalized we can get products to market
  faster.
• Reduced costs through higher productivity, and
  savings on hard copy.
• Better customer service _ responsive and
  personalized support with staff accessing
  customers over the web.
• Distribution of information through remote
  offices nationally or globally

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• Intranets are also used for internal marketing
  communications since they can include the
  following types of information
• Staff phone directories
• Staff procedures or quality manuals
• Information for agents such as product
  specifications, current list and discounted
  prices, competitor information, factory
  schedules, and stocking levels, all of which
  normally have to be updated frequently and can be
  costly
• Staff bulletin or newsletter
• Training courses.

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Extranet Applications

• Although an extranet may sound complex, from a
  user point of view it is straightforward. If you
  have bought a book or CD online and have been
  issued with a username and password to access
  your account, then you have used an extranet.
  This is a consumer extranet.

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• Although an extranet may sound complex, from a
  user point of view it is straightforward. If you
  have bought a book or CD online and have been
  issued with a username and password to access
  your account, then you have used an extranet.
  This is a consumer extranet.

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Internet Applications

• Atomisation concept
• Widget
• Blogs
• Feeds
• IPTV
• Peer-to-peer
• Social networks
• Tagging
• VOIP

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Internet Applications

• How are the tools mentioned in the last slide
  relevant to e-commerce?

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Figure 3.11 Personalized feed home page from
iGoogle (www.igoogle.com)
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Figure 3.12 Joost service
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URLS and domain names

• Web addresses are structured in a standard way as
  follows
• http//www.domain-name.extension/filename.html
• What do the following extensions or global top
  level domains stand for?
• .com
• .co.uk, .uk.com
• .org or .org.uk
• .gov
• .edu, .ac.uk
• .int
• .net
• .biz
• .info

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• Protocol
• Host or hostname
• Subdomain
• Domain name
• Top-level domain or TLD
• Second-level domain (SLD)
• The port
• The path
• URL parameter
• Anchor or fragment

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Figure 3.1 This model should not be viewed just
from layered perspective
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Firewalls

• Firewalls are necessary when creating an intranet
  or extranet to ensure that outside access to
  confidential information does not occur.
  Firewalls are created as software mounted on a
  separate server at the point where the company is
  connected to the Internet. Firewall software can
  then be configured to only accept links from
  trusted domains representing other offices in the
  company. A firewall has implications for
  e-marketing since staff accessing a web site from
  work may not be able to access some content such
  as graphics plug-ins.

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How does DNS service work?

• Domain Name System (DNS) is a database system
  that translates a computer's fully qualified
  domain name into an IP address.
• Networked computers use IP addresses to locate
  and connect to each other, but IP addresses can
  be difficult for people to remember.
• For example, on the web, it's much easier to
  remember the domain name www.amazon.com than it
  is to remember its corresponding IP address
  (207.171.166.48). DNS allows you to connect to
  another networked computer or remote service by
  using its user-friendly domain name rather than
  its numerical IP address.

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HTML and XML

• HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) A standard
  format used to define the text and layout of web
  pages. HTML files usually have the extension
  .HTML or .HTM
• XML or eXtensible Markup Language
• A standard for transferring structured data,
  unlike HTML which is purely presentational

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Figure 3.13 The TCP/IP protocol
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Figure 3.14 Home page index.html for an example
B2B company in a web browser showing HTML source
in text editor
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XML example

• Productgt
• ltAction Value5Delete/gt
• ltProductIDgt118003-008lt/ProductIDgt
• lt/Productgt
• ltProduct Type5Good SchemaCategoryRef5C43171801
  gt
• ltProductIDgt140141-002lt/ProductIDgt
• ltUOMgtltUOMCodedgtEAlt/UOMCodedgtlt/UOMgt
• ltManufacturergtCompaqlt/Manufacturergt
• ltLeadTimegt2lt/LeadTimegt
• ltCountryOfOrigingt
• ltCountrygtltCountryCodedgtUSlt/CountryCodedgtlt/Countrygt
  
• lt/CountryOfOrigingt

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Semantic Web

• Interrelated content with defined meaning,
  enabling better exchange of information between
  computers and between peoples and computers

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Figure 3.15 Architecture of semantic web system
used at Electricite de France
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Media standards

• GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) A graphics
  format and compression algorithm best used for
  simple graphics
• JPEG (Joint Photographics Experts Group) A
  graphics format and compression algorithm best
  used for photographs
• Streaming media Sound and video that can be
  experienced within a web browser before the whole
  clip is downloaded e.g. Real Networks .rm format
• Video standards include MPEG and .AVI
• Sound standards include MP3 and WMA

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How does it work? Internet standards

• TCP/IP
• TCP/IP development was led by Robert Kahn and
  Vince Cerf in the late 1960s and early 1970s and,
  according to Leiner et al. (200), four rules
  controlled Kahns early work on this protocol.
  These four rules highlight the operation of the
  TCP/IP protocol
• Distinct networks would be able to communicate
  seamlessly with other networks.
• Communications would be able on a best-effort
  basis, that is, if a data packet did not reach
  the final destination, it would be retransmitted
  from the source until successful receipt.

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• Black boxes would be used to companies such as
  Cisco and 3com. In order to keep them simple
  there would be no information retained by the
  gateways.
• There would be no global control of transmissions
  _ these would be governed by the requester and
  sender of information.

