ISP Technology: How It Works and What It Means for You

ISP Technology: How It Works and What It Means for You

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Types of ISP Technologies


Hey there! IT services in sydney . So when it comes to ISP technologies, its like choosing the right tool for the job, but in this case, the job is getting you connected to the internet! Now, there arent just one or two types of ISP technologies out there; its a whole bunch of options that vary from one place to another.


First up, youve got the good old DSL (Digital Subscriber Line). Its what a lot of folks have been using for years, running over existing phone lines. Its pretty reliable and okay for everyday stuff like browsing and streaming, but dont expect lightning-fast speeds for gaming or downloading big files.


Then theres cable. This one uses the same coaxial cables as your TV, and it can offer much faster speeds than DSL. Its a popular choice for people who stream movies, play video games, or need to do a lot of work online. The only downside is that it might not be available everywhere, and sometimes it can get pretty congested during peak hours.


Fiber optics, now thats something else! Fiber uses super thin glass fibers to send data at the speed of light.

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It's like having a super-fast internet highway right to your doorstep. With fiber, you can upload and download at incredible speeds, which is great for everything from remote work to streaming 4K videos. The catch? Its not as widely available as DSL or cable, and it can be more expensive.


And lets not forget mobile broadband. This is perfect for those who are always on the go or live in rural areas where other options arent available. It uses cellular networks to connect you to the web, and the speeds have gotten pretty good over the years. However, it can be slower and less consistent than a wired connection.


Satellite internet is another option, especially for folks in remote locations. It uses satellites orbiting the Earth to send and receive data. While it's handy for remote areas, it can have high latency, which means theres a noticeable delay when you do something online. And its not the fastest option out there, but its better than nothing!


So, when it comes to ISP technologies, theres no one-size-fits-all solution. It all depends on what you need, where you live, and how much youre willing to spend. Whichever one you pick, its gonna make a big difference in how you use the internet every day!

The Role of Infrastructure in ISP Services


When we talk about the role of infrastructure in ISP services, it's really fascinating (and kinda complex!). Internet Service Providers (ISPs) rely on a vast network of infrastructure to deliver seamless connectivity to users. This infrastructure includes everything from fiber optic cables to data centers and even satellites. Without these elements, ISPs wouldnt be able to provide the services we often take for granted.


One important aspect to consider is how the quality of infrastructure directly impacts the speed and reliability of internet connections. If an ISP doesnt invest in modern technology, like high-speed fiber optics, users may experience slow speeds and constant interruptions. And lets be honest, nobody wants to deal with buffering videos or dropped calls!


Moreover, infrastructure isn't just about the physical components. It also involves software and management systems that optimize data flow and ensure that users can connect to the internet without hassle. ISPs need to have robust systems in place to handle peak times, where many users are online at once. If they don't, well, that could lead to a frustrating experience for everyone involved.


Its also worth noting that not all areas have the same level of infrastructure. Urban centers often enjoy better connectivity compared to rural areas, where the investment in infrastructure might be lacking. This digital divide can create inequalities in access to information and services, which is a serious issue in todays world.


In conclusion, the infrastructure that supports ISP services is crucial for delivering reliable and fast internet. Its not something that should be overlooked or taken for granted!

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So, the next time you're streaming your favorite show or working from home, remember that a well-maintained infrastructure is behind the scenes, making it all possible.

How ISPs Ensure Connectivity and Speed


Okay, so youre wondering bout how your Internet Service Provider (ISP) actually, you know, makes sure you can binge-watch cat videos without buffering, right? It aint magic, though it feels like it sometimes!


Basically, an ISP is like a massive plumbing system (but for data, not water, duh). They got all this complicated hardware, like routers and servers, all interconnected with high-speed cables, fiber optic mostly these days, that stretches across cities and even oceans. This stuff, this is the backbone, if you will.


Your home router (the boxy thing blinking at you) connects to this network via a smaller pipe, usually a cable or phone line. The ISP then uses various technologies, like Quality of Service (QoS), to prioritize traffic. QoS is like a bouncer at a club, letting the important stuff (like your video call) in first and delaying less-important stuff (like that automatic software update, ugh). They also use caching servers to store popular content closer to you, meaning you dont have to wait for it to travel across the entire internet.


Bandwidth is another key thing. Think of it as the width of the pipe.

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More bandwidth means more data can flow through at once, resulting in faster speeds. ISPs constantly monitor their network, trying to avoid bottlenecks and ensure everyone gets a fair share. They sometimes do throttling, which aint ideal, but helps maintain overall network stability during peak hours.


Its a constant balancing act, this whole thing.

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They cant just wave a wand and make everything perfect, but they do their best to keep us all connected and streaming. It doesnt always work flawlessly, and sometimes you get those dreaded spinning wheels, but without them, well, the internet would be a much slower, sadder place!

Choosing the Right ISP for Your Needs


Choosing the right ISP (Internet Service Provider) for your needs can be a bit overwhelming, but it's really important! With so many options out there, it's easy to get lost in the technical jargon. You might think that all ISPs are the same, but trust me, theyre not. Each one offers different speeds, prices, and customer service experiences.


First off, you gotta consider what you actually need from your internet connection. Are you a casual user who just browses the web and checks emails? Or are you a hardcore gamer or a streaming junkie who needs a fast and reliable connection? If you're in the latter group, you definitely don't want to end up with an ISP that has a reputation for slow speeds or frequent outages. That would be a nightmare, right?


