CCT 355: E-Business Technologies

Lecture 4: E-business Network Infrastructure

Administrivia

Competitive Intelligence Assignment proposals - hand in today - review this week and returned with comments next week (if not earlier - depends on schedule)

MIA for a few days potentially this weekend

Infrastructure Concepts

Infrastructure provides foundation of all activity

Is expressly political and yet rather mundane - most successful infrastructures are out of sight and mind

Bowker/Star - infrastructural choices strong guiding force on what’s to follow`

Basics - client-server model Client initiates request, provides raw data Server accepts data, processes it, returns

result Dumb to smart clients Servers specialized processing machines

- not always the best (e.g., mail/Web servers)

Clients can serve and vice-versa - ex?

N-Tiered approach

Presentation, processing and data tiers to coordinate display, data handling, and data storage

Functionally specialized units can be updated without large-scale disruption, replicated and mirrored for more resiliency

Example: Dynamic Web Old web models simple client/server - client

offers request, server handles and returns page (usually static)

Data-driven pages - page does not “exist” but is compiled through integration with database on request, results returned as static

Driven by client (e.g., applets) and server (e.g., servlets, web applications) depending on needs

Examples? How do you think they work?

Example: EDI Required data transmission for corporate

transactions (esp. in complex supply chains run on JIT method)

Often hardwired value-added networks and standard formats based on agreements

Hardwired business rules and networks - limits breadth of use, increasing complexity and cost

Example: Workflow

Coordination of logical steps in process Multiple clients and servers, each with

interests at different levels of process Coordinates analysis and improvement of

models (build-time) and sequencing/interaction (run-time)

Types of Workflow

Production - coordination of deliverables, bottlenecks, critical junctures

Administrative - handling of non-critical but essential administrative tasks

Ad-hoc and collaborative - open processes defined by users but still require sharing and coordination

EDI Issues

Fixed information sets - can be hard to integrate and unintuitive (e.g., product/industry codes)

Resilient to change - rigidity stifles innovation and change - change hard to replicate across VANs

Promise and Peril of Networks

Networked data interchange and processing a key element of e-business

Networked environment in business - advantages and drawbacks?

Networked Organizations

Links and nodes (and centrality/holes) Nodes structured by functional

boundaries within environments Complex web of interdependencies Shared and conflicting local/global goals

Network Principles Stable vs. dynamic (e.g., EDI vs. ad-hoc

workflow systems) Internal vs. external linkages (e.g. work teams

vs. communities of practice) Strong and weak ties (e.g., family/close friends

vs. acquaintances, colleagues) Tightly vs. loosely coupled (e.g., focused and

hardwired vs. adhoc) Environmental factors (e.g, Cynefin model)

Strength: Wikinomics

Network of mass collaboration - central location drive by active creative user base sharing content

Economic benefits can be extraordinary if leveraged properly - although long-term success does remain to be seen at one level

Weakness: Upside of Down Tightly coupled, efficient networks can

propagate chaos as well as production (e.g., collapse of Asian currencies in 1997, stock market crash virtuous cycles)

Complex ecologies can function within limits, hit bifurcation point, and collapse entirely and violently with no protection

Resilience vs. connectivity - the importance of backup networks, even if inefficient (ex?)

Next week

Chs. 5, rest of 10 in book Third round of presentation Competitive Intelligence proposals

returned (at latest - due following week)