Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
support changing business concepts has the potential to increase IT and business
agility in companies.
Another development trend affecting the requirements upon the IT infrastruc-
ture in companies is the increasing globalization of companies. Companies are
increasingly acting as global companies with activities spread over many locations
worldwide. The globalization of companies resulted in globalisation of their IT.
To support the activities of remote company parts, IT resources and data as well as
data centres are also scattered worldwide. Despite of the global spread of activities
companies strive to use the competitive advantage of the involved regions in a syner-
getic way and to create a “Global One Company” (see for example Stanoevska-
Slabeva et al. 2008). Thus, there is growing need for IT support of global processes
in an integrated and “follow-the-sun” principle
2
(for example global supply chains)
by relying on and integrating globally scattered IT resources. Virtualization and
virtual centralization of available resources in computing and data Grids could
provide the necessary integration of resources by keeping at the same time their
physical distribution.
The third trend in companies that has impact on requirements upon their IT
infrastructure is increasing mobility of employees and resources. Due to globaliza-
tion an increasing number of employees is mobile and requires mobile support. At
the same time, with the maturity of ubiquitous computing and the Internet of Things,
an increasing number of external devices is expected to be involved as sensors in
the IT infrastructure of companies. Mobile computing resources and data as well as
data sources as sensors need to be supported remotely in an efficient manner and at
the same time need to be integrated into the existing infrastructure in a flexible way.
Figure 1.1 summarizes the impact of the three factors on company
IT-infrastructure. In order to support agility flexible infrastructure is required that
can fast be adopted to new processes.
Fig. 1.1:
Main factors impacting requirements upon company IT infrastructure
2
As IT resources are in many cases used over night, also the term “follow-the-moon” is used.
