BUS 305 Exam 2 (CH 4-5)

Three principal sources of poor system performance are

(1) software bugs and errors, (2) hardware or facility failures caused by natural or other causes, and (3) poor input data quality.

Five Moral Dimensions of Information Age

-Information rights and obligations What information rights do individuals and organizations possess with respect to themselves? What can they protect? • Property rights and obligations How will traditional intellectual property rights be protected in a digital society in which tracing and accounting for ownership are difficult and ignoring such property rights is so easy? • Accountability and control Who can and will be held accountable and liable for the harm done to individual and collective information and property rights? • System quality What standards of data and system quality should we demand to protect individual rights and the safety of society? -Quality of life What values should be preserved in an information- and knowledge- based society? Which institutions should we protect from violation? Which cultural values and practices does the new information technology support?

5 Steps of Ethical Analysis

1. Identify & describe facts clearly 2. Define the conflict/dilemma and identify the higher-order values involved 3. Identify stakeholders 4. Identify options reasonable to take 5. Identify potential consequences of options

3 Concepts of Ethical Analysis

1. information technologies are filtered through social institutions, organizations, and individuals. Systems do not have impacts by themselves. 2. responsibility for the consequences of technology falls clearly on the institutions, organizations, and individual managers who choose to use the technology. 3. in an ethical, political society, individuals and others can recover dam- ages done to them through a set of laws characterized by due process.

Java is an operating system-independent, processor-independent, object-ori- ented programming language created by Sun Microsystems that has become the leading interactive programming environment for the web. T

A software package is a prewritten, precoded, commercially available set of programs that elimi- nates the need for individuals or organizations to write their own software programs for certain functions.

Ethical "no free lunch" rule

Assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are owned by someone else unless there is a specific declaration otherwise

C is a powerful and efficient language developed in the early 1970s that combines machine portability with tight control and efficient use of computer resources.

C++ is a newer version of C that has all the capabilities of C plus additional features for working with software objects.

multitouch technology. The multitouch interface on the iPhone and other smart- phones and tablet computers as well as on newer PC models allows you to use one or more fingers to perform special gestures to manipulate lists or objects on a screen without using a mouse or a keyboard.

Chrome OS provides a lightweight operating system for cloud computing using a web-connected computer or mobile device. Programs are not stored on the user's computing device but are used over the Internet and accessed through the Chrome web browser.

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines cloud computing as having the following essential characteristics. • On-demand self-service: Consumers can obtain computing capabilities such as server time or network storage as needed automatically on their own. • Ubiquitous network access: Cloud resources can be accessed using standard net- work and Internet devices, including mobile platforms. • Location-independent resource pooling: Computing resources are pooled to serve multiple users, with different virtual resources dynamically assigned according to user demand. The user generally does not know where the computing resources are located. • Rapid elasticity: Computing resources can be rapidly provisioned, increased, or decreased to meet changing user demand. • Measured service: Charges for cloud resources are based on number of resources actually used.

Cloud computing consists of three types of services: • Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): Customers use processing, storage, networking, and other computing resources from cloud service providers to run their infor- mation systems. • Software as a service (SaaS): Customers use software hosted by the vendor on the vendor's cloud infrastructure and delivered as a service over a network. Leading software as a service (SaaS) examples are Google Apps, which provides com- mon business applications online, Platform as a service (PaaS): Customers use infrastructure and programming tools supported by the cloud service provider to develop their own applications.

virtualization helps organizations increase equipment usage rates, conserving data center space and energy usage. Most servers run at just 15-20 percent of capacity, and virtualization can boost server usage rates to 70 percent or higher. Higher usage rates translate into fewer computers required to process the same amount of work.

Cloud computing is a model of computing in which computer processing, storage, software, and other services are provided as a shared pool of virtualized resources over a network, primarily the Internet. These clouds of computing resources can be accessed on an as-needed basis from any connected device and location.

Five Technological Trends responsible for ethical stresses

Computing power doubles every 18 months: More organizations depend on computer systems for critical operations and become more vulnerable to system failures. Data storage costs rapidly decline: Organizations can easily maintain detailed databases on individuals. There are no limits on the data collected about you. Data analysis advances: Companies can analyze vast quantities of data gathered on individuals to develop detailed profiles of individual behavior. Large-scale population surveillance is enabled. Networking advances: The cost of moving data and making it accessible from anywhere falls exponentially. Access to data becomes more difficult to control. Mobile device growth impact: Individual cell phones may be tracked without user consent or knowledge. The always-on device becomes a tether.

