Enriching the Value Chain: Infrastructure Strategies Beyond the Enterprise

Enriching the Value Chain is a strategic guide to organizing your IT infrastructure by mapping business drivers to a fundamental set of proven patterns. Drawing on advanced research conducted by META Group, it shows how to build infrastructure that supports business agility -- and how to avoid architectural pitfalls that can prevent you from achieving changing business goals. The authors begin by introducing Adaptive Infrastructure Strategy: its key features, advantages, and terminology. They lay a foundation for Adaptive Infrastructure, showing how to identify gaps between where you are where you should be; and how to identify and utilize key architectural patterns, especially patterns for Web publishing and n-tier transaction-based applications. You'll walk through the design process, mastering powerful predictive cost modeling and performance measurement techniques; then refine your design on a component-by-component basis, covering security, networking, and other key layers. The book includes detailed coverage of staffing, funding, and organizational issues associated with successful infrastructure management, and shows how to effectively package IT infrastructure into common services for consumption by business unit customers. Part of the Intel Press IT Best Practices Series, focused on identifying and sharing best-practice strategies for delivering Internet-based solutions that meet key business challenges. For every IT decision-maker and implementer.