MIS 200: Chapter 5

Cloud Service Delivery Models

1) Infrastructure as a Service 2) Software as a Service 3) Platform as a Service

Components of Sustainable MIS Infrastructure

1. Grid Computing 2. Cloud Computing 3. Virtualization

High Availability

: Occurs when a system is continuously operational at all times.

Recovery

Ability to get a system up and running in the event of a system crash or failure that includes restoring the information backup. The primary differences b/ the different types of backup and recovery media, such as DVDs, are speed and cost.

System Virtualization

Ability to present the resources of a single PC as it it's a collection of separate PCS, each with its own virtual CPUs, network interfaces, storage, and operating system.

Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

All-encompassing emergency preparedness that details how a company recovers and restores critical business operations and systems after a disaster or extended disruption. Includes factors like identifying critical systems, business process, departments, and the max time the business can continue operating w/o functioning systems. Contains disaster recovery plans and others, such as business impact analysis, emergency notification plans, and technology recovery strategies.

Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

Brings together people from industry, disability organizations, government, and research labs from across the globe to develop guidelines and resources to help make the accessible to people with auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, and visual disabilities. Goal: Allow people access to the full potential of the web.

Green PC

Built using environmentally-friendly materials and designed to save energy.

Pressures driving sustainable MIS infrastructure

Carbon Emissions Energy Consumption Ewaste

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Cloud Service Delivery Model Delivers hardware networking capabilities, including the use of servers, networking, and storage, over the cloud using a pay-per-use revenue model. Customer rents the hardware and provide its own custom apps or programs; saves money by not having to spend a lot of capital purchasing expensive servers. Service is typically paid for on a usage basis. Offers a cost-effective solution for companies that need their computing resources to grow and shrink as business demand changes.

Grid Computing

Collection of computers, often geographically dispersed, that are coordinated to solve a common problem. Breaks down a problem and distributes the pieces to many machines, allowing faster processing than could occur on a single system. Links thousands of individual computers around the world to create a virtual supercomputer that can process intensive tasks. Makes better use of MIS resources, allowing greater scalability b/c systems can easily grow to handle peaks and valleys in demand, become more cost efficient, and solve problems that would be impossible to tackle w/ a single computer. Allows a company to work faster or more efficiently, providing a potential competitive advantage and additional cost savings.

Big Data as a Service (BDaaS)

Combination of infrastructure, platform, and data as a service; offers a cloud-based Big Data service to help organizations analyze massive amounts of data to solve business dilemmas. Describes a wide range of outsourcing of various Big Data functions to the cloud, such as the supply of data, the supply of analytical tools to interrogate the data, or the actual analysis of the data and providing reports.

Storage Virtualization

Combines multiple network storage devices so they appear to be a single storage device.

Network Virtualization

Combines networks by splitting the available bandwidth into independent channels that can be assigned in real time to a specific device.

Server Virtualization

Combines the physical resources, such as servers, processors, and operating systems, from applications. Most common kind of virtualization

Network

Communications system created by linking 2/2+ devices and establishing a standard methodology in which they can communicate. Used to run most hardware and software in today's business environment.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Companies' acknowledged responsibility to society. Building sustainable MIS infrastructures is a core initiative and critical success factor for socially responsible corporations.

Server

Computer dedicated to providing information in response to requests.

Client

Computer designed to request information from a server

Hardware

Consists of the physical devices associated with a computer system.

Incident Record

Contains all of the details of an incident.

Virtualization

Creates multiple virtual machines on a single computing device. Form of consolidation that can benefit sustainable MIS infrastructures in various ways One of the easiest and quickest ways to achieve a sustainable MIS infrastructure since it reduces power consumption and requires less equipment that needs to be manufactured, maintained, and later disposed of safely. One of the primary uses of virtualization is for performing backup, recovery, and disaster recovery Appear both to the user within and the world outside the system as separate computers, each with its own network identity, user authorization and authentication capabilities, operating system version and configuration, applications, and data.

Tenant

Customer in the cloud; multiple can access the same system

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Delivers applications over the cloud using a pay-per-use revenue model Offers a number of advantages, such as tremendous cost savings (software is priced on a per-use basis w/ no up-front costs), scalability, and flexibility. Extensions: Data as a Service, Software as a Service, Platform as a Service

Smart Grid

Delivers electricity using 2-way digital tech; meant to solve the problem of the world's outdated electrical grid, making it more efficient and reliable by adding the ability to monitor, analyze, and control the transmission of power remotely.

