IT Infrastructure Management

This article discusses IT infrastructure management in organizations, including the types of data used, network devices required, and data communication software. It also explains the data movement in the OSI layers.

Running head: IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
IT Infrastructure Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
1. Introduction to the Organization:...........................................................................................2
2. Types of Data used by the organization:................................................................................2
2.1 Accessibility of data by the Staff Members:....................................................................3
2.2 IT infrastructure solutions for storing and accessing data:..............................................3
3. Network devices required for day by day activities:..............................................................4
3.1 Functions of the Identified devices:.................................................................................4
4. Application Software for Data Communication:...................................................................6
4.1 Justification of the answer:...............................................................................................6
5. Data Movement between the OSI layers:...............................................................................7
6. Conclusion:............................................................................................................................8
References:...............................................................................................................................10

2IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
1. Introduction to the Organization:
The Datacom Group Limited is an information technology organization that provides
IS services to its customers and staffs which includes the database, webpage and email
services. Currently this organization provides various types of services to its customers which
includes consulting and management services, ITO services, cloud services, data centre
services, payroll services and software development services. This organization was firstly
started in New Zealand but later it was expanded to Australia, Vietnam, Malaysia and in
many other countries also. Various department of the Datacom uses the information
technologies in some different way. Considering the data centre services, here the
information technology is used as composed networked computer and storage (Putnam et al.
2014). The Datacom group also uses the information technology for the security purposes. In
this security related department information technology is used for implementing measures
and for designing the system that will safeguard important information regarding the
organization. Also, in the cloud service department the information technology is used for
transferring the data from one location to another location.
In this report various types of data that has been used by the organization will be
discussed briefly. The Datacom Group executes various type of activities day by day and for
that it requires many network devices. This network devices will be identified and discussed
in this case. Also, seven layers of the OSI model will be explained in this report regarding
opening the website of the organization.
2. Types of Data used by the organization:
Mainly in the organizations like Datacom Group digital data are used and exchanged.
Thus the main data which is used by Datacom Group are in the digital forms and these types
of data are the multimedia data including graphics, audio, images and videos. Also, there are

3IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
other organization specific data are available within the organization that are used by the
exclusive software which runs within the organization. Apart from that, some uncommon
data which is used by the organization is the encrypted type of file including zip and rar files.
2.1 Accessibility of data by the Staff Members:
All the data stored within the organization can be accessed by the staff members of it.
In this organization all the data stored in a centralised type of database and this data can be
accessed by the staffs of the organizations using their individual computer system. For
accessing the data from the central server all the computers are connected to the central
server through different type of access network including Ethernet, FTTH, DSL and Wireless
LANs (Sikdar 2013). This access networks connects end system with the immediate routers.
2.2 IT infrastructure solutions for storing and accessing data:
There are various types of IT infrastructure are available for storing and accessing the
data at the database using the concept of networking. The main two IT infrastructure for
storing and accessing the data are the remote server IT infrastructure and the cloud computing
IT infrastructure. The remote server IT infrastructure is also known as the traditional type of
IT infrastructure (Masa’deh 2013).
In the remote server infrastructure model there are various types of hardware,
software and network equipment are used and all of this equipment are connected through the
remote server (Beverly and Berger 2015). This type of remote servers are mainly located in
the office premises which provides data access to all the employees of the organization
regarding business data and applications. Employees and the staffs are also able to store data
within this server by having proper access to the server.
Cloud computing IT infrastructure for accessing and storing data are quite different
compared with the remote server infrastructure. Cloud computer infrastructure are far more

4IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
abstract as a hosting solution. In this infrastructure it is not accessible via some physical
hardware, instead of it all the servers, networks and the data are hosted within the cloud
environment (Sahu, Pateriya and Gupta 2013). In this case just by normally using internet
connection data can be stored and accessed from the cloud environment, but proper user
credentials are required for accessing some individual data until those data are available for
public. The cloud IT infrastructure can minimise the maintenance of traditional type of
database servers which is having a huge cost.
3. Network devices required for day by day activities:
Currently the Data Group requires a wide range of network devices for performing its
day by day activities. These network devices are the workstations, network interface cards,
servers, hubs, switches, bridges and router.
3.1 Functions of the Identified devices:
 Workstations: The workstations are used in the client-server network architecture and
basically considered as the client computers (Karakolis and Callaghan 2014). By
using this devices e-mails can be send or can be received and other day to day tasks
can be performed which includes database recording, word processing, creating
PowerPoint Presentation, spreadsheet creation and for accessing resources from the
main server of the organization.
 Network Interface Cards: The network interface card is an essential component for
networking as it connects a workstation or a server directly to a network for
communication purposes (Flajslik and Rosenblum 2013).
 Servers: Servers is one of the most essential part in a completed network connection.
Servers can be also considered as computers in the network which basically hosts
various of data and application for the network users so that they can access it

5IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
whenever they want (Perez-Botero, Szefer and Lee 2013). The size of the servers can
vary depending upon its capacity. This type of computers are different from
workstations as this uses server OS which are more robust compared to the
workstation OS.
 Hubs: In a networking environment the hubs holds a real importance as it acts as a
central connecting device within the network. The hubs crates the star configuration
and can connect many machines together simultaneously and here the hub remains at
the centre. Hubs can broadcast all the data packets that are received in the network.
 Switches: Switches are also important network component devices. Switches are quite
similar with the hubs but instead of network the switches connects two networking
devices together (Drutskoy, Keller and Rexford 2013). Currently the modern network
environment are dominated by the switches which operates in the data link layer of
the OSI model.
 Bridges: Bridges are also important among the network devices. Like the switches,
the bridges also operates in the data link layer of the OSI model. The bridges are
mainly used for checking an incoming traffic within the network. After examining the
data bridges decides whether to pass this traffic or to discard this traffic to the internal
network.
 Router: Router in the networking environment are responsible for connecting two or
more computer network together and exchange data packets among them. Each of this
data packets holds some specific type of address information which a router can use to
determine the source and the destination of the data packets (Takahashi, Tashiro and
Hikihara 2015). Routers are designed to work in the network layer of the OSI model.
Mainly it has two or more network interfaces by which network traffics can be

6IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
blocked or forwarded. Also, the routers are very much important for blocking the
spoofed data packets.
4. Application Software for Data Communication:
For All the departments in the organisation the main application software which are
required for data communication between servers and clients are the web browsers, database
software and instant messaging software.
4.1 Justification of the answer:
In a client server architecture for the data communication first of all it is very much
important to access the data (Oluwatosin 2014). In this case for accessing the data a secure
communication channel need to be built between server and client. This secure
communication channel can be achieved by using a secure web browser. Thus web browsers
are essential in the process of data communication among client and server all the department
of organisation. Also the data can be downloaded or new data can be uploaded to the main
server using the web browser which are very much essential for data communication
purposes.
After the web browsers, database management software are also important for the
data communication purposes (DeBrabant et al. 2013). In the client server architecture many
times is it is important to update the database manually as per the request of clients or there
can be some internal requirement for updating the database. For this type of manual changes
Database Management software are crucial.
Instant messaging software are also very much important for a proper data
communication in the client server architecture. In many cases client may want to pass an
information directly to the server and in this type of situation instant messaging software
applications become very much useful (Hong, Lee and Suh 2013). Information can be passed

7IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
easily using these messaging software and this is one of the most important part of data
communication in every department of the organisation.
5. Data Movement between the OSI layers:
When an employee tries to open the homepage of organisation data movements are
done in seven layers of OSI model. These 7 layers are the application layer, presentation
layer, session layer, transport layer, network layer, data link layer and physical layer (Bora et
al. 2014). In the scenario of web page opening a web browser is used for accessing the
homepage. Here the web browser is an application and it works in the application layer of
OSI model. The requested data by the web browser is process in the presentation layer by
converting the files stored in the web server in some understandable format. The next layer is
the session layer and this layer is used for establishing a TCP connection with the web server.
This TCP connection is created when a web browser requests some data from the web server
which can be the homepage of the organisation (Bonaventure and Seo 2016). After the
webpage is delivered to the web browser the TCP connection is closed and the use of session
layer ends here. Data goes through transport layer when the TCP connection is established
among the web server and web browser. The TCP connection parts the homepage of the
organisation in manageable chunks so that it can be reassembled later. Unique addresses are
required for connecting to every web server from different web browsers and for that internet
protocols are used which is the network layer protocol (Deering and Hinden 2017). When the
request is made by the web browser for the access of homepage it must be sent to the network
card. Network card convert this into a message and send this through a default gateway. This
requests are made in the data link layer of the OSI model. Lastly in the physical layer big
streams are transmitted as one and zero and bit synchronisation ensured by physical layer.
The bit synchronisation is used for ensuring end user data is assembled in a correct order and
sent to the destination.

8IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
(Figure 1: Data flow through OSI model)
6. Conclusion:
From the above discussion it can be concluded that information technology and the
information system is very much important for many organisation to perform their daily
operations. In this paper Datacom Group Corporation has been selected for evaluating the
role of information system in IT related organisations. In this report first of all the services
used by this organisation is elaborated briefly and how every department of the organisation
is using the information technology discussed properly. This selected organisation uses
various types of data in their daily activities. Thus how this data can be accessed by the staff
members of the organisation is illustrated in this report. Also, two very important IT
infrastructure solution is discussed here which is used for storing and accessing data at the

9IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
database through networking environment. As this organisation is currently using a large IT
infrastructure solution important network devices are required to run this infrastructure. Thus
different types of network devices has been identified in this case function of each devices is
explained. Data communication between the server and client is also an important concept of
this organisation. Thus the application software which are required for the data
communication has been discussed. Lastly, the seven layers of OSI model has been used in
this case for explaining the data movement when an employee tries to open the homepage of
the organisation website.

10IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
References:
Beverly, R. and Berger, A., 2015, March. Server siblings: Identifying shared IPv4/IPv6
infrastructure via active fingerprinting. In International Conference on Passive and Active
Network Measurement (pp. 149-161). Springer, Cham.
Bonaventure, O. and Seo, S., 2016. Multipath TCP deployments. IETF Journal, 12(2), pp.24-
27.
Bora, G., Bora, S., Singh, S. and Arsalan, S.M., 2014. OSI reference model: An
overview. International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT), 7(4), pp.214-
218.
DeBrabant, J., Pavlo, A., Tu, S., Stonebraker, M. and Zdonik, S., 2013. Anti-caching: A new
approach to database management system architecture. Proceedings of the VLDB
Endowment, 6(14), pp.1942-1953.
Deering, S. and Hinden, R., 2017. Internet protocol, version 6 (IPv6) specification (No. RFC
8200).
Drutskoy, D., Keller, E. and Rexford, J., 2013. Scalable network virtualization in software-
defined networks. IEEE Internet Computing, 17(2), pp.20-27.
Flajslik, M. and Rosenblum, M., 2013. Network interface design for low latency request-
response protocols. In Presented as part of the 2013 {USENIX} Annual Technical
Conference ({USENIX}{ATC} 13) (pp. 333-346).
Hong, J., Lee, O.K. and Suh, W., 2013. A study of the continuous usage intention of social
software in the context of instant messaging. Online Information Review, 37(5), pp.692-710.

11IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
Karakolis, T. and Callaghan, J.P., 2014. The impact of sit–stand office workstations on
worker discomfort and productivity: a review. Applied ergonomics, 45(3), pp.799-806.
Masa’deh, R.E.M., 2013. The impact of information technology infrastructure flexibility on
firm performance: An empirical study of Jordanian public shareholding firms. Jordan
Journal of Business Administration, 153(954), pp.1-42.
Oluwatosin, H.S., 2014. Client-server model. IOSRJ Comput. Eng, 16(1), pp.2278-8727.
Perez-Botero, D., Szefer, J. and Lee, R.B., 2013, May. Characterizing hypervisor
vulnerabilities in cloud computing servers. In Proceedings of the 2013 international
workshop on Security in cloud computing (pp. 3-10). ACM.
Putnam, A., Caulfield, A.M., Chung, E.S., Chiou, D., Constantinides, K., Demme, J.,
Esmaeilzadeh, H., Fowers, J., Gopal, G.P., Gray, J. and Haselman, M., 2014. A
reconfigurable fabric for accelerating large-scale datacenter services. ACM SIGARCH
Computer Architecture News, 42(3), pp.13-24.
Sahu, Y., Pateriya, R.K. and Gupta, R.K., 2013, September. Cloud server optimization with
load balancing and green computing techniques using dynamic compare and balance
algorithm. In 2013 5th International Conference and Computational Intelligence and
Communication Networks (pp. 527-531). IEEE.
Sikdar, B., 2013. A study of the environmental impact of wired and wireless local area
network access. IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, 59(1), pp.85-92.
Takahashi, R., Tashiro, K. and Hikihara, T., 2015. Router for power packet distribution
network: Design and experimental verification. IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 6(2),
pp.618-626.