E-COMMERCE

INFRASTRUCTURE
16th Edition by Laudon

CHAPTER 2: E-COMMERCE INFRASTRUCTURE

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 ½ of the world does not have access to internet.

 India: 1.4B citizens with 500 million internet users.
 China: 1.4B citizens with ~870 million internet users – 90% uses mobile phones for access, relying on Wi-Fi hotspots
provided by telecommunications companies.
While Internet growth in the industrial world has reached a saturation point, with limited prospects for rapid expansion,
India represents an untapped potential growth asset for telecommunications and technology providers. India has one of
the fastest-growing Internet and smartphone populations in the world.
 connecting all of the rural villages in India would be a massive task from a financial perspective and also hampered by
the limits of current Wi-Fi technology. Wi-Fi hotspots, which use radio signals, have a limited reach of about 100
meters (300 feet), making them suitable for individual buildings, but not for large regions. WiMax (Worldwide
Interoperability for Microwave Access) using microwave line of sight frequencies has a range of only 30 miles.
 Other technologies are needed that can cover a continent and yet provide affordable service to a rural population. One
solution is something that flies above the rural areas and provides both upload and download of Internet access
requests. Geosynchronous satellites would be ideal, but they are very expensive to build and launch, and it would take
10 to 15 such satellites to cover India’s land mass.
Enter the tech giants from Silicon Valley looking for new audiences to support their advertising models: Google, Facebook,
and Microsoft. Both Facebook and Google have announced a goal to sign up another billion people to the Internet. India
already has the largest Facebook audience in the world, and Google Search is the dominant search engine; there are more
users in India than anywhere else.

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Google’s solution is a balloon network called Project Loon, formally announced in 2013, though research on the project
started in 2008. This project is a part of Google’s Next Billion Users initiative. After five years of development, in 2013
Google’s “moonshot” division, Alphabet X, announced a pilot experiment near Christchurch, New Zealand, to deliver
Internet service. The ultimate goal is to create a balloon network of thousands of balloons floating in the stratosphere -
(an upper portion of the atmosphere above the troposphere (the lowermost level of the atmosphere) where temperature
changes little and clouds rarely form) flying at an elevation of 18–20 kilometers (9–10 miles). The first step in large-scale
deployment is to launch 300 balloons in the southern hemisphere (a half of the earth, usually as divided into northern
and southern halves by the equator, or into western and eastern halves by an imaginary line passing through the poles) at
the 40th parallel south, providing Internet access to Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Ocean, and southern Latin
America. The balloons use high-speed LTE cell phone technology (LTE stands for Long Term Evolution. It's a term used for
the particular type of 4G that delivers a fast mobile Internet experience) to beam signals to cell ground stations connected
to the Internet provided by local Internet service providers. The same technology is used to connect the balloons to one
another. Individuals with Google SIM cards connect directly to the balloons overhead. The location of the balloons is
controlled by a Google global flight control system that can change the altitude of the balloons and take advantage of wind
patterns in the stratosphere to keep them in the correct locations. Currently, the balloons have a service life of six months
to a year and can be lowered to the ground gently, so the equipment can be retrieved and re-used.
In 2018, Project Loon announced its first commercial agreement when it partnered with Kenya to improve Internet
penetration in the country and in 2019 began the first commercial testing of the technology.
The Indian government has tested and studied Project Loon for several years, and India and Google may soon move
forward on the initiative.
In 2017, in separate effort from Project Loon, Google began a project with the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh to
create a high-speed Internet network for homes in rural areas. The project employed free space optical communications
(FSOC), which uses optical beams from lasers or LEDs to connect with local FSOC receivers that transmit LTE signals to
local users.
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Facebook and Google are direct competitors for Internet audiences in India who can be shown ads. In 2013, Facebook
launched Internet.org, a consortium involving Facebook, Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera Software, Nokia, and
Qualcomm, with the goal of bringing affordable Internet access to less-developed countries. The consortium produced a
smartphone app named Free Basics to provide an interface for the Internet. Working with existing ISPs and cellular
telecommunications companies, the service offered limited cellular Internet service for news, maternal health, travel, and
sports along with Facebook. The Indian Government banned the service in February 2016 because it discriminated
against other services and violated India’s net neutrality laws, which prohibit exclusive Internet services and
discriminatory pricing. In late 2016 Facebook launched Express Wi-Fi, which offers low cost Internet access to customers
of local cellular phone providers, who then re-distribute this to public Wi-Fi hotspots. In effect, Facebook is subsidizing
Internet access provided by local cell companies who currently provide only cell service. In 2018, Facebook created an app
that Express Wi-Fi users can use to pay and locate nearby hotspots.
Through its Connectivity Lab, Facebook has developed a number of wide area (WAN) technologies to deliver broadband
(a high-capacity transmission technique using a wide range of frequencies, which enables a large number of messages to
be communicated simultaneously) service to rural areas, from satellites and lasers to drones. In 2018, Facebook shut down
one such initiative—its Aquila project, which featured solar-powered drones and lasers that beamed Internet to remote
areas. Facebook will still create software to achieve these goals, but the company will no longer create its own aircraft.
Instead, the company is putting its energy behind launching Internet satellites at lower orbits, just like Project Loon, to
provide broadband at a wide scale. Facebook’s satellite effort is called Project Athena.

