Chapter 3

CONTEMPORARY HARDWARE PLATFORM

TRENDS
 Learning Objectives

• Discuss the current trends in computer

hardware platforms
• Discuss the current trends in computer
software platforms
• Identify the challenges of managing IT
infrastructure and providing management
solutions
 Introduction
• The exploding power of computer hardware and
networking technology has dramatically changed
how businesses organize their computing power,
putting more of this power on networks and mobile
handheld devices.
• We look at eight hardware trends: the mobile digital
platform, consumerization of IT, grid computing,
virtualization, cloud computing, green computing,
high-performance/ power-saving processors, and
autonomic computing.
 Contemporary Hardware Trend

• Emerging mobile digital platform

• Grid computing
• Virtualization
• Cloud computing
• Green computing
• High performance/power-saving processors
• Autonomic computing
  THE MOBILE DIGITAL PLATFORM
• The new mobile digital computing platforms have emerged as alternatives
to PCs and larger computers. Smartphones such as the iPhone, Android,
and BlackBerry smartphones have taken on many functions of PCs,
including transmission of data, surfing the Web, transmitting e-mail and
instant messages, displaying digital content, and exchanging data with
internal corporate systems.
• The new mobile platform also includes small lightweight netbooks
optimized for wireless communication and Internet access, tablet
computers such as the iPad, and digital e-book readers such as Amazon’s
Kindle with Web access capabilities.
• Smartphones and tablet computers are becoming an important means of
accessing the Internet. These devices are increasingly used for business
computing as well as for consumer applications.
• For example, senior executives at General Motors are using smartphone
applications that drill down into vehicle sales information, financial
performance, manufacturing metrics, and project management status.
   CONSUMERIZATION OF IT AND BYOD
• The popularity, ease of use, and rich array of useful applications for smartphones and tablet
computers have created a groundswell of interest in allowing employees to use their personal
mobile devices in the workplace, a phenomenon popularly called “bring your own device” (BYOD).
• BYOD is one aspect of the consumerization of IT, in which new information technology that first
emerges in the consumer market spreads into business organizations.
• Consumerization of IT includes not only mobile personal devices but also business uses of
software services such as Google and Yahoo search, Gmail, Google Apps, Dropbox , and even
Facebook and Twitter that originated in the consumer marketplace as well. Consumerization of IT
is forcing businesses, especially large enterprises, to rethink the way they obtain and manage
information technology equipment and services.
• Historically, at least in large firms, the central IT department was responsible for selecting and
managing the information technology and applications used by the firm and its employees. It
furnished employees with desktops or laptops that were able to access corporate systems securely.
• The IT department maintained control over the firm’s hardware and software to ensure that the
business was being protected and that information systems served the purposes of the firm and its
management. Today, employees and business departments are playing a much larger role in
technology selection, in many cases demanding that employees be able and make sure they serve
the needs of the business.
• The Interactive Session on Management explores some of these management challenges created
by BYOD and IT consumerization. to use their own personal computers, smartphones, and tablets
to access the corporate network. It is more difficult for the firm to manage and control these
consumer technologies
  GRID COMPUTING
Grid computing is a type of data management and computer infrastructure,
designed as a support primarily for scientific research, but, as said in the
introduction, also used in various commercial concepts, business research,
entertainment and finally by governments of different countries.
  GR ID COMPUTING

• Grid computing involves connecting geographically remote computers into a single

