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Business Systems
Introduction
Information Technology (IT) acknowledged as the main core of many business systems. It is
often seen in most organisations put more emphasis on the technology, consequently many
organisations overlook the importance of information as Chaffey and White (2011:3) has
said, “Value is delivered not through technology, but through applying information”.
The most significant difference the information will made to businesses is as a tool to
develop the achievement of each employees that work within and the organisation itself.
IT hardware and software
IT hardware and software are the backbone of every business systems. Every organisation
uses two major types of Information Technology (IT), hardware and software to manage
information within the business systems.
Hardware
Hardware are different types of physical components used to input information into the
system. Every organisation mainly focus on three interrelated factors before purchasing a
specific hardware and they are such as speed, cost and its appropriateness for the task. The
business systems in small businesses might just run on the computer of somebody who is
managing that specific system, but in large organisations it actually runs on servers or may
as well committed or shared on Intranet networks for whoever requires it or with internet
access. Besides that, it is not a very common need for businesses to have specialised
hardware because most businesses are now relying on software to meet their maximum
requirements as Rainer and Turban (2008:326) has said, “The incredible rate of
innovation in the computer industry complicates hardware decisions, because
computer technologies become obsolete more quickly than other organisational
technologies”. The quality of hardware will influence the service quality performance
internally and externally in terms of responsiveness and speed to the demands of
information.
Software
Software are set of instructions written in variety of programming languages that manage the
performance of the computer system to provide its given purpose. IT hardware will only be
effective if it gets appropriate instructions. The simplest of business systems consist of
normal standard software package, some business systems may use specialised software
package that contains familiar features that a standard business system already built in. The
business system has to be set to a standard where few customisations can made for
organisational requirements as Chaffey and White (2011:39) has said, “Traditionally
software has been purchased as a package such as Microsoft Windows or Office or
specialist applications such as an accounting package and then installed on
computers within an organisation. Alternatively, organisations have created software
specific to their needs, which again is installed within the organisation”. Furthermore,
the costs of the software vary widely as the cheapest one will only provide limited-additional
functions for the computer whereas a more expensive one will give extra-additional features.
Moreover, Rainer and Turban (2008:350) has said, “Software comprises a much larger
percentage of the cost of computer systems because the price of hardware has
dramatically decreased at the same that complexity and price of software have
dramatically increased”.
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Developments and improvements
Over the last decade, we have seen massive development in the way of computing in
business and the use of information provision and business data processing. In most
businesses, every information stored in database requires being defines alongside with its
structure as where the data comes from and how to review the information and what level of
queries needed. Rapid developments in computing has made technological advances
cheaper, faster and more reliable processing as Curtis and Cobham (2008:120) has said,
“The development of microchip, as well as improving performance and decreasing
the size of computers, has added a new dimension to the business computing with
the cheap, powerful desktop computer”. Besides that, this has extended the types of
users to have all sizes of businesses and has led to leap to freedom for larger organisation
users who can now control and make use of the centralised computer centre.
The improvement of software has led to increased pressure on advanced hardware. Most
operating system in today's world has graphical interfaces that are easier to exchange
images, data and text across application. Curtis and Cobham (2008:121) has said, “High-
level languages, procedurally based around the type of task for which they are
suitable, were designed to increased pro-grammar productivity and program reliability
to meet this demand”. Furthermore, the effort that has been place into technological
advances is a step ahead to make things better for the world.
Organisational requirements and performance
IT investment
When an organisation invest into a specific technology, they will require an investment
process to select the most appropriate tool. IT investment process is very important because
businesses could get trap into buying insufficient hardware or software that could lead them
into low Return on Investment (ROI). The investment process is based on the outcome of
achieved benefits on the technology compare to its purchase and maintenance cost. The
selection process requires planned procedure to carry out effective and efficient investment.
A standard procedure for IT investment is to identify best possible suppliers in the market;
the best thing to do is to make a short list of top ten current suppliers that meets the listed
organisational requirements, they can find out about this by research based on professional
articles, relevant magazine ads or even appropriate websites. Another typical IT investment
approach could be identifying functionality and criteria of their chosen purchase; this is done
by making the purchases based on facts, and ensure that the organisation have expertise
knowledge and information about the technology before investing, to be successful at the
highest standard.
Purchase criteria
When an organisation purchase a specific technology, they will require purchase criteria to
make efficient and effective purchase. The main purchase criteria includes functionality to
find out about the organisational requirements. Other criteria businesses requires to consider
is security, which is very important for hosted solutions on whether it have the capabilities to
restrict specific access of the application. Organisations will also requires considering the
level of cost and additional support they will get from the purchased technology, this is very
important because some suppliers could conclude trading and may not support the business
further. Another criterion to consider is its reliability and stability as every technologies will
face bugs and errors and they could sometime even get fail if they has not being tested
accordingly. Moreover, many small businesses with ordinary functions can avoid spending
money on commissioning software and buy application packages. The growing value of
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desktop computers has led to large demands for packaged software, which are normally
cost effective and user-friendly. Overall, it is very important to consider all these purchase
criteria to make sure that the business IT investments stays on track and meets the
organisational requirements to be able to have a productive investment into IT.
