security.ppt

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Dave Chaffey, E-Business and E-Commerce Management, 4th Edition, © Marketing Insights Limited 2009
E-business infrastructure
Chapter 3

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Learning outcomes
• Outline the hardware and software
technologies used to build an e-business
infrastructure within an organization 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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Management issues
• What are the practical risks to the
organization of failure to manage e-commerce
infrastructure adequately?
• How should staff access to the Internet
be managed?
• How should we evaluate the relevance of web
services and open source software?

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• Refers to the combination of hardware such as servers and
client PCs in an organization, the network used to link this
hardware and the software applications used to deliver
services to workers within the e-business and also to its
partners and customers.
• Infrastructure also includes the architecture of the networks,
hardware and software and where it is located.
• Finally, infrastructure can also be considered to include the
methods for publishing data and documents accessed
through e-business applications.
• A key decision with managing this infrastructure is which
elements are located within the company and which are
managed externally as third-party managed applications, data
servers and networks.

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

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Activity 3.1 Infrastructure risk
assessment
• Make a list of the potential problems for
customers of an online retailer.
• You should consider problems faced by users
of e-business applications who are both
internal and external to the organization.
• Base your answer on problems you have
experienced on a web site that can be related
to network, hardware and software failures or
problems with data quality.

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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.

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continue
• It will be apparent that although most of these
problems are technical, they arise because
humans have not managed the infrastructure
adequately. They have not invested enough to
solve these issues or have not tested
solutions adequately to check for deficiencies.
Additionally, in the case of some problems
such as e-mails not being responded to, this
may be entirely a problem in the process
created (or not created) by managers to deal
with inbound e-mails.

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

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components
• Figure 3.1 summarizes how the different
components of e-business architecture which
need to be managed relate to each other.
• The different components can be conceived
of as different layers with defined interfaces
between each layer. The different layers can
best be understood in relation to a typical task
performed by a user of an e-business system.

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• For example, an employee who needs to book a
holiday will access a specific human resources
application or program that has been created to
enable the holiday to be booked (Level I in Figure
3.1).
• This application will enable a holiday request to be
entered and will forward the application to their
manager and human resources department for
approval.
• To access the application, the employee will use a
web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer,
Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome using an operating
system such as Microsoft Windows XP or Apple OS
X (Level II in Figure 3.1).

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• This systems software will then request transfer of
the information about the holiday request across a
network or transport layer (Level III in Figure 3.1).
The information will then be stored in computer
memory (RAM) or in long term magnetic storage on a
web server (Level IV in Figure 3.1).
• The information itself which makes up the web
pages or content viewed by the employee and the
data about their holiday request are shown as a
separate layer (Level V in Figure 3.1), although it
could be argued that this is the first or second level in
an e-business architecture.

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Kampas (2000) describes an alternative five-level
infrastructure model of what he refers to as ‘the information
system function chain’:
1. Storage/physical. Memory and disk hardware
components (equivalent to Level IV in Figure 3.1).
2. Processing. Computation and logic provided by the
processor (processing occurs at Levels I and II in Figure
3.1).
3. Infrastructure. This refers to the human and external
interfaces and also the network, referred to as
‘extrastructure’. (This is Level III in Figure 3.1, although
the human or external interfaces are not shown there.)
4. Application/content. This is the data processed by the
application into information. (This is Level V in Figure 3.1.)
5. Intelligence. Additional computer-based logic that
transforms information to knowledge. (This is also part of
the application layer I in Figure 3.1.)

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continue
• Each of these elements of infrastructure
presents separate management issues which
we will consider separately. In this chapter,
infrastructur management issues are
introduced, while more detailed discussion of
management solutions is presented in
Chapters 10, 11 and 12.
• We start our coverage of e-business
infrastructure by considering the technical
infrastructure for the Internet, extranets,
intranets and the World Wide Web which are
Levels II and III in Figure 3.1.

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Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure

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

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Activity – www.google.com
• Write down all the different types of hardware
and software involved from when a user types
in a web address such as www.google.com to
the web site being loaded

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Internet technology
• Internet:
• The Internet refers to the physical network that links
computers across the globe. It consists of the
infrastructure of network servers and communication links
between them that are used to hold and transport
information between the client computers and web
servers.
• Client/server:
• The client/server architecture consists of client computers,
such as PCs, sharing resources such as a database
stored on a more powerful server computer.

