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Chapter 5 IT Infrastructure and Emerging Technologies 231

where to make strategic infrastructure investments, and establishing the total cost of ownership (TCO) of
information technology assets. The total cost of owning technology resources includes not only the original
cost of computer hardware and software but also costs for hardware and software upgrades, maintenance,
technical support, and training.

Key Terms

Android, 207 Nanotechnology, 202
Application server, 200 On-demand computing, 215
Apps, 225 Open source software, 219
Autonomic computing, 218 Operating system, 207
Blade servers, 207 Outsourcing, 224
Chrome OS, 207 Private cloud, 215
Clients, 199 Public cloud, 215
Client/server computing, 199 SaaS (Software as a Service), 224
Cloud computing, 200 Scalability, 226
Consumerization of IT, 210 Service level agreement (SLA),224
Extensible Markup Language (XML), 221 Server, 199
Green computing, 216 Service-oriented architecture (SOA), 221
Grid computing, 211 Software package, 223
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), 220 Storage area network (SAN), 208
HTML5, 220 Tablet computers, 210
Hybrid cloud, 216 Technology standards, 205
iOS, 208 Total cost of ownership (TCO), 227
Java, 219 Unix, 207
Legacy systems, 209 Utility computing, 215
Linux, 207 Virtualization, 211
Mainframe, 197 Web browser, 220
Mashup, 225 Web hosting service, 209
Minicomputers, 197 Web server, 199
Moore’s Law, 201 Web services, 221
Multicore processor, 216 Windows, 200
Multitiered (N-tier) client/server architecture, 199 Windows 8, 208
Multitouch, 208 Wintel PC, 197

Review Questions

1. What is IT infrastructure and what are its compo- • Describe Moore’s Law and the Law of Mass
nents? Digital Storage.
• Define IT infrastructure from both a technol- • Describe how network economics, declining
ogy and a services perspective. communications costs, and technology
• List and describe the components of standards affect IT infrastructure.
IT infrastructure that firms need to manage. 3. What are the current trends in computer
2. What are the stages and technology drivers of IT hardware platforms?
infrastructure evolution? • Describe the evolving mobile platform, grid
• List each of the eras in IT infrastructure evolu- computing, and cloud computing.
tion and describe its distinguishing character- • Explain how businesses can benefit from
istics. autonomic computing, virtualization, green
• Define and describe the following: Web server, computing, and multicore processors.
application server, multitiered client/server 4. What are the current trends in software
architecture. platforms?

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