network to create a virtual supercomputer by combining the computational power of
all computers on the grid.
• Grid computing takes advantage of the fact that most computers in the United States
use their central processing units on average only 25 percent of the time for the work
they have been assigned, leaving these idle resources available for other processing
tasks.
• Grid computing was impossible until high-speed Internet connections enabled firms to
connect remote machines economically and move enormous quantities of data. Grid
computing requires software programs to control and allocate resources on the grid.
• The business case for using grid computing involves cost savings, speed of
computation, and agility. For example, Royal Dutch/Shell Group is using a scalable grid
computing platform that improves the accuracy and speed of its scientific modeling
applications to find the best oil reservoirs. This platform, which links 1,024 IBM servers
running Linux, in effect creates one of the largest commercial Linux supercomputers in
the world.
• The grid adjusts to accommodate the fluctuating data volumes that are typical in this
seasonal business. Royal Dutch/Shell Group claims the grid has enabled the company
to cut processing time for seismic data, while improving output quality and helping its
scientists pinpoint problems in finding new oil supplies.
  GRID COMPUTING
The primary objectives of Grid Computing are:
 Scalability
 Economical handling
 Redundancy and recovery
 Collective processing power
 Providing remote access to IT resources
Advantages of Adopting Grid Computing
 No need of large IT infrastructures like Servers
 No need of experts to manage IT resources
 Price will be based on consumption.
 Grid computation allows effective utilization of resources.
 If more capacity is required, add more computers to the grid.
•
 VIRTUALIZATION

Virtualization is the process of presenting a set of computing resources (such as computing power
or data storage) so that they can all be accessed in ways that are not restricted by physical
configuration or geographic location. Virtualization enables a single physical resource (such as a
server or a storage device) to appear to the user as multiple logical resources.
• For example, a server or mainframe can be configured to run many instances of an operating
system so that it acts like many different machines. Virtualization also enables multiple physical
resources to appear as a single logical resource, as would be the case with storage area networks
or grid computing. Virtualization makes it possible for a company to handle its computer
processing and storage using computing resources housed in remote locations. VMware is the
leading virtualization software vendor for Windows and Linux servers.

Bob
Virtual
machine
monitor Charlie

Physical machine
Daniel
Virtual machines
Virtualization also facilitates centralization and consolidation of hardware administration. It is now possible for companies
and individuals to perform all of their computing work using a virtualized IT infrastructure, as is the case with cloud
computing.
  CLOUD COMPUTING

Cloud computing is where the

organization outsources data
processing to computers owned
by the vendor. Primarily the
vendor hosts the equipment
while the audited entities still has
control over the application and
the data. Outsourcing may also
include utilizing the vendor’s
computers to store, backup, and
provide online access to the
organization data.
  CLOUD COMPUTING
• Cloud computing is a model of computing in which computer processing, storage,
software, and other services are provided as a pool of virtualized resources over a
network, primarily the Internet. These “clouds” of computing resources can be
accessed on an as-needed basis from any connected device and location. Figure 5.10
illustrates the cloud computing concept.
  CLOUD COMPUTING CHARACTERSTICS
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines cloud
computing as having the following essential characteristics (Mell and Grance, 2009):

 On-demand self-service: Consumers can obtain computing capabilities such as

server time or network storage as needed automatically on their own.
 Ubiquitous network access: Cloud resources can be accessed using standard
network and Internet devices, including mobile platforms.
 Location-independent resource pooling: Computing resources are pooled to
serve multiple users, with different virtual resources dynamically assigned
according to user demand. The user generally does not know where the
computing resources are located.
 Rapid elasticity: Computing resources can be rapidly provisioned, increased, or
decreased to meet changing user demand.
 Measured service: Charges for cloud resources are based on amount of
resources actually used.
Cloud computing consists of three different  SERVICE MODELS

types of services:
1.Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS):
A service model that involves outsourcing the
basic infrastructure used to support operations--
including storage, hardware, servers, and
networking components.
• Cloud infrastructure as a service: Customers use
processing, storage, networking, and other
computing resources from cloud service providers
to run their information systems. For example,
Amazon uses the spare capacity of its IT
infrastructure to provide a broadly based cloud
environment selling IT infrastructure services.
These include its Simple Storage Service (S3) for
storing customers’ data and its Elastic Compute
Cloud (EC2) service for running their applications.
Users pay only for the amount of computing and
storage capacity they actually use.
 SERVICE MODELS
2.Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS):
A service model that involves outsourcing the
basic infrastructure and platform (Windows,
Unix)
Cloud platform as a service: Customers use
infrastructure and programming tools
supported by the cloud service provider to
develop their own applications. For example,
IBM offers a Smart Business Application
Development & Test service for software
development and testing on the IBM Cloud.
Another example is Sales force.com, which
allows developers to build applications that
are hosted on its servers as a service.
  SERVICE MODELS

