Information Infrastructures -H03
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INF5210
Informasjon Infrastructures
About the course
» Lectures
» 2 Mandatory deliveries
– 26.9 and 24.10
– Articles to be presented
– Themes for group work
» The formation of groups
» Final exam (Essay) 14.11 – 5.12
Introduction to Information Infrastructure
theories
Brief overview of II in Norwegian public sector
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
22.08.03/
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Informasjon Infrastructures
An introduction
Issues :
Why infrastructures - some different perspectives
A brief overview of the course
What is an infrastructure - 1
The economics of infrastructures
Infrastructures in Norwegian public sector # public
infrastructures
Background literature:
» Hanseth, Ole:
http://www.ifi.uio.no/~oleha/Publications/ib_ISR_3rd_resubm2.html
2,4 and 5
Ciborra et al: From Control to drift, kap. 2,
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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Some questions
What do you understand by infrastructure
» Give examples of (information ) infrastructure
» Similarities between physical and electronic infrastructure
What is the difference between an infrastructure
and an information system
Why do you think infrastructures are important ?
What specific challenges is tied to developing and
maintaining an infrastructure?
What specific challenges is inherent in maintaining
an infrastructure
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
22.08.03/
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What is an infrastructure
A general definition (Webster dictionarry)
A substructure or underlying foundation; esp., the
basic installations and facilities on which the
continuance and growth of a community, state, etc.
depends as roads, schools, power plants,
transportation and communication systems, etc."
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
22.08.03/
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Why talk about II
Define /describe a set of ‘entities’ having common
characteristics
» Why are II different from IS
Explain the history/trajectories of existing II
» Internet, OSI, SAP,
Understand how to develop and maintain new II
» Help us understand the of these specific characteristics
Can (possible) predict about future II building:
» Electronic Patient Record, UMTS, Public Key
Infrastructure,..
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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Different types of infrastructures
National and global II
» Internet, the phon enetwork, GSM, UMTS (?)
Business (sector) networks
» EDI, electronic pation records, flight ticket booking
systems (Amanda,..) ..
Corporate infrastructure
» Enterprise Resource Planning like, SAP, Oracle,
PeopleSoft,.. and other ERP packages
http://www.cio.com/research/erp/edit/erpbasics.html
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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Infrastructure – a misleading concept?
Legacy from the industrial society:
» Emphasizes the physical and material underlying basis
» Stable, heavy, difficult to modify/slow changes
» Closed, limited in space (and time?)
The new information society
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Global
Flexible, dynamic
Everything is changing, increasing speed
Open, unclear boundaries,
– Ecologies of infrastructures
» Changes implies learning – learning implies changes
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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Information systems or infrastructures?
Information systems – the traditional approach:
» One main purpose (solve one specific task)
» Limited (homogeneous) user group
» Assumes (often) centralised control by one organisation or
group
» Standards are either neglected or taken as granted
» Specific birth day and day of death
– Installed base are neglected
» Need not be always available (down time is acceptable or
even desirable)
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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Infrastructures
Serves large (umlimited ) communities of users and usages
patterns
Has to conform to certain standards
Infrastructures are never build from scratch
No clear date of birth – cannot die (!)
» Must be gradually
Implementations Surprises, side effects,
unexpected outcomes of technology and organisation
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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What characterises an infrastructure
The US Government when building an National II:
(based on McGarty among others)
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Open and common
Shared (sharable)
Enabling
Standardized
Evolving
Socio-technical
Heterogeneous
Installed Base
Hanseth ( 2002) emphasizes the ’italic’
characteristics!
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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What characterises an infrastructure-2
Star and Ruhleder (1996): Steps to an ecology of
knowledge)
Embeddedness
Transparency
Reach of scope
Learned as part of membership
Links with conventions of practice
Embodiments of standards
Built on an installed base
Becomes visible upon breakdown
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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Installed base
Infrastructures are never designed from scratch(?)
