NAME: AFFAN WASSAF SIDDIQUI CLASS: BS-VII SUBJECT: MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM COURSE CODE: BA(H)-611 SUBMISSION DATE:

15.04.2010 SUBMISSION DAY: THURSDAY FACILITATOR: MUHAMMAD KASHIF SHEIKH

Learning Objectives
LO-1: Understand the concept of a network
Ans: The term network means an interconnected or interrelated chain, group or system. The concept of networks can be expressed as a mathematical formula that calculates the number of possible connections or interactions: N(N-1) or N2-N. In the formula, N refers to the number of nodes (points of connection) on the network.

LO-2: Apply Metcalfes law in understanding the value of a network.

Ans: Metcalfes law states that the usefulness or utility of a network equals the square of the number
of users. Metcalfes law becomes easy to understand if you think of a common piece of technology we all use every day: the telephone. The telephone is of very limited use if only you and your best friend have one. If a whole town is on the system, it becomes much more useful. If the whole world is wired, the utility of the system is phenomenal. Add the number of wireless telephone connections, and you have a massive potential for value. To reach this value, however, many people had to have access to a telephone and they had to have used it. In other words, telephone use had to reach a critical mass of users. So it is with any technology.

LO-3: Identify major developments and trends in the industries, technologies, and business applications of telecommunications and Internet technologies
Ans: There are three major trends in the development of telecommunications and internet technologies which are as follows:

1. Industry Trends:
The competitive arena for the telecommunications service has changed dramatically in recent years. The telecommunications industry has changed from governmentregulated monopolies to a de-regulated market with fiercely competitive suppliers of telecommunications services. The explosive growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web has spawned a host of new telecommunications products, services, and providers. Driving and responding to this growth, business firms have dramatically

increased their use of the Internet and the Web for electronic commerce and collaboration.

2. Technology Trends:
Open systems with unrestricted connectivity, using internet networking technologies as their technology platform, are todays primary telecommunications technology drivers. Web browser suites, HTML Web page editors, Internet and Internet servers and network management software, TCP/IP Internet networking products, and network security firewalls are just a few examples. These technologies are being applied in Internet, Intranet, and Extranet applications, especially those for electronic commerce and collaboration. This trend has reinforced previous industry and technical moves toward building client/server networks based on an open system architecture.

3. Application Trends:
The changes in the telecommunications industries and technologies just mentioned are causing a significant change in the business use of telecommunications. The trend toward more vendors, services, Internet technologies, and open systems, and the rapid growth of the internet, the World Wide Web, and corporate intranets and extranets, dramatically increases the number of feasible telecommunications applications. Thus, telecommunications networks are now playing vital and pervasive roles in Webenabled e-business processes, electronic commerce, enterprise collaboration, and other business applications that support the operations, management, and strategic objectives of both large and small business enterprise.

LO-4: Provide examples of the business value of Internet, intranet, and extranet applications.
Ans: Business Value of Internet:
Substantial cost saving can arise because applications that use the Internet and Internet-based technologies are typically less expensive to develop, operate, and maintain than traditional systems. For examples, an airline saves money every time customers use their website instead of their customer support telephone system. It is estimated that for certain types of transactions the transaction cost saving are significant for the online versus more traditional channels. For example: booking a reservation over the Internet costs about 90% less for the airline than booking the same reservation over the telephone.

Business Value of Intranet:

Intranets can significantly improve communications and collaboration within an enterprise. For example, we can use our intranet browser and our PC or NC workstation to send and receive e-mail, voice mail, paging, and faxes to communicate within our organization, and externally through the internet and extranets.

The comparative ease, attractiveness, and lower cost of publishing and accessing multimedia business information internally via intranet websites have been the primary reasons for the explosive growth in the use of intranets in business. For example, information products as varied as companys newsletters, technical drawings, and product catalogs can be published in a variety of ways, including hypermedia Web pages, e-mail, and net broadcasting, and as part of the in-house business applications. Intranets are also being used as the platform for developing and deploying critical business applications to support business operations and managerial decision-making across the internet-worked enterprise. For example, many companies are developing custom applications like order processing, inventory control, sales management, and enterprise information portals that can be implemented on intranets, extranets, and the Internet. Organizations must employ IT and IS professionals to manage the functions of the intranet along with maintaining the various hardware and software components necessary for successful operations. For example, a network administrator must manage the access of users via passwords and other security mechanisms to ensure each user is able to use the intranet productively while simultaneously protecting the integrity of the data resources.