3.Software-as-a-Service (SaaS):
Also referred to as “software on demand,” this
service model involves outsourcing the
infrastructure, platform, and software/applica-
tions.
• Cloud software as a service: Customers use
software hosted by the vendor on the vendor’s
cloud infrastructure and delivered over a network.
Leading examples are Google Apps, which provides
common business applications online and
Salesforce.com, which also leases customer
relationship management and related software
services over the Internet. Both charge users an
annual subscription fee, although Google Apps also
has a pared-down free version. Users access these
applications from a Web browser, and the data and
software are maintained on the providers’ remote
servers.
  CLOUD COMPUTING

A cloud can be private or public.

• A public cloud is owned and maintained by a cloud service provider,
such as Amazon Web Services, and made available to the general
public or industry group.
• A private cloud is operated solely for an organization. It may be
managed by the organization or a third party and may exist on premise
or off premise. Like public clouds, private clouds are able to allocate
storage, computing power, or other resources seamlessly to provide
computing resources on an as-needed basis. Companies that want
flexible IT resources and a cloud service model while retaining control Public
over their own IT infrastructure are gravitating toward these private
clouds.
• Since organizations using public clouds do not own the infrastructure,
they do not have to make large investments in their own hardware and
software. Instead, they purchase their computing services from remote
providers and pay only for the amount of computing power they
actually use (utility computing) or are billed on a monthly or annual
subscription basis. The term on-demand computing has also been
used to describe such services
• Cloud computing has some drawbacks. Unless users make provisions
for storing their data locally, the responsibility for data storage and
control is in the hands of the provider. Some companies worry about
the security risks related to entrusting their critical data and systems
to an outside vendor that also works with other companies. Private
  CLOUD COMPUTING/HYBRID COMPUTING

  Company A Company B
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Public Community
Private
Who can become a customer of the cloud?
Public cloud: Commercial service; open to (almost) anyone
Example: Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google App Engine
Community cloud: Shared by several similar organizations.
Example: Google’s “Gov Cloud”
Private cloud: Shared within a single organization. Example:
Internal datacenter of a large company
  DATA CENTER

Massive networking
Hundreds or thousands of racks
Cooling
plant
Data centers
(size of a football field)
  GREEN COMPUTING
• By curbing hardware proliferation and power consumption, virtualization has
become one of the principal technologies for promoting green computing.
Green computing or green IT, refers to practices and technologies for
designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers, servers, and
associated devices such as monitors, printers, storage devices, and networking
and communications systems to minimize the impact on the environment.
• Reducing computer power consumption has been a very high “green”
priority. Information technology is responsible for about 2 percent of total
U.S. power demand and is believed to contribute about 2 percent of the
world’s greenhouse gases. Cutting power consumption in data centers has
become both a serious business and environmental challenge. The Interactive
Session on Organizations examines this problem.
  HIGH-PERFORMANCE AND POWER-SAVING PROCESSORS
• Power Saver: Power Saver attempts to save power by reducing the CPU's
speed all the time and lowering screen brightness, among other similar
settings. High Performance: High Performance mode doesn't lower
your CPU's speed when it isn't being used, running it at higher speeds most of
the time

