Riview chapter 5 : IT Infrastructure and Emerging Technologies

In Chapter, we defined information technology (IT) infrastructure as the shared technology possessions that deliver the platform for the firm’s specific information system applications. IT infrastructure  includes outlay in hardware, software, and services such as consulting education, and training. IT infrastructure consists of a set of physical devices and software applications that are required to operate the entire enterprise. But IT infrastructure is also a set of firm wide services budgeted by management and comprising both human and technical capabilities. There are 5 stages in IT infrastructure evolution which is starting from the beginning of widespread commercial use of CPU computers, personal computer, computers that provide the client computers, enterprise-wide computing, and lastly now is the Cloud and Mobile Computing Era.

There are seven main modules that must be matched to provide the firm with a coherent IT infrastructure. There are computer hardware stages, operating system stages, enterprise software applications, networking telecommunications, consultants and system integrations, data managements and storage, and internet platforms.

Contemporary hardware platform trends starting by the grid computing, involves connecting geographically remote computers into a single network is  to create a virtual processer by combining the computational power of all computers on the grid. Second is virtualization, Virtualization is the process of presenting a set of computing resources (such as computing power or data storage) so that they can all be accessed in ways that are not restricted by physical configuration or geographic location. Then, we introduced cloud computing, in which firms and individuals obtain computer processing, storage, software, and other services as a pool of virtualized resources over a network, primarily the Internet. By curbing hardware proliferation and power consumption, virtualization has become one of the principal machineries for promoting green computing. With great are schedules encompassing many thousands of schmoosed policies, computer systems have changed so complex today that some experts believe they may not be controllable in the upcoming. One style to allocating with this tricky is to employ autonomic computing. four main themes in contemporary software platform progression: Linux and open source software, Java and Ajax, Web services and service-oriented architecture Software outsourcing and cloud services.

Creating and managing a coherent IT infrastructure raises multiple challenges for example when trade with stand and technology change (including cloud and mobile  computing), management and governance, and making intelligent structure funds.