754 - Chapter 4. The Web-Enabled Information Infrastructure <blockquote> <p><script> function OpenWin(url, w, h) { if(!w) w = 400; if(!h) h = 300; window. open (url, "_new", "width=" + w + ",height=" + h + ",menubar=no,toobar=no,scrollbars=yes", true); } function Print() { window.focus(); if(window.print) { window.print(); window.setTimeout('window.close();',5000); } } </script><span></span></p> <table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr valign="top"></tr></table> <table width="100%" height="20" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1"><tr></tr></table> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr valign="top"> <td align="center"><table width="95%"><tr><td align="left"> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"> <tr><td valign="top" height="5"><img src="/books/2/551/1/html/2/images/pixel.gif" width="1" height="5" alt="" border="0"></td></tr> <tr> <td><b><font size="1" color ="#0000FF">Team-Fly<img border="0" src="/books/2/551/1/html/2/Fly-Logo.gif" width="81" height="25"></font></b></td> <td valign="top" align="right"> </td> </tr> </table> <hr size="1"> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5"> <tr> <td valign="top" width="76" rowspan="4"><img src="/books/2/551/1/html/2/images/0130409510/0130409510_xs.jpg" width="76" height="95" border="0"></td> <td valign="top">Internet-Enabled Business Intelligence<br>By William A. Giovinazzo<br> </td> </tr> <tr><td>Table of Contents</td></tr> <tr><td></td></tr> <tr><td valign="bottom">Part 2. Making the Internet Work</td></tr> </table> <hr size ="1"> <br><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding ="0"><tr><td valign="top"> <h2>Chapter 4. The Web-Enabled Information Infrastructure</h2> <blockquote> <p><span>Every economy needs a national information infrastructure. This is the utility of the twenty-first centurya broadband highway for a broadband, high-capacity economy. And every organization needs to plug into this utility with an enterprise information infrastructure. The new infrastructure will change economic activity as significantly as did electrification. Just as business and wealth creation would be unthinkable today without electrification, so the new economy would be impossible without the power of information.</span></p> <p><span>Don Tapscott</span><br><span>The Digital Economy</span><sup>[1]</sup></p> <blockquote><p><sup>[1]</sup> Tapscott, Don, <span>The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Network Intelligence</span>, McGraw-Hill Education, 1997. Used by permission.</p></blockquote> </blockquote> <p>Let us consider the nervous system of an organism again. If we look at the entire nervous system, we see that it permeates the entire organism. Our nervous system reaches every part of our body, both internally and externally. The tips of our fingers, our toes, our internal organs all integrate into this single internal information system. The input it receives passes through the network to the central nervous system, where the brain takes this information and interprets its environment. In the same way, the information infrastructure permeates the organizationits nervous system. No part of a healthy organization is isolated from the rest. In an intelligent enterprise, data received in one department is passed on to the data warehouse, the central intelligence of the organization. There it is integrated with data from the rest of the organization.</p> <p>If we were to close our eyes and try to envision the nervous system, what would we see? Imagine thinner than hair-like fibers running through the body, a mesh of microscopic threads in which we are all encased. We can see the sensations, little pinpoints of light, traveling along this thread until it reaches the spinal cord. Up the spinal cord it travels until it reaches the brain, where it joins the other points of light that make up our intellect. As we contemplate this vision, can we see how similar it is to our organization's information infrastructure? Each laptop, printer, server, and desktop system is linked together by the cabling of our network. We can see the data flow from one system to the next as it makes its way through our network. We can see a similar point of light flow from desktop to server to data warehouse. The challenge to many organizations is to have an infrastructure that is healthy enough for these connections to be made.</p> <p>Figure 4.1 presents the information infrastructure of the company we discussed in Chapter 3, Billy Boy Bowling Balls. What is presented in this figure is typical of many organizations. As we look around Billy Boy's information systems, we see variations on a theme. We have a variety of clients connected to different types of servers over a number of network topologies. Each department manager, faced with the same set of problems, provides a different solution. The manufacturing area is an example of this problem. The machines that we use to form and polish our bowling balls are numerically controlled devices. These systems are connected to the shop floor's Local Area Network (LAN) with a departmental server. This LAN sits in isolation from the other parts of the network. This is Billy Boy's nervous system.</p> <center> <h5>Figure 4.1. Billy Boy's information infrastructure.