Format Adaptation Module

FAM:The FAM module
(consisting of amplifiers,
filters, reference voltage
and/or current sources,
etc.) in turn, is responsible
for the initial analog
processing of the sensor
signal in accordance with
its application note
Figure 4. A top view of: (a–c) examples of FAM module with sensors; and (d) a
microprocessor module .
  HIGH-PERFORMANCE AND POWER-SAVING PROCESSORS
• Another way to reduce power requirements and hardware sprawl is to use
more efficient and power-saving processors. Contemporary microprocessors
now feature multiple processor cores (which perform the reading and
execution of computer instructions) on a single chip.
• A multicore processor is an integrated circuit to which two or more processor
cores have been attached for enhanced performance, reduced power
consumption, and more efficient simultaneous processing of multiple tasks.
This technology enables two or more processing engines with reduced power
requirements and heat dissipation to perform tasks faster than a resource-
hungry chip with a single processing core. Today you’ll find PCs with dual-core,
quad-core, six-core, and eight core processors.
• Intel and other chip manufacturers have developed microprocessors that
minimize power consumption, which is essential for prolonging battery life in
small mobile digital devices. Highly power-efficient microprocessors, such as
ARM, Apple’s A4 and A5 processors, and Intel’s Atom are in netbooks, digital
media players, and smartphones. The dual-core A5 processor used in the
iPhone 4S and the iPad2 has about 1/50 to 1/30 the power consumption of a
laptop dual-core processor.
  AUTONOMIC COMPUTING
• With large systems encompassing many thousands of networked devices,
computer systems have become so complex today that some experts believe
they may not be manageable in the future. One approach to this problem is
autonomic computing.
• Autonomic computing is an industry-wide effort to develop systems that can
configure themselves, optimize and tune themselves, heal themselves when
broken, and protect themselves from outside intruders and self-destruction.
• You can glimpse a few of these capabilities in desktop systems. For instance,
virus and firewall protection software are able to detect viruses on PCs,
automatically defeat the viruses, and alert operators. These programs can be
updated automatically as the need arises by connecting to an online virus
protection service such as McAfee. IBM and other vendors are starting to build
autonomic features into products for large systems
 BENEFITS OF AUTONOMIC COMPUTING
 Configure themselves
 Optimize and tune themselves
 Heal themselves when broken
 Protect themselves from outside intruders and self-destruction
 Reduces maintenance costs
 Reduces downtime from system crashes Virtualization Benefits of server
virtualization include:
 Run more than one operating system at the same time on a single machine.
 Increase server utilization rates to 70 percent or higher.
 Reduce hardware expenditures.
 Higher utilization rates translate into fewer computers required to process the
same amount of work.
 Mask server resources from server users.
 Reduce power expenditures.
 Run legacy applications on older versions of an operating system on the same
server as newer applications.
 Facilitates centralization of hardware administration.
 Contemporary Hardware Platform Trends
 While the cost of computing has fallen, IT infrastructure expenditures have grown due
to the rising cost of computing services, software, and the increase in intensity and
sophistication of computing.
 Telecommunications and computing platforms have converged: at the client level, with
the merging of PDAs and cell phones, and at the server and network level, with the rise
of Internet telephony.
 Grid computing utilizes the idle computational resources of separate, geographically
remote computers to create a single virtual supercomputer. In this process, a server
computer breaks data and applications into discrete chunks that are parceled out to
the grid's machines. Grid computing offers increased cost savings, computational
speed and agility.
 On-demand computing, or utility computing, refers to firms off-loading peak demand
for computing power to remote, large-scale data processing centers. This allows firms
to reduce their investment in IT infrastructure by investing in only as much computing
power as needed on average and paying for additional power on an as-needed basis.
This arrangement offers firms much greater agility and flexibility in their infrastructure.
 Autonomic computing is an industry-wide effort to develop systems that can
configure, optimize, repair, and protect themselves against intruders and viruses, in an
effort to free system administrators from routine system management, reduce costly
system crashes. Today's virus software with automatic virus updates is one example of
autonomic computing.
 Contemporary Hardware Platform Trends
Edge computing is a multi-tier, load-balancing scheme for Web-based applications in which
parts of the Web site content and processing are performed by smaller, less expensive
servers located near the computer. In an edge computing platform client requests are
initially processed by the edge servers, which may deliver static presentation content,
reusable code, while database and business logic components are delivered by the
enterprise servers.
 Contemporary Hardware Platform-
Review Summary
 Emerging Mobile Digital Platform Smartphones evolving to become
handheld computers
 Transmission of data, surfing Web, and IM, display digital content Low-cost
light weight subnotebooks called netbooks
 Tablet computers, Digital e-book readers & Business computing will
gradually move towards mobile devices.
 Grid Computing Connecting geographically remote computers into a single
network to create a virtual supercomputer Combines computational power
of all 0computers
 In the Grid Reason: most computer use CPU for 25% of the time for a certain
work
 Special software programs control and allocate
 Resources Benefits: Cost savings & Speed of computing
 Agility Reduced power consumption
 Review Summary
 Virtualization Process of presenting computing resources, that
are accessed without restriction of geographic location or
physical configuration
 Enables Single physical resource appears to users are multiple
logical resources
 Enables Multiple physical resources appear as a single logical
resource Benefit
 Computing processing storage handled using computer
resources at remote locations
 Increase equipment utilization
 Conserving data center space
 Conserving energy usage Run legacy systems on old OS on the
same server Centralization of hardware administration
   Review Summary
 Cloud Computing Computer processing, storage, software and other
services are obtained as a pool of virtualized resources over networks
 Main characteristics: ON-demand self –service
 Ubiquitous network access Location independent resource pooling
 Rapid elasticity Measured service
 Available as three services: Cloud infrastructure, cloud platform and cloud
software Types: Public cloud and private cloud
 Green Computing Practice's and technologies for designing,
manufacturing, and using devices to minimize impact on environment
 Reducing power consumption
 Metrics: Power Usage Effectiveness Data Center Infrastructure efficiency
 Average Data Efficiency Autonomic Computing
 The more computer systems become complex, more difficult to manage
 Effort to develop systems themselves, optimize and heal themselves, also
protect from intruders E.g. firewalls and virus protection
 Contemporary Software Platform