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

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Physical and network infrastructure
components of the Internet (Levels IV and III in
Figure 3.1)
• Figure 3.2 shows how the client computers within
homes and businesses are connected to the Internet
via local Internet service providers (ISPs) which, in
turn, are linked to larger ISPs with connection to the
major national and international infrastructure or
backbones which are managed by commercial
organizations such as AT&T, UUNET and Verizon.
• In the UK, at the London Internet Exchange in the
Docklands area of east London, a facility exists to
connect multiple backbones of the major ISPs within
the UK onto a single high-speed link out of the UK
into Europe and to the world. These high-speed links
can be thought of as the motorways on the
‘information superhighway’, while the links
provided from ISPs to consumers are equivalent to
slow country roads.

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Figure 3.3 Example hosting provider
Rackspace (www.rackspace.com)
• While it is possible for companies to manage their
own services by setting up web servers within their
own company offices, or to use their ISP, it is
common practice to use a specialist hosting
provider to manage this service.
• For example, Rackspace (Figure 3.3) describe
itself as ‘Europe’s fastest growing hosting company’.
Since 2001 Rackspace has been hosting and
supporting mission critical web sites, Internet
applications, e-mail servers, security and storage
services for over 4,000 customers. Rackspace also
has US offices.

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Figure 3.3 Example hosting provider Rackspace
(www.rackspace.com)

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Figure 3.4 Timeline of major developments
in the use of the web

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The Internet timeline
• The Internet is only the latest of a series of
developments in the way that the human race has
used technology to disseminate information.
• Kampas (2000) identifies ten stages that are part of
five ‘megawaves’ of change. The first six stages are
summarized in Table 3.2.
• It is evident that many of the major advances in the
use of information have happened within the last
hundred years.
• This indicates that the difficulty of managing
technological change is likely to continue.
• Kampas goes on to speculate on the impact of
access to lower-cost, higher-bandwidth technologies.

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Figure 3.5 The Netcraft index of number of servers Source:
Netcraft web Server Survey.
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html. Netcraft
• There are over one billion Internet users worldwide; but
how big is the infrastructure they are accessing? One
measure is the number of web servers. Netcraft has
regularly surveyed the servers since 1995 to give a
picture of the growth of the Internet through time (Figure
3.5).
• The first survey it ran, launched in 1995, found only
18,957 sites, but by August 2008, there were 176 million!
Note that Netcraft measures registered domains or
Internet IP addresses (explained later in this chapter).
• Some of these domains may not be active with regularly
updated content, as the chart shows.

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Figure 3.5 The Netcraft index of number of servers
Source: Netcraft web Server Survey. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html. Netcraft

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Intranet applications
• Intranets are used extensively for supporting sell-side e-
commerce from within the marketing function. They are also used
to support core supply-chain management activities as
described in the next section on extranets.
A marketing intranet has the following advantages:
1. Reduced product lifecycles – as information on product
development and marketing campaigns is rationalized we can get
products to market faster.
2. Reduced costs through higher productivity, and savings on
hard copy.
3. Better customer service – responsive and personalized support
with staff accessing customers over the web.
4. Distribution of information through remote offices nationally or
globally.

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Intranets are also used for internal marketing communications
since they can include the following types of information:
1. Staff phone directories;
2. Staff procedures or quality manuals;
3. Information for agents such as product
specifications, current list and discounted
prices, competitor information, factory
schedules, and stocking levels, all of which
normally have to be updated frequently and
can be costly;
4. Staff bulletin or newsletter;
5. Training courses.

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Firewall
• A specialized software application mounted on a
server at the point where the company is connected
to the Internet.
• Its purpose is to prevent unauthorized access into the
company from outsiders.
• Firewalls are necessary when creating an intranet or
extranet to ensure that outside access to confidential
information does not occur. Firewalls are usually
created as software mounted on a separate server at
the point where the company is connected to the
Internet.

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Figure 3.6 Firewall positions within the e-business infrastructure of the B2B
company

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Figure 3.6 Firewall positions within the e-business
infrastructure of the B2B company
• The use of firewalls within the infrastructure of
a company is illustrated in Figure 3.6.
• It is evident that multiple firewalls are used to
protect information on the company.
• The information made available to third parties
over the Internet and extranet is partitioned by
another firewall using what is referred to as
the ‘demilitarized zone’ (DMZ).
• Corporate data on the intranet are then
mounted on other servers inside the company.

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Activity – a common problem with
intranets and extranets
• A B2B Company has found that after an initial
surge of interest in its intranet and extranet,
usage has declined dramatically. The e-
business manager wants to achieve these
aims:
• Increase usage
• Produce more dynamic content
• Encouraging more clients to order (extranet)
• What would you suggest?

