A01 chaf6542 06 se fm indd

  Digital  business 

infrastructure 

  The  architecture  of 

hardware, software, 

content and data used 

to deliver e-business 

services to employees, 

customers and partners.   

  Activity  3.1 

Infrastructure risk assessment

   Purpose 

 To indicate potential problems to customers, partners and staff of the e-business if 

technical infrastructure is not managed adequately.  

  Activity 

 Make a list of the potential technology problems faced by customers of an online 

retailer. Consider problems faced by users of digital business applications which are 

either internal or external to the organisation. Base your answer on problems you have 

experienced on a website that can be related to network, hardware and software fail-

ures or problems with data quality. 

  Answers to activities can be found at    www.pearsoned.co.uk/chaffey   

 In this chapter we focus on the management decisions involved with creating an effective 

technology infrastructure rather than explaining the technology in detail. We explained the 

technology such as TCP/IP/XML and XML in more detail in previous editions, when it was less 

familiar to readers. In this edition, the technology introduction is covered through references 

to other sources and online material taken from other editions. Research and feedback from 

users of the book have shown that this knowledge usually exists from other courses, modules 

or from work, so there is little value in duplicating it. Instead, there is a demand to learn more 

about the management issues of deploying the technology, summarised in  Table   3.1   .  

 The interview on Magiq gives an example of how integration of a service into a website 

can help deliver better results for a business.    

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