University IT Infrastructure Management Report - PG Module

This comprehensive IT Infrastructure Management report delves into several key areas. It begins with a case study analyzing the failure of MySpace, exploring factors such as competition, lack of innovation, and poor revenue generation. The report then transitions into a detailed discussion of IT risk management, covering methodology, risk assessment, mitigation, communication, and monitoring. It emphasizes the importance of integrating risk management within the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), outlining how risk management supports each phase, from initiation to disposal. The report provides insights into evaluating and assessing IT security controls, and the Turnitin Originality Report is attached. The document aims to provide a clear understanding of IT infrastructure management, risk mitigation, and the importance of strategic planning.

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

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Table of Contents
TASK A: MySpace Case Study...........................................................................................2
1. Why did MySpace fail?..........................................................................................2
2. Was it a technology system or management failure?.............................................2
3. Suggestive strategies..............................................................................................3
TASK B: IT Risk Management...........................................................................................5
Introduction......................................................................................................................5
Discussion........................................................................................................................5
Methodology................................................................................................................5
Context.........................................................................................................................6
Risk assessment...........................................................................................................6
Risk mitigation.............................................................................................................7
Risk communication....................................................................................................7
Risk review and monitoring.........................................................................................8
Evaluating and assessing IT.........................................................................................8
Integrating IT risk management in the development life cycle...................................8
TASK C: Turnitin Originality Report................................................................................11
References..........................................................................................................................12

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TASK A: MySpace Case Study
1. Why did MySpace fail?
There are several reasons behind the failure of MySpace. Some of the potential causes
have been discussed below:
 One of the prime reasons for the failure of MySpace is the huge amount of competition from
various social networking sites. There was a time when MySpace used to be the most
preferred social networking site for the users. However, with the industrial evolution, many
industries offering the same or even larger scale of services resulted the customers to take a
shift. These industries include Facebook, Yahoo! and AOL.
 Another factor that highly affected the industry is the lack of proper revenue generation with
the help of advertisements. This include all the big scale industries within the market.
 A lack in user confidence enhancement in accordance with the content can be stated as
another important issue that highly impacted the organizational framework.
 A lack in proper balance in between customer satisfaction and revenue generation aspects.
 The lack of innovation and not keeping up with the changing industrial trends. Due to this
issue, most of the users chose to move to other social networking sites especially Facebook.
These sites offered greater functionalities in terms of meeting the changing customer
requirements.
2. Was it a technology system or management failure?
The organization of MySpace was primarily founded by the people from marketing sector
and industry. The core perspective of this site was completely different from that of other social
networking sites like Facebook. However over the course of time Facebook became its ultimate

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competitor. The organization changed its approaches and tried its best to ignore Facebook.
Severe complexities were faced by MySpace at that time and eventually they decided to copy the
Facebook approach, which they miserably failed at. At last they completely reconstructed their
framework and repurposed the whole site for musicians and artists. There are various potential
reasons that caused the closure of MySpace. Faulty technological systems and poor interface are
some of the prime reasons. Although the marketing strategies followed by MySpace were
uniquely efficient, there was a huge lag when it came to technology and interface. At that time,
other similar platforms were way ahead in terms of these factors. Although several remedial
measures were taken by MySpace by modifying the interface and allowing other companies to
provide supportive applications, nothing seemed to work on their behalf. Since the revenue
system of MySpace was completely based on ads serving, an immense amount of pressure was
exerted by the associated partners along with the investors in terms of taking appropriate
publishing strategies. This resulted their interface to become even less attractive to the users.
3. Suggestive strategies
Several measures can be taken by MySpace in order to efficiently deal with the rising
complexities. A proper decision making system is needed to be incorporated within the company
operations. In addition to that, the company needs to draw a separation line in between the
development as well as the management team. Moreover, the poor value chain system of the
company is also another aspect that is needed to be addressed. In general, the company follows a
push based model for its supply chain. This allows them to understand the customer demands
and delivering the products accordingly. However predicting the customer demands is equally
important and has been overlooked by the organization. The management team of MySpace

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needs to enhance its revenue generation system without compromising the services quality.
Other potential strategies that can be implemented within the organization are as follows:
 Prioritizing the concept of authenticity.
 Concentrating on the process of standardization rather than free range.
 Efficiently adopting to mobile technologies.
 Thinking beyond the website.
 Keeping up with the industrial trends.
 Thoroughly checking the systems for further maintenance.
 Improving the user interface.
 Becoming more business friendly.
 Enhancing the innovation aspects of the company.
4.

