Views
Organisational Technology Infrastructure
From NGOPedia
| ICT Guide for Decision Makers |
|
In Introduction of this chapter we have introduced an approach to ICT from the users' perspective, which is classifying them as Personal, Organizational, External (World) and Remote technologies. In previous section we tried to cover the personal technology devices. In this section we will continue and cover organizational technology infrastructure (network that is). Still all from the user's perspective and for the non technical decision maker.
Contents |
Networking Computers
As computers become the ubiquitous instruments of office productivity, sooner or later we realize the need to connect them together to improve the productivity gain. In small organizations this starts with using memory sticks as go-between or even emailing to the person next to you (we have observed such examples in some organizations. People were emailing each other their collaborative documents by using free Yahoo email accounts. So the document was traveling to the server in the USA and coming back only to arrive to the recipient's computer a few metres away!).
Beyond the need to send documents and such to others, there are great deal of benefits in centralizing services when it comes to computers: centralized document repositories, shared printers, shared internet connections are to name a few.
Two or more computers that are linked together so that they can exchange information is called a computer network. All the cables, equipment, computers linked together in a small location are called a local area network (LAN).
A small network can be as simple as two computers connected with each other with a cable:
Peer-to-peer Networks
Most computer networks involve more than 2 PCs. In this case we may need some equipment to manage the traffic of information. These equipment are mostly hubs or switches (we are not getting into the technical details here). In example below PCs are connected together through a hub and they share a single internet connection:
These type of simple networks are called peer-to-peer (or team or workgroup) networks, since all computers are peers and they manage their own connections and security.
Of course you are not limited to cable connections. In some offices wiring is not practical - so you may establish a network wirelessly, with a wireless hub (or an "access point") - you can have a mixed cable and wireless solution as well.
Most PCs today come as network ready, out of the box. Mostly with a connector that allows cable network connection, some with wireless connection and especially laptops come with both. So to set it up all you would need is cables and a hub (and for generally up to four cable connections - or more in wireless case - internet connection routers can work as a hub as well).
With a peer-to-peer network resources of individual computers are pooled, and can be made collective through the computer that has the resource. You can share files, folders which reside in one more of the PCs or you can share internet connections or a printer or scanner that is attached to one of the "peer" computers. They are inexpensive and simple to set up. You do not need to have an administrator, but each resource has to be managed by its owner.
However peer-to-peer networks are vastly insecure: since there is no centralized security, all security is left to the individual PC users' efforts. File sharing management can be cumbersome and hard-to-keep-up with the changes in the organization. Load of the communications and resources are on the client computers.
If you have up to 10-15 users you may manage it with a network like this. But if you have more users or need centralized applications (accounting, document management, CRM, and etc.) or more security, you should think about Client-Server networks.
Client-Server Networks
A network that has central computer(s) providing services, which are called "servers", to other computers which are called "clients" is a "client-server" network. The main server generally provides network services like authentication (your login to the network), directory of computers and resources on the network, thus controlling the traffic on the network.
There can be many services provided on the network, like printing, web site management, file sharing, e-mails, document management, centralized databases, or other applications. When these grow, then there can be more servers added to the network to handle/share this work:
The main server which handles the traffic controlling services on a network is called "primary domain controller".
The client-server network offers resource centralization. This has advantages over the de-centralized model of a peer-to-peer network, such as backup, update, upgrade, security of these resources can be managed centrally. Thus it offers resource optimization, centralization, security, redundancy and backup and they are easily extendable.
These type of networks require more budget to set up, since they require servers on the network. There has to be an administrator, and it is more complex to set it up.
If your organisation is growing (more than 10-15 users), needs security, flexibility or services like in house mail, centralised back up, and such this is the way to go.
Many "client-server" networks also have "peer-to-peer" components. Such as: although there are centralized resources, there can be resources offered by peers. A user's pc can share a file folder, or an attached printer through itself.
Server for Small Organisations
It may be worth to mention that for smaller organizations (up to 50-75 users), there are specialized servers in the market which can address most of the needs of the organization. These are "packed" for small organizations (or businesses), they can handle security, user management, file shares, communications, database, printing, document collaboration, mobile or remote access, web service, and such in one server:
Personal Technology Infrastructure | Internet and Remote Connections 
Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 South Africa License.