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E-Technologies, E-Technologies, Architectures, Tools Architectures, Tools and Applicationsand Applications

E-Technologies, E-Technologies, Architectures, Tools Architectures, Tools and Applicationsand Applications

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY BASICS

• When beginning to learn about information technology it is important to understand the following:– Information – IT resources– IT cultures

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IT Industry Scanning

• Three common tools used in industry to analyze and develop competitive advantages include:

– Porter’s Five Forces Model– Porter’s three generic strategies– Value chains

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Information

• Data - raw facts that describe the characteristic of an event

• Information - data converted into a meaningful and useful context

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ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN IT

• Information technology is a relatively new functional area, having only been around formally for around 40 years

• Recent IT strategic positions include:– Chief Information Officer (CIO)– Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

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ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN IT

• Chief Information Officer (CIO) – oversees all uses of IT and ensures the strategic alignment of IT with business goals and objectives

• Broad CIO functions include:– Manager – ensuring the delivery of all IT projects, on

time and within budget– Leader – ensuring the strategic vision of IT is in line

with the strategic vision of the organization– Communicator – building and maintaining strong

executive relationships

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IT Resources

• People use

• Information technology to work with

• Information

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IT Cultures Organizational information cultures include:

• Information-Functional Culture - Employees use information as a means of exercising influence or power over others. For example, a manager in sales refuses to share information with marketing. This causes marketing to need the sales manager’s input each time a new sales strategy is developed.

• Information-Sharing Culture - Employees across departments trust each other to use information (especially about problems and failures) to improve performance.

• Information-Inquiring Culture - Employees across departments search for information to better understand the future and align themselves with current trends and new directions.

• Information-Discovery Culture - Employees across departments are open to new insights about crisis and radical changes and seek ways to create competitive advantages.

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The Gap Between Business Personnel and IT Personnel

• Business personnel possess expertise in functional areas such as marketing, accounting, and sales

• IT personnel have the technological expertise

• This typically causes a communications gap between the business personnel and IT personnel

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Procurement

• Maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) materials (also called indirect materials) – materials necessary for running an organization but do not relate to the company’s primary business activities– E-procurement - the B2B purchase and sale of

supplies and services over the Internet– Electronic catalog - presents customers with

information about goods and services offered for sale, bid, or auction on the Internet

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E-Procurement

• E-Procurement is the B2B purchase and sale of supplies and services over the Internet. The goal of many e-Procurement applications is to link organizations directly to preapproved suppliers’ catalogs and to process the entire purchasing transaction online. Linking to electronic catalogs significantly reduces the need to check the timeliness and accuracy of supplier information.

• The electronic catalog can be a good example application of e-Procuremnt. An e-catalog presents customers with information about goods and services offered for sale, bid or auction on the Internet.

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SCM efficiency and effectiveness with four drivers

• The four primary drivers of supply chain management1.Facilities2. Inventory3.Transportation4. Information

• Organizations use these four drivers to support either a supply chain strategy focusing on efficiency or a supply chain strategy focusing on effectiveness

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SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

• Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble (P&G) SCM

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Wal-Mart and P&G implemented a tremendously successful SCM System links Wal-Mart’s distribution centers directly to P&G’s manufacturing centers.Each time a Wal-Mart customers purchases a P&G product, the system sends a message directly to P&G’s factory for a reorder

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Four impede factors on Quality of Internet-based applications

1) Limited capabilities of most Web browsers to support finely grained user interactivity.

2) Limited agreed-upon standards for encoding Web content and control mechanisms.

3) Lack of maturity of Web scripting and programming languages.

4) Limitations in commonly used Web GUI component libraries.

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IS Architecture for client/server systems

The six possible approaches are

•1)distributed presentation,

•2)remote presentation,

•3)remote data management,

•4)distributed function,

•5)distributed database,

•6)distributed processing.

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Architectures for client/server systems

1. The distributed presentation form of the client/server architecture is used to freshen up the delivery of existing server-based applications to distributed clients. Often the server is a mainframe, and the existing mainframe code is not changed.

2. The remote presentation style of client/server architecture places all data presentation functions on the client machine, so that software on the client has total responsibility for formatting data.

3. The remote data management form of client/server architecture places all software on the client except for the data management functions.

4. The distributed function client/server architecture splits analysis functions between the client and server, leaving all presentation on the client and all data management on the server.

5. The distributed database client/server architecture places all functionality on the client, except data storage and management, which are divided between client and server.

6. The distributed processing client/server architecture combines the best features of distributed function and distributed database by splitting both of these across client and server, with presentation functions under the exclusive responsibility of the client machine.

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Three components of Enterprise Architecture of Information system • 1)Information architecture identifies where and

how important information, like customer records, is maintained and secured.

