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Management Information Systems

MANAGING THE DIGITAL FIRM, 12TH EDITION GLOBAL EDITION

Chapter 5
IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 5: IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

IT Infrastructure

• IT infrastructure:
– Set of physical devices and software required to operate enterprise
– Set of firmwide services including:
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Computing platforms providing computing services
Telecommunications services
Data management services
Application software services
Physical facilities management services
IT management, standards, education, research and development services – “Service platform” perspective more accurate view of value of investments
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© Pearson Education 2012

Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 5: IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

IT Infrastructure

• Evolution of IT infrastructure
– General-purpose mainframe & minicomputer era: 1959 to present • 1958 IBM first mainframes introduced
• 1965 Less expensive DEC minicomputers introduced

– Personal computer era: 1981 to present

• 1981 Introduction of IBM PC
• Proliferation in 80s, 90s resulted in growth of personal software

– Client/server era: 1983 to present

• Desktop clients networked to servers, with processing work split between clients and servers
• Network may be two-tiered or multitiered (N-tiered)
• Various types of servers (network, application, Web)

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© Pearson Education 2012

Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 5: IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

IT Infrastructure

• Evolution of IT infrastructure (cont.)
– Enterprise computing era: 1992 to present
• Move toward integrating disparate networks, applications using Internet standards and enterprise applications – Cloud Computing: 2000 to present
• Refers to a model of computing where firms and individuals obtain computing power and software applications over the Internet or