Critical Analysis of CIO Strategy in MIS (IMAT5206)

This report provides a critical analysis of Marcus East, the CIO of National Geographic's, strategy regarding the implementation of serverless architecture. The report explores the shift from cloud-based systems to a serverless infrastructure, highlighting the benefits and challenges associated with this transition. It discusses the technological history of National Geographic, the specific steps taken towards serverless implementation, and the context within the company's recent IT history. The analysis includes a critical evaluation of East's approach, considering both its positive aspects and potential limitations, such as gateway time constraints. The report also offers recommendations for addressing potential issues and ensuring a smooth transition. The report is based on an interview with Marcus East and provides a comprehensive overview of the IT strategy at National Geographic.

Running head: MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Management information systems
[Name of the Student]
[Name of the University]
[Author note]

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THEMES AND VIEWS PRESENTED
The referential consideration that has been taken for the discussion is the interview by
Marcus East, the CIO of National Geographic. The primary theme that has been discussed in the
interview is regarding the adaption of Serverless Infrastructure in the IT cell of National
Geographic. The idea of going serverless throughout the organisation brings forward some
additional views regarding the technological aspect. The introduction of CHIP (Cohesive
Intelligent Platform) initiation followed by acquiring an open source platform where all the
management areas could be confined together and making the access and handlings much more
easier. The words of East clearly states that all the technological advancements that are being
planned to be implemented are for the sake of better approach towards the consumers who are
getting more interested in the contents created by the Nat. Geo. Most of the consumers are more
eager towards having an involvement in the communities rather than just going through the
pictures or the editorials. To achieve that Marcus suggested of building three pillars for the
advancement such as construction of a new underlying platform, redesigning of the digital
experience and development of the community products.
TECHNOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Before the approach towards serverless architecture, National Geographic used Cloud
services as the principle form of information management system. The history comprised of 10
addressed systems that include Adobe AEM, Drupal and WordPress. All of the collaboration of
these softwares makes clear that the previous management of National Geographic was based
totally on Cloud architecture that mainly focuses on IaaS type of architecture that serves an

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infrastructure as a system. The basic understanding is that previously all of the main functions
are handled by the organisation itself, just the platform on which the whole execution would be
done was external that keeps the complexity intact. The overall processes have to be monitored
by the professionals and the monitoring of the executing media can be skipped. An ideology of
computing is Cloud computing where dynamic scale of infrastructure for data, application and
file storage is being provided to handle huge number of systems that gets connected to a public
or private network. The reduction of computation cost, hosting of applications, content storage
and for the delivery is significantly reduced due to the invention of this technology. The
experience of direct cost benefits and the ability to make transformations in a data centre from its
capital intensive establishment to an environment of variable price is the practical approach
Cloud computing aims to. The cloud computing idea is formed on the basis of the principle of
reusing the IT capabilities. Widening of organisational boundaries is the difference that cloud
computing creates while compared to the usual concepts of computing that comprises of
“distributed computing”, “utility computing”, “autonomic computing” and “grid computing”.
DISCUSSION OF THE THEME AND VIEWS
THE THEME OF SERVERLESS COMPUTING
The primary objective circles around the introduction and implementation of Serverless
architecture. National Geographic planned to go serverless through a joint venture with the
parent company 21st Century Fox under an initiative named as CHIP abbreviated from Cohesive
Intelligent Platform. AWS or Amazon Web Services is the key partner with a bit of association
from Microsoft Azure. Serverless Architecture is something immediately after Cloud computing.
As cloud service facilitates the provision of platforms where the process could be executed, the

