Chapter 3 E-business Infrastructure

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Dave Chaffey, E-Business and E-Commerce Management, 3rd Edition © Marketing Insights Ltd 2007

CHAPTER 3E-BUSINESS INFRASTRUCTURE

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Learning outcomes Outline the hardware and software

technologies used to build an e-business infrastructure within an organisation and with its partners

Outline the hardware and software requirements necessary to enable employee access to the Internet and hosting ofe-commerce services.

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E-business infrastructure The architecture of hardware, software.

Content and data used to deliver e-business services to employees, customers and partners

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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.

Figure 3.1 A five-layer model of e-business infrastructure

Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure

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

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What is the Internet?

“The Internet, sometimes called simply "the Net," is a worldwide system of computer networks - a network of networks in which users at any one computer can, if they have permission, get information from any other computer”

-whatis.com

“A global network connecting millions of computers. More than 100 countries are linked into exchanges of data, news and opinions.

-webopedia.com

“is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons”

-FNC

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

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London Internet Exchange

•Located in Docklands area in East London

•Second large IX in Europe

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Malaysia and Internet

Internet Usage Statistics:13,528,200 Internet users as of Sept/2006, 47.8% of the population, according to M.C.M.C.

Malaysia Internet Exchange (MyIX) Established in November, 2003 Launched on 15th December 2006 3 nodes connected in AIMS, NCC and TPM Jaring

Table 3.2 Six stages of advances in the dissemination of information

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Clay tablets Guternberg Press

Figure 3.3 A five-layer model of e-business infrastructure

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How big is the Internet?

Over 1 billion Internet users worldwide How big the infrastructure they

accessing? Measured by number of servers Number of pages indexed by search

engines 2006: 9 billion pages Dec 2007:????

Figure 3.4 The Netcraft index of number of serversSource: Netcraft Web Server Survey. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web server survey.html. Netcraft, http://netcraft.com

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Intranet and extranet

Intranet: A private network within a single company

using Internet standards to enable employees to share information

Extranet: Formed by extending an intranet beyond a

company to customers, suppliers and collaborators

Figure 3.5 The relationship between intranets, extranets and the Internet

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Intranet applications

Used extensively for supporting sell-side e-commerce

Also used for internal marketing communications

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Extranet applications

Used to provide online services which are restricted to business customers

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Business benefits of extranet Information sharing Cost reduction Order processing and distribution Customer service

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Premier Dell.com

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Questions on extranet?

Are the levels of usage sufficient? Is it effective and efficient? Who has ownership of the extranet? What are the levels of service quality? Is the quality of information adequate?

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Use of extranet on global basis

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Firewalls

A specialized software mounted on a separate server at the point where the company is connected to the Internet

Use to protect information on the company

Figure 3.6 Firewall positions within the e-business infrastructure of theB2B company

Figure 3.7 Information exchange between a web browser and web server

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What is the Internet?

World Wide Web – standard method for exchanging information on the Internet

Web browsers – a method of accessing and viewing information stored as web documents

Web servers – store and present the web pages

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World Wide Web

Based on standard document formats such as HTML Offers hyperlink Supports a wide range of formatting Can integrate graphics and animations Make interactions possible

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Web 2.0

It isn’t a new web standard Just an evolution of technologies and

communication approaches Some main characteristics:

Web services or interactive applications hosted on the Web

Ad funding of neutral sites Encouraging creation of user-generated

content Enabling rating of content

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del.icio.us

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Internet tools

E-mail Instant messaging (IM) and Internet Relay Chat

(IRC) Usenet newsgroups FTP file transfer Telnet Blogs RSS (Really Simple Syndication) World Wide Web IPTV BitTorrent

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Blogs

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RSS

An Internet standard for publishing and exchanging content using XML

Content can be published on a site that originates from another site

New method of distributing messages to subscribers

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RSS

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RSS feeds

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VOIP

Voice data is transferred across the Internet – it enables phone calls to be made over the Internet Peer-to-peer Hosted service Complete replacement of all telephone

systems Upgrading telephone systems

Figure 3.8 The TCP/IP protocol

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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

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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.

Figure 3.9 Home page index.html for The B2B Company in a web browser showing HTML source in text editor

Figure 3.10 (a) Fragmented applications infrastructure, (b) integrated applications infrastructureSource: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000)

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XML exampleProduct><Action Value5”Delete”/><ProductID>118003-008</ProductID></Product><Product Type5”Good” SchemaCategoryRef5”C43171801”><ProductID>140141-002</ProductID><UOM><UOMCoded>EA</UOMCoded></UOM><Manufacturer>Compaq</Manufacturer><LeadTime>2</LeadTime><CountryOfOrigin><Country><CountryCoded>US</CountryCoded></Country></CountryOfOrigin>

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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

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Who controls the Internet?

ICANN The Internet Society (www.isoc.org) The Internet Engineering Task Force

(IETF) The World Wide Web Consortium (

www.w3.org) Telecommunications Information

Networking Architecture Consortium TINA-C

http://www.isoc.org/

http://www.w3.org/

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Managing e-business infrastructure Layer II – Systems software

Standardization throughout organization Layer III – Transport or network

Based on internal company network Laver IV – Storage

Based on company needs

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Internet service providers (ISP) ISP connection method Speed of access Availability Service-level agreements Security

Figure 3.11 Differing use of applications at levels of management within companies

Figure 3.12 Elements of e-business infrastructure that require management

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New access devices

Mobile access devices Wi-Fi mobile access Bluetooth Next-generation mobile services Interactive digital television

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Bluetooth

Figure 3.13 Mobile access technologies

Figure 3.14 Components of an interactive digital TV system

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Summary

1. The Internet is a global communications network that is used to transmit the information published on the World Wide Web (WWW) in a standard format based on Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) using different standard protocols such as HTTP and TCP/IP

2. Companies deliver e-business services to employees and partners through web servers which are often hosted at third-party companies known as ‘Internet service providers’ (ISPs). Web servers will be linked to applications servers, database servers and legacy applications to deliver these services

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Summary

3. Consumers and business users access these e-business services using web browser software, with connections to the Internet also managed by an ISP through which they can access web servers

4. Intranets are private networks used inside companies to share information. Internet-based tools such as e-mail, FTP, and the World Wide Web are all used as methods of sharing this information. Not all Internet users can access intranets since access is restricted by firewalls and password controls. Extranets are similar to intranets, but they are extended beyond the company to third parties such as suppliers, distributors or selected customers

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Summary

5. Standards to enable delivery of information include:• Communications standards such as TCP/IP and HTTP• Text information standards such as HTML, XML, and

WML• Graphical information standards such as GIF dan

JPEG• Multimedia standards such as Shockwave, Flash and

streaming audio and video

6. Managing staff access to the Internet involves taking decisions about the number of staff with access and how much time can be permitted and the nature of monitoring used for e-mails and web pages

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Summary

7. Managers need to decide on internal or external management of the technology and applications infrastructure of an organization

8. Electronic data interchange (EDI) involves the structured transfer of information, particularly for online B2B purchasing transactions. It can now occur over the Internet as Internet EDI

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Summary

9. Applications service providers are increasingly important as businesses look to reduce infrastructure costs and improve e-business service delivery through external hosting of applications and data outside an organization

10. Managers of e-commerce services need to monitor the adoption of new access devices for the Internet including mobile phones and interactive digital TV. An e-commerce infrastructure should be designed to readily enable new access media to be supported as they develop

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Chapter 3 E-business Infrastructure