Next, you should look into the types of technology each ISP uses. Some might offer fiber-optic connections, which are super fast, while others may rely on DSL or cable, which can be slower. You wouldn't want to pick an ISP that doesn't offer the type of connection that suits your needs. It's like buying a fancy sports car but only being able to drive on bumpy dirt roads-totally pointless!


Also, don't forget to check out customer reviews. It's not just about the advertised speeds; how well do they handle issues when they arise? You don't want to find yourself stuck on hold for hours, trying to get help for a problem that could've been solved in minutes. Good customer service can make a huge difference.


Lastly, keep an eye on the fine print (not the most fun part, I know). There could be hidden fees or data caps that might surprise you later. You should also think about contract lengths-some ISPs lock you in for a year or more, which can be frustrating if you're not satisfied with their service.


In conclusion, taking the time to research and evaluate your options can save you a lot of headaches down the road. So don't just go with the first ISP you come across; think carefully about what you need, and you'll be much happier with your choice!

Citations and other links

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to information technology:

Information technology (IT) – microelectronics based combination of computing and telecommunications technology to treat information, including in the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information. It is defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) as "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly toward software applications and computer hardware."

Different names

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There are different names for this at different periods or through fields. Some of these names are:

Underlying technology

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History of information technology

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Information technology education and certification

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IT degrees

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Vendor-specific certifications

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Third-party and vendor-neutral certifications

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Third-party commercial organizations and vendor neutral interest groups that sponsor certifications include:

General certification

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General certification of software practitioners has struggled. The ACM had a professional certification program in the early 1980s, which was discontinued due to lack of interest. Today, the IEEE is certifying software professionals, but only about 500 people have passed the exam by March 2005.

Information technology and society

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Software Testing

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Further reading

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  • Surveillance, Transparency and Democracy: Public Administration in the Information Age. p. 35-57. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, AL. ISBN 978-0-8173-1877-2

References

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  1. ^ "Information & Communication Technology" (PDF). www.un.org.
  2. ^ "Information technology". Archived from the original on 2013-08-26. Retrieved 2013-08-28.
  3. ^ "Data Communication Technology".
  4. ^ "Creative Digital Technologies".
  5. ^ "Design & technology".
  6. ^ "Communication Technology".
  7. ^ "Bachelor of Science in Information Technology".
  8. ^ "Master of Science in Information Technology".
  9. ^ "Bachelor of Computer Application".
  10. ^ "Master of Computer Applications" (PDF).
  11. ^ "AWS Certification". Amazon Web Services, Inc. Retrieved 22 May 2016.
  12. ^ "Apple - iServices - Technical Training". train.apple.com. Archived from the original on 2001-12-15.
  13. ^ "OCUP Certification - Home Page". Retrieved 22 May 2016.
  14. ^ By Shamus McGuillicuddy, SearchNetworking.com."SolarWinds offers network management training and certification Archived 2009-08-28 at the Wayback Machine." June 24, 2009. Retrieved August 20, 2009.
  15. ^ Haque, Akhlaque (2015). Surveillance, Transparency and Democracy: Public Administration in the Information Age. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. pp. 35–57. ISBN 978-0-8173-1877-2.

 

European Strategic Programme on Research in Information Technology (ESPRIT) was a series of integrated programmes of information technology research and development projects and industrial technology transfer measures. It was a European Union initiative managed by the Directorate General for Industry (DG III) of the European Commission.

Programmes

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Five ESPRIT programmes (ESPRIT 0 to ESPRIT 4) ran consecutively from 1983 to 1998. ESPRIT 4 was succeeded by the Information Society Technologies (IST) programme in 1999.

Projects

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Some of the projects and products supported by ESPRIT were:

