CHAPTER THREE

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Introduction
•The modern information technology offers a
number of different system configurations.
a technical decision
•The configurations are the LAN or the WAN, the
Mini or the Superman, and the front end and the
Back Office Systems, Internet/Intranet, Client
Server Systems.
• a critical, strategic decision affecting the
business operations and prospects.
Information system components
1. Hardware: Computing, Storing and communicating
 all physical devices and materials used in
information processing. Specifically, it includes
not only machines, such as computers and other
equipment, but also all data media, that is,
tangible objects on which data are recorded,
from sheets of paper to magnetic or optical
disks.
• Computer systems
Examples:
• Computer peripherals
• Storage
2. Programs: In Charge of the Hardware
2.1. Software :
 System software programs are used to manage the
computer system’s resources and simplify
programming.
 Applications, like spreadsheets or word processors,
directly help the user to do his or her work.
 Computer software
Application Software System Software
General purpose Application specific System management System developer

The basic program components of the top four Software suits:

• Programs Micro soft Office Lotus smart suit Corel word perfect Office Sun star Office

• Word Processor Word Word pro Word perfect Star write

• Spread sheet Excel 1-2-3 Quattro pro Star calc

• Presentation graphics Power Point Freelance Presentation Star Impress

• Data base manager Access Approach Paradox Star base

• Personal Information manager Outlook Express Organizer Corel Central Star schedule

 
System software: programs that manage and support a computer system and its
information processing activities Ex: Operating system, Networked Management
programs.

• Operating System: an integrated system of programs that

manages the operations of the CPU controls the input /output
and storage resources and activities of the computer system
and provides various support services as the computer
executes the application program of users.
Operating System Functions:-
 User Interface
 Resource Management
 File Management
 Task Management
 Utilities and other functions
Programming Languages: help programmers develop computer programs and language
translator programs to convert programming language instructions into machine language instruction codes.

The five major levels of programming languages are

• Machine Languages
• Assembler languages
• High-level Languages
• Fourth generation Languages
• Object oriented Languages.
4. People: The Most Important Element
 information systems specialists and end users.
5. Procedures: The Way It Goes
 the policies and methods that must be followed when using,
operating and maintaining an information system.
6. Information: The Reasons for Using Information Technology
 Characteristics of information:-
 Relevance
 Accuracy
 Completeness
 Source trustworthiness
 Communication with the right person
 Punctuality
 Detail
 Comprehension
7. Communication Technologies
Telecommunications: the means by which information
is transmitted electronically over long distances.
o In a small company, pcs are connected by local area
networks (lan), enabling their users to communicate
and share data, tasks and equipment.
o Wide area networks (wan) are used to connect
computers at greater distances, either within the
company or in a different location.
o Internet, the ‘network of networks’, links up an
immense variety of networks from diverse fields
worldwide.
The Business Value of Telecommunication:

• Overcome the geographical barriers

• Overcome time barriers
• Overcome cost barriers
The Business value of Internet:
• Generate new revenue from online sales.
• Reduce transaction cost through online sale and customer support.
• Attract new customers via web marketing and advertising and
online sales.
• Increase the loyalty of the existing customers via improved web
customers ser vie and support.
• Develop new Web-based markets and distributing channel for
existing products.
• Develop new information-based products accessible on the web.
Intranet: a network inside an organization that uses Internet technologies
(Such as Web browsers and servers, TCP/IP network protocols, HTML hypermedia document publishing and databases, and so on) to provide an Internet –like environment within the enterprise for information sharing, Communications, Collaborations, and the support of business process.

• Extranet: network links that use Internet technologies to interconnect

the intranet of a business with the intranets of its customers, suppliers,
or other business partners.
TELECOMMUNICATION COMPONENTS
• Terminals
• Telecommunication Processors
• Telecommunication Channels
• Computer
• Telecommunication Control software (Network Management).
 TELECOMMUNICATION NETWORK ALTERNATIVES

Network Alternatives
• Networks
• Channels
• Media
• Processors
• Topology/architecture
Examples:
• Internet, intranet, extranet, wide area network,
local area network, network computing, peer-to-
peer networks, client/server networks.
• Twisted –pair wire, coaxial cable, fiber –optics,
micro wave radio, communication satellites,
cellular and PCS systems, wireless mobile and
LAN Systems.
• Modems, multiplexers, switches, routers, hubs,
gateways, front-end processors, private branch
exchanges.
• Analog/digital/switched/non switched,
circuit/message/packet/tell switching, bandwidth
alternatives
• Star, ring, and bus topology, OSI and TCP/IP
architecture and protocols.
8. Database Management (DBM)

