chapter 5 Flashcards
What is IT infrastructure?
Physical devices and software applications essential for enterprise operations, shared technology resources provide a platform.
Evolution of IT infrastructure
- 1965: less expensive DEC minicomputers introduced
- Personal computer era: 1981 to present
- Client/server era: 1983 to present
- Enterprise computing era: 1992 to present
- Cloud and mobile computing: 2000 to present
What caused the evolution?
Development in computer processing
Memory chips
Storage devices
Telecommunication
Networking software and hardware
- As computing power increased costs reduced
Technology drivers of infrastructure evolution
- Moore’s law and microprocessing power
- Law of Mass Digital Storage
- Metcalfe’s Law and network economics
- Declining communication costs and the
Internet - Standards and network effects
Moore’s law and microprocessing power
the number of transistors on a chip doubles
computing power doubles
the price of computing falls by half
every 18 months.
Law of Mass Digital Storage
The amount of data being stored each year doubles
Why is it important for the growth in hard drive capacity to be exponential?
the world is producing an increasing amount of digital information requiring storage each year as well.
Metcalfe’s Law and network economics
Value or power of a network grows exponentially as a function of the number of network members
As network members increase, more people want to use it (demand for network access increases)
standards definition
Standards are specifications that establish the compatibility of products and the ability to communicate in a network
Technical standards
Unleash powerful economies of scale and result in price declines as manufacturers focus on the products built to a single standard
Infrastructure components
IT Infrastructure has seven main components
Computer hardware platforms
Operating system platforms
Enterprise software applications
Data management and storage
Networking/telecommunications platforms
Internet platforms
Consulting system integration services
Computer hardware platforms
Client machines
Desktop PCs, mobile devices—PDAs, laptops
Servers
Blade servers: ultrathin computers stored in racks
Mainframes:
IBM mainframe equivalent to thousands of blade servers
Top chip producers: AMD, Intel, IBM
Top firms: IBM, HP, Dell, Sun Microsystems
- Operating system platforms
Server level: 65% run Unix or Linux; 35% run Windows
Client level:
90% run Microsoft Windows (XP, 2000, CE, etc.)
Mobile/multitouch (Android, iOS)
Cloud computing (Google’s Chrome OS)
This data is old (it is updated now)
Classwork activity (find the updated data)
- Enterprise software applications
Enterprise application providers: SAP and Oracle
Middleware providers: BEA
- Data management and storage
Database software:
IBM (DB2), Oracle, Microsoft (SQL Server), Sybase (Adaptive Server Enterprise), MySQL
Physical data storage:
EMC Corp (large-scale systems), Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital
Storage area networks (SANs):
Connect multiple storage devices on dedicated network