  • BBC Domesday Project, a partnership between Acorn Computers Ltd, Philips, Logica and the BBC with some funding from the European Commission's ESPRIT programme, to mark the 900th anniversary of the original Domesday Book, an 11th-century census of England. It is frequently cited as an example of digital obsolescence on account of the physical medium used for data storage.
  • CGAL, the Computational Geometry Algorithms Library (CGAL) is a software library that aims to provide easy access to efficient and reliable algorithms in computational geometry. While primarily written in C++, Python bindings are also available. The original funding for the project came from the ESPRIT project.
  • Eurocoop & Eurocode: ESPRIT III projects to develop systems for supporting distributed collaborative working.
  • Open Document Architecture, a free and open international standard document file format maintained by the ITU-T to replace all proprietary document file formats. In 1985 ESPRIT financed a pilot implementation of the ODA concept, involving, among others, Bull corporation, Olivetti, ICL and Siemens AG.
  • Paradise: A sub-project of the ESPRIT I project, COSINE[1] which established a pan-European computer-based network infrastructure that enabled research workers to communicate with each other using OSI. Paradise implemented a distributed X.500 directory across the academic community.
  • Password: Part of the ESPRIT III VALUE project,[2] developed secure applications based on the X.509 standard for use in the academic community.
  • ProCoS I Project (1989–1991), ProCoS II Project (1992–1995), and ProCoS-WG Working Group (1994–1997) on Provably Correct Systems, under ESPRIT II.[3]
  • REDO Project (1989–1992) on software maintenance, under ESPRIT II.[4]
  • RAISE, Rigorous Approach to Industrial Software Engineering, was developed as part of the European ESPRIT II LaCoS project in the 1990s, led by Dines Bjørner.
  • REMORA methodology is an event-driven approach for designing information systems, developed by Colette Rolland. This methodology integrates behavioral and temporal aspects with concepts for modelling the structural aspects of an information system. In the ESPRIT I project TODOS, which has led to the development of an integrated environment for the design of office information systems (OISs),
  • SAMPA: The Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (SAMPA) is a computer-readable phonetic script originally developed in the late 1980s.
  • SCOPES: The Systematic Concurrent design of Products, Equipments and Control Systems project was a 3-year project launched in July, 1992, with the aim of specifying integrated computer-aided (CAD) tools for design and control of flexible assembly lines.
  • SIP (Advanced Algorithms and Architectures for Speech and Image Processing), a partnership between Thomson-CSF, AEG, CSELT and ENSPS (ESPRIT P26), to develop the algorithmic and architectural techniques required for recognizing and understanding spoken or visual signals and to demonstrate these techniques in suitable applications.[5]
  • StatLog: "ESPRIT project 5170. Comparative testing and evaluation of statistical and logical learning algorithms on large-scale applications to classification, prediction and control"[6]
  • SUNDIAL (Speech UNderstanding DIALgue)[7] started in September 1988 with Logica Ltd. as prime contractor, together with Erlangen University, CSELT, Daimler-Benz, Capgemini, Politecnico di Torino. Followed the Esprit P.26 to implement and evaluate dialogue systems to be used in telephone industry.[8] The final results were 4 prototypes in 4 languages, involving speech and understanding technologies, and some criteria for evaluation were also reported.[9]
  • ISO 14649 (1999 onward): A standard for STEP-NC for CNC control developed by ESPRIT and Intelligent Manufacturing System.[10]
  • Transputers: "ESPRIT Project P1085" to develop a high performance multi-processor computer and a package of software applications to demonstrate its performance.[11]
  • Web for Schools, an ESPRIT IV project that introduced the World Wide Web in secondary schools in Europe. Teachers created more than 70 international collaborative educational projects that resulted in an exponential growth of teacher communities and educational activities using the World Wide Web
  • AGENT: A project led by IGN-France aiming at developing an operational automated map generalisation software based on multi-agent system paradigm.

References

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  1. ^ "COSINE". Cordis. Retrieved 24 December 2012.
  2. ^ "EC Value Programme".
  3. ^ Hinchey, M. G.; Bowen, J. P.; Olderog, E.-R., eds. (2017). Provably Correct Systems. NASA Monographs in Systems and Software Engineering. Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-48628-4. ISBN 978-3-319-48627-7. S2CID 7091220.
  4. ^ van Zuylen, H. J., ed. (1993). The Redo Compendium: Reverse Engineering for Software Maintenance. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-93607-3.
  5. ^ Pirani, Giancarlo, ed. (1990). Advanced algorithms and architectures for speech understanding. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 9783540534020.
  6. ^ "Machine Learning, Neural and Statistical Classification", Editors: D. Michie, D.J. Spiegelhalter, C.C. Taylor February 17, 1994 page 4, footnote 2, retrieved 12/12/2015 "The above book (originally published in 1994 by Ellis Horwood) is now out of print. The copyright now resides with the editors who have decided to make the material freely available on the web." http://www1.maths.leeds.ac.uk/~charles/statlog/
  7. ^ "SUNDIAL Project".
  8. ^ Peckham, Jeremy. "Speech Understanding and Dialogue over the telephone: an overview of the ESPRIT SUNDIAL project." HLT. 1991.
  9. ^ Alberto Ciaramella (1993): Prototype performance evaluation report. Sundial workpackage 8000 Final Report., CSELT TECHNICAL REPORTS 22 (1994): 241–241.
  10. ^ Hardwick, Martin; Zhao, Fiona; Proctor, Fred; Venkatesh, Sid; Odendahl, David; Xu, Xun (2011-01-01). "A Roadmap for STEP-NC Enabled Interoperable Manufacturing" (PDF). ASME 2011 International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference, Volume 2. ASMEDC. pp. 23–32. doi:10.1115/msec2011-50029. ISBN 978-0-7918-4431-1.
  11. ^ Harp, J. G. (1988). "Esprit project P1085 - reconfigurable transputer project". Proceedings of the third conference on Hypercube concurrent computers and applications Architecture, software, computer systems, and general issues. Vol. 1. New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. pp. 122–127. doi:10.1145/62297.62313. ISBN 0-89791-278-0.
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A computer lab contains a wide range of information technology elements, including hardware, software and storage systems.

Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data and information processing, and storage. Information technology is an application of computer science and computer engineering.

The term is commonly used as a synonym for computers and computer networks, but it also encompasses other information distribution technologies such as television and telephones. Several products or services within an economy are associated with information technology, including computer hardware, software, electronics, semiconductors, internet, telecom equipment, and e-commerce.[1][a]

An information technology system (IT system) is generally an information system, a communications system, or, more specifically speaking, a computer system — including all hardware, software, and peripheral equipment — operated by a limited group of IT users, and an IT project usually refers to the commissioning and implementation of an IT system.[3] IT systems play a vital role in facilitating efficient data management, enhancing communication networks, and supporting organizational processes across various industries. Successful IT projects require meticulous planning and ongoing maintenance to ensure optimal functionality and alignment with organizational objectives.[4]

Although humans have been storing, retrieving, manipulating, analysing and communicating information since the earliest writing systems were developed,[5] the term information technology in its modern sense first appeared in a 1958 article published in the Harvard Business Review; authors Harold J. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler commented that "the new technology does not yet have a single established name. We shall call it information technology (IT)."[6] Their definition consists of three categories: techniques for processing, the application of statistical and mathematical methods to decision-making, and the simulation of higher-order thinking through computer programs.[6]

History

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Antikythera mechanism, considered the first mechanical analog computer, dating back to the first century BC.