Business Value of Extranet:

The business value of extranets is derived from several factors. First, the Web browser technology of extranets makes customer and supplier access of intranet resources a lot easier and faster than pervious methods. Second, extranets enable a company to offer new kinds of interactive Web-enabled services to their business partners. Thus, extranets are another way that a business can build and strengthen strategic relationships with its customers and suppliers. Extranets can enable and improve collaboration by a business with its customers and other business partners. Extranets facilitate an online, interactive product development, marketing, and customer-focused process that can bring better-designed products to market faster.

LO-5: Identify the basic components, telecommunications networks used in business.

functions,

and

types

of

Ans: Basic Components of Telecommunications Networks: The telecommunication networks consist of five basic components which are as follows: 1. Terminals - Any input/output device that uses telecommunications networks to transmit or receive data. 2. Telecommunications Processors - The devices which support data transmission and reception between terminals and computer. 3. Telecommunications Channels - The channels which are used to transmit and receive data. 4. Computers - The combination of different types of hardware devices which works as the backbone in making Telecommunication Networks.

5. Telecommunications Software - It consists of the programs which helps in connecting the Telecommunication Networks which controls telecommunications activities and manage the functions of Telecommunications Networks.

Types of Telecommunications Networks:

There are five types of Telecommunications Networks which are as follows:

1. Wide Area Networks:

Telecommunication Networks covering a large geographic area are called Wide Area Networks (WANs). Such large networks have become a necessity for carrying out the day-today activities of many businesses and governmental organizations and their end-users.

2. Local Area Networks:\

Local Area Networks connect computers and other information processing devices within a limited physical area, such as an office, classroom, building, manufacturing plant, other website. LANs have become commonplace in many organizations for providing telecommunications network capabilities that link end users in offices, departments, and other workgroups.

3. Virtual Private Networks:

Many organizations use virtual private networks (VPNs) to establish secure intranets and extranets. A virtual private network is a secure network that uses the Internet as its main backbone network, but relies on network firewalls, encryption, and other security features of its Internet and intranet connections and those of participating organizations.

4. Client/Server Networks:
Applications and databases reside on specialized host computers. Servers do most or all of the processing and transmit the results to the client.

5. Peer-to-Peer Networks:
The emergence of peer-to-peer (P2P) networking technologies and applications for the Internet is being hailed as a development that will have a major impact on the ebusiness and e-commerce and the Internet itself.

LO-6: Explain the functions of major components of telecommunications network hardware, software, media, and services.
Ans: There are a number of components that make up networks that you should be able to describe. You do not need to know a lot of technical details about them but you should recognize the terms and be able to identify their importance and tell in what circumstances each one would be valuable to an organization:

Telecommunication Media: It is used to establish telecommunication channels:

Copper wire media such as twisted-pair and coaxial. Fiber optic cable Terrestrial microwave Communication satellites Cellular and PCS systems Wireless: LANs and Internet

Telecommunications Processors: Recognize the names and have a basic idea what they do: Modems Multiplexers Switches Pouters Hubs Gateways Telecommunications Software: The primary concern here is network management functions such as traffic management, security, network monitoring, and capacity planning.

Network protocols: Protocols as the standardized set of rules used to control network communication. The one you must know is TCP/IP: IP Internet protocol. Gets data packets from one computer to another. TCP Transmission control protocol. Establishes enduring connections between specific programs running on the machines at each end of the connection. Figures out how to the data to the right program in the computer once IP gets the data to the computer. Corrects transmission errors. TCP/IP is the basis of the Internet. Bandwidth Alternatives: Bandwidth is the volume of data that can be transmitted per second. The basic rule of bandwidth is that you never have enough: Different media and network types offer different bandwidths at corresponding cost. More bandwidth = more money.

LO-7: Explain the concept of client/server networking.

Ans: Client/Server networks have become the predominant information architecture of enterprisewide computing. In a client/server network, end-user PC or NC workstations are the clients. They are interconnected by local area networks and share application processing with network servers, which also manage the networks. Local Area Networks are also interconnected to other LANs and WANs of

client workstations and servers. The functions of the computer systems that may be in client/server networks, including optional host systems and super-servers.

LO-8: Understand the two forms of peer-to-peer networking.

