MIS infrastructure Infrastructure & Environment Free Samples

Questions: 1. What is MIS infrastructure and the three primary types? In your answer, include the three areas associated with an information MIS infrastructure.2. What is an agile MIS infrastructure and what are it's characteristics, benefits and effects?3. In what ways do MIS impact the Environment? Is it helpful or harmful?4. What are the three components of a sustainable MIS infrastructure and the benefits they provide? Why would a company want a sustainable MIS Infrastructure?5. Describe technical architecture as a structured process and compare it to software architecture. How are thi two related? In what ways does it allow us to design better systems?6. In what ways does Information Technology (IT) architecture impact and influence company operations? Would you agree that it is vital to a company. Provide examples in your explanation. Answers: 1. MIS infrastructure comprises of plans pertaining to how the business will build up, deploy, perform, use, and share the assets of the MIS system along with the data and processes. A well-formed and framed MIS infrastructure can be beneficial to reduce the costs, optimize business operations, enhance profits, improve productivity and generate sources for growth. The three types of MIS infrastructures are Supporting Operations (where and how information is stored); Supporting change (agile MIS); supporting environment (sustainable MIS to grow in computing resources power to reduce the level of dependency) (Turban, 2007). The three areas that are closely an primarily associated with MIS infrastructure are backup and recovery (to have an exact copy of the information of the system and to replenish the system and run it after the crash); disaster recovery plan (for recovering in case of natural disasters); Business continuity plan (how a business and recover and restore operations and information) (Turban, 2007). 2. An agile MIS infrastructure supports changes and hence forms a dynamic component of the MIS infrastructure plan and document. Agile MIS is suitable for the changing demands of the market in any kind of business. The components of agile MIS infrastructure are accessibility (varying levels of user access, view, use or performance while operating a system), availability (the time frames of the operational system), maintainability (the speed with which the system can transform to support the changes in the environment hence aiming at flexible systems meeting the demands of all kinds of business), portability (the ability of an application to process on different software platforms or devices), reliability (ensures correct functioning of system and accurate information delivery), usability (the degree of ease and satisfaction level of the system) and scalability (the wellness and caliber of the system to scale up and fulfill the changing and enhanced demands of the customers) (Furukawa, 2001). The benefits of agile MIS infrastructure are incorporation of changing demands of the market and the customer trends. However, it my effect the cost and time invested for adoption of such MIS infrastructure. 3. MIS have a direct relation with the environment. Green MIS or sustainable MIS refers to the production, use, management and disposal of technology and other resources in a way that would minimize the damage to the environment. It is also related to corporate social responsibility where company have acknowledged responsibility towards the society. MIS infrastructure has side effects out of expanded use of technology. They are Increased electronic waste: obsolete or discarded electronic devices comprising of eWaste (Dao, 2011). There should be sustainable MIS disposal ensuring safe disposal of assets at the end of the life cycle. Increased energy consumption: increase in technology have amplified energy consumption. Increased carbon emission: it is observed that a computer which is left on continuously can consume 100 watts of power per hour and greenhouse gases like carbon emission is evident from energy usage. 4. The three components of sustainable MIS infrastructure are grid computing, Cloud computing and virtualized computing. Grid computing is a network of computers dispersed geographically to coordinate and solve a common issue. It is beneficial because of geographical dispersion leading to a greater cover and coordination among the computers to solve a problem quickly and efficiently. Cloud computing refers to use of resource and applications hosted by a remote internet server. It is beneficial to share a wide amount of information with others or store office data on the cloud which can be personal, private or hybrid. Virtualized computing can create various virtual machines on a single computing device which can share hard disk and memory. Sustainable data centers used in virtualized computing reduces carbon emissions and reduces the floor space (Watson, 2010). A company would adopt sustainable MIS to be able to have a cost effective and reliable solution for the problems by minimal utilization of resources and producing the best output. 5. Technical architecture is regarded as a structures process which is applied to the design and construction of some of the software applications. The two are related in a way that technical architecture encompasses some of the prime portions of software engineering and architecture like ensuring consistency, flexibility, modularity and maintainability (King, 1989) etc., specifying the requirements, promoting the component use and promote best practices of software architecture. An efficient planning of technical architectures can open the aspects of current environment and connect them to the desired state which is consistent with the business. 6. Information technology architecture is important tool for surviving the business pressures and increase the power for a global competition by the means of information technology and its deployment. It can influence the company in a way that its help can aid in developing quicker responses towards opportunities or threats, faster flexibility and agility, and strong decision making tasks (Bradley, 2007). It gives technology decisions making it a component of enterprise architecture. It is essential for the company for a good governance, communication and scope of innovation. It aids in better decision making by guiding business creativity, and fostering an alignment with the business for improved operations. References Turban, E., Sharda, R., Delen, D., Efraim, T. (2007).Decision support and business intelligence systems. Pearson Education India. Furukawa, M. (2001). Database Agile Management Dependent on MIS Infrastructure. InThe Proceedings of the 2001st International Conference of Informing Science(pp. 198-213). Dao, V., Langella, I., Carbo, J. (2011). From green to sustainability: Information Technology and an integrated sustainability framework.The Journal of Strategic Information Systems,20(1), 63-79. Watson, R. T., Boudreau, M. C., Chen, A. J. (2010). Information systems and environmentally sustainable development: energy informatics and new directions for the IS community.Management Information Systems Quarterly,34(1), 4. King, W. R., Grover, V., Hufnagel, E. H. (1989). Using information and information technology for sustainable competitive advantage: some empirical evidence.Information Management,17(2), 87-93. Bradley, R. V., Byrd, T. A. (2007). Information technology architecture as a competitive advantage-yielding resource: a theoretical perspective.International journal of networking and virtual organisations,4(1), 1-19.