Based on the storage and processing technologies employed, it is possible to distinguish four distinct phases of IT development: pre-mechanical (3000 BC – 1450 AD), mechanical (1450 – 1840), electromechanical (1840 – 1940), and electronic (1940 to present).[5]

Ideas of computer science were first mentioned before the 1950s under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, where they had discussed and began thinking of computer circuits and numerical calculations. As time went on, the field of information technology and computer science became more complex and was able to handle the processing of more data. Scholarly articles began to be published from different organizations.[7]

During the early computing, Alan Turing, J. Presper Eckert, and John Mauchly were considered some of the major pioneers of computer technology in the mid-1900s. Giving them such credit for their developments, most of their efforts were focused on designing the first digital computer. Along with that, topics such as artificial intelligence began to be brought up as Turing was beginning to question such technology of the time period.[8]

Devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years, probably initially in the form of a tally stick.[9] The Antikythera mechanism, dating from about the beginning of the first century BC, is generally considered the earliest known mechanical analog computer, and the earliest known geared mechanism.[10] Comparable geared devices did not emerge in Europe until the 16th century, and it was not until 1645 that the first mechanical calculator capable of performing the four basic arithmetical operations was developed.[11]

Zuse Z3 replica on display at Deutsches Museum in Munich. The Zuse Z3 is the first programmable computer.

Electronic computers, using either relays or valves, began to appear in the early 1940s. The electromechanical Zuse Z3, completed in 1941, was the world's first programmable computer, and by modern standards one of the first machines that could be considered a complete computing machine. During the Second World War, Colossus developed the first electronic digital computer to decrypt German messages. Although it was programmable, it was not general-purpose, being designed to perform only a single task. It also lacked the ability to store its program in memory; programming was carried out using plugs and switches to alter the internal wiring.[12] The first recognizably modern electronic digital stored-program computer was the Manchester Baby, which ran its first program on 21 June 1948.[13]

The development of transistors in the late 1940s at Bell Laboratories allowed a new generation of computers to be designed with greatly reduced power consumption. The first commercially available stored-program computer, the Ferranti Mark I, contained 4050 valves and had a power consumption of 25 kilowatts. By comparison, the first transistorized computer developed at the University of Manchester and operational by November 1953, consumed only 150 watts in its final version.[14]

Several other breakthroughs in semiconductor technology include the integrated circuit (IC) invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1959, silicon dioxide surface passivation by Carl Frosch and Lincoln Derick in 1955,[15] the first planar silicon dioxide transistors by Frosch and Derick in 1957,[16] the MOSFET demonstration by a Bell Labs team,[17][18][19][20] the planar process by Jean Hoerni in 1959,[21][22][23] and the microprocessor invented by Ted Hoff, Federico Faggin, Masatoshi Shima, and Stanley Mazor at Intel in 1971. These important inventions led to the development of the personal computer (PC) in the 1970s, and the emergence of information and communications technology (ICT).[24]

By 1984, according to the National Westminster Bank Quarterly Review, the term information technology had been redefined as "the convergence of telecommunications and computing technology (...generally known in Britain as information technology)." We then begin to see the appearance of the term in 1990 contained within documents for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).[25]

Innovations in technology have already revolutionized the world by the twenty-first century as people have gained access to different online services. This has changed the workforce drastically as thirty percent of U.S. workers were already in careers in this profession. 136.9 million people were personally connected to the Internet, which was equivalent to 51 million households.[26] Along with the Internet, new types of technology were also being introduced across the globe, which has improved efficiency and made things easier across the globe.

As technology revolutionized society, millions of processes could be completed in seconds. Innovations in communication were crucial as people increasingly relied on computers to communicate via telephone lines and cable networks. The introduction of the email was considered revolutionary as "companies in one part of the world could communicate by e-mail with suppliers and buyers in another part of the world...".[27]

Not only personally, computers and technology have also revolutionized the marketing industry, resulting in more buyers of their products. In 2002, Americans exceeded $28 billion in goods just over the Internet alone while e-commerce a decade later resulted in $289 billion in sales.[27] And as computers are rapidly becoming more sophisticated by the day, they are becoming more used as people are becoming more reliant on them during the twenty-first century.

 

Data processing

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Ferranti Mark I computer logic board

Electronic data processing or business information processing can refer to the use of automated methods to process commercial data. Typically, this uses relatively simple, repetitive activities to process large volumes of similar information. For example: stock updates applied to an inventory, banking transactions applied to account and customer master files, booking and ticketing transactions to an airline's reservation system, billing for utility services. The modifier "electronic" or "automatic" was used with "data processing" (DP), especially c. 1960, to distinguish human clerical data processing from that done by computer.[28][29]

Storage

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Punched tapes were used in early computers to store and represent data.

Early electronic computers such as Colossus made use of punched tape, a long strip of paper on which data was represented by a series of holes, a technology now obsolete.[30] Electronic data storage, which is used in modern computers, dates from World War II, when a form of delay-line memory was developed to remove the clutter from radar signals, the first practical application of which was the mercury delay line.[31] The first random-access digital storage device was the Williams tube, which was based on a standard cathode ray tube.[32] However, the information stored in it and delay-line memory was volatile in the fact that it had to be continuously refreshed, and thus was lost once power was removed. The earliest form of non-volatile computer storage was the magnetic drum, invented in 1932[33] and used in the Ferranti Mark 1, the world's first commercially available general-purpose electronic computer.[34]

IBM card storage warehouse located in Alexandria, Virginia in 1959. This is where the United States government kept storage of punched cards.