The operating system is the computer system's chief manager, enabling the system to handle many tasks and users at the same time. The operating system allocates and assigns system resources, schedules the use of computer resources and computer jobs, and monitors computer system activities.

Contemporary PC operating systems and many types of contemporary application software use a graphical user interface, often called a GUI, which makes extensive use of icons, buttons, bars, and boxes to perform tasks.

green IT refers to practices and technologies for designing, manufac- turing, using, and disposing of computers, servers, and associated devices such as monitors, printers, storage devices, and networking and communications systems to minimize impact on the environment.

Data centers are now being designed with energy efficiency in mind, using state-of-the-art air-cooling techniques, energy-efficient equipment, virtualization, and other energy-saving practices.

System software manages the resources and activities of the computer. Application software applies the computer to a specific task for an end user, such as processing an order or generating a mailing list.

Data management software organizes, manages, and processes business data concerned with inventory, customers, and vendors.

Golden Rule

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

Cloud computing is more immediately appealing to small and medium-sized busi- nesses that lack resources to purchase and own their own hardware and software.

Gains in productivity from equipping employees with mobile computing devices must be balanced against increased costs from integrating these devices into the firm's IT infrastructure and providing technical support.

A supercomputer is a specially designed and more sophisticated computer that is used for tasks requiring extremely rapid and complex calculations with thousands of variables, millions of measurements, and thousands of equations.

Grid computing involves connecting geographically remote computers into a single network and combining the computational power of all computers on the grid

Easy-to-use software tools called web browsers are used for display- ing web pages and for accessing the web and other Internet resources

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is a page description language for specify- ing how text, graphics, video, and sound are placed on a web page and for creating dynamic links to other web pages and objects. HTML was originally designed to create and link static documents composed largely of text.

mainframe is a large-capacity, high-performance computer that can process large amounts of data very rapidly.

IBM, the leading mainframe vendor, has repurposed its mainframe systems so they can be used as giant servers for large-scale enterprise networks and corporate websites. A

Slippery slope rule

If an action cannot be taken repeatedly, it is not right to take at all

Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative

If an action is not right for everyone to take, it is not right to take at all

advanced design or engineering work requiring powerful graphics or computational capabilities, you might use a workstation, which fits on a desktop but has more powerful mathematical and graphics-processing capa- bilities than a PC.

If your business has a number of networked computers or maintains a website, it will need a server. Server computers are specifically optimized to support a computer network, enabling users to share files, software, peripheral devices (such as printers), or other network resources

Storage area networks (SANs) connect multiple storage devices on a separate high-speed network dedicated to storage. The SAN creates a large central pool of storage that multiple servers can rapidly access and share

Input devices gather data and convert them into electronic form for use by the computer, whereas output devices display data after they have been processed. T

they purchase their computing services from remote providers and pay only for the amount of computing power they actually use (utility computing) or are billed on a monthly or annual subscription basis. The term on-demand computing has also been used to describe such services.

Large firms are most likely to adopt a hybrid cloud computing model, in which they use their own infrastructure for their most essential core activities and adopt public cloud computing for less-critical systems or for additional processing capacity during peak business periods.

The new mobile plat- form also includes small, lightweight subnotebooks called netbooks optimized for wireless communication and Internet access, tablet computers form

Let's look at seven hardware trends: the mobile digital platform, consumerization of IT, nanotechnology and quantum computers, virtualization, cloud computing, green computing, and high- performance/power-saving processors.

UNIX is a multiuser, multitasking operating system developed by Bell Laboratories in 1969 to connect various machines and is highly supportive of communications and networking.

Linux is a UNIX-like operating system that can be downloaded from the Internet free of charge or purchased for a small fee from companies that provide additional tools for the software.

For personal mobile devices to access company information, the company's net- works must be configured to receive connections from that device.

Many companies only allow employee mobile devices access to a limited set of applications and noncritical corporate data. For more critical business systems, more company control is required, and firms often turn to mobile device management (MDM) software, which monitors, manages, and secures mobile devices that are deployed across multiple mobile service providers and across multiple mobile operat- ing systems being used in the organization.

FIP Principles

Notice/awareness (core principle). Websites must disclose their information practices before collecting data. Includes identification of collector; uses of data; other recipients of data; nature of collection (active/inactive); voluntary or required status; consequences of refusal; and steps taken to protect confidentiality, integrity, and quality of the data. Choice/consent (core principle). A choice regime must be in place allowing consumers to choose how their information will be used for secondary purposes other than supporting the transaction, including internal use and transfer to third parties. Access/participation. Consumers should be able to review and contest the accuracy and completeness of data collected about them in a timely, inexpensive process. Security. Data collectors must take responsible steps to ensure that consumer information is accurate and secure from unauthorized use. Enforcement. A mechanism must be in place to enforce FIP principles. This can involve self-regulation, legislation giving consumers legal remedies for violations, or federal statutes and regulations.