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Google
The organisation I have chosen is “Google” which has been founded by Larry Page and
Sergey Brin on September 4th
in 1998 at the Menlo Park, California, United States. Their
main headquarters is in Mountain View, California, United States. Their current CEO is
Sundar Pichai. Some of their subsidiaries includes YouTube, Songza, DoubleClick,
Feedburner etc...
I will now discuss the effectiveness of the hardware and software currently used in Google.
Their hardware includes “Commodity-class x86 server computers” which runs on the
modified version of Linus. The main aim of using this hardware is to acquire CPU
productions that will provide best accomplishment instead of ordinary performance. This tool
is cost effective because their international data lab centre operates power range from 500
up-to 681 megawatts. Moreover, their joined processing power of their servers has reached
up-to 20 to 100 petaflops in 2015. As a whole, it is worth using this IT tool.
Furthermore, the private “Network Topology” they are currently using has been ranks as the
world third biggest ISP just behind their competitor “Level 3”. To be able to run such large
network successfully Google has come up with an open peering policy that ensures their
network could be accessed from as many as 67 public exchange points with the combination
of 69 locations all over the world. The current reports has suggested this tool is very cost
effective because it has over 882 Gbit/s of public connectivity as their public network
requires being send data across billions of Google users and to build further search indexes.
Their software includes “Distributed lock manager” which is used to serialise and organise
the approach to resources. They runs in combination of machine in a bundle with each
individual copy has been input into the cluster-wide lock database. The Distributed Lock
Manager (DLM) supply software applications is cost and time effective because they deliver
data across in a bundle into combination of machines with an action of synchronise their
approach to shared resources.
Moreover, they are currently using “MapReduce” which is an associated implementation and
programming model used for creating substantial data sets with a distributed and parallel
algorithm in a cluster. This software performs in two ways as the map method is used for
sorting and filtering the data by its first entry into the system, and the reduce procedure is
used for the summary operation which counts the number of entries into the system; and put
them separately to avoid duplicate data entry. This tool is cost effective because it is not time
consuming and work accordingly to do its given purpose.
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Improvements
I will now discuss the latest developments in IT, and discuss how Google could use some of
these to improve the effectiveness of their organisation IT infrastructure. During my
research, I have found some very interesting development of the 21st
century, which Google
should seriously consider of using. Firstly, the “Content-Addressable Memory (CAM)” which
could be used for their programming data structure. This is a unique kind of specialised
memory could be used for their fast speed search applications. This memory is very different
to Random Access Memory (RAM) where the user provides the address of the memory then
the RAM restore the information stored in that address, whereas CAM explore the whole
memory to find out if the information is stored anywhere in the system. When the information
discovered, CAM restore more than one storage address of where the information
discovered. CAM give you time efficiency by searching the whole memory with a single
action, so this shows that it is so much faster than RAM, and the application can be run
effectively at high speed.
Furthermore, there is this amazing tool “Docker” which is use for manufacturing, managing,
and running Linux containers. This tool can solves many complicated aspect of application
lifecycle and application development as well as overcoming any issues. Google should
absolutely consider of using this spectacular tool to save time and give more flexibility to
their employees. Docker can make life a lot easier for them by ensuring that the applications
will be develop in the same process every occasion and will run identically in every step
including the development, testing and manufacture process. This tool not only helps with
the streamline of the application, it actually develop the whole product for you. Docker can
even change applications designed and how the operating system develop. This tool is
already getting large industrial support and speedily expanding its user base. This tool could
be beneficial for Google with big projects by solving their most common issues in security
and networking.
Moreover, I have found this next generation way of networking called “Jupiter network” which
is 100 times more powerful than the standard first-generation network. This incredible
network can carry outstanding one petabit/sec of overall multiple bandwidth. Google should
certainly consider of using this type of network that will allow their 100,000 servers to
overwrite and scan information in seconds. As a whole, Jupiter network can empower
Google services with tremendous performance.
Conclusion
Overall, Information Technology (IT) is a very important aspect for any organisations. Google
takes their IT resources very seriously and it is the core strength of their business as every
now and then they are producing next generation’s technology that is becoming very
beneficial for people especially youth. Google is producing many technologies, which are
attracting youth and taking the growth of technology to the highest level of standard. For me
Google should consider as the highest accomplished technology company in the world.
Their products and services are very high standard and they has been maintaining this since
the beginning. Personally, if I would like to buy an IT hardware or software I will considered
Google as my primary choice because there is no risk of getting trap into buying inadequate
technology as you can trust Google and it is one of the most reliable and efficient
organisation of the world.
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References
“Graham Curtis, David Cobham (2008), Business Information Systems 6th
Edition”
“Dave Chaffey, Gareth White (2011), Business Information Management 2nd
Edition”
“R. Kelly Rainer Jr, Efraim Turban (2008), Introduction to information systems 2nd
Edition”