IBM introduced the first hard disk drive in 1956, as a component of their 305 RAMAC computer system.[35]: 6  Most digital data today is still stored magnetically on hard disks, or optically on media such as CD-ROMs.[36]: 4–5  Until 2002 most information was stored on analog devices, but that year digital storage capacity exceeded analog for the first time. As of 2007, almost 94% of the data stored worldwide was held digitally:[37] 52% on hard disks, 28% on optical devices, and 11% on digital magnetic tape. It has been estimated that the worldwide capacity to store information on electronic devices grew from less than 3 exabytes in 1986 to 295 exabytes in 2007,[38] doubling roughly every 3 years.[39]

Databases

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Database Management Systems (DMS) emerged in the 1960s to address the problem of storing and retrieving large amounts of data accurately and quickly. An early such system was IBM's Information Management System (IMS),[40] which is still widely deployed more than 50 years later.[41] IMS stores data hierarchically,[40] but in the 1970s Ted Codd proposed an alternative relational storage model based on set theory and predicate logic and the familiar concepts of tables, rows, and columns. In 1981, the first commercially available relational database management system (RDBMS) was released by Oracle.[42]

All DMS consist of components; they allow the data they store to be accessed simultaneously by many users while maintaining its integrity.[43] All databases are common in one point that the structure of the data they contain is defined and stored separately from the data itself, in a database schema.[40]

In the late 2000s (decade), the extensible markup language (XML) has become a popular format for data representation. Although XML data can be stored in normal file systems, it is commonly held in relational databases to take advantage of their "robust implementation verified by years of both theoretical and practical effort."[44] As an evolution of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), XML's text-based structure offers the advantage of being both machine- and human-readable.[45]

 

Transmission

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Radio towers at Pine Hill lookout

Data transmission has three aspects: transmission, propagation, and reception.[46] It can be broadly categorized as broadcasting, in which information is transmitted unidirectionally downstream, or telecommunications, with bidirectional upstream and downstream channels.[38]

XML has been increasingly employed as a means of data interchange since the early 2000s,[47] particularly for machine-oriented interactions such as those involved in web-oriented protocols such as SOAP,[45] describing "data-in-transit rather than... data-at-rest".[47]

Manipulation

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Hilbert and Lopez identify the exponential pace of technological change (a kind of Moore's law): machines' application-specific capacity to compute information per capita roughly doubled every 14 months between 1986 and 2007; the per capita capacity of the world's general-purpose computers doubled every 18 months during the same two decades; the global telecommunication capacity per capita doubled every 34 months; the world's storage capacity per capita required roughly 40 months to double (every 3 years); and per capita broadcast information has doubled every 12.3 years.[38]

Massive amounts of data are stored worldwide every day, but unless it can be analyzed and presented effectively it essentially resides in what have been called data tombs: "data archives that are seldom visited".[48] To address that issue, the field of data mining — "the process of discovering interesting patterns and knowledge from large amounts of data"[49] — emerged in the late 1980s.[50]

 

Services

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Email

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A woman sending an email at an internet cafe's public computer.

The technology and services IT provides for sending and receiving electronic messages (called "letters" or "electronic letters") over a distributed (including global) computer network. In terms of the composition of elements and the principle of operation, electronic mail practically repeats the system of regular (paper) mail, borrowing both terms (mail, letter, envelope, attachment, box, delivery, and others) and characteristic features — ease of use, message transmission delays, sufficient reliability and at the same time no guarantee of delivery. The advantages of e-mail are: easily perceived and remembered by a person addresses of the form user_name@domain_name (for example, somebody@example.com); the ability to transfer both plain text and formatted, as well as arbitrary files; independence of servers (in the general case, they address each other directly); sufficiently high reliability of message delivery; ease of use by humans and programs.

The disadvantages of e-mail include: the presence of such a phenomenon as spam (massive advertising and viral mailings); the theoretical impossibility of guaranteed delivery of a particular letter; possible delays in message delivery (up to several days); limits on the size of one message and on the total size of messages in the mailbox (personal for users).

Search system

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A search system is software and hardware complex with a web interface that provides the ability to look for information on the Internet. A search engine usually means a site that hosts the interface (front-end) of the system. The software part of a search engine is a search engine (search engine) — a set of programs that provides the functionality of a search engine and is usually a trade secret of the search engine developer company. Most search engines look for information on World Wide Web sites, but there are also systems that can look for files on FTP servers, items in online stores, and information on Usenet newsgroups. Improving search is one of the priorities of the modern Internet (see the Deep Web article about the main problems in the work of search engines).

Commercial effects

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Companies in the information technology field are often discussed as a group as the "tech sector" or the "tech industry."[51][52][53] These titles can be misleading at times and should not be mistaken for "tech companies," which are generally large scale, for-profit corporations that sell consumer technology and software. From a business perspective, information technology departments are a "cost center" the majority of the time. A cost center is a department or staff which incurs expenses, or "costs," within a company rather than generating profits or revenue streams. Modern businesses rely heavily on technology for their day-to-day operations, so the expenses delegated to cover technology that facilitates business in a more efficient manner are usually seen as "just the cost of doing business." IT departments are allocated funds by senior leadership and must attempt to achieve the desired deliverables while staying within that budget. Government and the private sector might have different funding mechanisms, but the principles are more or less the same. This is an often overlooked reason for the rapid interest in automation and artificial intelligence, but the constant pressure to do more with less is opening the door for automation to take control of at least some minor operations in large companies.

