Abstract
Over the past five years or so, pervasive computing has emerged as a new computing paradigm with a great deal of appeal. Enterprises are increasingly showing interest in deploying pervasive information technology (IT) infrastructures to realise the perceived benefits offered by this new computing paradigm. However, a return on the investment and considerations of the currently deployed infrastructure is a constraint for businesses to invest in a pervasive IT infrastructure. Realising that the economics of an investment in a new infrastructure can affect the embracing of pervasive IT, we suggest an approach that shows how the existing technology solutions available in the market and deployed in an enterprise can be used to develop a pervasive IT infrastructure, thereby protecting investments and maximising returns. We present an evolution model to systematically and incrementally achieve a pervasive IT environment, and present guidelines for evaluating which services to develop first based on “evolving the existing infrastructure point of view.” This work provides practical implications for enterprises as well as pointers for research.
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Notes
We define a knowledge-based enterprise as an enterprise that relies heavily on knowledge assets (the capture and transmission of knowledge artefacts), information exchange, employee-employee interaction and real-time decision making for successful functioning. Ideally, such an organisation needs an IT infrastructure that provides effective networking capabilities, the real-time flow of information and the ability to spontaneously scale and re-configure itself based on changing business requirements. In the context of this discussion, some examples could include a consulting and business analysis organisations, law firms, R&D setups of organisations (pharma, IT, automobile, etc.).
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Acknowledgements
We thank Infosys Technologies Limited for supporting this research, and our colleagues Hemant Adarkar and Colin Pinto for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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Gupta, P., Moitra, D. Evolving a pervasive IT infrastructure: a technology integration approach. Pers Ubiquit Comput 8, 31–41 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-003-0254-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-003-0254-7