• Linux and Open Source Software OS: software produced by a

community of several hundred thousands of programmers
around the world
• Free, modifiable, and free to be redistributed Linux:
• operating systems based on Unix Applications embedded in
smart phones, netbooks, consumer electronics IBM, HP, Dell,
Oracle produce
• Linux-compatible version of their products
• Used in Web servers, high performance computing
   Service Oriented Architecture(SOA)
• Service Oriented Architecture Web Service: set of loosely coupled software
components that exchange information with each other using standard web
communications standards and languages
• XML: more powerful than HTML Perform presentation, communication and
storage of data Provides standard format for data exchange
• SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture): set of self contained services that communicate
with one another to create a working software application IBM’s Web sphere e-
business software platform Microsoft's .Net platform, Example “Invoice Service”.
• Software Outsourcing and Cloud Services
• Software package: prewritten, commercially available , e.g. SAP Outsourcing:
enables firms to contract custom software development to outside firms, usually
off shore
• Low-level maintenance, data entry, call center, and now new program
development
• Cloud-based: software and data hosted on powerful servers and accessed through
Internet and Web browser
• MS Word, Adobe Illustrator
• Enterprise software, other business function also available as a service
• Software as a Service (SaaS)Subscription or per transaction
 Management Issues of IT infrastructure
• Platform and Infrastructure issues
• Scalability: ability of a computer, product, or system to
expand to serve large number of users
• New policies, procedures or legal contracts required if
changing kind of infrastructure
• Response time and availability of mission critical systems
• Management and Governance Who controls the IT
infrastructure?
• How will infrastructure costs be allocated among business
units?
• Making Wise Investments How much should be spent?
• Cloud computing low-cost and flexible but issue of security
and work flow
 Case Study: Cloud Services Go Mainstream

• Company: Sales Force.com Provides CRM and other

application software solutions as ‘software as a service’
• On-demand model
• Eliminates need for hardware/software investments
• Very low subscription rate
• No OS, database servers, application servers to install
• No expensive licensing and maintenance fees
• Challenges Increased competition Security and reliability
• Need to expand business model Constant availability