Many companies now have IT departments for managing the computers, networks, and other technical areas of their businesses. Companies have also sought to integrate IT with business outcomes and decision-making through a BizOps or business operations department.[54]

In a business context, the Information Technology Association of America has defined information technology as "the study, design, development, application, implementation, support, or management of computer-based information systems".[55][page needed] The responsibilities of those working in the field include network administration, software development and installation, and the planning and management of an organization's technology life cycle, by which hardware and software are maintained, upgraded, and replaced.

Information services

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Information services is a term somewhat loosely applied to a variety of IT-related services offered by commercial companies,[56][57][58] as well as data brokers.

Ethics

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The field of information ethics was established by mathematician Norbert Wiener in the 1940s.[60]: 9  Some of the ethical issues associated with the use of information technology include:[61]: 20–21 

  • Breaches of copyright by those downloading files stored without the permission of the copyright holders
  • Employers monitoring their employees' emails and other Internet usage
  • Unsolicited emails
  • Hackers accessing online databases
  • Web sites installing cookies or spyware to monitor a user's online activities, which may be used by data brokers

IT projects

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Research suggests that IT projects in business and public administration can easily become significant in scale. Research conducted by McKinsey in collaboration with the University of Oxford suggested that half of all large-scale IT projects (those with initial cost estimates of $15 million or more) often failed to maintain costs within their initial budgets or to complete on time.[62]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ On the later more broad application of the term IT, Keary comments: "In its original application 'information technology' was appropriate to describe the convergence of technologies with application in the vast field of data storage, retrieval, processing, and dissemination. This useful conceptual term has since been converted to what purports to be of great use, but without the reinforcement of definition ... the term IT lacks substance when applied to the name of any function, discipline, or position."[2]