Sustainable/Green MIS

Describes the production, management, use, and disposal of tech in a way that minimizes damage to the environment. Critical part of corporate social responsibility

Disaster Recovery Plan

Detailed process for recovering information or a system in the event of a catastrophic disaster. Includes factors such as while files and systems need to have backups and their corresponding frequency and methods along w/ the strategic location of the storage in a separate location that's geographically dispersed. Foresees the possibility that not only the computer equipment, but also the building where employees work, may be destroyed. Typically focuses on systems and data, ignoring cross-functional and intraorganizational business processes that can be destroyed during an emergency.

Capacity Planning

Determines future environmental infrastructural requirements to ensure high-quality system performance.

Single-Tenancy

Each customer or tenant must purchase and maintain an individual system. Service provider must update its system in every company where the software was running.

Emergency Preparedness

Ensures that a company is ready to respond to an emergency in an organized, timely, and effective manner.

Disasters

Events such as power outages, fires, flood, hurricanes, and malicious activities such as hackers + viruses that strike companies every day Effects on businesses include Disrupting Communications, Damaging Physical Infrastructures, Halting Transportation, and Blocking Utilities. Can cause companies to cease operations for hours, days, or longer and risk losing customers who they cannot supply.

Backup

Exact copy of a system's information.

Data as a Service (DaaS)

Extension of SaaS; facilitates the accessibility of business-critical data in a timely, secure, and affordable manner. Depends on the principle that specified, useful data can be supplied to users on demands, irrespective of any organizational or geographical separation b/ consumers and providers.

Security as a Service

Extension of SaaS; involves apps such as anti-virus software delivered over the internet w/ constant virus definition updates that aren't reliant on user compliance. Provides top security expertise that's traditionally better than can be found in an organization.

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS)

Extension of SaaS; offers enterprise communication and collaboration services over the Internet such as instant messaging systems, online meetings, and video conferencing. Helps businesses avoid large payouts and expenses associated w/ deploying a unified communications solution on their own. Provides core business tasks w/ a high level of availability, flexibility, and scalability. Includes single, multi, and hybrid tenancy approach

Data Center

Facility used to house MIS and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. Also known as server farms; consume power and require cooling and floor space whale working to support business growth w/o disruption normal business operations and the quality of service. Amount of data stored has grown exponentially as our reliance on info increases. To limit the power consumption and cooling requirements of a ___, we can consolidate parts of the physical infrastructure, particularly by reducing the number of physical servers through virtualization, which allows a company to reduce the number of servers they require to operate, thereby boosting growth and performance while reducing environmental impact.

Serviceability

How quickly a third party can change a system to ensure it meets user needs and the terms of any contracts, including agreed levels of reliability, maintainability, or availability.

Sustainable MIS Infrastructure

Identifies ways that a company can grow in terms of computing resources while simultaneously becoming less dependent on hardware and energy consumption.

Information MIS Structure

Identifies where and how important information is maintained and secured. Supports day-to-day business operations and plans for emergencies such as power outages, floods, earthquakes, malicious internet attacks, theft, security breaches, and more. Provides three elements to support continuous business operations: 1. Backup and recovery plan 2. Disaster Recovery Plan 3. Business Continuity Plan

Information MIS Infrastructure

Identifies where and how important information, such as company record, is maintained and secured.

Multi-Tenancy

In the cloud, a single instance of a system serves multiple customers. Helps reduce operational costs associated with implementing large systems since the costs are dispersed across many tenants. Service provider only has 1 place to update its systems.

Hybrid Cloud

Includes 2/2+ private, public, or community clouds, but each cloud remains separate and is only linked by tech that enables data and application portability. Offer services even if connectivity faults occur and are often used to provide backup to critical online services.

Agile MIS Infrastructure

Includes the hardware, software, and telecommunication equipment that, when combined, provides the underlying foundation to support the organization's goals. Can help ensure that company systems can meet and perform under any unexpected or unplanned changes. Characteristics: Accessibility, Availability, Maintainability, Portability, Reliability, Vulnerability, Scalability, Usability

MIS Infrastructure

Includes the plans for how a firm will build, deploy, use, and share its data, process, and MIS assets. A solid ___ can reduce costs, improve productivity, optimize business operations, generate growth, and increase profitability. Shows how in detail how the hardware, software, and network connectivity support the firm's processes. Dynamic; continually changes as the business needs change; change includes hardware, software, and network connectivity changes.