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• The HTTP protocol
• HTTP, the Hypertext transfer protocol is the
  standard used to allow web browsers and servers
  to transfer requests for delivery of web pages
  their embedded graphics. When you click on a link
  while viewing a web site, your web browser will
  request information from the server computer
  hosting the web site using HTTP.

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• Uniform resource locators (URLs)
• Web addresses refer to particular page on a web
  server which is hosted by a company or
  organization. The technical name for web address
  is uniform (or universal) resource locator (URL).
  URLs can be thought of as a standard method of
  addressing, similar to postcodes or ZIP codes,
  that make it straightforward to find the name of
  a site.

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• Domain names
• The domain name refers to the name of the web
  server and is usually selected to be the same as
  the name of the company, and the extension will
  indicate its type. The extension is also commonly
  known as the generic top-level domain (gTLD).
  Note that gTLDs are currently under discussion
  and there are proposals for adding new types such
  as. Store and firm.

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• Domain name registration
• Most companies are likely to own several domains,
  perhaps for different product lines or countries
  or for specific marketing campaigns. Domain name
  disputes can arise when an individual or company
  has registered a domain name which another
  company claims they have the right to. This is
  sometimes referred to as cyber-squatting.

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Internet Governance

• Net Neutrality Principle
• What it is
• Should it be upheld?
• What two forces are threatening net neutrality?
• Whats your opinion on this matter?

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Internet Governance

• Internet Corp. for assigning names and
  numbers-http//www.icann.org
• What is the equivalency in Canada?
• http//www.cira.ca/home-en/?langen
• Internet Society-www.isoc.org
• Internet Engineering Forcewww.ietf.org
• WWW Consortium-www.w3.org

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Open Source vs. Commercial
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Managing e-business Infrastructure

• As explained at the start of the chapter,
  e-business infrastructure comprises hardware,
  software, content and data used to deliver
  e-business infrastructure by reviewing different
  perspectives on the infrastructure. There are
• Hardwar and systems software infrastructure. This
  refers mainly to the hardware and network
  infrastructure discussed in the previous
  sections. It includes the provision of clients,
  services, network services and also systems
  software such as operating systems and browsers
  (layers II, III and IV in figure 3.1).
• Applications infrastructure. This refers to the
  applications software used to deliver services to
  employees, customers and other partners (layer I
  in figure 3.1).

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Managing HW/OS Infrastructure

• Client and server machines
• OS
• Networks
• Storage

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• systems software
• The key management decision is standardization
  throughout the organization. Standardization
  leads to reduced numbers of contacts for support
  and maintenance and can reduce purchase prices
  through multi-user licenses. Systems software
  choices occur for the client, server and network.
  
• On the client computers, the decision will be
  which browser software to standardize on, for
  example Microsoft Explorer or an open-source
  alternative. Standardized plug-ins such as Adobe
  Acrobat to access.pdf files should also be
  installed across the organization.

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• The systems software for the client will also be
  decided on this will probably be a variant of
  Microsoft Windows, but open-source alternatives
  such as Linux may also be considered. When
  considering systems software for the server, it
  should be remembered that there may be many
  servers in the global organization, both for the
  Internet and intranets.
• Using standardized web-server software such as
  Apache will help maintenance. Networking software
  will also be decided on this could be
  Microsoft-sourced or from other suppliers such as
  Sun Microsystems or Novell.

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• network
• Decisions on the network will be based on the
  internal company network, which for the
  e-business will be an intranet, and for the
  external network either an extranet or VPN or
  links to the public Internet.
• The main management decision is whether internal
  or external network management will be performed
  by the company or outsourced to a third party.

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• Outsourcing of network management is common.
• Standardized hardware is also needed to connect
  clients to the internet, for example, a modem
  card or external modem in home PCs or a network
  interface card (NIC) to connect to the company
  (local-area) network for business computers.

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• storage
• The decision on storage is similar to that for
  the transport layer. Storage can be managed
  internally or externally.
• This is not an either or choice. For example,
  intranet and extranet are commonly managed
  internally while Internet storage such as the web
  site is commonly managed externally or at an
  application service provider. However, intranets
  and extranets can also be managed externally.

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Managing I-Services and Hosting Providers

• Key issues
• Connection methods
• Service quality and prices
• Speed of access
• How slow is slow? P.162 box 3.6
• Shared or dedicated hardware and bandwidth
• Availability
• Service level agreement
• Security

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Managing Application Infrastructures

• This primarily concerns delivering the right
  applications to all users of e-business services

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Clouding and Virtualization

• What is cloud computing?
• What is virtualization?
• Benefits
• Challenges

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Figure 3.17 (a) Fragmented applications
infrastructureSource Adapted from Hasselbring
(2000)
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Figure 3.17 (b) integrated applications
infrastructure (Continued)Source Adapted from
Hasselbring (2000)
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Figure 3.18 Differing use of applications at
levels of management within companies
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Figure 3.19 Elements of e-business
infrastructure that require management
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Web Services, SaaS, and SOA

• Web Servicesapplications are provided though
  internet but not necessarily on the same machine
  or the same network
• SaaSapplications are licensed to customers for
  use as a service on demand
• What are the challenges for SaaS?

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Web Services, SaaS, and SOA

• What is SOA?
• A collection of services that communicate with
  each other as part of a distributed system
• The motive is to develop applications that are
  independent of hardware, OS, language, etc.