Although not at the center of action, Infrastructure can make a difference. For instance when it is not there when you need it. The importance of infrastructure accompanies the growth of any (especially online) business. The more action, the more you need infrastructural support.
A step in the design of this fundament for your business involves the capacity plan in which the capacity is calculated and the growth of traffic. The capacity of a building or even a physical bridge could easily be calculated but the capacity if a ever growing internet infrastructure depends on factors you cannot always predict. The size of future traffic.
Than, this traffic enters your business, through a first possible “single point of failure” (SPOF).
A single point of failure is the weakest link of your chain of activities. A bridge metaphorically shows this weakest point. For you business, this bridge could be a telephone switch or an internet connection. Rather than a physical bridge which is fixed, telecommunication equipment are modular and scaleable. In case one module fails there is always a backup. This duality is required if your business depends on reliability and confidence. For instance, if you are to fulfill a banking transaction you do not want a failure in the connection during this transaction. Making this happen however requires large investments.
Some single points of failure are difficult to get rid of. The connection to a database for example is such a weak point. In the end, there is only one database where all transactions end.
Infrastructure is a world that is invisible for most of us, but to give you a reliable service, much of a companies budget is swallowed by infrastructural investments. Making sure you will not notice a difference. What ever happens.
The level of an infrastructure is measure by a “maturity.” A maturity levels indicates in which way security (amongst other things) is handled. Just letting you know to be safe, for example showing the “https” acronym at your browser indicating that you are more secure and you may hand over your personal details.
Infrastructure remains invisible until an incident occurs. For example the one described in the article “The Man, The System And The Incident: A Human Tragedy.” Those incidents reveal the maturity level of the infrastructure.
© 2006 Hans Bool
Hans Bool is the founder of Astor White a traditional management consulting company that offers online management advice. Astor Online solves issues in hours what normally would take days. You can apply for a free demo account
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