E-business infrastructure

1. E-business infrastructure Chapter 3

2. Learning outcomes Outline the hardware and software technologies used to build an e-business infrastructure within an organization and with its partners Outline the hardware and software requirements necessary to enable employee access to the Internet and hosting of e-commerce services.

3. Management issues What are the practical risks to the organization of failure to manage e-commerce infrastructure adequately? How should staff access to the Internet be managed? How should we evaluate the relevance of web services and open source software?

4. Activity – Internet infrastructure components Write down all the different types of hardware and software involved from when a user types in a web address such as www.google.com to the web site being loaded

5. Activity 3.1 Infrastructure risk assessment Make a list of the potential problems for customers of an online retailer You should consider problems faced by users of e-business applications who are both internal and external to the organization Base your answer on problems you have experienced on a web site that can be related to network, hardware and software failures or problems with data quality

6. Typical problems Web site communications too slow Web site not available Bugs on site through pages being unavailable or information typed in forms not being executed Ordered products not delivered on time E-mails not replied to Customers’ privacy or trust is broken through security problems such as credit cards being stolen or addresses sold to other companies

7. E-Commerce Infrastructure Articulate what e-commerce infrastructure include Are there any differences between a large organization and a small one?

8. Figure 3.1 This model should not be viewed just from layered perspective

9. Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure

10. Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure (Continued)

11. Figure 3.2 Physical and network infrastructure components of the Internet(Levels IV and III in Figure 3.1)

12. Figure 3.3 Example hosting provider Rackspace (www.rackspace.com)

13. Figure 3.4 Timeline of major developments in the use of the web

14. Figure 3.5 The Netcraft index of number of serversSource: Netcraft web Server Survey. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html. Netcraft

15. Intranet and Extranet Applications What applications can an Intranet support? What applications can an extranet support?

16. Figure 3.6 Firewall positions within the e-business infrastructure of the B2B company

17. Activity – a common problem with intranets and extranets A B2B Company has found that after an initial surge of interest in its intranet and extranet, usage has declined dramatically. The e-business manager wants to achieve these aims: Increase usage Produce more dynamic content Encouraging more clients to order (extranet) What would you suggest?

18. Suggested answers Identify benefits Involve staff with development Find system sponsors, owners and advocates Training Keep content fresh, relevant and where possible, fun Use e-mail to encourage usage

19. Web Technology Browser Server

20. Figure 3.9 Browsershots (www.browsershots.org) – a service for testing cross-browser compatibility

21. Applications • Intranet • Extranet • Internet

22. Intranet Applications • Intranets are used extensively for supporting sell-side e-commerce from within the marketing function. They are also used to support core supply-chain management activities as described in the next section on extranets..

23. A marketing intranet has the following advantages: • Reduced product lifecycles _ as information on product development and marketing campaigns is rationalized we can get products to market faster. • Reduced costs through higher productivity, and savings on hard copy. • Better customer service _ responsive and personalized support with staff accessing customers over the web. • Distribution of information through remote offices nationally or globally

24. Intranets are also used for internal marketing communications since they can include the following types of information: • Staff phone directories; • Staff procedures or quality manuals; • Information for agents such as product specifications, current list and discounted prices, competitor information, factory schedules, and stocking levels, all of which normally have to be updated frequently and can be costly; • Staff bulletin or newsletter; • Training courses.

25. Extranet Applications • Although an extranet may sound complex, from a user point of view it is straightforward. If you have bought a book or CD online and have been issued with a username and password to access your account, then you have used an extranet. This is a consumer extranet.

26. Although an extranet may sound complex, from a user point of view it is straightforward. If you have bought a book or CD online and have been issued with a username and password to access your account, then you have used an extranet. This is a consumer extranet.

27. Internet Applications Atomisation concept Widget Blogs Feeds IPTV Peer-to-peer Social networks Tagging VOIP

28. Internet Applications How are the tools mentioned in the last slide relevant to e-commerce?

29. Figure 3.11 Personalized feed home page from iGoogle (www.igoogle.com)

30. Figure 3.12 Joost service

31. URLS and domain names Web addresses are structured in a standard way as follows: http://www.domain-name.extension/filename.html What do the following extensions or global top level domains stand for? .com .co.uk, .uk.com .org or .org.uk .gov .edu, .ac.uk .int .net .biz .info

32. Protocol Host or hostname Subdomain Domain name Top-level domain or TLD Second-level domain (SLD) The port The path URL parameter Anchor or fragment

33. Figure 3.1 This model should not be viewed just from layered perspective

34. Firewalls • Firewalls are necessary when creating an intranet or extranet to ensure that outside access to confidential information does not occur. Firewalls are created as software mounted on a separate server at the point where the company is connected to the Internet. Firewall software can then be configured to only accept links from trusted domains representing other offices in the company. A firewall has implications for e-marketing since staff accessing a web site from work may not be able to access some content such as graphics plug-ins.