Cloud Fabric Controller

Individual who monitors and provisions cloud resources, similar to a server admin at an individual company. Provision resources, balance loads, manage servers, update systems, and ensure that all environments are available and operating correctly.

Hybrid UCaaS

Keep a portion of unified communications on-site and other applications in the cloud.

Dynamic Scaling

MIS infrastructure can be automatically scaled up or down based on requirements.

Performance

Measures how quickly a system performs a process or transaction; key component of scalability, as systems that can't scale suffer from performance issues.

Failback

Occurs when the primary machine recovers and resumes operations, taking over from the secondary server.

Utility Computing

Offers a pay-per-use revenue model similar to a metered service such as gas or electricity.

Multi-Tenancy UCaaS

Offers a single software platform that many enterprises can access

Single-Tenancy UCaaS

Offers a software platform that's integrated with a single enterprise's on site applications.

Disaster Recovery as a Service

Offers backup services that use cloud resources to protect applications and data from disruption caused by disaster. Gives an organization a total system backup that allows for business continuity in the event of system failure. Typically a part of a disaster recovery plan or business continuity plan.

Technology Recovery Strategies

Part of a BCP; focus specifically on prioritizing the order for restoring hardware, software, and data across the organization that best meets business recovery requirements. Details the order of importance for recovering hardware (servers, computers, wireless devices), software (email, payroll, instant messaging), data centers (climate control, power supply, security), and networking (wireless, LAN, fiber, cable). If one of these components isn't functioning, the entire system will be unavailable, shutting down cross-functional business functions like payroll.

Business Impact Analysis

Part of a BCP; identifies all critical business functions and the effect that a specific disaster may have on them. Primarily used to ensure that a company has made the right decisions about the order of recovery priorities and strategies. Details the order in which functional areas should be restored, ensuring that the most critical are focused on first.

Emergency Notification Service

Part of a BCP; infrastructure built for notifying people in the event of an emergency. Implemented to warn employees of unexpected events and provide them with instructions on how to handle the situation. Can be deployed through a firm's infrastructure, supplied by an outside service provider on company premises, or hosted remotely by an outside service provider. Uses methods like email and text messaging to communicate.

Web Accessibility

People with disabilities can use the web.

Enterprise Architect

Person grounded in tech, fluent in business, and able to provide the important bridge b/ MIS and the business. Employed to help manage change and dynamically update MIS infrastructure. Areas of Focus include Supporting Operations, Supporting Change, and Supporting the Environment.

Energy Consumption

Pressure driving sustainable MIS infrastructure; amount of energy consumed by business processes and systems

Ewaste

Pressure driving sustainable MIS infrastructure; discarded, obsolete, or broken electronic devices.

Carbon Emission

Pressure driving sustainable MIS infrastructure; includes the CO2 and CO produced by business processes and systems

Incident Management

Process responsible for managing how incidents are identified and corrected.

Public Cloud

Promotes massive, global, and industry wide applications offered to the general public. Customers are never required to provision, manage, upgrade, or replace hardware or software Pricing is based on what resources customers use Type used by service providers to offer free or paid-for services to the general public Ex. Google Cloud Compact

Cloud Computing Environments

Public Cloud Private Cloud Community Cloud Hybrid Cloud

Noisy Neighbor

Refers to a multi-tenancy contenant that monopolizes bandwidth, servies, CPU, and other resources that cause network performance issues o Occurs when one tenant uses the majority of available resources and causes network performance issues for others on the shared infrastructure.

Moore's Law

Refers to the computer chip performance per year doubling every 18 months. Great for many companies b/c they can acquire large amounts of MIS equipment for increasingly cheaper costs.

Accessibility

Refers to the varying levels that define what a user can access, view, or perform when operating a system. Each system user is provided with an access level that details which parts of the system the user can and cannot access and what the user can do when in the system.

Capacity

Represents the max throughput a system can deliver

Hot Site

Separate and fully equipped facility where the company can move immediately after a disaster and resume business.

Cold Site

Separate facility that doesn't have any computer equipment but is a place where employees can move after a disaster.

Warm Site

Separate facility with computer equipment that requires installation and configuration.

Community Cloud

Serves a specific community w/ common business models, security requirements, and compliance considerations Emerging in highly regulated industries, such as financial services.