• 2)Infrastructure architecture includes the hardware, software, and telecommunications equipment that, when combined, provide the underlying foundation to support the organization’s goals.

• 3)Application architecture determines how applications integrate and relate to each other.

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INFRASTRUCTURE ARCHITECTURE

• Five primary characteristics of a solid infrastructure architecture:

1. Flexibility

2. Scalability

3. Reliability

4. Availability

5. Performance

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Backup and Recovery

• 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 and includes restoring the information backup– Fault tolerance – Failover

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Disaster Recovery plan

• Disaster recovery best practices include:– Mind the enterprise architectures– Monitor the quality of computer networks that

provide data on power suppliers and demand– Make sure the networks can be restored quickly

in the case of downtime– Set up disaster recovery detail steps– Provide adequate staff training, including verbal

communication protocols “so that operators are aware of any IT-related problems

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Disaster Recovery

• 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 – Hot site – Cold site

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Disaster Recovery Cost Curve

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Three-tiered client/server architecture

(1) applications can be partitioned in a way that best fits the organization’s computing needs;

(2) making global changes or customizing processes for individual users is relatively easy

(3) as data analysis and data presentation are separate, either can be changed independently without affecting the other.

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INTEGRATING DATA AMONG MULTIPLE DATABASES

• Integration – allows separate systems to communicate directly with each other– Forward integration – takes information

entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all downstream systems and processes

– Backward integration – takes information entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all upstream systems and processes

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• forward and backward integrations that link processes in the value chain. A forward integration takes information entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all downstream systems and processes.

• A backward integration takes information entered into a given system and sends it automatically to all upstream systems and processes. Ideally, an organization wants to build both forward and backward integrations, which provide the flexibility to create, update, and delete information in any of the systems.

• However integrations are expensive and difficult to build. Most organizations build only forward integrations. Building only forward integrations implies that a change in the initial system will result in changes occurring in all the other systems. Integration of information is not possible for any changes occurring outside the initial system, which again can result in inconsistent organizational information.

INTEGRATING DATA AMONG MULTIPLE DATABASES

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Risks are associated with ERP implementation

• Software costs• Consulting fees• Process rework• Customization• Integration and testing • Training• Data warehouse integration and

data conversion

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Core ERP and Extended ERP

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Operational and Analytical CRM

• Operational CRM – supports traditional transactional processing for day-to-day front-office operations or systems that deal directly with the customers

• Analytical CRM – supports back-office operations and strategic analysis and includes all systems that do not deal directly with the customers

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Operational and Analytical CRM

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DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS

• Decision support system (DSS) – models information to support managers and business professionals during the decision-making process

• Three quantitative models used by DSSs include:1. Sensitivity analysis – the study of the impact that

changes in one (or more) parts of the model have on other parts of the model

2. What-if analysis – checks the impact of a change in an assumption on the proposed solution

3. Goal-seeking analysis – finds the inputs necessary to achieve a goal such as a desired level of output

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Extraction, Transformation, and Loading(ETL) process

• Through ETL process, Data warehouse compiles information from internal or external databases. ETL is a process that extracts information from internal and external databases, transforms the information using a common set of enterprise definitions, and loads the information into a Data warehouse. The data warehouse then sends subsets of the information to data marts. Data mart contains a subset of data warehouse information.

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Extraction, Transformation, and Loading(ETL) process

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Enterprise Application Integration(EAI)

• Software integration is the #1 IT priority today• It is also the most complex and expensive

problem to solve• About 30% - 40% of all IT costs are integration-

related• Approximately 1/2 of all integration costs are

adapter-related• Adapters represent the highest incremental cost

of software integration• Each software system that needs to be

integrated requires an adapter

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Definition of EAI

EAI is the process of integrating applications and database

systems into a unified software system capable of

supporting:

– On-demand data exchange

– Collaboration of shared functions

– Consolidation & Transformation of data into information

– Automating data synchronization

– Automating business process

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Definition of EAI

– Definition: The process of integrating multiple applications that were independently developed, may use incompatible technology, and remain independently managed.

– By this definition, EAI would include:• Business Process Integration• Enterprise Information Integration

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Business ApplicationBusiness Application

Typical Architecture of EAI

Database DatabaseFunction Function

DataIntegration

BrokerAdapter Adapter

WebServicesBroker

Adapter Adapter

SOAP

XML

Transformer

UDDI

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Web Technology Merits of Cascading Style Sheets

• Cascading style sheets tell the browser, through a set of rules, how to present a document. If you need to change a style element on the Web pages associated with a website, you only need to update a single file, as opposed to all the Web pages

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Web Technology Merits of Extensible Style Language

• XML has been used widely especially in e-business sector.

• XSL allows you to specify how to display a Web page and also the type of client device, enabling the designer to standardize the appearance of a Web page across devices.

• Various ways to apply web page

• etc