CIS 505 Discussions

See attached

Please respond to the following:

After completing your reading and assignments this week, what do you think about the trends in communication and networking? How have you seen it impact business or do you think it will impact business? Do you think the burden on managers is greater or lesser when it comes to technology skills? Why do you think that?

Communication
Technologies
CIS 505
Introduction

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Welcome to Communication Technologies. In this lesson, we will discuss Introducing Communications Technologies.
 
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Topics
Information and communication
Data communications and networking
Convergence and unified communications
The nature of business information requirements
Distributed applications
Networks
The transmission of information;
Management issues
Standards

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Information and communication;
Data communications and networking;
Convergence and unified communications;
The nature of business information requirements;
Distributed applications;
Networks;
The transmission of information;
Management issues; and
Standards.
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Overview
Information and Communication
Computers
Communication technologies
Demographics
Transforming business
Using management structures to gain advantage
Networking
Overcoming organizational difficulties

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A confluence of computers, communication technologies, and demographics is transforming the way any enterprise conducts itself and carries out its organizational mandate. At the heart of the transformation is information. So fundamental is information communication technology to business success that it is emerging as the foundation of a new strategy now taking shape in American businesses—using management structures to gain a competitive advantage.
 
Companies are breaking down divisional walls and flattening top-heavy management pyramids to create new corporate structures that help them compete more effectively. The technology that is making much of this possible is networking.
 
Communication technology helps companies overcome the following kinds of organizational difficulties:
 
Geographically dispersed networks,
Top-heavy companies, and
Barriers between divisions.
 
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Data Communications and Networking
Trends
Traffic
Expanded services
New technology
Faster and cheaper
Intelligent networks
The Internet’s influence
Ever-increasing mobility

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Effective and efficient data communication and networking facilities are vital to any enterprise. Three different forces have consistently driven the architecture and evolution of data communication and networking facilities:
 
Traffic growth,
Development of new services, and
Advances in technology.
 
Communication traffic has been growing at a high and steady rate for decades. Managers are constantly struggling to maximize capacity and minimize transmission costs.
 
As businesses rely more and more on information technology, the range of services expands. This increases the demand for high-capacity networking and transmission facilities. Growth in services and growth in traffic capacity go hand in hand.
 
Finally, trends in technology enable the provision of increasing traffic capacity and the support of a wide range of services. The following trends are particularly notable:
 
The trend toward faster and cheaper, both in computers and communications, continues;
 
Both voice oriented telecommunication networks and data networks are more intelligent than ever;
 
The Internet, the Web, and associated applications have emerged as dominant features of both the business and personal world; and
 
There has been a trend toward ever increasing mobility for decades, liberating workers from the confines of the physical enterprise.
 
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Data Communications and Networking, continued
Business Drivers
IP Telephony
Multimedia messages
E-business
Customer relationship management
Convergence
Applications
Services
Management
Infrastructure

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The nature of the enterprise networking and communications facility depends on the business applications it must support. The following are the four main application areas that will serve as the drivers in determining the design and makeup of the enterprise network:
 
IP Telephony,
Multimedia messages,
E-business, and
Customer relationship management.
 
Convergence refers to the merger of previously distinct telephony and information technologies and markets. We can think of this convergence in terms of a four-layer model of enterprise communications.
 
Applications are seen by the end users of a business. Convergence integrates communications applications with business applications.
 
At the services level, the manager deals with the information network in terms of services it supplies to support applications. The network manager needs design, maintenance, and support services related to the deployment of convergence-based facilities.
 
At the management level, network managers deal with the enterprise network as a function providing system.
 
The key aspect of convergence at the infrastructure level is the ability to carry voice over data networks, such as the Internet.
 
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The Nature of Information Requirements
Voice Communications
Phone
Data Communications
Text
Numerical data
Image Communications
Fax
CD
Presentations
Video Communications
Teleconferencing

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A business survives and thrives on information: information within the organization and information exchanged with suppliers, customers, and regulators.
 
In this course, the term voice communications primarily refers to telephone-related communications, which is by far the most common form of communication in any organization.
 
The term data communications is sometimes used to refer to virtually any form of information transfer other than voice. It is sometimes important to limit this term to information in the form of text or numerical data.
 
Image communications is now an important component of the office environment. All sorts of images, including engineering and design specifications, mixed documents, presentation materials, and so on, can be moved quickly around the office or displayed on user workstations.
 
Video communications is also becoming important in the office environment. With the availability of high-capacity transmission links and networks, it has an increasing business application, most notably videoconferencing.
 
All of these forms of information communication play a key role in today’s businesses. The manager responsible for them must understand the technology sufficiently to be able to deal effectively with vendors of communications products and services to make cost-effective choices among the growing array of options.
 