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Suggested answers
• Identify benefits
• Involve staff with development
• Find system sponsors, owners and advocates
• Train on benefits
• Keep content fresh, relevant and where
possible, fun
• Use e-mail to encourage usage

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Figure 3.8 Transaction log file example

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Figure 3.8 Transaction log file example
Inside transaction log files – why hits stands for ‘how
idiots track success’ Figure 3.8 shows the detail
recorded within a transaction log file. This
shows the level of work that web servers have
to do. This server extract is from
DaveChaffey.com which uses the open-source
Apache server to serve content. This example
shows 10 requests received over a period of 5
seconds. Each line represents a GET request
from a web browser for a file on the server.
For each page, there are multiple lines or hits
since each image or an embedded reference
to a script or stylesheet in the page is
downloaded separately.

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Figure 3.9 Browsershots (www.browsershots.org) – a service for
testing cross-browser compatibility.

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Figure 3.9 Browsershots (www.browsershots.org) – a
service for testing cross-browser compatibility
• An example of a tool for designers to test
compatibility is shown in Figure 3.9.

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Figure 3.10
E-consultancy Blog (www.econsultancy.com/news-blog)
• An example of a useful blog which can keep
marketing professionals up-to-date about e-
business developments is the E-consultancy
blog (Figure 3.10).

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Understanding Internet access tools
and concepts – match the definitions
• Atomisation concept
• Blogs
• Feeds
• IPTV
• Peer-to-peer
• Social networks
• Tagging
• VOIP

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Figure 3.11 Personalized feed home page from iGoogle (www.igoogle.com)

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Figure 3.11 Personalized feed home page from
iGoogle (www.igoogle.com)
• Figure 3.11 shows an example of a technology trial to
deliver different personalized content into a personalized
home page.

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Figure 3.12 Joost service
• The growth in popularity of IPTV or ‘Internet TV’,
where TV and video are streamed via broadband
across the Internet, is one of the most exciting
developments in recent years.
• In 2007 services offering streamed viewing of
hundreds of channels from providers such as the
Europe-based Joost (Figure 3.12, www.joost.com)
and the US service Hulu (www.hulu.com) launched,
and there are many competitors such as Babelgum,
Vuze and Veoh. IPTV is sometimes referred to as
non-linear TV or on-demand broadcasting to contrast
it with the traditional broadcasting to schedule.

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Figure 3.12 Joost service

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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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Box 3.3. Identify URL components:
http://video.google.co.uk:80/videoplay?docid
=-7246927612831078230&hl=en#00h02m30s
• Protocol
• Host or hostname
• Subdomain
• Domain name
• Top-level domain or TLD
• Second-level domain (SLD)
• The port
• The path
• URL parameter
• Anchor or fragment

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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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Figure 3.13 The TCP/IP protocol
• Since this protocol is important for delivering
the web pages, the letters http:// are used to
prefix all web addresses.
• HTTP messages are divided into HTTP ‘get’
messages for requesting and web page and
HTTP ‘send’ message as shown in
Figure 3.13.

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Figure 3.13 The TCP/IP protocol

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Figure 3.14 Home page index.html for an example B2B company in a web
browser showing HTML source in text editor

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Figure 3.14 Home page index.html for an example B2B
company in a web browser showing HTML source in
text editor.
• A brief example of HTML is given for a simplified home page for an
example B2B company in Figure 3.14.
• The HTML code used to construct pages has codes or instruction
tags such as <TITLE>. to indicate to the browser what is
displayed. The <TITLE>. tag indicates what appears at the top of
the web browser window. Each starting tag has a corresponding
end tag usually marked by a ‘/’, for example, <B>plastics</B> to
embolden ‘plastics’.
• The simplicity of HTML compared to traditional programming
languages makes it possible for simple web pages to be
developed by non-specialists such as marketing assistants,
particularly if templates for more complex parts of the page are
provided. Interactive forms and brochures and online sales are
more complex and usually require some programming expertise,
although tools are available to simplify these.

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Figure 3.15 Architecture of semantic web system
used at EDF

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Figure 3.15 Architecture of semantic web system used
at EDF.
• Each time a service produces a new document, the
storage system is notified by the plug-ins of our
mediation architecture, saves its RDF data
instantaneously and merges it with other data using
the architecture shown in Figure 3.15.
• This allows us to benefit from a unique view of the
many integrated data sources (e.g. blogs, wikis,
RSS) and to have access to up to date information.
• Then, using the SPARQL query language and
protocol, we can query across the many data
sources, and services can be plugged on top of the
central storage system.

