Chapter 5Infrastructure:

Sustainable Technologies

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2013 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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CHAPTER OVERVIEW

• SECTION 5.1 – MIS INFRASTRUCTURE The Business Benefits of a Solid MIS

Infrastructure Supporting Operations: Information MIS

Infrastructure Supporting Change: Agile MIS Infrastructure

• SECTION 5.2 – BUILDING SUSTAINABLE MIS INFRASTRUCTURES MIS and the Environment Supporting the Environment: Sustainable MIS

Infrastructure

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SECTION 5.1

MIS Infrastructures

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LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Explain MIS infrastructure and its three primary types

2. Identify the three primary areas associated with an information MIS infrastructure

3. Describe the characteristics of an agile MIS infrastructure

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THE BUSINESS BENEFITS OF A SOLID MIS INFRASTRUCTURE

• MIS infrastructure – Includes the plans for how a firm will build, deploy, use, and share its data, processes, and MIS assets Hardware Software Network Client Server

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THE BUSINESS BENEFITS OF A SOLID MIS

INFRASTRUCTURE

• Supporting operations Information MIS infrastructure

• Supporting change Agile MIS Infrastructure

• Supporting the environment Sustainable MIS infrastructure

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SUPPORTING OPERATIONS: INFORMATION MIS INFRASTRUCTURE

• Backup and recovery plan• Disaster recovery plan• Business continuity plan

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Backup and Recovery Plan

• Backup – An exact copy of a system’s information

• Recovery – The ability to get a system up and running in the event of a system crash or failure Fault tolerance Failover Failback

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Backup and Recovery Plan

• Disaster recovery plan – A detailed process for recovering information or an IT system in the event of a catastrophic disaster such as a fire or flood

• Disaster recovery cost curve – Charts (1) the cost to the organization of the unavailability of information and technology and (2) the cost to the organization of recovering from a disaster over time

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Backup and Recovery Plan

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Backup and Recovery Plan

• Hot site – A separate and fully equipped facility where the company can move immediately after a disaster and resume business

• Cold site – A separate facility that does not have any computer equipment, but is a place where employees can move after a disaster

• Warm site – A separate facility with computer equipment that requires installation and configuration

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Business Continuity Plan

• Business continuity planning (BCP) – A plan for how an organization will recover and restore partially or completely interrupted critical function(s) within a predetermined time after a disaster or extended disruption Emergency notification

services

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SUPPORTING CHANGE: AGILE MIS

INFRASTRUCTURE

• Characteristics of an agile MIS infrastructure Accessibility Availability Maintainability Portability Reliability Scalability Usability

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Accessibility

• Accessibility – Refers to the varying levels that define what a user can access, view, or perform when operating a system

• Administrator access – Unrestricted access to the entire system

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Availability

• Availability – Time frames when the system is operational

• Unavailable – Time frames when a system is not operating and cannot be used

• High availability – System is continuously operational at all times

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Maintainability

• Maintainability – How quickly a system can transform to support environmental changes

• Organizations must watch today’s business, as well as tomorrow’s, when designing and building systems

• Systems must be flexible enough to meet all types of business changes

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Portability

• Portability – The ability of an application to operate on different devices or software platforms

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Reliability

• Reliability – Ensures a system is functioning correctly and providing accurate information

• Reliability is another term for accuracy when discussing the correctness of systems within the context of efficiency IT metrics

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Scalability

• Scalability – How well a system can scale up, or adapt to the increased demands of growth

• Performance – Measures how quickly a system performs a process or transaction

• Capacity planning – Determines future environmental infrastructure requirements to ensure high-quality system performance

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Usability

• Usability – The degree to which a system is easy to learn and efficient and satisfying to use

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SECTION 5.2

Building Sustainable MIS Infrastructures

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LEARNING OUTCOMES

4. Identify the environmental impacts associated with MIS

5. Explain the three components of a sustainable MIS infrastructures along with their business benefits

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MIS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

• Moore’s Law – Refers to how the computer chip performance per dollar doubles every 18 months

• Sustainable, or “green,” MIS – Describes the production, management, use, and disposal of technology in a way that minimizes damage to the environment

• Corporate social responsibility – Companies’ acknowledged responsibility to society

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MIS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Three Primary Side Effects of Businesses’ Expanded Use of Technology

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Increased Electronic Waste

• Ewaste – Refers to discarded, obsolete, or broken electronic devices

• Sustainable MIS disposal – Refers to the safe disposal of MIS assets at the end of their life cycle

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Increased Energy Consumption

• Huge increases in technology use have greatly amplified energy consumption

• The energy consumed by a computer is estimated to produce as much as 10 percent of the amount of carbon dioxide produced by an automobile

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Increased Carbon Emissions

• The major human-generated greenhouse gases, such as carbon emissions from energy use, are very likely responsible for the increases in climatic temperature over the past half a century

• When left on continuously, a single desktop computer and monitor can consume at least 100 watts of power per hour

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SUPPORTING THE ENVIRONMENT: SUSTAINABLE MIS INFRASTRUCTURE

• The components of a sustainable MIS infrastructure include Grid computing Cloud computing Virtualized computing

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Grid Computing

• Grid computing - A collection of computers, often geographically dispersed, that are coordinated to solve a common problem

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Cloud Computing

• Cloud computing - Refers to the use of resources and applications hosted remotely on the Internet

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Cloud Computing

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)• Software as a Service (SaaS)• Platform as a Service (PaaS)

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Virtualized Computing

• Virtualization - Creates multiple “virtual” machines on a single computing device

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Virtualized Computing

• Data center – A facility used to house management information systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems

• Sustainable data centers

Reduces carbon emissions

Reduces required floor space

Chooses geographic location