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Distributed Applications
Distributed Data Processing
Computers and terminals
Linked by networks
The Internet and Distributed Applications
Application software
Underlying interconnection software
Client/server
The Internet
TCP/IP
Distributed applications

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The steady drop over many years in the cost of data processing equipment, coupled with an increase in the capability of such equipment, has led to the introduction of many small and medium-sized computers into the business environment. Today, it is common to find a distributed data processing configuration, one that consists of a number of computers and terminals linked together by networks.
 
A business needs to be concerned with two dimensions of computer communications software:
 
The application software that is provided for a community of terminals and computers, and
 
The underlying interconnection software that allows these terminals and computers to work together cooperatively.
 
The mere existence of a large population of computers and terminals creates the demand that these devices work together. The key to the success of these applications is that all the terminals and computers in the community speak the same language. This is the role of the underlying interconnection software.
 
Modern applications have evolved away from large, general purpose mainframe computers to distributed computing. This approach, called client/server architecture, requires sophisticated, reliable, and secure data communications, but its inherent flexibility and responsiveness make it an essential tool in the businessperson’s information systems repertoire.
 
Virtually no business can compete without exploiting the Internet and the Web. Internet technology enables secure communication both within an enterprise and with customers, suppliers, and partners.
 
One of the most difficult problems that has traditionally faced computer users is that different vendors have used different and incompatible architectures. Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP, is now universally used for the communications software functions across multiple vendor equipment and is the basis for the operation of the Internet.
 
Distributed information processing is also essential in virtually all businesses.
 
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Networks
Networks
Overview
Demand for connectivity
Need for communications software
Need for networks
LAN
Local area network
Found in virtually all office buildings
Integration
WAN
Large geographical area
Common carriers
Differences between LANs and WANs

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The pressure from users for ways to communicate among computers worldwide is irresistible. This demand for connectivity is manifested in two specific requirements: the need for communications software and the need for networks.
 
One type of network that has become increasingly common is the local area network, or LAN. The LAN is to be found in virtually all medium- and large-size office buildings.
 
Beyond the confines of a single office building, networks for voice, data, image, and video are equally important to business. Advances in technology have led to greatly increased capacity and the concept of integration. Integration means that the customer equipment and networks can deal simultaneously with voice, data, image, and even video.
 
Wide area networks, or WANs, generally cover a large geographical area, require the crossing of public right-of-ways, and rely at least in part on circuits provided by a common carrier.
 
There are several key distinctions between LANs and WANs:
 
The scope of the LAN is small, typically a single building or a cluster of buildings. This difference in scope leads to different technical solutions.
 
It is usually the case that the LAN is owned by the same organization that owns the attached devices. For WANs, this is less often the case.
 
And finally, the internal data rates of LANs are typically much greater than those of WANs.
 
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Networks, continued
Circuit Switching
Dedicated path
Telephone system
Packet Switching
Sequences called packets
Computer to computer communications
Frame Relay
Reduced overhead
ATM
Evolution of packet and circuit switching
Wireless Networking
Metropolitan Area Networks

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Traditionally, WANs have been implemented using one of two technologies:
 
Circuit switching, and
Packet switching.
 
In a circuit-switching network, a dedicated communication path is established between two stations through the nodes of the network. That path is a connected sequence of physical links between nodes. The most common example of circuit switching is the telephone network.
 
In a packet-switching network, data are sent out in a sequence of small chunks, called packets. Each packet is passed through the network from node to node along some path leading from source to destination. Packet-switching networks are commonly used for terminal-to-computer and computer-to-computer communications.
 
Packet-switching was developed at a time when digital long-distance transmission facilities exhibited a relatively high error rate compare to today’s facilities. As a result, there is a considerable amount of overhead built into packet-switching schemes. With modern high-speed telecommunications systems, this overhead is unnecessary. Frame relay was developed to take advantage of high data rates and low error rates. Frame relay networks are designed to operate efficiently at user data rates of about two-megabytes per-second.
 
Asynchronous transfer mode, or ATM, is a culmination of developments in circuit switching and packet switching. ATM can be viewed as an evolution of frame relay. ATM uses a fixed packet length, which reduces overhead even further. ATM can also be viewed as an evolution from circuit switching. ATM allows the definition of multiple virtual channels with data rates that are dynamically defined at the time the virtual channel is created.
 
Wireless LANs are common and are widely used in business environments. Wireless technology is also common for both wide area voice and data networks. Wireless networks provide advantages in the areas of mobility and ease of installation and configuration.
 
