Clear Computer Case

Recent technological advances have led to major changes in how IT services are delivered. The rise of Internetworking technologies, which provide a low-cost way to connect virtually everyone on the same network, offers new possibilities for addressing business clear computer case needs. New technologies add to, improve, and interconnect older systems to yield infrastructures with new and complex operational characteristics.

THE DRIVERS OF CHANGE: Better Chips, Bigger Pipes

With the emergence of PCs, computing that had resided in centralized enclaves staffed by data processing specialists spread throughout an organization and into the eager hands of business users. Engineers adopted computerized drawing packages and programmed their own PCs for more specialized purposes.

As newly empowered computer users sought to share work, new communications infrastructures emerged. Local area networks (LANs) allowed business users to share spreadsheets, word processing, and other documents and to use common printers to obtain hard copies of their work. PCs and LANs became more sophisticated as users? clear computer case evolved and as underlying technologies that were fundamentally different from earlier mainframe technologies advanced.

Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) provided a robust standard for routing messages between LANs and created the potential to connect all computers on an ever-larger wide area network (WAN). Computers could be connected at low cost and with minimal central orchestration.

At first, the Internet was useful primarily for exchanging e-mail and large data files, but the Web, with its graphical user interfaces, made Internet communication very valuable to those who were not computer specialists. Just as PCs has made computing accessible to a wide variety of non-technical users, the Web made network resources and capabilities accessible. The combination of powerful chips and large communication ?pipes?, both at low cost, fueled a process that would lead to qualitatively different computing infrastructures. These related exponential trends ? reduction in the cost of computing power and reduction in the cost of exchanging information between computers ? have been fundamental drivers of changes in the business landscape. Companies have moved boldly to seize the benefits of newer technologies. Mainframes have been redefined and reborn as enterprise servers.

THE BASIC COMPONENTS OF INTERNETWORKING INFRASTRUCTURES

Internetworking infrastructures can be conceptually divided into three categories:

Network:

It refers to the medium and supporting technologies that permit exchange of information between processing units and organizations. As network capacity increases, the network takes on greater importance as a component of IT infrastructure.

Processing Systems:

It encompasses the hardware and software that together provide an organization?s ability to handle business transactions. They are being redesigned to better capitalize on the advantages offered by Internetworking technologies.

Facilities:

These are physical systems that house & protect computing and network devices. They are growing as demand increases for high levels of availability, reliability and security and as greater network-capacity makes new facilities models possible. Internetworking creates many more degrees of freedom in how clear computer case components can be arranged and managed. More degrees of freedom create possibilities for cost reduction, new capabilities, & new business models but also pose challenges in understanding the implications of possible infrastructure designs and management actions.

THE TECHNOLOGICAL ELEMENTS OF NETWORK

Following are the technological elements of network:

Local Area Networks

Local area networks (LANs) provide a way for computers that are physically close together to communicate. LAN technologies define the physical features of technological solutions to local communication problems and needs and the protocols for ?conversations? between computers.

Hubs, Switches and Network Adapters

Hubs, switches and network adapters allow computers to be connected in LANs. Hubs and switches serve as central junctions into which cables from the computers on a LAN are connected. Hubs are simple connection devices, but switches vary in complexity and capability from very simple to very large and sophisticated. Sophisticated switches connect LANs and larger networks to each other. Network adapters that are physically fitted into the computers on a LAN translate the computer?s communications into a language that can be understood by the connected computers.

Wide Area Networks

Wide area networks (WANs) provide a way for clear computer case physically distant from each other from each other to communicate. WANs are networks, which enable multiple LANs and smaller WANs to connect and communicate. A WAN inside the boundaries of a company?s physical premises is sometimes called an Intranet. A WAN that extends outward from a company?s physical premises is called an Extranet.

Routers

Routers are the devices that enable Internetworking, the means by which messages are relayed across large distances. A router listens in on LAN conversations and recognizes messages intended for computers that are not on that LAN. The listening router relays those messages to other routers. Routers come in simple and sophisticated varieties. They are the glue with which networks are connected to each other and provide many degrees of freedom in network design.

Firewalls & Other Security Systems and Devices

Firewalls act as security sentries at the boundaries of an organization?s internal network to protect it from intrusion from the outside. Network managers employ intrusion detection systems (IDSs) composed of a variety of software tools such as network monitoring software & hardware devices such as sensors and probes.

