IT Infrastructure Chap 1: Definition

Mark Abraham Magumba

The Evolution of IT InfrastructureDuring the first years IT infrastructures were

relatively simpleWith the advent of more advanced

applications like ERP, E-commerce and data ware housing they’ve become more complex

Many IT infrastructures are the result of an incremental process of implementation, acquisition and mergers

The result it is that most are extremely complex and ineficient with little integration and interoperability

IT infrastructure DefinitionsThe equipment, systems, software, services used in

common across organizations regardless of mission, program or project. Also serves as the foundation upon which mission, program and project specific services are built

All of the configuration components that are necessary to provide services to the customers

All of the hardware, software, networks, facilities e.tc. That are required to deliver, monitor, control or support IT services. The term It infrastructure includes all IT but not associated people, processes and documentation

The distributed operational and administrative computing environment hidden from the unseen world of application users

Infrastructure definition contd

Business processes

Different Views of infrastructure

Information

Application

Electricity

Server

Building

Infrastructure for business analyst

Infrastructure for end user

Infrastructure for end user

Typical Characteristics of infrastructureInfrastructure provides services to

applicationsInfrastructure is usually shared by multiple

applicationsIt infrastructure is more static and

permanent than the applications running on itThe management of infrastructure is

separate from the management of the application running on it

The department owning the infrastructure is separate from the department owning the applications

The infrastructure Model

The infrastructure modelThe model depicts the infrastructure itself

and the “users” of the infrastructureThe users are the applications that deliver

utility to the system users built on top of the infrastructure and these areMiddleware and databasesApplicationsProcesses and information

Virtualization: Acts as abstraction layer between the hardware and the operating system, it allows a single physical device to run multiple operating systems

Operating system: A collection of programs to manage a computers inner workings including its memory, storage, hardware and file system

End user devices: The devices used by end users to use to run applications such as PCs, thin clients, smart phones

IT infrastructure building blocksThe model also describes the IT infrastructure building

blocksData centers: Typically IT hardware is provided in data

centers. These provide (uninterrupted) power supply, cooling, computer racks, availability and security measures

Servers: Are physical and main processing units also known as computers found in the data centers

Networks: Connect the different components of the data center. Comprise routers, switches, cabling and include LANs, WANs, VPNS and simple services such as DHCP and DNS

Storage: Servers can have internal storage like hard disks and external storage like tapes, Direct Attached Storage (DAS), Network Attached Storage (NAS), Storage Area Networks (SAN)

Non Functional AttributesVertically three essential non functional attributes including

availability, security and performance are shownAvailability: is about maximizing system uptime and includes

elements like backup, restore and disaster recovery, failover, clustering and replication

Performance which includes areas such as scaling, load balancing, virtualization, Quality of Service (QoS) and high performance clustering

Security which is about minimizing threats and vulnerabilities and includes solutions such as Virtual Private Networks (VPN), Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), access control and encryption

The three non functional attributes can all be affected by the configuration of each of the infrastructure components

Though several other non functional attributes can be defined these three are the most critical