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ Chandler, Daniel; Munday, Rod (10 February 2011), "Information technology", A Dictionary of Media and Communication (first ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0199568758, retrieved 1 August 2012, Commonly a synonym for computers and computer networks but more broadly designating any technology that is used to generate, store, process, and/or distribute information electronically, including television and telephone..
  2. ^ Ralston, Hemmendinger & Reilly (2000), p. 869.
  3. ^ Forbes Technology Council, 16 Key Steps To Successful IT Project Management, published 10 September 2020, accessed 23 June 2023
  4. ^ Hindarto, Djarot (30 August 2023). "The Management of Projects is Improved Through Enterprise Architecture on Project Management Application Systems". International Journal Software Engineering and Computer Science. 3 (2): 151–161. doi:10.35870/ijsecs.v3i2.1512. ISSN 2776-3242.
  5. ^ a b Butler, Jeremy G., A History of Information Technology and Systems, University of Arizona, archived from the original on 5 August 2012, retrieved 2 August 2012
  6. ^ a b Leavitt, Harold J.; Whisler, Thomas L. (1958), "Management in the 1980s", Harvard Business Review, 11.
  7. ^ Slotten, Hugh Richard (1 January 2014). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of American Science, Medicine, and Technology. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780199766666.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-976666-6.
  8. ^ Henderson, H. (2017). computer science. In H. Henderson, Facts on File science library: Encyclopedia of computer science and technology. (3rd ed.). [Online]. New York: Facts On File.
  9. ^ Schmandt-Besserat, Denise (1981), "Decipherment of the earliest tablets", Science, 211 (4479): 283–285, Bibcode:1981Sci...211..283S, doi:10.1126/science.211.4479.283, ISSN 0036-8075, PMID 17748027.
  10. ^ Wright (2012), p. 279.
  11. ^ Chaudhuri (2004), p. 3.
  12. ^ Lavington (1980), p. 11.
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  15. ^ US2802760A, Lincoln, Derick & Frosch, Carl J., "Oxidation of semiconductive surfaces for controlled diffusion", issued 13 August 1957 
  16. ^ Frosch, C. J.; Derick, L (1957). "Surface Protection and Selective Masking during Diffusion in Silicon". Journal of the Electrochemical Society. 104 (9): 547. doi:10.1149/1.2428650.
  17. ^ KAHNG, D. (1961). "Silicon-Silicon Dioxide Surface Device". Technical Memorandum of Bell Laboratories: 583–596. doi:10.1142/9789814503464_0076. ISBN 978-981-02-0209-5. cite journal: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  18. ^ Lojek, Bo (2007). History of Semiconductor Engineering. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. p. 321. ISBN 978-3-540-34258-8.
  19. ^ Ligenza, J.R.; Spitzer, W.G. (1960). "The mechanisms for silicon oxidation in steam and oxygen". Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids. 14: 131–136. Bibcode:1960JPCS...14..131L. doi:10.1016/0022-3697(60)90219-5.
  20. ^ Lojek, Bo (2007). History of Semiconductor Engineering. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 120. ISBN 9783540342588.
  21. ^ Lojek, Bo (2007). History of Semiconductor Engineering. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 120 & 321–323. ISBN 9783540342588.
  22. ^ Bassett, Ross Knox (2007). To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 46. ISBN 9780801886393.
  23. ^ US 3025589  Hoerni, J. A.: "Method of Manufacturing Semiconductor Devices" filed May 1, 1959
  24. ^ "Advanced information on the Nobel Prize in Physics 2000" (PDF). Nobel Prize. June 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 August 2019. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  25. ^ Information technology. (2003). In E.D. Reilly, A. Ralston & D. Hemmendinger (Eds.), Encyclopedia of computer science. (4th ed.).
  26. ^ Stewart, C.M. (2018). Computers. In S. Bronner (Ed.), Encyclopedia of American studies. [Online]. Johns Hopkins University Press.
  27. ^ a b Northrup, C.C. (2013). Computers. In C. Clark Northrup (Ed.), Encyclopedia of world trade: from ancient times to the present. [Online]. London: Routledge.
  28. ^ Illingworth, Valerie (11 December 1997). Dictionary of Computing. Oxford Paperback Reference (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 126. ISBN 9780192800466.
  29. ^ Anthony Ralston. Encyclopedia of Computer Science 4ed. Nature group. p. 502.
  30. ^ Alavudeen & Venkateshwaran (2010), p. 178.
  31. ^ Lavington (1998), p. 1.
  32. ^ "Early computers at Manchester University", Resurrection, 1 (4), Summer 1992, ISSN 0958-7403, archived from the original on 28 August 2017, retrieved 19 April 2008.
  33. ^ Universität Klagenfurt (ed.), "Magnetic drum", Virtual Exhibitions in Informatics, archived from the original on 21 June 2006, retrieved 21 August 2011.
  34. ^ The Manchester Mark 1, University of Manchester, archived from the original on 21 November 2008, retrieved 24 January 2009.
  35. ^ Khurshudov, Andrei (2001), The Essential Guide to Computer Data Storage: From Floppy to DVD, Prentice Hall, ISBN 978-0-130-92739-2.
  36. ^ Wang, Shan X.; Taratorin, Aleksandr Markovich (1999), Magnetic Information Storage Technology, Academic Press, ISBN 978-0-12-734570-3.
  37. ^ Wu, Suzanne, "How Much Information Is There in the World?", USC News, University of Southern California, retrieved 10 September 2013.
  38. ^ a b c Hilbert, Martin; López, Priscila (1 April 2011), "The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information", Science, 332 (6025): 60–65, Bibcode:2011Sci...332...60H, doi:10.1126/science.1200970, PMID 21310967, S2CID 206531385.
  39. ^ "Americas events – Video animation on The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information from 1986 to 2010". The Economist. Archived from the original on 18 January 2012.
  40. ^ a b c Ward & Dafoulas (2006), p. 2.
  41. ^ Olofson, Carl W. (October 2009), A Platform for Enterprise Data Services (PDF), IDC, archived from the original (PDF) on 25 December 2013, retrieved 7 August 2012.
  42. ^ Ward & Dafoulas (2006), p. 3.
  43. ^ Silberschatz, Abraham (2010). Database System Concepts. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. ISBN 978-0-07-741800-7..
  44. ^ Pardede (2009), p. 2.
  45. ^ a b Pardede (2009), p. 4.
  46. ^ Weik (2000), p. 361.
  47. ^ a b Pardede (2009), p. xiii.
  48. ^ Han, Kamber & Pei (2011), p. 5.
  49. ^ Han, Kamber & Pei (2011), p. 8.
  50. ^ Han, Kamber & Pei (2011), p. xxiii.
  51. ^ "Technology Sector Snapshot". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 13 January 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2017.
  52. ^ "Our programmes, campaigns and partnerships". TechUK. Retrieved 12 January 2017.
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  54. ^ "Manifesto Hatched to Close Gap Between Business and IT". TechNewsWorld. 22 October 2020. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
  55. ^ Proctor, K. Scott (2011), Optimizing and Assessing Information Technology: Improving Business Project Execution, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-1-118-10263-3.
  56. ^ "Top Information Services companies". VentureRadar. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  57. ^ "Follow Information Services on Index.co". Index.co. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  58. ^ Publishing, Value Line. "Industry Overview: Information Services". Value Line. Archived from the original on 20 June 2021. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  59. ^ a b c d e Lauren Csorny (9 April 2013). "U.S. Careers in the growing field of information technology services". U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
  60. ^ Bynum, Terrell Ward (2008), "Norbert Wiener and the Rise of Information Ethics", in van den Hoven, Jeroen; Weckert, John (eds.), Information Technology and Moral Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-85549-5.
  61. ^ Reynolds, George (2009), Ethics in Information Technology, Cengage Learning, ISBN 978-0-538-74622-9.
  62. ^ Bloch, M., Blumberg, S. and Laartz, J., Delivering large-scale IT projects on time, on budget, and on value, published 1 October 2012, accessed 23 June 2023

Bibliography

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  • Alavudeen, A.; Venkateshwaran, N. (2010), Computer Integrated Manufacturing, PHI Learning, ISBN 978-81-203-3345-1
  • Chaudhuri, P. Pal (2004), Computer Organization and Design, PHI Learning, ISBN 978-81-203-1254-8
  • Han, Jiawei; Kamber, Micheline; Pei, Jian (2011), Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques (3rd ed.), Morgan Kaufmann, ISBN 978-0-12-381479-1
  • Lavington, Simon (1980), Early British Computers, Manchester University Press, ISBN 978-0-7190-0810-8
  • Lavington, Simon (1998), A History of Manchester Computers (2nd ed.), The British Computer Society, ISBN 978-1-902505-01-5
  • Pardede, Eric (2009), Open and Novel Issues in XML Database Applications, Information Science Reference, ISBN 978-1-60566-308-1
  • Ralston, Anthony; Hemmendinger, David; Reilly, Edwin D., eds. (2000), Encyclopedia of Computer Science (4th ed.), Nature Publishing Group, ISBN 978-1-56159-248-7
  • van der Aalst, Wil M. P. (2011), Process Mining: Discovery, Conformance and Enhancement of Business Processes, Springer, ISBN 978-3-642-19344-6
  • Ward, Patricia; Dafoulas, George S. (2006), Database Management Systems, Cengage Learning EMEA, ISBN 978-1-84480-452-8
  • Weik, Martin (2000), Computer Science and Communications Dictionary, vol. 2, Springer, ISBN 978-0-7923-8425-0
  • Wright, Michael T. (2012), "The Front Dial of the Antikythera Mechanism", in Koetsier, Teun; Ceccarelli, Marco (eds.), Explorations in the History of Machines and Mechanisms: Proceedings of HMM2012, Springer, pp. 279–292, ISBN 978-94-007-4131-7