A metropolitan area network, or MAN, occupies the middle ground between LANs and WANs. The primary market for MANs is the customer that has high speed needs in a metropolitan area. A MAN is intended to provide the required capacity at lower cost and greater efficiency than obtaining an equivalent service from the local telephone company.
 
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The Transmission of Information
Fiber Optic
Cost
Capacity
Wireless
Using any communication system
Connect to information services
Transmission and Transmission Media
Twisted pair lines
Coaxial cable
Optical fiber cable
Terrestrial and satellite microwave
Transmission Efficiency

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The basic building block of any communications facility is the transmission line. There are certain aspects of transmission technology that a manager must understand to be able to ask the right questions and make informed decisions. Of particular note are fiber optic transmission and wireless transmission.
 
The ever-increasing capacity of fiber-optic channels is making channel capacity a virtually free resource. Because of its high capacity and because of its security characteristics, it is becoming increasingly used within office buildings to carry the growing load of business information.
 
The second medium—wireless transmission—is a result of the trend toward universal personal telecommunications and universal access to communication. The first concept refers to the ability of a person to identify him or herself easily and to use conveniently any communication system in a large area in terms of a single account. The second refers to the capability of using one’s terminals in a wide variety of environments to connect to information services.
 
Despite the growth in the capacity and the drop in the cost of transmission facilities, transmission services remain the most costly components of a communications budget for most businesses. Thus, the manager needs to be aware of techniques that increase the efficiency and use of these facilities. The two major approaches to greater efficiency are multiplexing and compression.
 
Multiplexing refers to the ability of a number of devices to share a transmission facility.
 
Compression involves squeezing the data down so that a lower-capacity, cheaper transmission facility can be used to meet a given demand.
 
Information can be communicated by converting it into an electromagnetic signal over some medium, such as a twisted-pair telephone line.
 
The most commonly used transmission media are:
 
Twisted pair lines,
Coaxial cable,
Optical fiber cable, and
Terrestrial and satellite microwave.
 
A major cost in any computer/communications facility is transmission cost. Because of this, it is important to maximize the amount of information that can be carried over a given resource or, alternatively, to minimize the transmission capacity needed to satisfy a given information communications requirement. The standard technique for achieving this objective is multiplexing.
 
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Management Issues
Network Security
Unique Management Issues
Pee-to-peer interconnections
Complexity of managing systems
Criticality of systems
Costs
Finding skilled personnel

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As companies rely increasingly on networks and as access by outsiders via the Internet and other links grows, the vexing question of security becomes ever more important. Companies are at risk for the disclosure of confidential information and for the unauthorized altering of corporate data.
 
Like any resource, information technology has to be managed. Many of the management functions required are common to other aspects of business management, but the following requirements are special to information technology:
 
Networks have evolved from an easily controlled centralized approach into peer-to-peer interconnection among highly distributed systems.
 
Peer-to-peer networks have grown larger and larger so that managing, monitoring, and maintaining them has become very complex.
 
In many business sectors, network computing devices constitute a critical strategic resource than cannot be allowed to fail.
 
Communications costs are climbing, and there is a shortage of skilled personnel to staff network command centers.
 
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Summary
Information and communication
Data communications and networking
Convergence and unified communications
The nature of business information requirements
Distributed applications
Networks
The transmission of information;
Management issues
Standards

*
We have now reached the end of this lesson. Let’s take a look at what we’ve covered.
 
We started the lesson by discussing that effective and efficient data communication and networking facilities are vital to any enterprise. Three different forces have consistently driven the architecture and evolution of data communication and networking facilities:
 
Traffic growth,
Development of new services, and
Advances in technology.
Next we examined that a business survives and thrives on information: information within the organization and information exchanged with suppliers, customers, and regulators.
Then we saw that the pressure from users for ways to communicate among computers worldwide is irresistible. This demand for connectivity is manifested in two specific requirements: the need for communications software and the need for networks.
Next we discovered that the basic building block of any communications facility is the transmission line. There are certain aspects of transmission technology that a manager must understand to be able to ask the right questions and make informed decisions. Of particular note are fiber optic transmission and wireless transmission.
Lastly, we concluded the lecture by examining how as companies rely increasingly on networks and as access by outsiders via the Internet and other links grows, the vexing question of security becomes ever more important. Companies are at risk for the disclosure of confidential information and for the unauthorized altering of corporate data.
This completes this lesson.

Communication
Technologies
CIS 505
Business Information

*
Welcome to Communication Technologies. In this lesson, we will discuss Business Information.
 