Linux plays a major role in the back office, running web servers and local area networks in about 35 percent of the worldwide server market

Open source software, which provides all computer users with free access to its program code, so they can modify the code to fix errors or to make improvements. Open source software is not owned by any company or individual. A global network of programmers and users manages and modifies the software,

Ethical Code Organizations

Professional codes of conduct are promulgated by associations of professionals such as the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Bar Association (ABA), the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP), and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). These professional groups take responsibility for the partial regulation of their professions by determining entrance qualifications and competence. Codes of ethics are promises by professions to regulate themselves in the general interest of society.

repetitive stress injury (RSI)

RSI occurs when muscle groups are forced through repetitive actions often with high-impact loads (such as tennis) or tens of thousands of repetitions under low-impact loads (such as working at a computer keyboard).

A web hosting service maintains a large web server, or a series of servers, and provides fee-paying subscribers with space to maintain their websites

Some services offer co- location, in which the firm actually purchases and owns the server computer housing its website but locates the server in the physical facility of the hosting service.

application server. Application server software handles all application operations between a user and an organization's back-end business systems. The application server may reside on the same computer as the web server or on its own dedicated computer.

Storage and input and output devices are called peripheral devices because they are outside the main computer system unit.

Utilitarian Principle

Take the action that achieves the higher or greater value

Risk aversion principle

Take the action that produces the least harm/least potential cost

Software may have to be built with local language interfaces before a new information system can be successfully implemented worldwide.

The entire process of converting software to operate in a second language is called software localization.

Another way to reduce power requirements and hardware sprawl is to use more efficient and power-saving processors. Contemporary microprocessors now feature multiple processor cores (which perform the reading and execution of computer instructions) on a single chip. A multicore processor is an integrated circuit to which two or more processor cores have been attached for enhanced performance, reduced power consumption, and more efficient simultaneous processing of multiple tasks.

The system software that manages and controls the computer's activities is called the operating system.

Scalability refers to the ability of a computer, product, or system to expand to serve a large number of users without breaking down. Electronic commerce and electronic business both call for scalable IT infrastructures that have the capacity to grow with the business as the size of a website and number of visitors increase.

The total cost of ownership (TCO) model can be used to analyze these direct and indirect costs to help determine the actual cost of owning a specific technology.

Profiling

The use of computers to combine data from multiple sources and create digital dossiers of detailed information on individuals

most computers in the United States use their central processing units on average only 25 percent of the time, leaving 75 percent of their capacity available for other tasks.

The use of multiple computers linked by a communications network for processing is called distributed processing. Centralized processing, in which all processing is accomplished by one large central computer, is much less common.

solid state drives (SSDs). SSDs use an array of semiconductors organized as an internal disk drive, whereas portable USB flash drives use similar technology for external storage.

These discs use laser technology to store large quantities of data, including sound and images, in a highly compact form. They are available for both PCs and large computers. CD-ROM (compact disc read-only memory) for PCs is a 4.75-inch compact disc that can store up to 660 megabytes.

bring your own device (BYOD). BYOD is one aspect of the consumerization of IT, in which new information technology that first emerges in the consumer market spreads into business organizations. Consumerization of IT includes not only mobile personal devices but also business uses of software services that originated in the consumer marketplace as well,

They are now turning to nanotechnology to shrink the size of transistors to the width of several atoms. Nanotechnology uses individual atoms and molecules to create computer chips and other devices that are thousands of times smaller than current technologies permit.

Apps are small specialized software programs that run on the Internet, on your computer, or on your mobile phone or tablet and are generally delivered over the Internet. G

They feature a streamlined, nonbrowser pathway for users to experience the web and perform a number of tasks, ranging from reading the newspaper to shopping, searching, and buying.

Quantum computing uses the principles of quantum physics to represent data and perform operations on these data. A quantum computer would gain enormous processing power through the ability to be in many states at once, allowing it to perform multiple operations simultaneously and solve some scientific and business problems millions of times faster than can be done today.

Virtualization is the process of presenting a set of computing resources (such as computing power or data storage) so that they can all be accessed in ways that are not restricted by physical configuration or geographic location.

a software object combines data and procedures.