Caching, Content Acceleration, and Other Specialized Network Devices

Network devices help accelerate the delivery of information across the network by caching or storing information in a location close to the destination machine. Other specialized devices help assure the efficient transmission of time-dependent information such as the sound and image data that accompany Internetwork-based video delivery or video teleconferencing.

THE TECHNOLOGICAL ELEMENTS OF PROCESSING SYSTEMS

Following are the technological elements of processing systems:

Client Devices and Systems

Client systems are the software that runs on client devices such as PCs, cell phones, etc. to perform business functions, manage interactions with other computers, and handle certain low-level client machine operations. Business users experience Internet-working infrastructure primarily through client devices and systems. Client software must manage intermittently connected devices and systems in a way that provides business advantage to users.

Server Devices and Systems

Servers handle the heavy processing required for high-volume business transactions and permit sharing of information across a large number of computer users. Server systems consist of software to carry out mainline business functions, manage transactions from other computers, and handle low-level machine operations. Clients perform front-end processing (interaction with users) while servers perform back-end processing (heavy computation with other back-end computers). Servers and their systems are increasingly designed as specialized appliances targeted at specific functions: database servers, Web servers, and application servers.

Mainframe Devices and Systems

Mainframe computers remain very much a part of modern Internetworking infrastructure. Some of these mainframes are modern and high-performance machines. Mainframe manufacturers have developed systems that allow users to access information on mainframes via new technologies, such as Web browsers. Native Internetworking systems and more modern mainframe systems, in contrast, usually are designed to operate in real time, to process new orders at the time they occur.

Middleware

Middleware is the hodgepodge of enabling utilities, message handling and queuing systems, protocols, standards, software tool kits, and other systems that help clients, servers, mainframes, and their systems coordinate activities in time and across networks.

Infrastructure Management Systems

These systems monitor the performance of systems, devices, and networks. They support the help desks when users are having trouble with computers or networks and the systems that deliver new software to computers throughout an organization.

Business Applications

Computer users interact with the business applications layer of infrastructure constantly and directly. Business applications deliver actual business functionality. Many applications are custom-built by the IT staffs in the companies that use them. Others are off-the-shelf packages ranging from small client applications, such as a spreadsheet program, upto huge packages that cost tens of millions of dollars and take years to install, such as ERP systems.

THE TECHNOLOGICAL ELEMENTS OF FACILITIES

Following are the technological elements of facilities:

Buildings and Physical Spaces

The physical characteristics of the buildings and rooms that house computing infrastructure strongly influence how well devices and systems function & how efficiently and effectively they can be managed. The size of a facility, its physical features, how readily it lends itself to reconfiguration, and how well it protects its contents from external disruptions are important factors to consider in managing physical structures.

Network Conduits and Connections

The way in which systems within a facility are connected to wider networks also influences IT infrastructure performance. Among the factors managers must consider are the amount of redundancy in physical network connections, the number and selection of partners who will provide ?backbone? connectivity to external networks, and the capacity of the data lines leased from service providers.

Power

Computers do not run without power, and many businesses do not run without computers. Systems can obtain power from multiple power grids and utilities, uninterruptible power supplies (USPs), backup generators, and even privately owned power plants.

Environmental Controls

Computers do not tolerate wide variations in temperature or combine well with moisture. Shielding computers from environmental hazards is another effort that can be pursued more or less thoroughly at varying cost.

Security

Computer devices and systems also must be protected from malicious attacks, both physical and network-based. Physical security requires facilities and methods that control access to machines, such as security guards, cages, and locks. Network security ? a field of growing complexity ? has numerous facilities implications.

THE FUTURE OF INTERNETWORKING INFRASTRUCTURE

Internetworking technologies are evolving at a rapid pace. Internetworks already are reasonably good at reliability, availability, and security, and they are getting better. However, there are other, subtler aspects of business support for which these technologies are not yet mature. Internetworking technologies must support all or nearly all the elements of business transactions that can occur in face-to-face transactions. The elements of infrastructure that support financial transactions are works in process. How we transport information within Internetworks and how we access network resources are well defined, if continually changing, at this point in history. How companies will in the long run engage each other in real-time transactions, negotiate the terms of transactions establish business linkages, and settle accounts depends on standards and technologies not yet fully developed.