IT Infrastructure and Emerging Technologies, Cheat Sheet of Information Literacy

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UNIT 4

IT Infrastructure and Emerging

Technologies

Syllabus

• IT Infrastructure,
• Infrastructure Components,
• Contemporary Hardware Platform Trends,
• Contemporary Software Platform Trends,
• Management Issues

4.1 IT Infrastructure

• What Does IT Infrastructure Mean?

• IT infrastructure refers to the composite hardware, software, network resources and services required for the existence, operation and management of an enterprise IT environment.
• IT infrastructure allows an organization to deliver IT solutions and services to its employees, partners and/or customers and is usually internal to an organization and deployed within owned facilities.

Typically, a standard IT infrastructure consists of the following components:

Hardware

• This is the “physical” part of an IT infrastructure,

and comprises all the elements necessary to support the basic functioning of the machines and devices constituting the infrastructure itself.

• Servers, computers, storage and data centers,

switches, hubs and routers, as well as all other equipment such as the power, cooling, cabling and dedicated rooms.

• Software
• It refers to all the applications used by the

enterprise both for internal purposes and to

provide its services to customers. Software

includes web servers, Enterprise resource

planning (ERP), customer relationship

management (CRM), productivity applications

and the operating system (OS).

• The OS is the most important software

component and is responsible for managing

the hardware itself and connect the physical

resources to the network infrastructure.

List of Software component

• Content management systems (CMS)
• Customer relationship management (CRM)
• Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
• Operating systems

Meatware

• Since they contribute to constituting the enterprise environment and guarantee its functions, associated personnel and processes such as ITOps or DevOps are also part of an IT infrastructure.
• Human users, such as network administrators (NA), developers, designers and end users with access to any IT appliance or service are also part of an IT infrastructure, specifically with the advent of user-centric IT service development.

Types of infrastructure

• The two primary types of IT infrastructure are traditional and cloud infrastructure. 1) Traditional infrastructure
• A traditional IT infrastructure is made up of the usual hardware and software components: facilities, data centers, servers, networking hardware desktop computers and enterprise application software solutions. Typically, this infrastructure setup requires more power, physical space and money than other infrastructure types. A traditional infrastructure is typically installed on-premises for company-only, or private, use.

Why IT infrastructure is important

• Technology powers nearly every aspect of today’s businesses, from an individual employee’s work to operations to goods and services.
• When properly networked, technology can be optimized to improve communication, create efficiencies and increase productivity.
• If an IT infrastructure is flexible, reliable and secure, it can help an enterprise meet its goals and provide a competitive edge in the market.
• Alternatively, if an IT infrastructure isn’t properly implemented, businesses can face connectivity, productivity and security issues—like system disruptions and breaches.
• Overall, having a properly implemented infrastructure can be a factor in whether a business is profitable or not.

With an IT infrastructure, a company can:

• Provide a positive customer experience by providing uninterrupted access to its website and online store.
• Develop and launch solutions to market with speed.
• Collect data in real time to make quick decisions.
• Improve employee productivity.

• Secure infrastructures include systems that control information access and data availability. It can also safeguard a business against breaches and cyber attacks wherever the data resides, maintaining the customers’ trust.
• WANs manage the network by prioritizing traffic and giving certain applications more or less bandwidth as needed.
• Virtualization provides faster server provisioning, increases uptime, improves disaster recovery and saves energy.
• Zero downtime aims to reduce disruptions to business operations and eliminates system downtime to keep costs down and profits up.

Infrastructure solutions

1. IT infrastructure

• Maintain customer loyalty and trust through industry-leading performance, unmatched uptime and instant recovery with the world’s most reliable and resilient compute, storage and software solutions.
• The IBM IT infrastructure portfolio can help your business run at peak efficiency 365 days a year.
• Take advantage of the best uptime in the market with top-ranked servers, storage and software.

3. Data storage

• Store more data, gain faster insights, deploy

applications in containers that improve data

mobility and improve your cyber resiliency

and data protection with IBM data storage.

4. Software and operating systems

• Modernize your IT infrastructure, accelerate workloads, simplify operations and develop and deploy new applications with IBM software.
• Or maximize your current IT investments with flexible, open and highly compatible hybrid multicloud solutions.
• Whatever your investments in on-premises, private cloud, hybrid cloud or public cloud, IBM IT infrastructure can work with what you have and make it better.