chapter 3. outline the hardware and software technologies used to build an e-business...

Chapter 3

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.

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?

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

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

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

Articulate what e-commerce infrastructure include

Are there any differences between a large organization and a small one?

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

Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure

Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure (Continued)

Figure 3.2 Physical and network infrastructure components of the Internet(Levels IV and III in Figure 3.1)

Figure 3.3 Example hosting provider Rackspace (www.rackspace.com)

Figure 3.4 Timeline of major developments in the use of the web

Figure 3.5 The Netcraft index of number of serversSource: Netcraft web Server Survey. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html. Netcraft

What applications can an Intranet support?

What applications can an extranet support?

Figure 3.6 Firewall positions within the e-business infrastructure of the B2B company

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?

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

Browser Server

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

Intranet Extranet Internet

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..

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Figure 3.11 Personalized feed home page from iGoogle (www.igoogle.com)

Figure 3.12 Joost service

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Figure 3.13 The TCP/IP protocol

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

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

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

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 Kahn’s 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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’.

Net Neutrality Principle What it is Should it be upheld? What two forces are threatening net

neutrality? What’s your opinion on this matter?

Internet Corp. for assigning names and numbers-http://www.icann.org

What is the equivalency in Canada? http://www.cira.ca/home-en/?lang=en

Internet Society-www.isoc.org Internet Engineering Force—

www.ietf.org WWW Consortium-www.w3.org

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).

Client and server machines OS Networks Storage

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

What is cloud computing? What is virtualization?

Benefits Challenges

Figure 3.17 (a) Fragmented applications infrastructureSource: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000)

Figure 3.17 (b) integrated applications infrastructure (Continued)Source: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000)

Figure 3.18 Differing use of applications at levels of management within companies

Figure 3.19 Elements of e-business infrastructure that require management

Web Services—applications are provided though internet but not necessarily on the same machine or the same network

SaaS—applications are licensed to customers for use as a service on demand

What are the challenges for SaaS?

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.