1 www.onlineeducation.bharatsevaksamaj.net www.bssskillmission.in INTRODUCTION TO INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Topic Objective: At the end of this topic student would be able to understand: Midrange computers and Mainframes Program Software System Definition/Overview: Midrange computers and Mainframes: A computer uses to interconnect people and large sets of information. More powerful than a microcomputer, the minicomputer is usually dedicated to performing specific functions.) Supercomputers: The most powerful of all computers, supercomputers were designed to solve problems consisting of long and difficult calculations. Hardware: The computer and its associated equipment. Program: A set of instructions that directs a computer to perform certain tasks and produce certain results. Software: The generalWWW.BSSVE.INterm for a set of instructions that controls a computer or a communications network. System: A set of components that interact to accomplish a purpose. Key Points: 1. Information technology (IT Information technology (IT), as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to www.bsscommunitycollege.in www.bssnewgeneration.in www.bsslifeskillscollege.in 2 www.onlineeducation.bharatsevaksamaj.net www.bssskillmission.in convert, store, protect, process, transmit, and securely retrieve information. Today, the term information technology has ballooned to encompass many aspects of computing and technology, and the term has become very recognizable. The information technology umbrella can be quite large, covering many fields. IT professionals perform a variety of duties that range from installing applications to designing complex computer networks and information databases. A few of the duties that IT professionals perform may include data management, networking, engineering computer hardware, database and software design, as well as the management and administration of entire systems. When computer and communications technologies are combined, the result is information technology, or "infotech". Information Technology (IT) is a general term that describes any technology that helps to produce, manipulate, store, communicate, and/or disseminate information. Presumably, when speaking of Information Technology (IT) as a whole, it is noted that the use of computers and information are associated. The term Information Technology (IT) was coined by Jim Domsicof Michiganin November 1981. Domsic created the term to modernize the outdated phrase "data processing". Domsicat the time worked as a computer manager for an automotive related industry. In recent years ABET and the ACM have collaborated to form accreditation and curriculum standards for degrees in Information Technology as a distinct field of study separate from both Computer Science and Information Systems. SIGITE is the ACM working group for defining these standards. 2. Data security Data security is the means of ensuring that data is kept safe from corruption and that access to it is suitably controlWWW.BSSVE.INled. Thus data security helps to ensure privacy. It also helps in protecting personal data. 2.1 Disk Encryption Disk encryption refers to encryption technology that encrypts data on a hard disk drive. Disk encryption typically takes form in either software (see disk encryption software or hardware (see disk encryption hardware). Disk encryption is often referred to as on-the-fly encryption ("OTFE") or transparent encryption www.bsscommunitycollege.in www.bssnewgeneration.in www.bsslifeskillscollege.in 3 www.onlineeducation.bharatsevaksamaj.net www.bssskillmission.in 2.2 Backups Backups are used to ensure data which is lost can be recovered 2.3. Data Masking Data Masking of structured data is the process of obscuring (masking) specific data within a database table or cell to ensure that data security is maintained and sensitive customer information is not leaked outside of the authorized environment. 2.4 International Laws In the UK, the Data Protection Act is used to ensure that personal data is accessible to those whom it concerns, and provides redress to individuals if there are inaccuracies. This is particularly important to ensure individuals are treated fairly, for example for credit checking purposes. The Data Protection Act states that only individuals and companies with legitimate and lawful reasons can process personal information and cannot be shared. 2.5 International Standards The International Standard ISO/IEC 17799 covers data security under the topic of information security, and one of its cardinal principles is that all stored information, i.e. data, should be owned so that it is clear whose responsibility it is to protect and control aWWW.BSSVE.INccess to that data. The Trusted Computing Group is an organization that helps standardize computing security technologies. 3. Computer data processing Computer data processing is any computing process that converts data into information or knowledge. The processing is usually assumed to be automated and running on a computer. Because data are most useful when well-presented and actually informative, data-processing systems are often referred to as information systems to emphasize their practicality. Nevertheless, the terms are roughly synonymous, performing similar conversions; data- processing systems typically manipulate raw data into information, and likewise information www.bsscommunitycollege.in www.bssnewgeneration.in www.bsslifeskillscollege.in 4 www.onlineeducation.bharatsevaksamaj.net www.bssskillmission.in systems typically take raw data as input to produce information as output.Data can be seen as a raw material, which be later coverted to information. i.e For a company that wants to produce bornvita, such company will need to make use of cocoa,which means that cocoa is the raw material for the production of borntiva, likewise data is the raw material for information. Data has to pass through a specific process before it could be changed to information, and it is called a process. 3.1 Definitions In data processing, data is defined as numbers or characters that represent measurements from observable phenomena. A single datum is a single measurement from observable phenomena. Measured information is then algorithmically derived and/or logically deduced and/or statistically calculated from multiple data. (evidence). Information is defined as either a meaningful answer to a query or a meaningful stimulus that can cascade into further queries. For example gathering seismic data leads to alteration of seismic data to suppress noise, enhance signal and migrate seismic events to the appropriate location in space. Processing steps typically include analysis of velocities and frequencies, static corrections, deconvolution, normal moveout, dip moveout, stacking, and migration, which can be performed before or after stacking. Seismic processing facilitates better interpretation because subsurface structures and reflection geometries are more apparent.WWW.BSSVE.IN 3.2 General More generally, the term data processing can apply to any process that converts data from one format to another, although data conversion would be the more logical and correct term. From this perspective, data processing becomes the process of converting information into data and also the converting of data back into information. The distinction is that conversion doesn't require a question (query) to be answered. For example, information in the form of a string of characters forming a sentence in English is converted or encoded meaningless hardware-oriented data to evermore-meaningful information as the processing proceeds toward the human being. www.bsscommunitycollege.in www.bssnewgeneration.in www.bsslifeskillscollege.in 5 www.onlineeducation.bharatsevaksamaj.net www.bssskillmission.in 3.3 Embedded system Conversely, that simple example for pedagogical purposes here is usually described as an embedded system (for the software resident in the keyboard itself) or as (operating- )systems programming, because the information is derived from a hardware interface and may involve overt control of the hardware through that interface by an operating system. Typically control of hardware by a device driver manipulating ASIC or FPGA registers is not viewed as part of data processing proper or information systems proper, but rather as the domain of embedded systems or (operating-)systems programming. Instead, perhaps a more conventional example of the established practice of using the term data processing is that a business has collected numerous data concerning an aspect of its operations and that this multitude of data must be presented in meaningful, easy-to-access presentations for the managers who must then use that information to increase revenue or to decrease cost. That conversion and presentation of data as information is typically performed by a data-processing application. 3.4 Data analysis When the domain from which the data are harvested is a science or an engineering, data processing and information systems are considered too broad of terms and the more specialized term data analysis is typically used, focusing on the highly- specialized and highly-accurate algorithmic derivations and statistical calculations that are lessWWW.BSSVE.IN often observed in the typical general