Week 6 Questions - Enterprise Architectures

Chapter 5 - Weekly Questions

1. What is information architecture and what is information infrastructure and how do they differ and how do they relate to each other?

Information architecture identifies where and how important information, such as customer records, is maintained and secured. (Baltzen, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey 2010, p.214)
Information infrastructure refers to the communications networks and associated software that support interaction among people and organisations (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Information_infrastructure, August 2008).
Information Architecture is a field and approach to designing clear, understandable communications by giving care to structure, context, and presentation of data and information.  An information technology infrastructure however, is the base or foundation for the delivery of information to support programs and management (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091105224725AAFgLHi, 2011)

2. Describe how an organisation can implement a solid information architecture?
 An organisation can implement an information architecture through the following:
• Back up and recovery
• Disaster recovery
• Information security
• Making information architecture more responsive
• Improve productivity

3. List and describe the five requirement characteristics of infrastructure architecture? 
The five characteristics of infrastructure architecture iinclude:
1. Flexibility – In order to adapt to changes, businesses must be flexible.
2. Scalability – how well a sysetm can adapt to increase demands for e.g organisational growth and market and economic factors
3. Realiabilty - Ensures all systems are functioning correctly and providing accurate information.
4. Availability - Addresses when systems can be accessed by users. High availability refers to a system or component that is continuously operational for a length of  time.
5. Performance - Measures how quickly a system performs a certain process or transactions
(Baltzen, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey 2010, pp. 221-222)

4. Describe the business value in delploying a service oriented architecture?
A service oriented architecture is using different systems to meet different demands. A service does the same thing over and over again and can be applied to many situations.

5. What is an event?An event are the eyes and ears of the business expressed in technology - they detect threats and opportunities and alert those who can act on the information.(Baltzen, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey 2010, p.224)


6. What is a service?
Services are more like software products then they are coding projects. They must appeal to a broad audience, and they need to be reusable if they are going to have an impact on productivity. (Baltzen, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey 2010, p.224)

7. What emerging technologies can companies use to increase performance and utilise their infrastructure more effectively?

There are two ways in which companies can use emerging technologies to increase performance and utilise their infrastructure in an organisation. These predominantly compose of virtualisation and grid computing. Virtualisation is described as structure for the portioning of computer resources into numerous implementation surroundings. Grid computering refers to the combining of geographically spreaded computering, storage and network resources that synchronise to bring enhanced performance abilities, better service quality, improved operations and data access in which can be effortlessly accessed.

References

Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey. 2010. Business Driven Information Systems. McGraw Hill. Sydney, Australia.

Information Infrastructure - Sourcewatch n.d., viewed 31 March 2011, <www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=information_infrastructure>

Differentiate between information technology infrastructure and information technology architecture? 2011, viewed 31 March 2011, <http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091105224725AAFgLHi>

Week 5 Questions - Ethics and Security

1. Explain the ethical issues surrounding information technology?

Ethical issues that have surrounded information technology have increased overtime. Advances in technology have made it easier for people to copy things such as movies, music and pictures. Some ethical issues that are technology related include:

• intellectual property - rights that protect creative and intellectual effort
• copyright - exclusive right to do, or omit to do, cerain acts with intangible property
• pirated software -unauthorised use, duplication, distribution of copyrighted software

2. Describe a situation involving technology that is ethical but illegal?

3. Describe and explain one of the computer use policies that a company might employee?

One computer use policiy that could be implemented by  a company could be an email privacy policy.
For instance, a sent amial is sent to 3 or 4 different computers. Simply deleting an email from one comupter does not delete from the other computers. Companies can therefore mitigate many of the risks using this system.

4. What are the 5 main technology security risks?

The five main security risks, include:

• Human Error
• Natural Disasters
• Technical Failures
• Delibriate Acts
• Management Failure

5. Outline one way to reduce each risk?

Ways to prevent security risks:

• Human error - Standard of training
• Natural Disasters - Should have diaster recover plan, for e.g data back up, communication plan
• Technical Failures - Robust system, backups
• Delibriate Acts - This includes hackers, unhappy employees, viruses and spams
• Management Failure - have some support training for managers in place

6. What is a disaster recovery plan, what stratergies might a firm employee?

 A disaster recovery is the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of technology infrastructure critical to an organization after a natural or human-induced disaster.
Some strategies that firm might implement include:

• Installing regualar virus updates
• Perform data restorations tests
• Back up all laptops and desktops
• Monitor implemenation, and
• perform off-site data back up and storage

REFERENCE LIST

Baltzen, Paige; Phillips, Amy; Lynch, Kathy; Blakey, Peter 2010, Business Driven Information Systems, McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd

Week 4 Questions - eBusiness

Chapter 3 Questions

1. What is an IP address? What is it's main function?

An IP address is a label assigned to each device partcipating in a computer network that uses the Internet protocol for communication. It's function include identifying interface network and locating addresses.

2. What is Web 2.0, how does it differ from 1.0?

Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social and technology trends that collectively form the basis for next generation of the Internet. Web 2.0 is a business revolution of computer industry caused by move to the internet as a platform.
This differs to Web 1.0 because the web is no longer just linking text; it is linking people.

3. What is Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 has been used to describe the evolution of web usage and interactions among several seperate paths. This includes: transforming web into database, evolution towards 3D, move towards making content accessible by multiple non-browser applications.

4. What is eBusiness, how does it differ to eCommerce?

e-Business is the conducting of business on the internet - not only buying and selling, but also serving customers and calloborating with business partners.

5. What is pure and partial eCommerce?

Pure e-commerce - concerns businesses whose transactions are largely carried out on the internet
Partial e-commerce - concerns businesses in which  a large part of the transaction takes place in the off-line real world.

6. List and describe the various eBusiness models?

e- business models take place between two main entities - business and consumer. The list of models include:

• Business-to-business (B2B) - Applies to businesses buying from and selling to each other over the internet
• Business-to-consumer (B2C) - Applies to any busiiness that sells its products or services to consumers over the internet
• Consumer-to-business (C2B) - Applies to any consumer that sells a product or service to a business over the internet
• Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) - Applies to sites primarily offering goods and services to assist consumers interacting with each other over the internet.

7. List and describe the major B2B models?

Online access to data, is widely supported by B2B models, it includes things such as: expected shipping date, delievery date and shipping status.
As well as that Electronic marketplaces represent new B2B models. It provides a central market where buyer and seller can interact in e-business activities. An e.g. would be Australian Automobile Network Exchange, which is an ASP that provides a secure communication netwok capable of hosting business to business transactions.

8. Outline 2 opportunities and 2 challenges faced by companies doing business online?

 Two opportunities for doing business online include:

• Marketing/sales - able to get there business accross and help grow, by providing customer acceptance by having on-line ads, pop-up ads or by podcasting there information.
• Financial services - making it easier for customer to purchase products online using credit card and other forms of payment making it easier to buy certain products and services from the business

   Two challenges for doing business online include:

• Subscription fees - Fixed fee barrier to entry for participants
• Transaction fees - If process savings are not completely visible, use of the system is discouraged. Transaction fees likely to decrease with time

Referene

Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey. 2010. Business Driven Information Systems. McGraw Hill. Sydney, Australia.