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Microsoft has also entered the market and in 2016 began a test program in Harasil village, in the state of Maharashtra, that
used white space technology (devices are designed to detect the presence of existing but unused areas of airwaves, such as
those reserved for analog television, and utilize them for White Space Internet signals. Such technology is predicted to improve
the availability of broadband Internet and Wi-Fi in rural areas) to deliver Internet access to rural areas. Microsoft has deployed
this technology in the United States, Singapore, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and the Philippines. White space broadband
enables wide area wireless networking using the unused space between older television channels, achieving broadband data
speeds that can be transmitted up to 10 kilometers at a very low cost without any additional cabling or new transmission
towers. However, in 2017, India’s Telecom Ministry withdrew Microsoft’s license due to opposition from cellular operators who
wanted an auction for the spectrum rather than an exclusive grant to one company, and from the National Intelligence Agency,
who viewed the technology as a threat to national security because use of this spectrum was unregulated and
communications could not be monitored by authorities. Currently the villagers rely on the much slower Internet service from
local cell companies. In the meantime, Microsoft continues to expand its efforts to bring Internet access to underserved area
such as Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa using whitespace technology.

As to the future, Amazon, SpaceX, OneWeb, SES, Intelsat, Boeing, ViaSat, Telesat, Audacy, Karousel LLC, Space Norway,
Theia Holdings, and LeoSat are all hoping to establish networks of low and medium earth orbit satellites to provide Internet
access. With so many technology companies vying to bring Internet access to India, its citizens may not have to wait long for
universal Internet access.

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1) What is the Internet? is an interconnected network of thousands of networks and millions of computers (sometimes called host
computers or just hosts), linking businesses, educational institutions, government agencies, and individuals. The Internet provides
approximately 3.8 billion people around the world with services such as e-mail, apps, newsgroups, shopping, research, instant
messaging, music, videos, and news (eMarketer, Inc., 2019a). No single organization controls the Internet or how it functions, nor is it
owned by anybody, yet it has provided the infrastructure for a transformation in commerce, scientific research, and culture.
2) Where did it come from, and how did it support the growth of the Web? The word Internet is derived from the word inter-network,
or the connecting together of two or more computer networks. The Web is one of the Internet’s most popular services, providing
access to billions, perhaps trillions, of web pages, which are documents created in a programming language called HTML that can
contain text, graphics, audio, video, and other objects, as well as “hyperlinks” that permit users to jump easily from one page to
another. Web pages are navigated using web browser software.

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Page 95

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THE EVOLUTION OF THE INTERNET: 1961—THE PRESENT Pg 96
Three phases:
1) Innovation phase (1961 – 1974): the fundamental building
blocks of the Internet—packet-switching hardware, a
communications protocol called TCP/IP, and client/server
computing — were conceptualized and then implemented
in actual hardware and software. The Internet’s original
purpose was to link large mainframe computers on
different college campuses. This kind of one-to-one
communication between campuses was previously possible
only via the telephone system or private networks owned
by the large computer manufacturers.
2) During the Institutionalization Phase, from 1975 to 1995,
large institutions such as the U.S. Department of Defense
(DoD) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) provided
funding and legitimization for the fledging Internet.
3) During the Commercialization Phase, from 1995 to the present, the U.S. government encouraged private corporations to take
over and expand the Internet backbone as well as local service beyond military installations and college campuses to the rest of
the population around the world - See Table 2.2 (pages 97 – 99) for more details.

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THE INTERNET: KEY TECHNOLOGY CONCEPTS (page 100)
 Packet Switching: is a method of slicing digital
messages into discrete units called packets (the
discrete units into which digital messages are sliced
for transmission over the Internet), sending the
packets along different communication paths as they
become available, and then reassembling the packets
once they arrive at their destination. In packet-
switched networks, messages are first broken down
into packets. Appended to each packet are digital
codes that indicate a source address (the origination
point) and a destination address, as well as
sequencing information and error-control
information for the packet. Rather than being sent
directly to the destination address, in a packet
network, the packets travel from computer to
computer until they reach their destination These
computers are called routers.
A router is a special-purpose computer that interconnects the different computer networks that make up the Internet and
routes packets along to their ultimate destination as they travel. To ensure that packets take the best available path toward
their destination, routers use a computer program called a routing algorithm. Packet switching does not require a dedicated
circuit, but can make use of any spare capacity that is available on any of several hundred circuits. Packet switching makes
nearly full use of almost all available communication lines and capacity.

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ADDITIONAL MATERIALS FROM SPECIFIED TEXTBOOKS and/or WEB SITES as indicated

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THE COMPUTER SYSTEM: is a physical device that takes data as input – transforms these data according to stored
instructions and outputs the processed information. A computer system consists of a Central Processing Unit
(CPU), primary storage, secondary storage, input devices, output devices, and communication devices.

