CHAPTER 3

E-BUSINESS
INFRASTRUCTURE
Learning outcomes
 Outline the hardware and software technologies used
to build an e-business infrastructure within an
organisation and with its partners
 Outline the hardware and software requirements
necessary to enable employee access to the Internet
and hosting of
e-commerce services.
E-business infrastructure
 The architecture of hardware, software. Content and
data used to deliver e-business services to
employees, customers and partners
Figure 3.1 A five-layer model of e-business infrastructure
Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure
Table 3.1 Key management issues of e-business infrastructure (Continued)
Slide 3.7

What is the Internet?

“The Internet, sometimes called simply "the Net," is a worldwide system of computer
networks - a network of networks in which users at any one computer can, if they
have permission, get information from any other computer”
-whatis.com

“A global network connecting millions of computers. More than 100 countries are
linked into exchanges of data, news and opinions.
-webopedia.com

“is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet
Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons”
-FNC

Dave Chaffey, E-Business and E-Commerce Management, 3rd Edition © Marketing Insights Ltd 2007
 Physical and network infrastructure components of the Internet
Figure 3.2
(Levels IV and III in Figure 3.1)
London Internet Exchange

•Located in Docklands area in East London

•Second large IX in Europe
Malaysia and Internet
 Internet Usage Statistics:
13,528,200 Internet users as of Sept/2006, 47.8% of the
population, according to M.C.M.C.
 Malaysia Internet Exchange (MyIX)
 Established in November, 2003
 Launched on 15th December 2006
 3 nodes connected in AIMS, NCC and TPM Jaring
Table 3.2 Six stages of advances in the dissemination of information
Clay tablets Guternberg Press
Figure 3.3 A five-layer model of e-business infrastructure
How big is the Internet?
 Over 1 billion Internet users worldwide
 How big the infrastructure they accessing?
 Measured by number of servers
 Number of pages indexed by search engines
 2006: 9 billion pages
 Dec 2007:????
Figure 3.4 The Netcraft index of number of servers
Source: Netcraft Web Server Survey. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web server survey.html. Netcraft, http://netcraft.com
Intranet and extranet
 Intranet:
 A private network within a single company using
Internet standards to enable employees to share
information
 Extranet:
 Formed by extending an intranet beyond a company to
customers, suppliers and collaborators
Figure 3.5 The relationship between intranets, extranets and the Internet
Intranet applications
 Used extensively for supporting sell-side e-
commerce
 Also used for internal marketing communications
Extranet applications
 Used to provide online services which are restricted
to business customers
Business benefits of extranet
 Information sharing
 Cost reduction
 Order processing and distribution
 Customer service
Premier Dell.com
Questions on extranet?
 Are the levels of usage sufficient?
 Is it effective and efficient?
 Who has ownership of the extranet?
 What are the levels of service quality?
 Is the quality of information adequate?
Use of extranet on global basis
Firewalls
 A specialized software mounted on a separate
server at the point where the company is connected
to the Internet
 Use to protect information on the company
 Firewall positions within the e-business infrastructure of the
Figure 3.6
B2B company
Figure 3.7 Information exchange between a web browser and web server
What is the Internet?
 World Wide Web – standard method for
exchanging information on the Internet
 Web browsers – a method of accessing and
viewing information stored as web documents
 Web servers – store and present the web pages
World Wide Web
 Based on standard document formats such as
HTML
 Offers hyperlink
 Supports a wide range of formatting
 Can integrate graphics and animations
 Make interactions possible
Web 2.0
 It isn’t a new web standard
 Just an evolution of technologies and
communication approaches
 Some main characteristics:
 Web services or interactive applications hosted on the
Web
 Ad funding of neutral sites
 Encouraging creation of user-generated content
 Enabling rating of content
del.icio.us
Internet tools
 E-mail
 Instant messaging (IM) and Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
 Usenet newsgroups
 FTP file transfer
 Telnet
 Blogs
 RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
 World Wide Web
 IPTV
 BitTorrent
Blogs
RSS
 An Internet standard for publishing and exchanging
content using XML
 Content can be published on a site that originates
from another site
 New method of distributing messages to
subscribers
RSS
RSS feeds
VOIP
 Voice data is transferred across the Internet – it
enables phone calls to be made over the Internet

 Peer-to-peer
 Hosted service
 Complete replacement of all telephone systems
 Upgrading telephone systems
Figure 3.8 The TCP/IP protocol
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
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.
 Home page index.html for The B2B Company in a web browser showing
Figure 3.9
HTML source in text editor
 (a) Fragmented applications infrastructure, (b) integrated applications
Figure 3.10
infrastructure
Source: Adapted from Hasselbring (2000)
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>
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
Who controls the Internet?
 ICANN
 The Internet Society (www.isoc.org)
 The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
 The World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org)
 Telecommunications Information Networking
Architecture Consortium TINA-C
Managing e-business infrastructure
 Layer II – Systems software
 Standardization throughout organization
 Layer III – Transport or network
 Based on internal company network
 Laver IV – Storage
 Based on company needs
Internet service providers (ISP)
 ISP connection method
 Speed of access
 Availability
 Service-level agreements
 Security
Figure 3.11 Differing use of applications at levels of management within companies
Figure 3.12 Elements of e-business infrastructure that require management
New access devices
 Mobile access devices
 Wi-Fi mobile access
 Bluetooth
 Next-generation mobile services
 Interactive digital television
Bluetooth
Figure 3.13 Mobile access technologies
Figure 3.14 Components of an interactive digital TV system
Summary
1. The Internet is a global communications network that is used
to transmit the information published on the World Wide
Web (WWW) in a standard format based on Hypertext
Markup Language (HTML) using different standard
protocols such as HTTP and TCP/IP
2. Companies deliver e-business services to employees and
partners through web servers which are often hosted at third-
party companies known as ‘Internet service providers’
(ISPs). Web servers will be linked to applications servers,
database servers and legacy applications to deliver these
services
Summary
3. Consumers and business users access these e-business
services using web browser software, with connections to the
Internet also managed by an ISP through which they can
access web servers
4. Intranets are private networks used inside companies to share
information. Internet-based tools such as e-mail, FTP, and the
World Wide Web are all used as methods of sharing this
information. Not all Internet users can access intranets since
access is restricted by firewalls and password controls.
Extranets are similar to intranets, but they are extended
beyond the company to third parties such as suppliers,
distributors or selected customers
Summary
5. Standards to enable delivery of information include:
• Communications standards such as TCP/IP and HTTP
• Text information standards such as HTML, XML, and WML
• Graphical information standards such as GIF dan JPEG
• Multimedia standards such as Shockwave, Flash and
streaming audio and video
6. Managing staff access to the Internet involves taking
decisions about the number of staff with access and how
much time can be permitted and the nature of monitoring
used for e-mails and web pages
Summary
7. Managers need to decide on internal or external
management of the technology and applications
infrastructure of an organization
8. Electronic data interchange (EDI) involves the
structured transfer of information, particularly for
online B2B purchasing transactions. It can now
occur over the Internet as Internet EDI
Summary
9. Applications service providers are increasingly important as
businesses look to reduce infrastructure costs and improve e-
business service delivery through external hosting of
applications and data outside an organization
10. Managers of e-commerce services need to monitor the
adoption of new access devices for the Internet including
mobile phones and interactive digital TV. An e-commerce
infrastructure should be designed to readily enable new
access media to be supported as they develop