</h5> <p><img border="0" width="500" height="374" src="/books/2/551/1/html/2/images/0130409510/graphics/04fig01.gif" alt="graphics/04fig01.gif"></p> </center> <p>At the very ends of this infrastructure, the metaphorical tips of our organization's fingers and toes are the data entry and exit points. We are tempted to refer to these points as clients, but this is not the case. The administration department uses dumb terminals to access legacy applications that reside on a mainframe. We also see in administration a number of desktop systems that access the mainframe through some terminal emulator. These users are primarily concerned with the desktop applications on their system, occasionally accessing the mainframe. Most of the departments have a traditional environment, either a laptop or a desktop connected to some background server. In addition to the exception we have already discussed, we also see the C-level executives have their own environment. The CEO as well as the vice president of sales and marketing have no need of desktop systems; they have secretaries that do all the "stuff" for them. A simple thin client with an information portal is all they need. The CFO, however, won't give up her spreadsheets, which means that she still uses a desktop system. In addition to the clients on the network, the CIO and COO are set up for wireless communications. When there is a situation that requires immediate attention, they receive an electronic notification.</p> <p>We also see in this structure several types of servers. Administration, shipping, and manufacturing each has its own network server. These systems provide the basic network services such as file sharing and network administration. In sales and marketing, however, we see that we have two additional server types, a Web server and an application server. As it turns out, Billy Boy's niece Francesca just graduated from Malibu State University with a degree in computer science and surfboard waxing. She convinced her uncle that Billy Boy needed to get into this dotcom stuff, so he put her in charge of building their e-commerce site. They now have a Web server to host the Web site along with an application server to support the sales of bowling balls and accessories over the Internet. Francesca's boyfriend, Moon Doggy, a brutally handsome, extraordinarily intelligent fellow graduate and surfer, has a degree in business intelligence applications with a minor in boogie boards . He convinced Billy Boy that they absolutely have to have a data mart to support the Web site. From this mart, Moon Doggy can mine the <i>clickstream</i> to increase Internet sales.</p> <p>At this point, Billy Boy's head is spinning. He has all sorts of clients talking to all sorts of servers. His CIO, Clarence, is telling him that they have an absolute mess on their hands. There are no organizational standards for any of these systems, and department managers are going off and developing systems with no regard for how to share information across the enterprise. There are a ton of servers, each running its own operating system. Unfortunately, the only server with which Billy Boy is familiar is Eunice down at the local coffee shop.</p> <p>In Chapter 5, we will try to lend Billy Boy a hand. We will examine the different architectures in place in many organizations today. We will see that many organizations use mainframes, UNIX servers, and low-level network servers. Each environment has its own set of applications, each with its own benefits. At times, the distinction between the different systems has blurred. At other times, nonexistent divisions have been raised. In addition, there is confusion about the role played by each in IEBI.</p> <p>We will begin our study of servers with the mainframe. Many have decried the server as dead technology. Some suggest that the mainframe hasn't a place in IEBI. While there are challenges to integrating this technology into an Internet-enabled architecture; the mainframe is <span>not quite dead yet</span>. Many organizations are finding new life for the mainframe, front-ending these systems with Web and application servers in an attempt at integration. We will discuss what role these processing powerhouses can play in IEBI. At the same time, we must realize that these days are not all happy times and pass the soda crackers for the mainframe. Although these systems have significant capacity, they also have some considerable challenges. We shall discuss the inflexibility of these systems as well as the obstacles to maintaining them.</p> <p>Our discussion of the mainframe will lead us into an examination of the forces that gave rise to a new architecture: client/server. As we shall see, department managers grew frustrated with the control Information Technology (IT) departments had over information. In an attempt to have more control over their own information, these managers seized the technological advances that made client/server environments possible. They began to develop their own systems that were free from the repressive control of the IT department. We can see this represented within Billy Boy Bowling Balls as well. Manufacturing, shipping, sales, and administration each has its own LAN. The managers of these departments became their own mini-CIOs. As each manager independently developed his or her separate information infrastructure, each independently faced the same set of problems. They also came up with their own sets of answers, fracturing the information infrastructure. The nervous system of these organizations became diseased. Parts of the nervous system were cut off from the others.