Defining IT Infrastructure

Includes hardware, software, and services

A set of physical devices and software applications that are required to operate the entire enterprise

Your firm is largely dependent on its infrastructure for delivering services to customers, employees, and suppliers.

You can think of infrastructure as digital plumbing, but its much more than that

Seven Key Infrastructure Components

Computer Hardware Platforms

Operating System Platforms

Enterprise Software Applications

Data Management and Storage

Networking/Telecommunications Platforms

Internet Platforms

Consulting and System Integration Services

Computer Hardware Platforms

billion annually spent in the United States 110$

Dominance of Intel, AMD, and IBM 32-bit processor chips at the client level

Server market increasingly dominated by inexpensive generic processors from the same manufacturers

Strong server market growth for 64 bit generic processors from AMD, Intel and IBM

Blade servers replace box servers

Mainframes continue as a presence working as very large servers

Operating System Platforms

                                                                                                                       $100 billion annually spent in the United States

Continued dominance of Microsoft OS in the client (95%) and handheld market (45%)

Growing dominance of Linux (UNIX) in the corporate server market (85%

 

Windows 2002 and 2003 Server remains strong in smaller enterprises and workgroup networks

Enterprise Software Applications

165$ billion annually spent in the United States for basic enterprise software infrastructure

SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft (now Oracle), and Siebel dominate this market.

Middleware firms like BEA and JD Edwards serve smaller firms, and work also in the Web services space

The enterprise market is consolidating around a few huge firms that have gained significant market share such as SAP and Oracle.

Microsoft is expanding into smaller firm enterprise systems where it can build on its Windows server-installed base

Data Management and Storage

70 $ billion annually spent in the United States.

Oracle and IBM continue to dominate the database software market.

Microsoft (SQL Server) and Sybase tend to serve smaller firms.

Open source Linux My SQL now supported by HP and most consulting firms as an inexpensive, powerful database used mostly in small to mid-size firms

35 $billion annually  spent in the United States for physical hard disk storage

The hard disk market is consolidating around a few huge firms like EMC and smaller PC hard disk firms like Seagate, Maxtor, and Western Digital

Networking/Telecommunications Platforms

billion annually spent on networking and telecommunications hardware 150$

700 $billion annually spent on telecommunications services, e.g. phone and Internet connectivity

Local area networking still dominated by

                                                                                                                       Microsoft Server (about 75%) but strong

                                                                                                                       of Linux challenges this dominance  

Internet Platforms

annually spent on Internet infrastructure in the United States 32$

Internet hardware server market concentrated in Dell, HP, and IBM

Prices falling rapidly by up to 50% in a single year for low-power servers  

Open-source Apache remains the dominant Web server software, followed by Microsoft’s IIS server.

Sun’s Java grows as the most widely used tool for interactive Web applications.

Microsoft and Sun settle a long-standing law suit and agree to support a common Java.

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