SECONDARY STORAGES
COMMUNICATIONS  Magnetic disk Figure 6-1 (MIS pg 183): Hardware components of a
 Optical disk computer system can be categorized into 6-major parts:
DEVICES  Magnetic tape
 CPU: manipulates data & controls other parts of the
computer system.
 Primary storage: temporarily stores data & program
instructions during processing.
CENTRAL Buses
PRIMARY  Secondary storage: stores data & instructions when
PROCESSING they are not used in processing.
STORAGE
UNIT (CPU)  Input devices: convert data & instructions for
processing in the computer.
 Output devices: present data in a form that people
INPUT DEVICES OUTPUT DEVICES can understand.
 Keyboard • Printers  Communications devices: control the passing of
 Mouse • Video display terminal information to and from communications networks.
 Touch screen • Plotters
 Source data automation • Audio output

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 Figure 6-3 (MIS pg 184):
CPU PRIMARY STORAGE 1) CPU contains an ALU & CU
ARITHMETIC LOGIC I  ALU performs the computer’s principal logical & arithmetic
UNIT (ALU) 8 (+/-/x/÷/=/</>/≤/≥) operations
22 + 11 = 33  CU coordinates & controls the other parts of the computer
9 < 10
system. CU reads a stored program, one instruction at a time,
T U 4 and directs other components of the computer system to
CONTROL UNIT perform the program’s required tasks. The series of
# operations required to process a single machine instruction is
called the machine cycle.
DATA BUS 2) PRIMARY STORAGE has three functions:
ADDRESS BUS  It stores all or part of the software program that is being
CONTROL BUS executed.
 It also stores the operating software (OS) programs that
manage the operation of the computer.
 Finally, the primary storage area holds data that the program
INPUT OUTPUT SECONDARY
is using. Internal primary storage is often called RAM
DEVICES DEVICES STORAGE (Random Access Memory) – meaning it can directly access
any randomly chosen location in the same amount of time.

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 SYSTEM SOFTWARE and PC OPERATING SYSTEMS (MIS page 193)
Programming languages
Assembly language (machine 0’s&1’s)
FORTRAN – PASCAL – COBOL – BASIC
– C , C⁺ - 4TH GENERATION
LANGUAGES & PC SW TOOLS
SYSTEM SOFTWARE:
1) OPERATING SYSTEM:
 Schedule computer events
 Allocate computer resources
 Monitor events
2) LANGUAGE TRANSLATORS
 Interpreters
 Compilers
3) UTILITY PROGRAMS
 Routine operations (sort, list,
print, …)
 Manage data (create files,
merge files, …)
Figure 6.9 (MIS pg 193): The major types of
software. The relationship between system
APPLICATION SOFTWARE software, application software, and users can be
illustrated by a series of nested boxes.
SYSTEM SOFTWARE
 System software consists of operating systems,
language translators, and utility programs.
HARDWARE  Application software such as programming
languages and 4th generation languages, MUST
WORK through the system software to
operate.
 The users interacts primarily with the
USERS application software.
 COBOL: Common Business Oriented Language
 FORTRAN: Formula Translation
 Machine language: first generation – using binary codes (0’s and 1’s) – tedious – labor extensive.
 4t Generation Language: tend to be non-procedural or less procedural than conventional languages.
Procedural languages require specification of the sequence of steps, or procedures, that tell the computer
what to do and how to do it. Non-procedural languages need only specify what has to be accomplished
rather than provide details about how to carry out the task. Natural languages enable users to
communicate with the computer using conversational commands resembling human speech.
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PACKETS:
https://www.ringcentral.com/gb/en/blog/definitions/packet/

What is a network packet?

Abel writes a relatively long letter to Bezel, but Bezel’s mail slot is big enough to accept small index cards. To
make sure Bezel gets their letter, Abel divides the letter into shorter, smaller sections (sized to fit through
Bezel’s mailbox) and delivers these cards to Bezel. Bezel can then put them in the right order to make the
entire message readable.

Packets on the internet work in a similar fashion. When a user wants to upload an image, for example, the
image file doesn’t go from a web server to that user’s computer in its entirety. It’s broken down into “packets”
of data sent via wires, cables, and internet radio waves to be reassembled by the user’s device into the
desired image.

Everything that happens on the internet involves packets—from web pages and digital telecommunications to
emails.

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PACKETS (continued):
https://www.ringcentral.com/gb/en/blog/definitions/packet/

What is a packet-switched network?

The internet uses a packet-switching network. Packet

switching transmits data efficiently across digital networks by
allowing network devices to process packets separately.
When one device sends data to another, the file is broken
down into packets which can then take different network
paths towards the same destination, with the proviso that all
of them arrive at the same place. Packets may have to arrive
in the right order, even though they each take a different
route to reach their destination.
Packet switching functionality enables packets from multiple
computers to travel over the same wires in any order—routing
them so connections can occur over the same equipment
simultaneously. This means that billions of devices can use
packets to exchange data over the internet simultaneously,
rather than just a handful.
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Sending an email via packet switching:
https://www.ringcentral.com/gb/en/blog/definitions/packet/

Let’s look at an example of packet switching:

When an email message is sent, a request is sent on the internet via Hypertext Markup Language (HTML),
Graphics, Uniform Resource Locator, or Interchange Format.