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Table 3.3 Internet tool Summary Applications of
different Internet tools:
• Blogs Web-based publishing of regularly updated information in an
online diary-type format using tools such as Blogger.com, Type pad or
WordPress.
• Electronic mail or e-mail Sending messages or documents, such as
news about a new product or sales promotion between individuals is
a key Internet capability. In a 2007 report on global e-mail volume,
IDC predicted that a staggering 97 billion e-mails would be sent daily
in 2007, over 40 billion of which were spam (which we discuss in
Chapter 4).
• Feeds Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a well-known XML-
based content distribution format commonly used for syndicating and
accessing blog information. Standard XML feed formats are also used
by merchants updating price comparison sites.
• FTP file transfer The File Transfer Protocol is used as a standard for
moving files across the Internet. Commonly used to upload HTML and
other files to web servers. FTP is still used for e-business applications
such as downloading files such as product price lists or specifications.
• Gophers, Archie and WAIS These tools were important before the
advent of the web for storing and searching documents on the
Internet. They have largely been superseded by the web and search
engines.

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different Internet tools
• Secure Shell (SSH) and Telnet These allow remote command-line access to
computer systems. SSH is a more secure replacement for Telnet. For
example, a retailer could check to see whether an item was in stock in a
warehouse using SSH.
• Peer-to-peer file sharing Peer-to-peer file-sharing technology used to
enable sharing of large audio and video files in BitTorrent or approaches such
as Kontiki.
• Podcasting A method of downloading and playing audio or video clips
(webcasts), targeting portable devices such as the iPod or MP3 players or
fixed devices.
• Voice over Internet Protocol Technology for digitally transmitting voice over
a LAN or Internet. (VOIP)
• Widget A badge or button incorporated into a site or social network space by
its owner, with content or services typically served from another site, making
widgets effectively a mini-software application or web service. Content can be
updated in real time since the widget interacts with the server each time it
loads.
• World Wide Web Widely used for publishing information and running
business applications over the Internet accessed through web browsers.

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different Internet tools
• Instant Messaging (IM) and These are synchronous
communications tools for text-based ‘chat’ between different Internet
Relay Chat (IRC) users who are logged on at the same time. IM, from
providers such as Yahoo and MSN and Twitter (described in Mini
Case Study 3.4), has largely replaced IRC and provides opportunities
for advertising to users.
• IPTV Digital TV channels are made available via broadband Internet
either as streamed live broadcasts or as archived broadcasts of TV
programmes. This is discussed towards the end of this chapter.
• Usenet newsgroups Forums to discuss a particular topic such as a
sport, hobby or business area. Traditionally accessed by special
newsreader software, but now typically accessed via a web browser
from http://groups.google.com.
• Content: The design, text and graphical information that forms a web
page. Good content is the key to attracting customers to a web site
and retaining their interest or achieving repeat visits.
• Wiki: A collaborative interactive web service which
enables users to modify content contributed by others.

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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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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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Figure 3.17 (a) Fragmented applications infrastructure, (b) integrated applications
infrastructure
Source: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000)

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Managing e-business applications infrastructure
• Management of the e-business applications infrastructure
concerns delivering the right applications to all users of e-
business services. The issue involved is one that has long been a
concern of IS managers, namely to deliver access to integrated
applications and data that are available across the whole company.
Traditionally businesses have developed applications silos or islands
of information, as depicted in Figure 3.17(a).
• This shows that these silos may develop at three different
levels: (1) there may be different technology architectures
used in different functional areas, giving rise to the
problems discussed in the previous section, (2) there will
also be different applications and separate databases in
different areas and (3) processes or activities followed in
the different functional areas may also be different.

60
continue
• To avoid the problems of a fragmented applications
infrastructure, companies attempted throughout the 1990s
to achieve the more integrated position shown in Figure
3.17(b).
• Here the technology architecture, applications, data
architecture and process architecture are uniform and
integrated across the organization. To achieve this many
companies turned to enterprise resource planning
(ERP) vendors such as SAP, Baan, PeopleSoft and
Oracle.

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Figure 3.17 (a) Fragmented applications infrastructure, (b) integrated applications
infrastructure (Continued)
Source: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000)

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Figure 3.18 Differing use of applications at levels of management within companies

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Figure 3.18 Differing use of applications at levels of
management within companies
• Figure 3.18 only shows some types of applications, but it
shows the trial of strength between the monolithic ERP
applications and more specialist applications looking to
provide the same functionality.
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications:
Software providing integrated functions for major business
functions such as production ,distribution, sales, finance
and human resource management.