Databases ፡a collection of interrelated data, such as

an organization’s human resource or product
databases.
• Databases are managed by software systems
known as database management systems (dbms).
Types of Databases
1. Operation databases
2. Distributed database
3. External database
4. Hypermedia database.
 Data warehouse and mining

• Data warehouse ፡a central source of data from other

databases that have been cleaned, transformed, and cataloged
for business analysis and decision support system that
includes data mining, which attempts to find hidden patterns
and trends in the warehouse data.
• Data mining can discover new correlations, patterns, and in
vast amounts of business data, stored in data warehouse. Eg.:-
many companies use data mining to:
 Perform “market basket analysis” to identify new product
bundles.
 Find root cause to quality or manufacturing problems.
 Prevent customer attrition and acquire new customers.
 Profile customers with more accuracy.
Approaches to business data processing
1.Traditional file processing approach:

• Here each business application is designed to use one or more

specialized data files containing only specific types of data record.
so, there are Problem of file Processing.
. Data Redundancy
. Lack of Data Integration
. Data Dependency
2. Data base management approach: consolidates data records
formerly in separate files into data bases that can be accessed by
many different application programs.
o serves as a software interface between users and databases. This
helps users easily access the data in the database.
o involves the use of database management software to control how
databases are created, interrogated, and maintained to provide
information needed by end users.
 Data base management Software:
• Micro computer database management packages such as
Microsoft Access, Lotus Approach, or Corel Paradox allow
you to set up and manage databases on your PC, network
server, or the World Wide Web.
• In mainframe and server computer systems, the data base
management system is an important system software packages
that control the development, use, and maintenance of the
database-using organizations.
Functions of Data base Management system
1. Create new database and data base application.
2. To Maintain the quality of the data in an organization’s
databases and
3. To use the databases of an organization to provide the
information needed by its end users.
Database Development: involves defining and organizing the content, relationships, and structure of the data needed to build a database.

• Database application development involves using a DBMS to

develop prototypes of queries, forms, reports, and web pages
for a proposed business application.
• Database Maintenance involves using transaction processing
systems and other tools to add, delete, update, and correct the
data in a database.
 Database administrators and database design analysts work
with end users and system analyst to model business processes
and the data they require to determine 1) What relationship
should be included in the databases and (2) what structure or
relationship should exist among the data elements.
 Elements of DBMS:
i) Database:
• Data bank for computerized information is
organized in the form of a collection of file stored
on secondary storage media.
• A file is a collection of records for each entity in
the system. The record being a collection of data
items representing the attributes of an entity.
ii) People
iii) Database Planning and Design Technique
iv) Computer Hardware and Software
 Models of DBMS:
1. Hierarchical Model:
 data is organized into a tree-like structure, implying a single
upward link in each record to describe the nesting, and a sort
field to keep the records in a particular order in each same-
level list.
 allows relationship between two types of data. This structure
is very efficient to describe many relationships in the real
world; recipes, table of contents, ordering of paragraphs, any
nested and sorted information. However, the hierarchical
structure is inefficient for certain database operations when a
full path is not included for each record.
 One limitation of the hierarchical model is its inability to
efficiently represent redundancy in data.
Network Model:
• organizes data using two fundamental constructs, called records and
sets.
 Records contain fields.
 Sets define one-to-many relationships between records: one owner,
many members. A record may be an owner in any number of sets, and
a member in any number of sets.
 The model differs from the hierarchical model as in network model
branches can be connected to multiple nodes. The network model is
able to represent redundancy in data more efficiently than in the
hierarchical model.
 Although it is not an essential feature of the model, network databases
generally implement the set relationships by means of pointers that
directly address the location of a record on disk. This gives excellent
retrieval performance, at the expense of operations such as database
loading and reorganization.
Relational Model:
• key terms are used in relational database models: relations,
attributes, and domains.
• A relation is a table with columns and rows.
• The named columns of the relation are called attributes, and
the domain is the set of values the attributes are allowed to
take.
 Thus, the "relation" in "relational database" refers to the
various tables in the database;
 The columns enumerate the various attributes of the entity and
a row is an actual instance of the entity that is represented by
the relation. As a result, each tuple of the employee table
represents various attributes of a single employee.
• All relations in a relational database have to adhere to some
basic rules to qualify as relations.
First, the ordering of columns is immaterial in a table.
Second, there can't be identical tuples or rows in a table.
And third, each tuple will contain a single value for each of its
attributes.
The flexibility of relational databases allows programmers to
write queries that were not anticipated by the database
designers. As a result, relational databases can be used by
multiple applications in ways the original designers did not
foresee, which is especially important for databases that might
be used for a long time. This has made the idea and
implementation of relational databases very popular with
business organization.