The Transmission Control Protocols of the internet (TCP/IP) divide the file into bytes or small chunks of
information to enable efficient routing. A “byte” or email packet typically holds one to one and a half
thousand bytes of information to enable them to get to their destination—data including:

 The sender’s IP address

• The recipient’s IP address
 Information about how many packets of information the email has been broken down into – and –
 The number of this specific package.

Individual packets for a given file can take different routes over the internet. Once they arrive, they’re
re-packaged into the original file by the TCP layer that receives them.

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What is a “bit”? a “byte”? a “word” or “character”?
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/bit-binary-
digit#:~:text=A%20bit%20(binary%20digit)%20is,%2Foff%20or%20true%2Ffalse.

1) A bit (binary digit: based 2 (0 or 1)) is the smallest unit of data that a computer can process and store. A
bit is always in one of two physical states, similar to an on/off light switch. The state is represented by a
single binary value, usually a 0 or 1. However, the state might also be represented by yes/no, on/off or
true/false. Bits are stored in memory through the use of capacitors that hold electrical charges. The charge
determines the state of each bit, which, in turn, determines the bit's value.
2) Although a computer might be able to test and manipulate data at the bit level, most systems process and
store data in bytes. A byte is a sequence of eight bits that are treated as a single unit. References to a
computer's memory and storage are always in terms of bytes. For example, a storage device might be able
to store 1 terabyte (TB) of data, which is equal to 1,000,000 megabytes (MB). To bring this into
perspective, 1 MB equals 1 million bytes, or 8 million bits. That means a 1 TB drive can store 8 trillion bits
of data.
3) A “word or character” = 1 byte or 8-bits (128 + 64 + 32 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 255)

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How a bit works?
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/bit-binary-
digit#:~:text=A%20bit%20(binary%20digit)%20is,%2Foff%20or%20true%2Ffalse.
Each bit in a byte is assigned a specific value, which is referred to as the place value. A byte's place values are
used to determine the meaning of the byte as a whole, based on the individual bits. In other words, the byte
values indicate what character is associated with that byte.
A place value is assigned to each bit in a right-to-left pattern, starting with 1 and increasing the value by
doubling it for each bit, as described below:
MSB 2⁷ 2⁶ 2⁵ 2⁴ 2³ 2² 2¹ 2⁰ LSB
Decimal: 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
The place values are used in conjunction with the bit values to arrive at the byte's overall meaning. To
calculate this value, the place values associated with each 1 bit are added together. This total corresponds to a
character in the applicable character set. A single byte can support up to 256 unique characters, starting with
the 00000000 byte and ending with the 11111111 byte. The various combinations of bit patterns provide a
range of 0 to 255, which means that each byte can support up to 256 unique bit patterns.
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

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How a bit works? (continued)
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/bit-binary-
digit#:~:text=A%20bit%20(binary%20digit)%20is,%2Foff%20or%20true%2Ffalse.
MSB 2⁷ 2⁶ 2⁵ 2⁴ 2³ 2² 2¹ 2⁰ LSB
255 = 128 + 64 + 32 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 decimal equivalent
The place values are used in conjunction with the bit values to arrive at the byte's overall meaning. To calculate
this value, the place values associated with each 1 bit are added together. This total corresponds to a character
in the applicable character set. A single byte can support up to 256 unique characters, starting with the
00000000 byte and ending with the 11111111 byte. The various combinations of bit patterns provide a range of
0 to 255, which means that each byte can support up to 256 unique bit patterns.
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 = 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 decimal equivalent
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
255 = 128 + 64 + 32 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 decimal equivalent
For example, the uppercase “S” is assigned a decimal value of “83” = 01010011 (See ASCII code)
0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1
83 = 0 + 64 + 0 + 16 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 1
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How a bit works? (continued)
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/bit-binary-
digit#:~:text=A%20bit%20(binary%20digit)%20is,%2Foff%20or%20true%2Ffalse.

The "S" byte includes four 1 bits and four 0 bits. When added together, the place values associated with 1 bits
total 83 – which corresponds to the decimal value assigned to the ASCII uppercase "S" character. The place
values associated with the 0 bits are not added into the byte total.

Because a single byte supports only 256 unique characters, some character sets use multiple bytes per
character. For example, Unicode Transformation Format character sets use between 1 and 4 bytes per
character, depending on the specific character and character set. Despite these differences, however, all
character sets rely on the convention of 8 bits per byte, with each bit in either a 1 or 0 state.

