Infolutions
would like to thank Mr. David Nocera, VP at Innovative Systems
Design at the time of this article, located in Edison NJ, for some
specific information we utilized. In this 4
part series, we provide a view into a very complex area called Infrastructure.
The enormity of how it affects a company’s bottom line is
staggering. Primary website issues revolve around hosting, development and infrastructure. Each issue has a mass of people that focus on each area. Remember, costs for all may be separate. However, even if you are not openly paying for them, they are driving the costs of those services you are buying. After that come secondary issues, i.e. site promotion and content updating. As I speak with people in this new century about websites, it is not uncommon for me to find that many people today are not mindful of those three primary areas. Professionals, vendors, organizations and business owners all want a website for their own particular purpose. Unfortunately many get sucked into those web ads that ultimately create the one size fits all website. Not fully realizing what the website can in fact do for them or should do for them, the unwary web purchaser can be misguided. Before you go out and think that your going to get one of those website deals or better yet, a friend is going to get you up and running, take a moment to plan what it is you want to do. Do
you want to improve communications within your company?
Do you want to foster relationships with customers?
Do you want to provide customer awareness about your product
or service?
Do you want your customers to be in a position of
self-management as it relates to your product or service?
Do you want your site to educate, train, grow membership,
sell or entertain? Those that fail to plan their site, plan to have their site fail. In order for your site to be successful it must be planned for and budgeted. After all, it is an extension of your business. And it’s NOT about what colors to use for the header or what applet should be spinning around! It is, however, how you will use it to re-engineer your processes to achieve your goals and objectives. First,
you may want to consult with people that understand your
needs as well as their niche that will service you.
The areas to consider getting input from are infrastructure,
hosting and developing people.
Understand that infrastructure people may know how to develop
and write code. They
may also host. But
do they understand your business needs? Do they
understand the business process and its ever-changing environment? How many areas can one really be an expert in AND still know your business needs and understand your industry? Reminds me of the accountant that gave out legal advise, when in fact, a tax attorney should have been consulted... So
getting back to the primary issues, lets talk about infrastructure
first.
It seems that the hardest area for non-tech people to fully
grasp is the infrastructure.
Infrastructure is how the computers that hold information
will respond or function when the information they hold is accessed.
This includes how the computers respond and understand each
other and an order of what will happen 1st, 2nd
and 3rd. Regarding the computers themselves, infrastructure includes hardware re-quirements. Hardware is the tangible part of infrastructure: What’s being used and how it’s being used, figuring in software to be used and how the software functions. One way to think of all this technology is as an environment. (Which, by the way, it is
Remember, your house is comparable to the website. It needs a plan for a foundation, form and roof. You
can have a
room or you can
have many rooms with opportunity to add on. Your needs will
determine this. The city
is equivalent to the infrastructure because it consists
of roads, bridges, tunnels, electrical lines, water lines, gas lines
and sewage lines. How the city functions depends on the plan,
structure, construction and design of its infrastructure to carry
the needs of those within the city. [The city’s]
infrastructure also includes requirements,
constraints, laws and consequences. Roads,
for example must be constructed to carry the load and volume of cars
and trucks. The
requirements would be to use your seat belt, obey traffic signs and
lights. The constraints
would be how you can’t use your cell phone while driving or that
you cannot speed. The
law outlines the consequences if you choose to ignore the
constraints or requirements. Similarly, the same applies to bridges, trestles, etc.
Tunnels need to be designed and constructed to carry the load
of that which bears down on it – meaning mountainous rock, water
pressure and the traffic passing thru.
This includes the weight of road and rail vehicles.
This also carries over to electric, water, gas and sewage
lines. The inability of any of these parts of the infrastructure to function or scale up when needed, will present bottlenecks, serious problems and chaos in the functionality of the city. This will affect you in the house you built. Do
you have a topic that you’d like to read about or need
written? We’d like to
know. Do
you have a question about your business?
We can help. Call
us at 908.322.4020 or email
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