Marketing Plan

Week 5 Objectives

What is IT infrastructure and what are its components?

It is the shared technology resources that provide the platform for the firm’s specific info system applications. IT infrastructure includes:

* Hardware

* software

* services that are shared across the entire firm.

Major IT infrastructure components are:

* computer hardware platforms

* operating systems platforms

* enterprise software platforms

* networking and telecommunications platform

* database management software

* internet platforms

* consulting services

* system integrators

What are the stages and technology drivers of IT infrastructure evolution?

Five stages of IT infrastructure evolution are:

* mainframe era

* personal computer era

* client/server era

* enterprise computing era

* cloud computing era

Moore’s Law deals with the exponential increase in processing power and decline in the cost of computer technology, stating that every 18 months the power of microprocessors doubles and the price of computing falls in half.

The Law of Mass Digital Storage deals with the exponential decrease in the cost of storing data, stating that the number of kilobytes of data that can be stored on magnetic media for $1 roughly doubles every 15 months.

Metcalf’s Law helps show that a network’s value to participants grows exponentially as the network takes on more members.

Also driving exploding computer use is the rapid decline in costs of communication and growing agreement in the technology industry to use computing and communications standards.

What are the current trends in computer hardware platforms?

* The emerging mobile digital computing platform

* Grid computing-involves connecting geographically remote computers into a single network to create a computational grid that combines the computing power of all the computers on the network with which to attack large computing problems.

* On-demand cloud...