The term octet is sometimes used instead of byte, and the term nibble is occasionally used when referring to a
4-bit unit, although it's not as common as it once was. In addition, the term word is often used to describe two
or more consecutive bytes. A word is usually 16, 32 or 64 bits long.
In telecommunications, the bit rate is the number of bits that is transmitted in a given time period, usually as
the number of bits per second (bps) or some derivative, such as kilobits per second (kbps).
NOTE: ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange.
https://www.ascii-code.com/

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 Figure 1-2: Transfer of information with registers (from Digital Logic & Computer Designed by M. Morris Mano (pg 24)

MEMORY UNIT RESGISTER TRANSFER: Figure 1-2 illustrates the transfer of information among
registers and demonstrates pictorially the transfer of binary information from a
J (74) O (79) H (72) N (78) MEMORY teletype keyboard into a register in the memory unit. The input teletype unit is
01001010 01001111 11001000 11001110 REGISTER assumed to have a keyboard, a control circuit, and an input register. Each time a key
is struck, the control enters into the input register an equivalent 8-bit alpha-numeric
character code. We shall assume the code used is the ASCII code with an odd-parity
eighth (8th) bit. The information from the input register is transferred into the eight
Least Significant Cells of a processor register. After every transfer, the input register
8 CELLS 8 CELLS 8 CELLS 8 CELLS is cleared to enable the control to insert a new eight-bit code when the keyboard is
PROCESSOR struck again. Each 8-bit character transferred to the processor register is preceded
PROCESSOR UNIT REGISTER by a shift of the previous character to the next eight cells on its left. When a transfer
of four characters is completed, the processor register is full, and its contents are
transferred into a memory register. The content stored in the memory register
INPUT TELETYPE UNIT 8 CELLS
INPUT
shown in figure 1-2 came from the characters JOHN after the four appropriate keys
REGISTER were struck.
K J
E For a full explanation, refer to CHAPTER 1 – SECTION 1-6 BINARY CODES and
Y SECTION 1-7 BINARY STORAGE AND REGISTERS in DIGITAL LOGIC AND COMPUTER
B O CONTROL DESIGN BY M. MORRIS MANO – ISBN 0-13-214510-3 (from page 16 through page 25)
O CIRCUIT
A H
R
NOTE: SECTION 1-8 BINARY LOGIC, refer to pages 25 – 31 (AND, OR, NOT GATES)
D N

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_diagram#/media/File:Circuit_elements.svg

Common schematic diagram symbols (US symbols)

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https://www.google.com/search?q=sample+of+an+electrical+schematic+diagram&oq=sample+of+an+electrical+schematic+
diagram&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIKCAEQABiABBiiBDIKCAIQABiABBiiBDIKCAMQABiABBiiBNIBCjc0MzY2ajBqMT
WoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#vhid=1yPYre2jB_jk1M&vssid=l

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_diagram#/m
edia/File:Circuit_diagram_%E2%80%93_pictorial_
and_schematic.png

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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_diagram#/media/File:4_bit_counter.svg

The circuit diagram for a four-bit TTL counter, a type of state machine

Simple examples of “state machine” are: vending machines, which dispense products
when the proper combination of coins is deposited; elevators, whose sequence of stops is
determined by the floors requested by riders; traffic lights, which change sequence when
cars are waiting; combination locks, which require the input of a sequence of numbers in
the proper order.

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31
32
33
34
35
36
37
END OF PRINTABLE CHARACTERS

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40
41
42
43
44
45
END OF ADDITIONAL MATERIALS.

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THE INTERNET: KEY TECHNOLOGY CONCEPTS (page 100)
 Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP): While packet switching was an enormous advance in
communications capacity, there was no universally agreed-upon method for breaking up digital messages into packets,
routing them to the proper address, and then reassembling them into a coherent message. The answer was to develop a
protocol – [a set of rules and standards for data transfer] – to govern the formatting, ordering, compressing, and error-
checking of messages, as well as specify the speed of transmission and means (mail box full – keep trying for 2 hrs) by which
devices on the network will indicate they have stopped sending and/or receiving messages.
 Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) has become the core communications protocol for the Internet (Cerf
and Kahn, 1974). TCP establishes the connections among sending and receiving computers, and makes sure that packets sent
by one computer are received in the same sequence by the other, without any packets missing.
 Internet Protocol (IP) provides the Internet’s addressing scheme and is responsible for the actual delivery of the packets.

TCP/IP is divided into four separate layers, with each layer handling a different aspect of the
communication problem:
1) Network Interface Layer: responsible for placing packets on and receiving them from
the network medium.
2) Internet Layer: responsible for addressing, packaging, and routing messages on the
Internet
3) Transport Layer: responsible for providing communication with other protocols within
TCP/IP suite
4) Application Layer: includes protocols used to provide user services or exchange data.

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP): enables exchange of routing information among systems
on the Internet. BGP uses TCP as its transport protocol. Other important protocols included
in the Application layer include HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), File Transfer Protocol
(FTP), and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).
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THE INTERNET: KEY TECHNOLOGY CONCEPTS (page 100)
 IP Addresses: The IP addressing scheme answers the
question “How can billions of computers attached to the
Internet communicate with one another?” The answer is
that every computer connected to the Internet must be
assigned an address—otherwise it cannot send or receive
TCP packets. For instance, when you sign onto the Internet
using a dial-up, DSL, or cable modem, your computer is
assigned a temporary address by your Internet Service
Provider. Most corporate and university computers
attached to a local area network have a permanent IP
address. There are two versions of IP currently in use:

 An IPv4 Internet address is a 32-bit number that

appears as a series of four separate numbers marked
off by periods, such as 64.49.254.91. Each of the
four numbers can range from 0–255. This “dotted
quad” addressing scheme supports up to about 4
billion addresses (2³² - 2 to the 32nd power). In a
typical Class C network, the first three sets of numbers identify the network (in the preceding example, 64.49.254 is the
local area network identification) and the last number (91) identifies a specific computer.