Further reading

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[edit]

 

The history of the Net originated in the initiatives of researchers and engineers to develop and interconnect computer networks. The Net Procedure Suite, the set of regulations utilized to communicate between networks and devices on the Internet, arose from research and development in the USA and involved international partnership, especially with scientists in the UK and France. Computer science was an emerging self-control in the late 1950s that started to take into consideration time-sharing in between computer customers, and later, the opportunity of attaining this over large location networks. J. C. R. Licklider developed the idea of a global network at the Information Processing Techniques Workplace (IPTO) of the United States Division of Protection (DoD) Advanced Research Projects Company (ARPA). Independently, Paul Baran at the RAND Firm proposed a distributed network based upon data in message obstructs in the early 1960s, and Donald Davies conceived of packet switching in 1965 at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), recommending a nationwide industrial data network in the United Kingdom. ARPA granted contracts in 1969 for the advancement of the ARPANET task, directed by Robert Taylor and managed by Lawrence Roberts. ARPANET took on the packet changing modern technology proposed by Davies and Baran. The network of User interface Message Processors (IMPs) was developed by a group at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, with the layout and specification led by Bob Kahn. The host-to-host method was specified by a team of college students at UCLA, led by Steve Crocker, together with Jon Postel and others. The ARPANET broadened rapidly across the USA with links to the United Kingdom and Norway. A number of early packet-switched networks emerged in the 1970s which researched and offered data networking. Louis Pouzin and Hubert Zimmermann originated a simplified end-to-end technique to internetworking at the IRIA. Peter Kirstein placed internetworking into practice at University College London in 1973. Bob Metcalfe developed the concept behind Ethernet and the PARC Universal Packet. ARPA initiatives and the International Network Working Team established and fine-tuned concepts for internetworking, in which numerous separate networks can be joined right into a network of networks. Vint Cerf, currently at Stanford College, and Bob Kahn, currently at DARPA, released their study on internetworking in 1974. Via the Internet Experiment Note collection and later on RFCs this evolved right into the Transmission Control Procedure (TCP) and Net Method (IP), two methods of the Web protocol collection. The design included ideas pioneered in the French CYCLADES task directed by Louis Pouzin. The development of packet switching networks was underpinned by mathematical work in the 1970s by Leonard Kleinrock at UCLA. In the late 1970s, nationwide and worldwide public information networks emerged based on the X. 25 procedure, created by Rémi Després and others. In the USA, the National Scientific Research Structure (NSF) financed national supercomputing facilities at numerous colleges in the USA, and provided interconnectivity in 1986 with the NSFNET task, therefore producing network accessibility to these supercomputer sites for study and scholastic organizations in the United States.International links to NSFNET, the introduction of style such as the Domain System, and the fostering of TCP/IP on existing networks in the USA and worldwide marked the starts of the Internet. Industrial Internet service providers (ISPs) emerged in 1989 in the USA and Australia. Restricted exclusive links to parts of the Net by officially commercial entities arised in numerous American cities by late 1989 and 1990. The optical foundation of the NSFNET was decommissioned in 1995, eliminating the last constraints on the use of the Web to lug industrial web traffic, as traffic transitioned to optical networks handled by Sprint, MCI and AT&T in the USA. Research study at CERN in Switzerland by the British computer researcher Tim Berners-Lee in 1989–-- 90 caused the World Wide Web, connecting hypertext documents into a details system, available from any kind of node on the network. The remarkable development of the capacity of the Web, made it possible for by the development of wave division multiplexing (WDM) and the rollout of fiber optic cables in the mid-1990s, had a revolutionary influence on culture, commerce, and innovation. This implemented the rise of near-instant communication by electronic mail, instant messaging, voice over Net Protocol (VoIP) phone call, video conversation, and the Web with its discussion forums, blogs, social networking solutions, and on the internet buying websites. Enhancing quantities of information are transferred at greater and higher rates over fiber-optic networks operating at 1 Gbit/s, 10 Gbit/s, and 800 Gbit/s by 2019. The Net's takeover of the international communication landscape was fast in historic terms: it just interacted 1% of the info streaming with two-way telecoms networks in the year 1993, 51% by 2000, and more than 97% of the telecommunicated details by 2007. The Internet continues to grow, driven by ever higher quantities of on the internet details, commerce, entertainment, and social networking services. Nevertheless, the future of the global network might be shaped by local differences.

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Frequently Asked Questions

IT providers enable remote work by setting up secure access to company systems, deploying VPNs, cloud apps, and communication tools. They also ensure devices are protected and provide remote support when employees face technical issues at home.

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Cloud computing allows you to store, manage, and access data and applications over the internet rather than local servers. It’s scalable, cost-effective, and ideal for remote work, backup solutions, and collaboration tools like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace

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