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Chapter 3E-business Infrastructure

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Learning objectives

• 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 of e-commerce services.

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Issues for managers

• What are the practical risks to the organization of failure to adequately managee-commerce infrastructure?

• How should staff access to the Internet be managed?

OHT 3.4

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Why the jargon?

• Why do business managers need to know about the jargon and technology?

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Internet infrastructurecomponents

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

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Information exchange between a web browser and web server

Figure 3.7 Information exchange between a web browser and web server

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History of the Internet

Figure 3.3 Internet timeline

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Intranets and extranets

Figure 3.4 The relationship between intranets, extranets and the Internet

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TCP/IP protocol

Figure 3.9 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.

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HTML Example

Figure 3.10 Home page index.html for The B2B Company in a web browser showing HTML source in text editor

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XML example

Product><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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Differing use of applications at different levels in a company

Figure 3.16 Differing use of applications at levels of management within companies

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Elements of e-business infrastructure requiring management

Figure 3.17  Elements of e-business infrastructure that require management

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Mobile access platforms

Figure 3.19  Mobile access technologies

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3G mobile example

The main features are: • Dual mode 2G/3G device supporting data upload of 64 kbps and download of 384 kbps (used for videos), 65,536 colour display of 46 x 57mm (132 x 162 pixels)• Web browsing• Two cameras for picture and video• Download and playing of audio and video e.g football• Supports MPEG4 and WMA files • Download and play games using JAVA(TM) technology • Qwerty keyboard, Email and word processing.

Source: www.nec.com/3gsmworldcongress/press/images/e808.jpg

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iDTV – interactive TV

Figure 3.21 Components of an interactive digital TV system