 An IPv6 Internet address is 128 bits, so it can support up to 2¹²⁸ (3.4 x 10³⁸) addresses.

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DOMAIN NAMES – DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM (DNS) – UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATOR (URL) PG 104
 DOMAIN NAME: Most people cannot remember
32-bit numbers. An IP address can be represented
by a natural language convention called a domain
name.
 DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM (DNS): allows expressions
such as Google.com to stand for a numeric IP
address (google.com’s numeric IP is
172.217.12.206) – [You can check the IP address of
any domain name on the Internet. If using a
Windows operating system, open the command
prompt. Type ping <Domain Name>. You will
receive the IP address in return.]
 UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATOR (URL): A Uniform
Resource Locator (URL), which is the address used
by a web browser to identify the location of
content on the Web, also uses a domain name as
part of the URL. A typical URL contains the protocol
to be used when accessing the address, followed
by its location. For instance, the URL
https://www.pearson.com refers to the IP address
159.182.41.80 with the domain name pearson.com
and the protocol being used to access the address,
HTTPS. A URL can have from two to four parts; for
example, name1.name2.name3.org.

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CLIENT/SERVER COMPUTING PG 104
While packet switching exploded the available
communications capacity and TCP/IP provided the
communications rules and regulations, it took a
revolution in computing and without it, the Web—in
all its richness—would not exist.
 Client/server computing: is a model of computing
in which client computers are connected in a
network with one or more servers, which are
computers that are dedicated to performing
common functions that the client computers on
the network need, such as file storage, software
applications, printing, and Internet access. The
client computers are themselves sufficiently
powerful to accomplish complex tasks. Servers are networked computers dedicated to common functions that the client
computers on the network need, such as file storage, software applications, utility programs that provide web connections, and
printers. (For additional details, continue reading on page 106)

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THE MOBILE PLATFORM PG 106
Today, the primary means of accessing the Internet worldwide is through highly portable smartphones and tablet computers, and
not traditional desktop or laptop PCs. This means that the primary platform for e-commerce products and services is also
changing to a mobile platform.
The change in hardware has reached a tipping point. The form factor of PCs has changed from desktops to laptops and tablet
computers such as the iPad (and more than 100 other competitors). Tablets are lighter, do not require a complex operating
system, and rely on the Internet cloud to provide processing and storage.
Smartphones are a disruptive technology that radically alters the personal computing and e-commerce landscape.
Smartphones have created a major shift in computer processors and software that has disrupted the dual monopolies long
established by Intel and Microsoft, whose chips, operating systems, and software applications began dominating the PC market in
1982. Few smartphones use Intel chips, which power 90% of the world’s PCs, and the majority of smartphones use either
Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS operating systems rather than Microsoft Windows, the dominant operating system for desktop
computers. Smartphones do not use power-hungry hard drives but instead use flash memory chips with storage up to 256
gigabytes that also require much less power. In 2019, about 3.3 billion people worldwide used a mobile phone to access the
Internet (eMarketer, Inc., 2019b).

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THE INTERNET “CLOUD COMPUTING” MODEL: HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE PG 107
Cloud computing is a model of computing in which computer processing, storage, software, and other services are provided as a
shared pool of virtualized resources over the Internet. These “clouds” of computing resources can be accessed on an as-needed
basis from any connected device and location.
The U.S. National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) defines
cloud computing as having the following essential characteristics:
1) On-demand self-service: Consumers can obtain computing
capabilities such as server time or network storage as needed
automatically on their own.
2) Ubiquitous network access: Cloud resources can be accessed
using standard network and Internet devices, including mobile
platforms.
3) Location-independent resource pooling: Computing resources
are pooled to serve multiple users, with different virtual
resources dynamically assigned according to user demand. The
user generally does not know where the computing resources are
located.
4) Rapid elasticity: Computing resources can be rapidly provisioned,
increased, or decreased to meet changing user demand.
5) Measured service: Charges for cloud resources are based on the
amount of resources actually used.

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THE INTERNET “CLOUD COMPUTING” MODEL: HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE PG 107 (cont.)
Cloud computing consists of three basic types of services:

1) Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): Customers use processing, storage, networking, and other computing resources from third-
party providers called Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) to run their information systems. For example, Amazon used the spare
capacity of its information technology infrastructure to develop Amazon Web Services (AWS), which offers a cloud
environment for a myriad of different IT infrastructure services. (See Table 2.4 (pgs 110 – 111) for a description of the range
of services that AWS offers.
2) Software as a service (SaaS): Customers use software hosted by the vendor on the vendor’s cloud infrastructure and
delivered as a service over a network. Leading SaaS examples includes G Suite, which provides common business applications
online, and Salesforce.com, which provides customer relationship management and related software services over the
Internet. Users access these applications from a web browser, and the data and software are maintained on the providers’
remote servers.
3) Platform as a service (PaaS): Customers use infrastructure and programming tools supported by the CSP to develop their
own applications. For example, IBM offers IBM Cloud for software development and testing on its cloud infrastructure.
Another example is Salesforce.com’s Lightning Platform, which allows developers to build applications that are hosted on its
servers as a service.

