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Managing hardware and systems software infrastructure

Management of the technology infrastructure requires decisions on Layers II, III and IV in 

Figure 3.3.

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Chapter 3  Managing digital business infrastructure

Layer II – Systems software

The key management decision is standardisation throughout the organisation. 

Standardisation leads to reduced numbers of contacts for support and maintenance and can 

reduce purchase prices through  multi-  user licences. Systems software choices occur for the 

client, server and network. On client computers, the decision will be which browser soft-

ware to standardise on. Standardised  plug-  ins should be installed across the organisation. 

The systems software for the client will also be decided on; this will probably be a variant 

of Microsoft Windows, but  open-  source alternatives such as Linux may also be considered. 

When considering systems software for the server, it should be remembered that there may 

be many servers in the global organisation, both for the Internet and intranets. Using stand-

ardised  web-  server software such as Apache will help maintenance. Networking software will 

also be decided on.