Visual Basic is a widely used visual programming tool and environment for creating applications that run on Microsoft Windows operating systems. A visual programming language allows users to manipulate graphic or iconic elements to create programs.

HTML5, solves this problem by making it possible to embed images, audio, video, and other elements directly into a document without processor-intensive add-ons.

Web services refer to a set of loosely coupled software components that exchange information with each other using universal web communication standards and lan- guages. T

XML, which stands for Extensible Markup Language. This language was developed in 1996 by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C, the international body that oversees the development of the web) as a more powerful and flexible markup language than HTML for web pages.

XML makes it possible for computers to manipulate and interpret their data auto- matically and perform operations on the data without human intervention.

Liability

a body of laws is in place that permits individuals to recover the damages done to them by other actors, systems, or organizations.

Opt in model

a business is prohibited from collecting any personal information unless the consumer specifically takes action to approve information collection and use.

Legacy systems are generally older transaction-processing systems created for older computers that continue in use to avoid the high cost of replacing or rede- signing them.

a desktop or laptop personal computer (PC).

Accountability

a feature of systems and social institutions; it means that mechanisms are in place to determine who took action, and who is responsible.

Trade secrets

a formula, device, pattern or compilation of data used for a business purpose

The major desktop productivity tools are bundled together as a soft- ware suite. Spreadsheet software

a hosted cloud version of its productiv- ity and collaboration tools as a subscription service called Office 365.

safe harbor

a private, self- regulating policy and enforcement mechanism that meets the objectives of government regulators and legislation but does not involve government regulation or enforcement.

Due process

a related feature of law-governed societies and is a process in which laws are known and understood, and ability exists to appeal to higher authorities to ensure that the laws are applied correctly.

Fair Information Practices (FIP)

a set of principles governing the collection and use of information about individuals. FIP principles are based on the notion of a mutuality of interest between the record holder and the individual. The individual has an interest in engaging in a transaction, and the record keeper—usually a business or government agency—requires information about the individual to support the transaction.

Copyright

a statutory grant that protects creators from having their work copied by others for their life plus 70 years after their death

Web beacons

also called web bugs (or simply tracking files), are tiny software programs that keep a record of users' online clickstreams.

Informed Consent

before any company can legally use data about them, and they have the right to access that information, correct it, and request that no further data be collected. Informed consent can be defined as consent given with knowledge of all the facts needed to make a rational decision.

Intellectual property

considered to be tangible and intangible products of the mind created by individuals or corporations.

digital divide

could lead to a society of information haves, computer literate and skilled, versus a large group of information have-nots, com- puter illiterate and unskilled.

Networking and telecommunications technology provides data, voice, and video connectivity to employees, customers, and suppliers. It includes technology for running a company's internal networks, services from telecommunications/telephone services companies, and technology for running websites and linking to other computer systems through the Internet.

external technology consultants to provide expertise that is not available internally. When businesses need to make major system changes or implement an entirely new IT infrastructure, they typically turn to external consultants to help them with systems integration.

When firms outsource software work outside their national borders, the practice is called offshore software outsourcing.

firms will need a contract that includes a service level agreement (SLA). The SLA is a formal contract between customers and their service providers that defines the specific responsibilities of the service provider and the level of service the customer expects.

Patents

grants owner an exclusive monopoly on the ideas behind an invention for 20 years

nonobvious relationship awareness (NORA)

has given both the government and the private sector even more powerful profiling capabilities. NORA can take information about people from many disparate sources, such as employment applications, telephone records, customer listings, and wanted lists, and correlate relationships to find obscure connections that might help identify criminals or terrorists

Android is an open source operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google.

iOS, Apple's mobile operating system for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998

implemented a World Intellectual Property Organization Treaty that makes it illegal to circumvent technology-based protec- tions of copyrighted materials.

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS),

in which pressure on the median nerve through the wrist's bony structure, called a carpal tunnel, produces pain. The pressure is caused by constant repetition of keystrokes:

A data center

is a facility housing computer systems and associated components such as telecommunications, storage, security systems, and backup power supplies

Computer abuse

is the commission of acts involving a computer that may not be illegal but are considered unethical.

Computer crime

is the commission of illegal acts by using a computer or against a computer system. Simply accessing a computer system without authorization or with intent to do harm, even by accident, is now a federal crime. The most frequent types of incidents comprise a greatest hits list of cybercrime: malware, phishing, network interruption, spyware, and denial of service attacks.

Spam

junk email an organization or individual sent to a mass audience of Internet users who have expressed no interest in the product or service being marketed.