</p> <p>This client/server architecture was just the beginning of something; it was a new way of thinking that would enable the current Internet age. Many of the concepts and technologies that have made the Internet possible could not have occurred without client/server architecture. As we shall see in Chapter 5, an Internet-enabled application is another step in the evolution of the client/server model. While this may be blasphemy to some, as we come to understand the true meaning of client/server, we shall see that the Internet cannot be anything but this next step. We can see this by simply looking at the terminology of the Internet. We have thin <span>clients</span> speaking to Web <span>servers</span> and application <span>servers</span>.</p> <p>We may be tempted to classify the Internet as simply another client/server architecture, and in a sense we would be correct. There is an important distinction between an Internet application and traditional client/server, however. An Internet application uses a very specific set of technologies for its implementation and adheres to certain principles of openness. Rather than describing an Internet application as just another implementation of client/server, we should describe it as a very specific implementation of client/server, an implementation that is the next phase of client/server's evolution. This of course means the ultimate demise of what has become known as client/server. Homo sapiens are the descendents of homo erectus in the same sense that the Internet application is the descendent of client/server. Unfortunately for client/server, homo erectus is an extinct species. This is reminiscent of a Florida congressional election in which the conservative candidate accused his opponent of having a brother who is a homo sapiens and a sister who is a known thespian. Not being able to deny such a charge, the liberal lost.</p> <p>Homo erectus died out because homo sapiens were superior. Such is the case with an Internet-enabled application. The benefits of an Internet-enabled application make it markedly superior to its client/server ancestor . Software vendors are able to develop software on one platform, the Internet. They are now able to write one version of the software that runs on any client that is able to support a browser. This is also a benefit to the end user . Rather than supporting applications on a variety of different platforms, there is now one application that executes in a single environment.</p> <p>What is perhaps the greatest benefit is the centralization of the system. As we can see with Billy Boy Bowling Balls, the client/server world in which each department manager develops systems specifically for his or her own needs fractures the organization's information infrastructure. There is no way for Billy Boy to gather all this information together in one place. Administration and shipping are connected to one another, but manufacturing is out there by itself. It doesn't interface to any of the other systems. This is the chief benefit of the Internet-enabled information infrastructure: All the systems are integrated into one. We can now have an information infrastructure in which all of the systems are able to contribute to the centralized data warehouse. Through this centralization, decision makers are able to get a single view of the organization.</p> <p>To achieve this objective, however, we must have a common means of communication. As we discussed in Chapter 2, one of the major steps forward in the evolution of the Internet is the development of a standard networking protocol. It would be inappropriate to discuss IEBI without examining the Internet itself. In Chapter 6, we will discuss how the Internet works.</p> <p>We will begin our discussion about the Internet with an introduction to the standards bodies that have contributed to developing standard networking protocols. These groups include the International Organization of Standards, the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers, and the International Telecommunications Union. These standards bodies are responsible for the development of networking models and standards that have allowed the communications world to move from proprietary networking protocols to a standard method of communication.</p> <p>We shall see that the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and Ethernet became the predominate protocol and network architecture of the Internet. In Chapter 6, therefore, we will review how each protocol provides for communication over the Internet. In our study, we will examine how a Web site like <span>www.bowlingwithbilly.com</span> establishes a connection with a computer system on the other side of the planet.</p> <img src="/books/2/551/1/html/2/images/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1" border="0"> </td></tr></table> <hr size="1"> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"> <tr><td valign="top" height="5"><img src="/books/2/551/1/html/2/images/pixel.gif" width="1" height="5" alt="" border="0"></td></tr> <tr> <td><b><font size="1" color="#0000FF">Team-Fly<img border="0" src="/books/2/551/1/html/2/Fly-Logo.gif" width="81" height="25"></font></b></td> <td valign="top" align="right"> </td> </tr> </table> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td valign="top" align="right">Top</td></tr></table> </td></tr></table></td> <td align="center"> </td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3" align="center" valign="bottom"> <br><table width="100%"><tr><td height="25" valign="middle" colspan="4" align="center"> </td></tr></table> </td></tr> </table> </blockquote>
