Information System Tutorial - Week 3

Managing the Information Systems Infrastructure and Services

I. Practice exercises

1. How do software programs affect your life? Give examples of software from areas other than
desktop computers?
 Software affects my life in many ways. For example: banking apps, Netflix, VneID,
Shopee,...
2. How does hardware and software obsolescence affect your life? Give examples of experiences
with outdated hardware or software. How did you deal with these situations?
 When hardware or software becomes obsolete, I have difficulties in both work and
entertainment. For example, I used to have an old laptop running Windows 7. It wasn’t
compatible with some applications, such as Zoom or Teams. This is difficult for online
learning and working. I solved the issue by buying a new computer with a more modern
operating system.

3. Interview your friend and ask him or her about cloud computing. Does he or she have a
preference for public versus private clouds?
 I interviewed a friend about cloud computing. He said that public clouds are more
convenient because they are easy to access, inexpensive, suitable for personal needs
and private clouds are better for businesses due to higher security.
II. Multiple choice questions

1. All of the following are examples of nonvolatile memory except

A. optical disks C. flash drives
B. hard drives D. RAM
2. Which of the following is not an example of open source software?
A. Windows 7 C. Apache
B. Open Office D. Linux
3. Engineering drawings are typically prepared using _______.
A. mainframes B. servers
C. microcomputers D. workstations
4. Tape drives are typically used for _______.
A. storing operational data B. backing up critical data
C. maintaining customer records D. archiving data
5. Which of the following is the protocol of the Internet?
A. URL C. TCP/IP
B HTML D. ARPA
6. All of the following are correct domain suffixes except
A. edu—educational institutions B. gov—U.S. government
C. neo—network organizations D. com—commercial businesses
7. The ability to adapt to increases or decreases in demand for processing or storage is referred to
as _______.
A. adaptability C. scalability
B. flexibility D. agility
8. In cloud computing, services are typically offered using_______.
A. private clouds B. heterogeneous grids
C. a utility computing model D. edge computing
9. For most flexibility in the use of computing resources, companies choose a _______ provider.
A. utility computing B. software as a service
C. platform as a service D. infrastructure as a service
10. Large-scale computing problems can be solved using_______ computing.
A. grid C. cloud
B. utility D. edge

III. Case study

FarmVille, Mafia Wars, Etc.: The Infrastructure Behind Social Games

Since its initial launch in 2004, Facebook has become the world’s largest social network, helping
people to communicate with friends, family members, or coworkers. In addition to communication

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capabilities (such as a feature that allows posting “status updates,” a chat system, or photo albums),
users can access a variety of third-party applications developed using Facebook’s own development
platform. Interestingly, a category of applications that has become hugely popular is social network
games, such as FarmVille, Mafia Wars, or Restaurant City. Social network games are typically
asynchronous, multiplayer games, where users tend a farm, build up a mafia clan, or own and
manage a virtual restaurant, all while interacting with their online social network. San Francisco–
based game developer Zynga has become one of the most important players in this market, having
developed games such as Mafia Wars, FarmVille, FishVille, and Cafe World; in fact, six out of the
seven most popular social games were developed by Zynga. Although joining the games is free,
social network games are big business. Game developers make revenue through advertising or
through the sale of relatively cheap game tokens (such as a special menu item for one’s restaurant,
sold for a few dollars or less) to large numbers of players. With 240 million users playing Zynga
games every day, the company is estimated to be worth between $2.8 billion and $5 billion.
Zynga’s flagship game, FarmVille, grew from 1 million daily users after four days to 10 million daily
users after just 60 days; nine months after launch, 75 million people logged in to FarmVille each
month. On FarmVille, users can grow crops and trees, raise animals, build barns and fences, and so
on. Fields need to be plowed and crops sowed and harvested before they wither, forcing the user to
log in to the game frequently. Successful farmers advance and receive “ribbons” that are announced
in their Facebook news feed. Periodically, players receive game tokens (such as a mailbox, a
flagpole, or a stray animal) that they can give away to their friends who also have a virtual farm;
users can also buy game tokens if they want to add nicer features to their farms without having to
wait for free tokens. In 2010, there were 30 million farms with 38 million horse stables (and many
more horses) on FarmVille, compared with 2 million farms and 9 million horses in the entire United
States. At times, Zynga sells limited edition game tokens for a good cause; in early 2010, Zynga
raised more than $1.5 million for victims of the Haiti earthquake in just five days. Comparable to
other Web applications, response time is critical for social network games, as time lags in the
game’s response can quickly kill a player’s gaming experience. Further, the introduction of new
features (such as new game tokens being offered) often cause spikes in user activity.

Hence, supporting a successful social network game requires an IS infrastructure that is solid,
responsive, and highly scalable. In addition, social network games place further demands on an
IS infrastructure; most Web sites primarily serve content to the user and are thus very “read
intensive.” In contrast, social network games are “write intensive”; that is, a large amount of data
are written to the games’ underlying databases. Whenever a player plants a new crop, builds a
windmill, moves a fence, or milks a cow, an object changes its state or a new object is created;
all these actions have to be properly stored so as to avoid objects colliding or other “illegal”
maneuvers. Overall, FarmVille’s read-to-write ratio is three to one, which is considered incredibly
high. To support this demand, Zynga uses a cloud computing architecture. Using Amazon EC2,
Zynga deploys more than a thousand servers for FarmVille alone. To flexibly deal with changes in
demand, Zynga uses a cloud management platform that automatically adds or removes servers
based on predetermined parameters, such as when to start scaling or how fast to add or remove
resources. For Facebook, popular social games create synergies: These games entice people to
log in to Facebook several times during the day, thus helping to drive advertising revenue; in
addition, Facebook receives a share of the game developers’ revenues from advertising or the
sale of game tokens. However, this relationship is not always happy. Initially, social games could
easily post notifications to a player’s Facebook news feed, enticing the player to come back and
advertising its presence to the player’s friends. However, with an increasing number of games
and players, many Facebook users have become increasingly annoyed with feeds about
someone’s lost duck or someone receiving yet another FarmVille ribbon. In 2010, Facebook has
modified the way news feeds are presented, allowing users to easily block notices from unwanted
applications. Whereas this was seen as a blessing for many users, this hampered an important
marketing channel for social network game developers. As the relationship between Facebook
and Zynga has deteriorated, inside sources have hinted at the possibility of Zynga launching its
own platform dedicated only to social gaming. Relatedly, industry observers indicated that Zynga
has leased space in a major data center in Virginia.

Questions:

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 1. What will be the future of social networking and social gaming?
 The future of social networking and gaming will continue to grow strongly because they
attract massive numbers of players.
2. Can Facebook survive without Zynga and vice versa?
 Facebook can survive without Zynga, but Zynga helped Facebook retain users, and
Zynga can also survive without Facebook
3. How does leasing a data center fit into a cloud infrastructure?
 Leasing a data center is part of a cloud infrastructure. It allows companies to have
greater control over sensitive data while still taking advantage of the flexibility and
scalability of public clouds. This approach balances security with cost efficiency.

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