The principal storage technologies are magnetic disks, optical disc, magnetic tape, and storage networks.

magnetic disk. Some PCs have hard drives, and large mainframe or midrange computer systems have multiple hard disk drives because they require immense disk storage capacity in the gigabyte and terabyte range.

Digital video discs (DVDs) are optical discs the same size as CD-ROMs but of even higher capacity, stor- ing a minimum of 4.7 gigabytes of data.

magnetic tape, an older storage technology that is used for secondary storage of large quantities of data that are needed rapidly but not instantly. Tape stores data sequentially and is slow compared to the speed of other secondary storage media.

The open source movement started out small in 1983, but it has since grown to be a major part of corporate computing infrastructure, as the foundation for programs such as Linux and Apache, the most widely used web server software.

mashups. The idea is to produce from different sources a new work that is greater than the sum of its parts. Web mashups combine the capabilities of two or more online applications to create a kind of hybrid that provides more customer value than the original sources alone. F

Managers and information systems specialists now need to pay more attention to hardware capacity planning and scalability than before. From an IT perspective, capacity planning is the process of predicting when a computer hardware system becomes saturated.

maximum number of users that the system can accommodate at one time, the impact of existing and future software applications, and performance measures, such as minimum response time for pro- cessing business transactions.

The collection of web services that are used to build a firm's software systems con- stitutes what is known as a service-oriented architecture. A service-oriented architecture (SOA) is set of self-contained services that communicate with each other to create a working software application. Software developers reuse these services in other combi- nations to assemble other applications as needed.

open source software is developed by a community of programmers around the world, who make their programs available to users under one of several licensing schemes

Many large firms are saddled with redundant, incompatible hardware and soft- ware because of poor planning. These firms could reduce their TCO through greater centralization and standardization of their hardware and software resources

outsourcing the maintenance of their IT infrastructures and the development of new systems to external vendors. They may contract with an external service provider to run their computer center and networks, to develop new software, or to manage all the components of their IT infrastructures.

Stakeholders

people who are affected/invested in the situation

opt-out model of informed consent

permits the collection of personal information until the consumer specifically requests the data not to be collected.

A public cloud is owned and maintained by a cloud service provider, such as Amazon Web Services, and made available to the gen- eral public or industry group. Public cloud services are often used for websites with public information and product descriptions, one-time large computing projects, new application development and testing, and consumer services such as online storage of data, music, and photos.

private cloud is operated solely for an organization. It might be managed by the organization or a third party and hosted either internally or externally. Like public clouds, private clouds can allocate storage, computing power, or other resources seamlessly to provide computing resources on an as-needed basis.

Computer vision syndrome (CVS)

refers to any eyestrain condition related to display screen use in desktop computers, laptops, e-readers, smartphones, and handheld video games.

Spyware

secretly install itself on an Internet user's computer by piggybacking on larger applications.

Cookies

small text files deposited on a computer hard drive when a user visits websites. Cookies identify the visitor's web browser software and track visits to the website. When the visitor returns to a site that has stored a cookie, the website software searches the visitor's computer, finds the cookie, and knows what that person has done in the past. It may also update the cookie, depending on the activity during the visit. In this way, the site can customize its content for each visitor's interests.

Computer Hardware

technology for computer processing, data storage, input, and output. This component includes large mainframes, servers, desktop and laptop computers, and mobile devices for accessing corporate data and the Internet. It also includes equipment for gathering and inputting data, physical media for stor- ing the data, and devices for delivering the processed information as output.

Privacy

the claim of individuals to be left alone, free from surveillance or interference from other individuals or organizations, including the state. The Privacy Act of 1974 has been the most important of these laws, regulating the federal government's collection, use, and disclosure of information.

Ethics

the principles of right and wrong that individuals, acting as free moral agents, use to make choices to guide their behaviors.

One widely used form of distributed processing is client/server computing. Client/ server computing splits processing between clients and servers. Both are on the net- work, but each machine is assigned functions it is best suited to perform. The client is the user point of entry for the required function and is normally a desktop or laptop computer.

the simplest client/server network, consisting of a client com- puter networked to a server computer, with processing split between the two types of machines. This is called a two-tiered client/server architecture.

N-tier) client/server architectures, in which the work of the entire network is balanced over several levels of servers, depending on the kind of service being requested

web server will serve a web page to a client in response to a request for service. Web server software is responsible for locating and managing stored web pages.

Responsibility

you accept the potential costs, duties, and obligations for the decisions you make.