53
THE INTERNET “CLOUD COMPUTING” MODEL: HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE PG 107 (cont.)
A cloud can be public, private, or hybrid :

1) A public cloud is owned and maintained by CSPs, such as Amazon Web Services, IBM, HP, and Dell, and made available to multiple customers,
who pay only for the resources they use. A public cloud offers relatively secure enterprise-class reliability at significant cost savings. Because
organizations using public clouds do not own the infrastructure, they do not have to make large investments in their own hardware and
software. Instead, they purchase their computing services from remote providers and pay only for the amount of computing power they actually
use (utility computing) or are billed on a monthly or annual subscription basis. The term on-demand computing is also used to describe such
services. As such, public clouds are ideal environments for small and medium-sized businesses who cannot afford to fully develop their own
infrastructure; for applications requiring high performance, scalability, and availability; for new application development and testing; and for
companies that have occasional large computing projects. Gartner estimates that spending on public cloud services worldwide (not including
cloud advertising) will grow by 17% in 2020, to over $266 billion (Gartner, Inc., 2019a). Companies such as Google, Apple, Dropbox, Box, and
others also offer public clouds as a consumer service for online storage of data, music, and photos. Google Drive, Dropbox, and Apple iCloud are
leading examples of this type of consumer cloud service.

2) A private cloud provides similar options as a public cloud but is operated solely for the benefit of a single tenant. It might be managed by the
organization or a third party and hosted either internally or externally. Like public clouds, private clouds can allocate storage, computing power,
or other resources seamlessly to provide computing resources on an as-needed basis. Companies that have stringent regulatory compliance or
specialized licensing requirements that necessitate high security, such as financial services or healthcare companies, or that want flexible
information technology resources and a cloud service model while retaining control over their own IT infrastructure, are gravitating toward
these private clouds.

3) Large firms are most likely to adopt a hybrid cloud computing model, in which they use their own infrastructure for their most essential core
activities and adopt public cloud computing for less-critical systems or for additional processing capacity during peak business periods. Table 2.5
(pg 112) compares the three cloud computing models. Cloud computing will gradually shift firms from having a fixed infrastructure capacity
toward a more flexible infrastructure, some of it owned by the firm, and some of it rented from giant data centers owned by CSPs.

54
THE INTERNET “CLOUD COMPUTING” MODEL: HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE PG 107 (cont.)

Cloud computing has some drawbacks. Unless users make provisions for storing their data locally, the responsibility for data storage and control is in
the hands of the provider. Some companies worry about the security risks related to entrusting their critical data and systems to an outside vendor
that also works with other companies. Companies expect their systems to be available 24/7 and do not want to suffer any loss of business capability
if cloud infrastructures malfunction. Nevertheless, the trend is for companies to shift more of their computer processing and storage to some form of
cloud infrastructure.
For e-commerce firms, cloud computing radically reduces the cost of building and operating web-sites because the necessary hardware infrastructure
and software can be licensed as a service from CSPs at a fraction of the cost of purchasing these services as products. This means firms can adopt
“pay-as-you-go” and “pay-as-you-grow” strategies when building out their websites. For instance, according to Amazon, hundreds of thousands of
customers use Amazon Web Services. For individuals, cloud computing means you no longer need a powerful laptop or desktop computer to engage
in e-commerce or other activities. For corporations, cloud computing means that a significant part of hardware and software costs (infrastructure
costs) can be reduced because firms can obtain these services online for a fraction of the cost of owning, and they do not have to hire an IT staff to
support the infrastructure. 55
OTHER INTERNET PROTOCOLS AND UTILITY PROGRAMS PG 111
There are many other Internet protocols and utility programs that provide services to users in the form of Internet applications
that run on Internet clients and servers. These Internet services are based on universally accepted protocols—or standards—
that are available to everyone who uses the Internet. They are not owned by any organization, but they are services that have
been developed over many years and made available to all Internet users.

1) HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP): is the Internet protocol used to transfer web pages. HTTP was developed by the World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). HTTP runs in the Application Layer of the
TCP/IP model shown in Figure 2.4 on page 103.
2) Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP): the Internet protocol used to send mail to a server.
3) Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3): a protocol used by the client to retrieve mail from an Internet server.
4) Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP): a more current e-mail protocol. IMAP allows users to search, organize, and filter
their mail prior to downloading it from the server.
5) File Transfer Protocol (FTP): is one of the original Internet services. FTP runs in TCP/IP’s Application Layer and permits users
to transfer files from a server to their client computer, and vice versa. The files can be documents, programs, or large
database files.
6) Telnet is a network protocol that also runs in TCP/IP’s Application Layer and is used to allow remote login on another
computer. The term Telnet also refers to the Telnet program, which provides the client part of the protocol and enables the
client to emulate (to equal or approach equality with) a mainframe computer terminal. You can then attach yourself to a
computer on the Internet that supports Telnet and run programs or download files from that computer. Telnet was the first
“remote work” program that permitted users to work on a computer from a remote location.