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TASK B: IT Risk Management
Introduction
IT risk management can be defined as the process that helps IT managers to efficiently
balance the economic as well as operational costs. The concepts of risk management specifically
can be referred to as an identification process of the threats and vulnerabilities in terms of the
information resources (Schwalbe, 2015). This is implemented by an organization for the purpose
of achieving certain business objectives by efficiently dealing with the potential risks and
incorporating suitable counter measures. It is the responsibility of the organizational head to
ensure whether the industry has appropriate capabilities that are highly needed for mission
accomplishment. Moreover, a thorough determination by these mission owners in terms of
security capabilities of the IT systems is essential to evaluate the expected level of mission
support. Since most of the organizations have limited budget in terms of IT security, a thorough
review of these systems is required to be conducted by the management with the help of proper
decision making systems (Marchewka, 2016). The process of incorporating suitable risk
management procedures in the field of IT is quite complex and multi layered. Furthermore, its
association with other complex activities adds up to the complications.
Discussion
Methodology
The risk management methodology does not comprise of specific methods rather it
specifies various processes that are needed to be followed by constituting a generic framework
(Sage & Rouse, 2014). The processes can be further broken down into several sub processes,

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sequentially altered and combined. A thorough exercise of these processes in any form is very
essential. Due to the potential need of cost benefit analysis and a probabilistic nature, the process
of risk management can be categorized into various steps in accordance with the NIST. These
processes are as follows:
 Risk mitigation
 Risk assessment
 Assessment and evaluation
Therefore, a proper integration of risk management methodology within the overall life
cycle of systems development is very essential (Peltier, 2016). A set of structured methodologies
is needed to be implemented in order to undertake the risk analysis that has been conducted on
computer installations, networks, applications and the systems that are under development.
Context
Risk assessment
Risk management is an ongoing process that potentially deals with planning, monitoring,
analysing, implementation and controlling the security policies. Contrastingly, the process of risk
management is executed rarely or in a discrete period of time (for instance, once in a year on a
demand basis). It helps in providing a proper understanding of all the risks that have been
assessed by parameterizing the complete process of risk management (Senft, Gallegos & Davis,
2016). Most of the times, a set of iterations is followed in order to assess the risks. The first
iteration involves a high level of assessment that helps in identifying the severe risks. A detailed
analysis of those severe risks along with other associated risks are involved in the later iterations.
In other words, as discussed by NIAT, IT risk assessment can be defined as a procedural

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framework to evaluate all the vulnerabilities and threats, postulated and known for efficiently
determining the loss, thus establishing a certain acceptability degree in terms of systems
operations. The process of analysing a particular risk in an IT resource can be further divided
into the following sub processes in accordance with the ISO 27005 framework:
 Identification of the risk
 Estimation of the risk
 Evaluation of the risk
Risk mitigation
According to the framework of ISO 27005, mitigation of risk is the third most important
process of risk management. This comprises of evaluating, implementing as well as prioritizing
the suitable controls as recommended by the process of risk assessment (Joshi & Singh, 2017).
Since it is nearly impossible to completely eliminate all the risks, the senior management along
with all the business and functional managers need to ensure the implementation of a least cost
approach (Fenz et al., 2014). In addition to that, the management also needs to implement
suitable controls for reducing the associated risks in a particular project.
Risk communication
The process of risk communication is horizontal in nature. It follows a bidirectional
approach to interact with the other various processes of risk management. The key purpose of
risk communication is to effectively establish a thorough understanding of all the risk aspects in
between the stakeholders of a particular organization (Lundgren & McMakin, 2018). The
establishment of a mutual understanding plays a vital role in the risk management lifecycle, as it
influences the process of decision making. Specifically, the method of risk reduction overview

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has been designed to deal with this process (Ajamieh et al., 2016). This provides an overview of
risks coherence, residual risks and measures for the purpose of achieving a mutual
understanding.
Risk review and monitoring
The process of risk management is never ending. The security measures that have been
implemented are monitored and reviewed on a regular basis throughout this process. This is done
for ensuring the smooth working of these measures (Barafort, Mesquida & Mas, 2017).
However, the business vulnerabilities, threats and requirements can often change over the course
of time (Zou, Kiviniemi & Jones, 2017). Therefore, regular audits are needed to be scheduled
and conducted by an independently working party.
Evaluating and assessing IT
Validation of the security controls is one of the most vital aspects of risk management
process. The technical controls on the other hand are complex in nature that are needed to be
thoroughly verified and tested. However, when it comes to validation, one of the most complex
things is to validate people’s knowledge in terms of application effectiveness and procedural
controls (Rodríguez, Ortega & Concepción, 2016). Penetration test and vulnerability assessment
(both external as well as internal) are two of the most effective instruments that are used for
verifying the security controls. Furthermore, it is immensely important to thoroughly monitor the
updated vulnerabilities by applying technical and procedural security controls. This includes
updating the software and evaluating the various other controls.

