IT infrastructure flexibility

IT infrastructure flexibility refers to the extent to which systems (i.e. hardware, software, communication technologies, and database) are easily reconfigurable to support different business applications and services. IT infrastructure comprises information and communication technologies as well as shared technical platforms and databases (Ross et al. 1996 Weill et al. 1996 Bharadwaj 2000). The primary constituents of IT infrastructure are computing platform (hardware and operating systems), communications network, critical shared database, and core applications (Byrd and Turner 2000). IT infrastructure is the foundation of IT assets (i.e., technical and human assets) and services shared across a firm (Piccoli and Ives 2005). As a result, IT infrastructure provides shared foundation for the delivery of business applications and services (Broadbent and Weill 1997). 

IT infrastructure has been identified as the capabihties that influence a firm s ability to use IT strategically (WeiU 1993 Davenport and Linder 1994 Duncan 1995 Ross et al. 1996 Armstrong and Sambamurthy 1999 Broadbent et al. 1999 Sambamurthy et al. 2003 Ray et al. 2005). Peppard and Ward (2004) claim that a flexible and reusable IT platform not only provides the technical platform, services, and resources needed to quickly respond to business changes but also provides the capacity to develop innovative applications supporting new processes or business initiatives. IT infrastructure varies in reach (the extent of the connectivity) 

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The literature review demonstrates many IT enabled intangibles can be included in the conceptualization of IT resources. In current research, IT resources consist of two most common components IT infrastructure flexibility and IT expertise (Table 3.1). 

The first results from the application seem promising, demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed framework, not just due to its capability for representing the complexity of infrastructure systems, but also its modeling flexibility and adaptability. They demonstrate how the three subsystems interlink with each other. For example, the operator performance degrades when a burst of false overload alarms occur due to faulty calibration of sensors and its impact on the overall system performance. Currently, more experiments are under development such as the experiment targeting the analysis of behaviors of socio-technical systems and the experiment to evaluate the resilience related behaviors of infrastructure systems. 

The results of the study confirm that IT resources have a significant positive, direct impact on lOS appropriation (Hi). The results show that IT infrastructure provides a common foundation (e.g., hardware, software, communication technologies, and databases) for the delivery of business applications and services, and thus flexibly... 

The military will continue with its fuel infrastructure of high sulfur diesel (up to 1,000 ppm sulfur by weight) and jet fuel (JP-8). Sulfur specification will remain high because the military has to consider worldwide fuel sources. High sulfur diesel and JP-8 are close in characteristics so no fuel flexibility is required. However, there is a possibility that some parts of the military or the Coast Guard (a military service within the DOT) could use fuels more compatible to the fuel cell in limited applications. 

Flexibility in location of equipment. Because of its smaller size, reduced inventory and improved safety the siting of continuous manufacturing equipment requires less infrastructure than the equivalent batch plant. Portacabin-sized equipment is already available, which even makes temporary location of plant a feasibility. 

Although ATS production is flexible in the sense that technology is simple and infrastructure can be temporary, it is rather inflexible when it comes to the chemical inputs required to produce the final product. As long as the controls on these are effective and can be sustained their lack of availability will hamper global pro-... 

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