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OTHER INTERNET PROTOCOLS AND UTILITY PROGRAMS PG 111 (cont.)
7) Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)/Transport Layer Security (TLS) are protocols that operate between the Transport and Application
Layers of TCP/IP and secure communications between the client and the server. SSL/TLS helps secure e-commerce
communications and payments through a variety of techniques, such as message encryption and digital signatures.
8) Packet InterNet Groper (Ping) is a utility program that allows you to check the connection between a client computer and a
TCP/IP network.

9) Tracert is one of several route-tracing utilities that allow you to follow the path of a message you send from your client to a
remote computer on the Internet.

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 Page 113

WEB 2.0 APPLICATIONS and SERVICES (pages 149 - ….)

1) Online Social Networks: are services that support communication within networks of friends, acquaintances,
people with similar interests, colleagues, and even entire professions. Facebook (~2.4B users), Instagram (~1B
users), LinkedIn (~600M users), Twitter (~320M users). These networks rely on user-generated content
(messages, photos, and videos) and emphasize sharing of content. All of these features require significant
broadband Internet connectivity and equally large cloud computing facilities to store content.
2) Blogs - A blog (originally called a weblog) is a personal web page that typically contains a series of chronological
entries (newest to oldest) by its author, and links to related web pages. The blog may include a blogroll (a
collection of links to other blogs) and trackbacks (a list of entries in other blogs that refer to a post on the first
blog). Most blogs allow readers to post comments on the blog entries as well. The act of creating a blog is often
referred to s “blogging.” Blogs are either hosted by a third-party site such as WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger,
LiveJournal, TypePad, and Xanga, or prospective bloggers can download software such as Movable Type to
create a blog that is hosted by the user’s ISP. Blog pages are usually variations on templates provided by the
blogging service or software and hence require no knowledge of HTML. Therefore, millions of people without
HTML skills of any kind can post their own web pages, and share content with friends and relatives. The totality
of blog-related websites is often referred to as the “blogosphere.”

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WEB 2.0 APPLICATIONS and SERVICES (continued)
3) Wikis - A wiki is a web application that allows a user to easily add and edit content on a web page. (The term
wiki derives from the “wiki wiki” (quick or fast) shuttle buses at Honolulu Airport.) Wiki software enables
documents to be written collectively and collaboratively. Most wiki systems are open source, server-side
systems that store content in a relational database. The software typically provides a template that defines
layout and elements common to all pages, displays user-editable source code (usually plain text), and then
renders the content into an HTML-based page for display in a web browser. Some wiki software allows only
basic text formatting, whereas others allow the use of tables, images, or even interactive elements, such as
polls and games. Because wikis by their very nature are very open in allowing anyone to make changes to a
page, most wikis provide a means to verify the validity of changes via a “Recent Changes” page, which enables
members of the wiki community to monitor and review the work of other users, correct mistakes, and
hopefully deter “vandalism.”
VIRTUAL REALITY: involves fully immersing users within a virtual world, typically through the use of a head-
mounted display (HMD) connected to headphones and other devices that enable navigation through the
experience and allowing users to feel as if they are actually present within the virtual world.
AUGMENTED REALITY: involves overlaying virtual objects over the real world, via smartphones, tablets, or HMDs.
READ “LEAPING INTO THE FUTURE WITH VR/AR” pages 151 – 152
INTELLIGENT DIGITAL ASSISTANTS (PAGE 153)
From Science-Fiction (seen in movies, TV shows) TO VR/AR – Read it if time permits – It is becoming “a reality”
(human beings are somewhat “robot brains”.
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 Pages 153 -

Apple app store, Google play store, [3 million apps available for download]. The implications of the app ecosystem for e-commerce are
significant. The smartphone in your pocket or the tablet computer on your lap becomes not only a general purpose computer, but also an
always-present shopping tool for consumers, as well as an entirely new marketing and advertising platform for vendors.
 PLATFORMS FOR MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT: Unlike mobile web sites, which can be accessed by any web-enabled mobile
device, native apps, which are designed specifically to operate using the mobile device’s hardware and operating system, are platform-
specific. Applications for the iPhone, iPad, and other iOS devices can be written in Swift, a programming language introduced Apple in
2014 specifically for developing iOS applications, or the Objective-C programming language using the iOS SDK (software developer kit).
Applications for Android operating system–based phones typically are written using Java, although portions of the code may be in the C
or C⁺⁺ programming language.
 APP MARKETPLACES: Once written, applications are distributed through various marketplaces. Android apps for Android-based phones
are distributed through Google Play, which is controlled by Google. iPhone applications are distributed through Apple’s App Store. Apps
can also be purchased from third-party vendors such as Amazon’s Appstore.

Pages 155 – 157

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Page 158

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