The main information systems used for operational support in a business are transaction processing systems. This type of system processes data about transactions, which are events that have occurred that affect the business, such as the sale or purchase of goods. A transaction processing system has 3 main purposes: keep records about the state of an organization, process transactions that affect these records, and produce outputs that report on transactions that have occurred. For example, an inventory control system tracks records about inventory, processes sales and purchases of inventory, and produces reports about the amount and value of items on hand, on order, etc. Transaction processing systems exist in all areas of an organization, and in all types of organizations. TPSs can be used by employees (order entry) or customers (bank ATMs). They can use various types of hardware, software, and networks. TPSs use stored data in both files and Continue reading
Information Systems Basics
Computer Storage Fundementals and Devices
Data and information must be stored until needed using a variety of storage methods. There are many types of storage media and devices. Computer Storage Fundamentals Data are processed and stored in a computer system through the presence or absence of electronic or magnetic signals in the computer’s circuitry or in the media it uses. This is called a “two-state” or binary representation of data, since the computer and the media can exhibit only two possible states or conditions. For example, transistors other semiconductor circuits are either in a conducting or nonconducting state. Media such as magnetic disks and tapes indicate these two states by having magnetized spots whose magnetic fields have one of two different directions, or polarities. This binary characteristic of computer circuitry and media is what makes the binary number system the basis for representing data in computers. Thus, for electronic circuits, the conducting (ON) state represents Continue reading
Data Transmission Modes in Computer Networks
Data communication circuits can be configured in a huge number of arrangements depending on the specifics of the circuit, such as how many stations are on the circuit, type of transmission facility, distance between the stations, how many users at each station and so on. Data communication circuits can however be classified as either two point or multipoint. A two-point configuration involves only two stations, whereas a multipoint configuration involves more than two stations. Regardless of configuration, each station can have one or more computers, computer terminals or workstations. A two point circuit involves the transfer of digital information from a mainframe computer and a personal computer, two mainframe computers, two personal computers or two data communication networks. A multipoint network is generally used to interconnect a single mainframe computer to many personal computers or to interconnect many personal computers. Coming to transmission modes, there are three modes of transmission Continue reading
CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) Tools
CASE is an acronym for computer Aided Engineering. This involves using software packages to accomplish and automate many of the activities of the information system development including software development or programming. Building Blocks Computer Aided Software Engineering can be a single tool that supports a specific Software Engineering activity to complex environment that encompasses tools, a data of people, hardware, network operating system standards and other components i.e. environment architecture composed of hardware platform and operating system support lays the ground work for CASE. But the CASE environment itself needs other building blocks. A set of portability services provides a bridge between CASE tools and their integration framework and the environment architecture. The integration framework is a collection of specialized programs that enables collection of specialized programs that enables individual’s CASE tools to communicate with one another, to create a project database and to exhibit the same look and Continue reading
The Five Phases of Ethical Hacking
It is debatable, if hacking can be ethical or not, the term “Hacking” over time has been associated with destructive activity. These are some of the terms used in the context of hacking which provides better clarity, Hacker is somebody who enjoys learning hacking for a defensive purpose; an ethical hacker is the security professional who exercises his skills for a defensive purpose. The term Cracker refers to a person who uses his hacking skills for destructive purpose. The ethical question here is in regard to the physical activity of hacking which is sometimes hard to differentiate from cracking. The main difference being, Ethical hacker just identifies vulnerabilities and does not exploit them unlike a cracker. Ethical hacking is the process adopted by ethical hackers to discover the vulnerabilities existing in information systems operating environments. With the growth of internet, computer security has become a major concern for business. Organizations Continue reading
What is Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)?
Supply Chain Management (SCM) applications (for managing inventory and shipping), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications (for managing current and potential customers), Business Intelligence (BI) applications (for finding patterns from existing data from operations), and other types of applications (for managing data such as human resources data, health care, internal communications, etc) typically cannot communicate with one another in order to share data or business rules throughout a company. Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is the process of linking such applications within a single organization together in order to simplify and automate business processes to the greatest extent possible, while at the same time avoiding having to make sweeping changes to the existing applications or data structures. Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is defined as the unrestricted sharing of data and business processes among any connected applications and data source in the enterprise. It is considered as a framework that is formed of Continue reading