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later provides more flexibility towards the processes and also the method of execution. Opting
for serverless let the processes select freely the resources they need to use for their execution as
this programme offer a special architecture that is FaaS (Function as a Service). Unlike the cloud
architecture, serverless architecture provides functions as services where instead of getting the
platforms or the infrastructure as services, now the companies will enjoy functions as services
which will makes the user more relaxed as they do not have to worry about the execution
method, rather they will sit back and wait for the process to be completed.
THE STEPS TOWARDS THE IMPLEMENTATION
The building of the first pillar started with redesigning of the website with a mobile-first
approach. Prior to the existing global beta version of the website, National Geographic carried
out detailed test of the website with the consumers on the basis user experience facts such as
design, navigation and structure. The measurement of the online user engagement was done by
using tools like Net Promoter Score. Within the next six months prior to the interview, Marcus
focussed on the launch of the new website that will be created, NationalGeographic.com but
before that they want to gather more consumer feedback to come to the final conclusion. The
next goal for the team is to launch the NG1 mobile app which is currently available only in
Australia and in the company’s home market. The team led by Marcus East from the front, aims
to target United States as the next market to watch the app emerging. Till date, more than
100,000 users already registered themselves even before appropriate marketing. Besides all these
the next stage comprised of introducing some personalised services for the users that uses
artificial intelligence in order to present a pre-defined material for the users based on the
consumer preferences. Finally, the team is aiming to look forward into the improvement of the
premium members like what could be provided to the users who have a paid membership. Along

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with it, additional focus will be added to redefine the website for the celebration of the
company’s anniversary.
CONTEXT OF RECENT IT HISTORY
The implementations that the company is looking forward to bring up requires to come
out of the existing cloud architecture. This is because the functions that the team is thinking to
include into the system primarily needs more resource to be accessed. While running on a
provided infrastructure, monitoring of the execution have to be done by the team themselves.
However in the cloud architecture all needs to be worried about is the execution, because the
intermediate process would be carried by the associated organisations who are providing
National Geographic with a serverless architecture whose main characteristic is function as a
service. They are providing the processes to be executed there without the user to be worried
about the intermediary stages of the execution.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE APPROACH
Marcus East as being the CIO of National Geographic, approached with a positive
attitude towards the technological development of the organisation. His forward movement with
the introduction of Serverless framework is going to impact the whole management system
positively. Getting out of the Cloud computing will help the IT cell to get into more flexible and
reliable processing. Besides the way East is trying to approach towards the consumers, no other
approach could be as better as the mentioned one. As now the time is to include the consumers
into the community hence it is important to have a flexible operating system where the
consumers will be able to perform any task they desire to do. All the minute and single
operations by the user cannot be monitored and processed by the IT team of the organisation and
this would obviously result into the malfunctioning and often the task gets aborted. To save the

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management from such malfunctioning and loss in repute, digital advancement like this is
necessary. From the point of view of an analyst, what has been said is justifiable as it shows new
era of development in the IT department of the company and also the point of right time for
approach, as mentioned by East, is something highly preferable. Obviously to compete in the
market one has to be fit for the environment but also the approach of waiting for the consumers
to be ready for the advancement is something worthy. Inspite of all these appreciating features,
serverless framework may limit itself in some regions such as, the abundance of the gateway
time is important to look for. Often this parameter limits the functioning of a particular process
and the user would not get the outcome resulting into collapsing of the process in midway and
have to be restarted once again.
LIMITATIONS (IF ANY) AND THE UNSAID
The primary limitation of the serverless framework is lack of abundance in gateway time.
Often the process stars executing and the gateway time gets over preferably known as Gateway
time-out situation when the process gets aborted and either the user have to reinitiate again or
lack of resources may take the whole process out of order. These situations take place in case of
network inefficiency, no coverage area and instances likewise. Besides lack of resources could
also be the reason behind it. Things that is unsaid that how the team will overcome such issues if
they come across such difficulties. There is no control over the media on which the process will
be executing as these are sole properties of the third-party organisations and the server cannot do
anything about it unless the third party is contacted for assistance.

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RECOMMENDATION
While the overall approach is positive, but the CIO should be able to realise the possible
issues that may arise during the runtime of the processes. The team should be well aware of the
issues and the remedial steps that could be taken. Immediate support systems should be ready for
any instances that may arise while the user is online. The support teams should be able to contact
the third party to inform about the issue and the fixes required.

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