Information architecture identifies where and how important information, like customer records is maintained and secured. Whereas information infrastructure includes the hardware software and telecommunication equipment that, when together provides the underlying foundation to support the organisation’s goals. They both differ as enterprise information architecture focuses on a backup and recovery, disaster recovery and information security. However, information infrastructure focuses on flexibility, scalability, reliability, availability and performance. They both relate to each other as without infrastructure architecture which includes hardware’s etcetera information architecture will not be able to identify import information. In a business there needs to be a flexible, available, reliable and scalability system; hence the business will need a backup and recovery system for reliability and disaster recovery plans. However the business will also need a security system which will allow good performance.
unknown,2009, Technology consultants Integra. www.integratc.com/business_value_framework.asp
2.Describe how an organisation can implement a solid information architecture?
An organisation can implement a solid information architecture by having a backup and recovery strategy in place. This includes a backup in an exact copy of a system’s information, which may be presented in a redundant storage server, tape, disk, CD or/and DVD. All these different types of backup and recovery media are solid and reliable. Organisations should implement a disaster recovery plan to prepare for disasters. To develop a solid information architecture, an organisation should have a location of the backup information preferably in an off-site facility. This hot-site is a separate and fully equipped room where the organisation can move immediately after a disaster and resume business. Also part of information architecture is the disaster recovery cost curve which an organisation should implement as this charts the cost of the unavailability of information and technology and the cost of recovery from a disaster over time. To have a solid information architecture an organisation should implement a business continuity plan which is a plan for how a business will recover and restore partially or completely interrupted functions within a predetermined time after a disaster. For example the organisation can consult with a technology company headquarters in a different state and have a solution in involving a virtual cluster of new and existing servers and storage hardware containing replications. Single sign on for password management is a solid information architecture strategy an organisation should implement as it ensures their data is secured. Up-to-date antivirus software and patches is also essential as it prevents hackers, spamming and other malcontents from entering the organisations network and infecting it. Microsoft issues patches for its software on the second Tuesday of every month, for an organisation to have a solid information architecture they should download and install this on all systems to keep the company protected.
-Floppy disk-backup data
-Example of a hotsite unkown,Smart Business Infomation Technology, 2010,
http://bizitc.com/edge/taking-a-new-leap-with-business-information-technology/
3. List and describe the five requirement characteristics of infrastructure architecture.
Flexibility – Organisation’s systems must be flexible enough to meet all types of business changes, for example a system might be designed to include the ability to handle multiple currencies and languages.
Scalability – An organisation should have a system that adapts to increased demands. The business should perform a capacity plan to ensure the IT infrastructure is scalable.
Reliability – An organisation should ensure that all systems are functioning correctly and providing accurate information.
Availability – Availability addresses when systems can be accesses by users. It is a requirement for a global company to have an available system for 24/7 to support business operations and global consumers and employees needed.
Performance – This measures how quickly a system performs a certain process or transaction. This is a requirement as a customer will only wait a few seconds for a website to return a request before giving up and moving on. Therefore to ensure adaptable systems performance, capacity planning helps an organisation determine future IT infrastructure requirements for new equipment and network capacity.
Solid Infrastructure Architecture – Key Characteristics4. Describe the business value in deploying a service oriented architecture?
A service oriented architecture is a business-driven IT architectural approach that supports integrating a business as linked, repeatable tasks or services. A business will value deploying a SOA as it helps today’s businesses innovate by ensuring that It systems can adapt fast, easily financially to support rapidly changing business needs. It is of great value in deploying as it increases the businesses flexibility of their processes, strengthens their underlying IT architecture, and resumes their existing investments by creating connections among disparate applications and information sources. This system a way of thinking, an approach and a value system as it leads to certain decisions when designing a concrete architecture. SOA allows businesses to plug in new services or upgrade existing services in a coarse fashion. This is of great value to a business as it enables them to address the new requirements, provide the option to make the services consumable across different channels and expose the existing companies and legacy applications as services, hence safeguarding existing IT infrastructure investments.
The key technical concepts of a SOA which are of great value to a business is its service (a business task), interoperability - which is two or more computer systems able to share data and resources, even though they are made by different manufactures and loose coupling which is the capability of service to be joined together on demand to create composite services just as easily into their functional components.
The service oriented architecture allow the business to check its business tasks like checking a potential customers credit rate when opening a new account. Which is of great value of the business, because if a business sells their service or product to a customer with a bad credit rating they can therefore loose finances if the customer does not pay back. SOA helps organisations become more agile by supporting businesses needs and the IT capabilities that support these needs. SOA is about helping companies apply reusability and flexibility that can lower cost, increase revenue and obtain sustainable competitive advantage through technology.
Interoperability is of great value to a business as it integrates information to make it more accessible to employees, understands how business processes interact to better manage administrative costs, improve customer retention and deliver new products and services through reuse of current investments and lastly improve people productivity with better business integration and connectivity.
Part of the value of SOA is that it is built on the premise of loose coupling of services. Loose coupling is a way of ensuring that the technical details like language are decoupled from the service. For example by creating a common service of ‘conversion of currency’ that is loosely coupled to all banking functions that requires conversion, the rates, times and sampling, it can be averaged to ensure floating the treasury in the most effective manner.
5. What is an event?
Event – is an electronic message indicating that something has happened, it detect threats and opportunities and alerts those who can act on the information.
-Example of an event
Cart,Z, 2010, Computering
www.ccworld.co.uk/images/hdfloppy.jpg
6. What is a service?
Service – contains a set of related commands that can be re-used, it is more like a software product than they are a coding project.
-example of a service Cart,Z, 2010, Computering
www.ccworld.co.uk/images/hdfloppy.jpg
7. What emerging technologies can companies use to increase performance and utilise their infrastructure more effectively?
Virtualisation is a framework that increases physical resources to maximize investment in hardware. It is achieved through a framework which divides the resource of a computer into multiple execution environments. A virtual machine is a computer program which enables users to access multiple resources on a single computer as if it were several computers. Virtualsation has streamlined disaster recovery and reduces capital costs through energy efficiency and reduction in hardware infrastructure. Grid Computing is an aggregation of geographically dispersed computing, storage and network resources. Combined, these factors are coordinated to deliver improved performances, higher quality of services, better utilization and easier access to data.
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