35. How does DNS service work? • Domain Name System (DNS) is a database system that translates a computer's fully qualified domain name into an IP address. • Networked computers use IP addresses to locate and connect to each other, but IP addresses can be difficult for people to remember. • For example, on the web, it's much easier to remember the domain name www.amazon.com than it is to remember its corresponding IP address (207.171.166.48). DNS allows you to connect to another networked computer or remote service by using its user-friendly domain name rather than its numerical IP address.

36. HTML and XML HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)A standard format used to define the text and layout of web pages. HTML files usually have the extension .HTML or .HTM XML or eXtensible Markup Language A standard for transferring structured data, unlike HTML which is purely presentational

37. Figure 3.13 The TCP/IP protocol

38. Semantic Web Interrelated content with defined meaning, enabling better exchange of information between computers and between peoples and computers

39. Figure 3.15 Architecture of semantic web system used at Electricite de France

40. Media standards GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) A graphics format and compression algorithm best used for simple graphics JPEG (Joint Photographics Experts Group) A graphics format and compression algorithm best used for photographs Streaming media Sound and video that can be experienced within a web browser before the whole clip is downloaded e.g. Real Networks .rm format Video standards include MPEG and .AVI Sound standards include MP3 and WMA

41. How does it work? Internet standards • TCP/IP • TCP/IP development was led by Robert Kahn and Vince Cerf in the late 1960s and early 1970s and, according to Leiner et al. (200), four rules controlled Kahn’s early work on this protocol. These four rules highlight the operation of the TCP/IP protocol: • Distinct networks would be able to communicate seamlessly with other networks. • Communications would be able on a best-effort basis, that is, if a data packet did not reach the final destination, it would be retransmitted from the source until successful receipt.

42. Black boxes would be used to companies such as Cisco and 3com. In order to keep them simple there would be no information retained by the ‘gateways’. • There would be no global control of transmissions _ these would be governed by the requester and sender of information.

43. The HTTP protocol • HTTP, the Hypertext transfer protocol is the standard used to allow web browsers and servers to transfer requests for delivery of web pages their embedded graphics. When you click on a link while viewing a web site, your web browser will request information from the server computer hosting the web site using HTTP.

44. Uniform resource locators (URLs) • Web addresses refer to particular page on a web server which is hosted by a company or organization. The technical name for web address is uniform (or universal) resource locator (URL). URLs can be thought of as a standard method of addressing, similar to postcodes or ZIP codes, that make it straightforward to find the name of a site.

45. Domain names • The domain name refers to the name of the web server and is usually selected to be the same as the name of the company, and the extension will indicate its type. The extension is also commonly known as the generic top-level domain (gTLD). Note that gTLDs are currently under discussion and there are proposals for adding new types such as. Store and firm.

46. Domain name registration • Most companies are likely to own several domains, perhaps for different product lines or countries or for specific marketing campaigns. Domain name disputes can arise when an individual or company has registered a domain name which another company claims they have the right to. This is sometimes referred to as ‘cyber-squatting’.

47. Internet Governance Net Neutrality Principle What it is Should it be upheld? What two forces are threatening net neutrality? What’s your opinion on this matter?

48. Internet Governance Internet Corp. for assigning names and numbers-http://www.icann.org What is the equivalency in Canada? http://www.cira.ca/home-en/?lang=en Internet Society-www.isoc.org Internet Engineering Force—www.ietf.org WWW Consortium-www.w3.org

49. Open Source vs. Commercial

50. Managing e-business Infrastructure As explained at the start of the chapter, e-business infrastructure comprises hardware, software, content and data used to deliver e-business infrastructure by reviewing different perspectives on the infrastructure. There are: Hardwar and systems software infrastructure. This refers mainly to the hardware and network infrastructure discussed in the previous sections. It includes the provision of clients, services, network services and also systems software such as operating systems and browsers (layers II, III and IV in figure 3.1). Applications infrastructure. This refers to the applications software used to deliver services to employees, customers and other partners (layer I in figure 3.1).