» Something always exist
» We cannot bypass the history
Can only be modified and extended
The installed base includes:
» Nodes in the network; equipment and software, vendors,..
» Protocols, standard and standard bodies, documentations,
routines,
» Operations and support, documentations,
» Knowledge and experience, textbooks
The installed base as a heterogeneous actornetwork
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Installed base as an actor
Re-enforcing mechanisms
» In order to work, it must be aligned with the existing
Larger installed base
More complements produced
Further adoption
Greater credibility of standards
Reinforces values to users
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Decomposing heterogeneous infrastructures
The structure of infrastructures
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Decomposing heterogeneous infrastructures
Ecologies of infrastructures
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Universialism and installed Base
Is universal design possible and desirable
Examples: OSI-protocols (X.25, X.400), EDIFACT,
SAP, electronic patient-journal
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Top-down development,
Uniform and standardized network on all levels
The goal is the perfect solution including most facilities
’Closed world
Centralized control
Monolithic organization
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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An alternative strategy: The Internet model
The TCP/IP approach:
» Need to connect different networks
– Connectivity at meta-level
– Best efforts approach
» Balancing standards and flexibility
– Openness,
– Duplication, gateways
» Minimal standards
– Incompleteness, gradually improvement
» What aspects are relevant
– Technical
– Humans
» Internet has gained momentum and become an actor that
influences society at all levels
– Serves many different user communities,...
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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The case of Internet- some basic
characteristics
The idea of packet switching and datagrams (Kleinrock)
» Distributed, digital and redundancy (Baran)
» IMPs : how to avoid n*(n-1)/2 (Kahn)
» Symmetric protocols (NCP, SMTP. FTP….)
Open Architecture Networking
» TCP/IP and black boxes: routers/gateways (Cerf, Kahn)
» Open network of independent network and No global
control
» Best offer service – transmit and retransmit
» End-to-End responsibilities for error check, flow control
» Domain Name System
Incorporation of TCP/IP in Unix BSD
WWW: URL, HTTP and HTML
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Basic ideas -2
Its roots in academic tradition and basic research
philosophy
The openness: free flow of ideas and innovations
» Open access to all documents
» RFC (Request for proposals)
The public funding of the development (and
diffusion)
» Academic and research network infrastructures like NSFnet,
HEPnet, JANET, NordUNet,..
The formation of open communities
Peer institutions as IAB, IETF, W3C
Open source movement
The gift economy
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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Strategies
Flexibility
» Flexible standards and technical solutions
Modularisation and encapsulation
» E.g. The Internet IMPS and layered structure
Minimal solutions
» E. g Internet versus OSI-protocols
Gateways
» From N*(n-1) to M (= different protocols or subnets)
Transitions strategies
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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Information Infrastructures
in Norwegian public sector
II that are developend and maintained by the
control of public agencies
» State government agencies or local administrations
Their goal is to serve (all or part of) the citiziens
Examples
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ODIN, ’Forvaltningsnett’, etc
- Helsenettet, Skolenett, Biblioteks/kulturnett,..
- Kostra (Kommune-stat rapportering) ….
- More specialist infrastructures aas e.g. PKI (Publik Key
Infrastruktur), Studentweb, SO,...
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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Some Important links
ODIN: http://odin.dep.no/odin/norsk/index-b-n-a.html
Norge.no/Norway.no
Standardisering/NOSIP:
http://www.statskonsult.no/prosjekt/standsekr/index.htm
Helsenett:
» Det nasjonale helsenettet bygges opp gjennom regionale helsenett i
de 5 helseregionene. ...
http://www2.telemed.no/telemed_i_bruk/tjenester/helsenett.html
Utdanning.no
http://www.utdanning.no/dep/portal/.cmd/ResetPage/_pagr/
104/_pa.104/111?reset=true
Arild JansenAFIN & IfI , UiO /: [email protected]
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