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Integrating IT risk management in the development life cycle
Appropriate risk management methods are needed to be integrated within the SDLC
(Lemke, 2018). In general the SDLC of an IT system comprises of five basic phases, namely
initiation, acquisition or development, implementation, maintenance or operation and disposal.
However, the overall methodology of risk management remains unaltered regardless of the
assessment phase (Sahu, Shree & Kumar, 2014). Iterative risk management can be efficiently
implemented in all the major phases of SDLC.
SDLC Phases Characteristics of the
phases
Risk management
support
Initiation phase Documenting the IT systems
scope and purpose along with
expressing the potential need
of a particular IT system.
The risks that have been
identified are implemented in
developing the system
requirements.
Acquisition or development
phase
Designing, purchasing,
programming, developing or
constructing the IT system.
Identified risks can be used
for analysing the security
aspects of the IT system in
this particular phase.
Implementation phase Configuring, enabling, testing
and verifying the security
features of the system.
Supporting the system
implementation assessment.
Maintenance or operation
phase
Modifying the system by
adding suitable software and
hardware resources along
Performing risk management
activities for periodically

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with implementing suitable
changes in terms of
organizational policies,
procedures and processes.
reauthorizing the systems.
Disposal phase Disposing certain hardware,
software and information.
Also involves destroying,
discarding, moving and
archiving a set of information
along with sanitizing the
software and hardware
resources.
Performing suitable risk
management activities for
disposing unrequired system
components.

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TASK C: Turnitin Originality Report
a) No, the coloured, bold text matches that have been found in specific areas of this report are
not missing any in-texting of references. To be more specific, ideas that have been taken
from the scholarly articles have not been plagiarised and have been written in own words. I
have thoroughly read the articles and have represented the core concepts that have been
illustrated in those articles.
b) Yes, there are certain areas in this report where the coloured, bold text that are found
matching in accordance with the self-check report, include three consecutive words.
However, the phrases where that matches have been found have not been copied or quoted
from the sources.
c) After going through the self-check report, I have found only 2% of similarity index in terms
of papers and publications sources. In simple words, I have not used any direct quotations
from the sources and have rephrased it in my own words as per my understanding of the
topic.
d) Yes, there are certain parts of this report where the matching of words is completely
coincidental. Although these sentences hold vital relevance to the topic, the similarity
percentages found in these areas from other online sources are completely coincidental.
Certain areas like running head and specific keywords are very much essential for this report
and cannot be modified further.
e) As I have mentioned earlier, I have not incorporated any kind of paraphrasing of direct
quotations. Moreover, I established a thorough understanding of these articles and wrote it in
my own words.

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References
Ajamieh, A., Benitez, J., Braojos, J., & Gelhard, C. (2016). IT infrastructure and competitive
aggressiveness in explaining and predicting performance. Journal of business research,
69(10), 4667-4674.
Barafort, B., Mesquida, A. L., & Mas, A. (2017). Integrating risk management in IT settings
from ISO standards and management systems perspectives. Computer Standards &
Interfaces, 54, 176-185.
Fenz, S., Heurix, J., Neubauer, T., & Pechstein, F. (2014). Current challenges in information
security risk management. Information Management & Computer Security, 22(5), 410-
430.
Joshi, C., & Singh, U. K. (2017). Information security risks management framework–A step
towards mitigating security risks in university network. Journal of Information Security
and Applications, 35, 128-137.
Lemke, G. (2018). The Software Development Life Cycle and Its Application.
Lundgren, R. E., & McMakin, A. H. (2018). Risk communication: A handbook for
communicating environmental, safety, and health risks. John Wiley & Sons.
Marchewka, J. T. (2016). Information technology project management: Providing measurable
organizational value. John Wiley & Sons.
Peltier, T. R. (2016). Information Security Policies, Procedures, and Standards: guidelines for
effective information security management. Auerbach Publications.

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Rodríguez, A., Ortega, F., & Concepción, R. (2016). A method for the evaluation of risk in IT
projects. Expert Systems with Applications, 45, 273-285.
Sage, A. P., & Rouse, W. B. (2014). Handbook of systems engineering and management. John
Wiley & Sons.
Sahu, K., Shree, R., & Kumar, R. (2014). Risk management perspective in SDLC. International
Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering, 4(3).
Schwalbe, K. (2015). Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
Senft, S., Gallegos, F., & Davis, A. (2016). Information technology control and audit. Auerbach
publications.
Zou, Y., Kiviniemi, A., & Jones, S. W. (2017). A review of risk management through BIM and
BIM-related technologies. Safety science, 97, 88-98.