Private Cloud

Serves only 1 customer or organization and can be located on or off the customer's premises. Optimal solution for organizations that have high data security concerns and values information privacy, such as the government. Require significant investment of time and money to set up

Software

Set of instructions the hardware executes to carry out specific tasks.

Cloud Fabric

Software that makes the benefits of cloud computing, such as multi-tenancy, possible Primary reason cloud computing promotes all of the 7 abilities of agile MIS infrastructure (accessible, available, maintainable, portable, reliable, scalable, and usable)

Failover

Specific type of fault tolerance that occurs when a redundant storage server offers an exact replica of the real-time data, and if the primary server crashes, the users are automatically directed to the secondary/backup server. High-speed and high-cost method of backup and recovery.

Categories of Virtualization

Storage Virtualization Network Virtualization Server Virtualization System Virtualization

Cloud Computing

Stores, manages, and processes data and applications over the Internet rather than on a PC or server. Multi-tenant environment; a single architecture hosts multiple customers' applications and data. Offers new ways to store, access, process, and analyze information and connect people and resources from anywhere in the world where the Internet is available. To individual users, the cloud appears as their personal application, device, or document. Offers a company higher availability, greater reliability, and improved accessibility -- all w/ affordable high-speed access. For flexibility, scalability, and efficiency, cloud computing is quickly becoming an option for companies of all sizes. Users can access their programs and documents from wherever they are, whenever they need to.

Clean Computing

Subset of sustainable MIS, refers to the environmentally responsible use, manufacture, and disposal of tech products and computer equipment. Specifically focused on the production of environmental waste, while Sustainable MIS focuses on the environmental impact of computing as a whole.

Emergency

Sudden, unexpected event requiring immediate action due to potential threats to health, saferty, the environment, or property.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Supports the deployment of entire systems, including hardware, networking, and applications, using a pay-per-use revenue model. Perfect solution for businesses b/c it passes onto the service provider the headache and challenges on buying, managing, and maintaining web development software, allowing the company to focus on its core initiatives. Helps companies minimize operational costs and increase productivity by providing (Increased Security, Access to Info Anywhere + Anytime, Centralized Info Management, Easy collaboration w/ partners + suppliers + customers, and Increased Speed to Market w/ Significantly Less Cost), without up-front investment.

Unavailable

System isn't operating and cannot be used.

Vulnerability

System weakness, such as a stagnant password, that can be exploited by a threat.

Fault Tolerance

The ability for a system to respond to unexpected failures or system crashes as the backup system immediately and automatically takes over w/ no loss of service. Enable businesses to support continuous business operations if there's a flood or power outage. Expensive form of backup, only used by mission critical applications and operations.

Technology Failure

The ability of a company to operate is impaired b/c of a hardware, software, or data outage. Can destroy large amounts of data.

Scalability

The system can scale up or adapt to the increased demands of growth. Addresses the various forms of growth, such as new customers, new product lines, or new markets. Anticipating expected and unexpected growth is key to building scalable systems that can support that development.

Reliability

The system functions correctly and provides accurate information. Inaccuracy occurs for various reasons, such as incorrect info entry to info corruption during transmissions. Reliable systems ensure that these are kept at a minimum to reduce risk.

Portability

The system is available to operate on different devices or software platforms.

Usability

The system is easy to learn and efficient and satisfying to use. Providing hints, shortcuts, and instructions for any system is recommended.

Availability

The system is operational during different time frames

Maintainability

The system quickly transforms to support environmental changes Helps to measure how quickly and effectively a system can be changed or repaired after a failure. Building and deploying flexible systems allow easy updates, changes, and reconfigurations for unexpected business/environmental changes.

Incidents

Unplanned interruptions of a service.

Administrator Access

Unrestricted access to the entire system; required by top-level MIS employees Can perform functions such as resetting passwords, deleting accounts, and shutting down entire systems.

Hybrid Cloud Storage

Uses both on-site and off-site resources to store corporate data Frequently used data is stored on-site, and inactive data is stored off-site in the cloud.

Disaster Recovery Cost Curve

Usually supports a disaster recovery plan; charts the following 1. The cost to the company of the unavailability of information and tech 2. The cost to the company of recovering from a disaster over time. The best recovery plan in terms of cost and time is where these costs intersect.

Cloud Bursting

When a company uses its own computing infrastructure for normal usage and accesses the cloud when it needs to scale for peak load requirements, ensuring sudden spikes don't cause poor performance or crashes.