Ans: The two forms of peer-to-peer networking are as follows: 1. The central server architecture, P2P file-sharing software connects your PC to a central server that contains a directory of all of the other users (peers) in the network. When we request a file, the software searches the directory for any other users who have that file and are online at that moment. It then sends us a list of user names that are active links to all such users. Clicking on one of these user names prompts the software to connect our PC to that users PC (making a peer-to-peer connection) and automatically transfers the file you want from his or her hard drive to ours. 2. The pure peer-to-peer network architecture has no central directory or server. First, the file-sharing software in the P2P network connects our PC with one of the online users of the network. Then an active link to our user name is transmitted from peer-to-peer to all the online users in the network that the first user encountered in previous sessions. In this way, active links to more and more peers spread throughout the network the more it is used. When we request a file, the software searches every online user and sends us a list of active file names related to our request. Clicking on one of these automatically transfers the file from that users hard drive to ours.

LO-9: Explain the difference between digital and analog signals.

Ans: Almost everything in the world can be described or represented in one of two forms: analog or digital. The principal feature of analog representations is that they are continuous. In contrast, digital representations consist of values measured at discrete intervals. Digital watches are called digital because they go from one value to the next without displaying all intermediate values. Consequently, they can display only a finite number of times of the day. In contrast, watches with hands are analog, because the hands move continuously around the clock face. As the minute hand goes around, it not only touches the numbers 1 through 12, but also the infinite number of points in between.

Questions
Q-1: Discuss in detail Network Topologies.
Ans: There are several basic types of network topologies, or structures, telecommunications networks. Three basic topologies used in wide area and local area telecommunications networks. A star network ties end users computers to a central computer. A ring network ties local computer processors together in a ring o a more equal basis. A bus network is a network in which local processors share the same bus, or communications channel. A variation of the ring network is the mesh network. It uses directly communications lines to connect some or all of the computers in the ring to each other. Wired networks may use a combination of star, ring, and bus approaches. Obviously, the star network is more centralized, while ring and bus networks have more de-centralized approach. However, this is not always the case. Star, ring, and bus networks differ in their performance, reliability, and cost. A

pure star network is considered less reliable than a ring network, since the other computers in the star are heavily dependent on the central host computer. Therefore, it is essential that the host computer be highly reliable.

Q-2: What is meant by Wireless Sensor Networks? Discuss its current applications.
Ans: Smart environments represent the next evolutionary development step in building, utilities, industrial, home, shipboard, and transportation systems automation. Like any sentient organism, the smart environment relies first and foremost on sensory data from the real world. Sensory data comes from multiple sensors of different modalities in distributed locations. The smart environment needs information about its surroundings as well as about its internal workings; this is captured in biological systems by the distinction between exteroceptors and proprioceptors. The challenges in the hierarchy of: detecting the relevant quantities, monitoring and collecting the data, assessing and evaluating the information, formulating meaningful user displays, and performing decision-making and alarm functions are enormous. The information needed by smart environments is provided by Distributed Wireless Sensor Networks, which are responsible for sensing as well as for the first stages of the processing hierarchy. The importance of sensor networks is highlighted by the number of recent funding initiatives, including the DARPA SENSIT program, military programs, and NSF Program Announcements. The study of wireless sensor networks is challenging in that it requires an enormous breadth of knowledge from an enormous variety of disciplines. In this chapter we outline communication networks, wireless sensor networks and smart sensors, physical transduction principles, commercially available wireless sensor systems, self-organization, signal processing and decision-making, and finally some concepts for home automation.

Q-3: Discuss in detail the types of databases.

Ans: There are four types of databases which are as follows: 1. Operational Database: Operational databases store detailed data needed to support the business processes and operations of the company. They are also called subject are databases (SADB), transaction databases, and production databases. Examples are a customer database, human resource database, inventory database, and other databases containing data generated by business operations. 2. Distributed Databases: Distributed databases may be copies of operational or analytical databases, hypermedia, or discussion databases, or any other type of database. Replication and distribution of databases are done to improve database performance at end-user worksites. Ensuring that the data in an organizations distributed databases are consistently and concurrently updated is a major challenge of distributed database management.

3. External Databases: In external databases, data are available in the form of statistics on economic and demographic activity from statistical databanks, or we can view or download abstracts or complete copies of hundreds of newspapers, magazines newsletters, research papers, and other published material and other periodicals from bibliographic and full text databases. 4. Hypermedia Databases: The rapid growth of websites on the Internet and corporate intranets and extranets has dramatically increased the use of databases of hypertext and hypermedia documents. A website stores such information in a hypermedia database consisting of hyperlinked pages of multimedia (text, graphic, and photographic images, video clips, audio segments, and so on). That is, from a database management point of view, the set of interconnected multimedia pages at a website is a database of interrelated hypermedia pages elements, rather than interrelated data records.