2.1 The Information Grid
The Information Age has arrived and with it, the growth of the Global Information
Society. The developed nations can be considered to be the élite
of that society. Their general public now has access to information
that is supported by an industry specialising in information collection,
management and dissemination. It has become a competitive economic
edge to be able to gain access and leverage on information in day-to-day
life.
Like energy, transportation and telecommunications, information has turned into an economic lubricant for developed nations. Being an essential service, information delivery now needs its own support grid so that it is always available, and deliverable, for use by the human population that runs a nation’s economy. Thus, in addition to the other infrastructure types such as energy, transportation and telecommunications, Malaysia must also catch up with its development of the information infrastructure of which the information grid is the central component.
In essence, the National Information Grid (NIG) should do the following:
- Deliver information from an Information Provider (IP) to users via several delivery mechanisms in ways that suit each delivery mechanism.
- Provide users a single access connection and a common user interface for users to retrieve information from several IPs via one primary delivery mechanism of preference.
- Consolidate, isolate, format and integrate information from various IPs in order to satisfy user queries.
- Provide alternative routes of information delivery in the event that a primary route or delivery mechanism fails.
- Facilitate future on-line and real-time financial transactions between banks, vendors and users, and user-to-user connectivity, by providing the third-party network and processing infrastructure (Third-party GIRO).
- 2.1.1 Information Types