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Figure 3.19 Elements of e-business infrastructure that require management

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Figure 3.19 Elements of e-business infrastructure that
require management.
• Figure 3.19 summarizes some of these
management issues and is based on the
layered architecture introduced at the start of
this section with applications infrastructure at
the top and technology infrastructure towards
the bottom.

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Figure 3.20 Google apps (www.google.com/apps)

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Figure 3.20 Google apps (www.google.com/apps)
• As an indication of the transformations possible through
web services . Figure 3.20 which shows how Google’s
mission to ‘manage the World’s information’ also applies
to supporting organizational processes. Google Apps
enables organizations to manage many of their activities.
• The basic service is free with the Premier Edition which
includes more storage space and security being $50 per
user account per year.

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Figure 3.21 Salesforce.com (www.salesforce.com)

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Figure 3.21 Salesforce.com (www.salesforce.com)
• Figure 3.21 shows one of the largest SaaS or utility
providers Salesforce.com where customers pay from £5
to £50 per user per month according to the facilities used.
The service is delivered from the Salesforce.com servers
to over 50,000 customers in 15 local languages.

70
Cloud computing
• Cloud computing: The use of distributed storage and processing
on servers connected by the Internet, typically provided as software or
data storage as a subscription service provided by other companies.
• In descriptions of web services you may hear confusingly, that
they access ‘the cloud’ or the term ‘cloud computing’, where the
cloud referred to is the Internet (networks are often denoted as
clouds on diagrams of network topology).
• For example, if you are accessing your Google Docs then they
will be stored somewhere ‘in the cloud’ without any knowledge of
where it is or how it is managed since Google stores data on many
servers. And of course you can access the document from any
location. But there are issues to consider about data stored and
served from the cloud: ‘is it secure, is it backed up, is it always
available?’. The size of Google’s cloud is indicated by Pandia
(2007) which estimated that Google has over 1 million servers
running the open-source Linux software.

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Virtualization
• Virtualization: is another approach to managing IT resource
more effectively. However, it is mainly deployed within an
organization.
• VMware was one of the forerunners offering virtualization services
which it explains as follows (VMware, 2008):
• The VMware approach to virtualization inserts a thin layer of
software directly on the computer hardware or on a host
operating system.
• This software layer creates virtual machines and contains a virtual
machine monitor or ‘hypervisor’ that allocates hardware resources
dynamically and transparently so that multiple operating systems
can run concurrently on a single physical computer without even
knowing it.
• However, virtualizing a single physical computer is just the
beginning. VMware offers a robust virtualization platform that can
scale across hundreds of interconnected physical computers and
storage devices to form an entire virtual infrastructure.

72
Service-oriented architecture (SOA)
• The technical architecture used to build web services is formally known
as a ‘service oriented architecture’. This is an arrangement of software
processes or agents which communicate with each other to deliver the
business requirements.
• The main role of a service within SOA is to provide functionality.
This is provided by three characteristics:
1. An interface with the service which is platform-independent (not
dependent on a particular type of software or hardware). The interface is
accessible through applications development approaches such as
Microsoft .Net or Java and accessed through protocols such as SOAP
(Simple Object Access Protocol) which is used for XML-formatted
messages, i.e. instructions and returned results to be exchanged
between services.
2. The service can be dynamically located and invoked. One service
can query for the existence of another service through a service directory
for example an e-commerce service could query for the existence of a
credit card authorization service.
3. The service is self-contained. That is, the service cannot be influenced
by other services; rather it will return a required result to a request from
another service, but will not change state. Within web services,
messages and data are typically exchanged between services using
XML.

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Mobile commerce
• In Chapter 1 we explained that e-commerce refers to both
informational and financial transactions through digital
media.
• Similarly mobile commerce (m-commerce) refers to the use of
wireless devices such as mobile phones for both informational and
monetary transactions.
• While fixed access to the Internet has dominated to-date in many
developed countries, in future this situation will change due to the
ubiquity of the mobile phone and the adoption of higher-speed
services and more sophisticated handsets. In some countries such
as Japan and China, the majority of web access is via mobile
phone and we can expect to see increased mobile use in all
countries. In China there are more mobile subscribers (over half a
billion) than the whole US population (Belic, 2007) and according
to the regularly updated Comscore panel dat
(www.comscore.com), use of the web by mobile devices in Japan
is equal to that of traditional computer access.

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