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Topics
Audio
Data
Image
Video
Performance measures

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The following topics will be covered in this lesson:
Audio;
Data;
Image;
Video; and
Performance measures.
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Audio
Overview
Measured in bandwidth
Can be represented digitally
Applications
Human voice
Telephone
Telemarketing
Voice mail
Audio teleconferencing
Entertainment radio
Networking Implications
PBX
Centrex

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The audio service supports applications based on sounds, usually of human voice. The primary application using audio service is telephone communication. Other applications include telemarketing, voice mail, audio teleconferencing, and entertainment radio. The quality of sound is characterized mainly by bandwidth. Audio information can also be represented digitally.
 
The most effective way of managing voice requirements is to tie all of the phones at a given site into a single system. There are two main alternatives for this:
 
The private branch exchange, and
Centrex.
 
The private bank exchange, or PBX, is an on-premise switching facility, owned or leased by an organization that interconnects the telephones within the facility and provides access to the public telephone system.
 
Centrex is a telephone company offering that provides the same sort of service as a PBX but performs the switching function in equipment located in the telephone company’s central office.
 
Either a PBX or Centrex facility can support a wide variety of voice-related services. Both voice mail and audio teleconferencing can be supported by either approach.
 
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Overview
Examining Forms of Business Information
How impact is measured
Forms of business information
Types of services
Information Sources
Digital
Numerical
Text
Binary
Analog

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It is important to understand how information communication relates to business requirements. A first step in this understanding is to examine the various forms of business information. Our examination covers the following topics:
 
How the impact of information sources on communications systems is measured,
 
The nature of the four major forms of business information,
 
The types of business services that relate to each of these forms of information, and
 
An introductory look at the implications of these services from the point of view of the communications requirements that they generate.
 
Information sources can produce information in digital or analog form. Digital information is presented as a sequence of discrete symbols from a finite alphabet. Examples are text, numerical data, and binary data.
 
Analog information is a continuous signal that can take on a continuum of values. An example is the electrical signal coming out of a microphone when someone speaks into it.
 
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Data
Overview
Finite alphabet of symbols
Text
Numerical information
Character strings
Binary data
Using a database
Networking Implications

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Data consists of information that can be represented by a finite alphabet of symbols, such as the digits zero through nine or the symbols represented on a terminal keyboard. Common examples of data include text and numerical information.
 
A familiar example of digital data is text or character strings. While textual data are most convenient for human beings, they cannot, in character form, be easily stored or transmitted by data processing and communications systems. Such systems are designed for binary data. Thus a number of codes have been devised by which characters are represented by a sequence of bits. Text, numerical data, and other types of data are typically organized into a database.
 
The networking requirements for supporting data applications in an organization vary widely.
 
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Image
Image Representation
Vector
Raster
Gray scale image
Image and Document Formats
JPEG
GIF
PDF
Postscript
Networking Implications
Compression
Response time and throughput

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The image service supports the communication of individual pictures, charts, or drawings. Image-based applications include facsimile, computer-aided design, publishing, and medical imaging.
 
There are a variety of techniques used to represent image formation. These fall into two main categories:
 
Vector graphics, and
Raster graphics.
 
With vector graphics, images are represented as a collection of straight and curved line segments. Vector graphics involve the use of binary codes to represent object type, size, and orientation.
 
With raster graphics, images are represented as a two-dimensional array of spots, called pixels.
 
A gray scale image is produced if each pixel is defined by more than one bit, representing shades of gray. Gray scale can also be used in vector graphics to define the gray scale of line segments or the interior of closed objects such as rectangles.
 
Images can also be defined in color. There are a number of schemes in use for this purpose. One example is RGB, which stands for red-green-blue, in which each pixel or image area is defined by three values, one for each of the three colors.
 
The most widely used format for raster-scan images is referred to as JPEG. The Joint Photographic Experts Group is a collaborative standards-making effort between ISO and ITU-T. The JPEG standard is designed to be general purpose, meeting a variety of needs such as desktop publishing, graphic arts, newspaper wire photo transmission, and medical imaging. JPEG is appropriate for high quality images.
 
Another format that is often seen on the Web is Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF. This is an eight-bit color format that can display up to two-hundred-fifty-six colors and is generally useful for non-photographic images.
 
There are also two popular document formats that are suitable for documents that include text and images. The Portable Document Format, or PDF, is widely used on the Web. Postscript is a page description language that is built into many desktop printers.
 
The various configurations by which image information is used and communicated do not fundamentally differ from the configurations used for text and numerical data.
 
The number of bits needed to represent an image can be reduced by the use of image compression techniques. Compression ratios of eight-to-sixteen bits are readily achieved.
 
Even with compression, the number of bits to be transmitted for image formation is large. As usual, there are two concerns:
 
Response time, and
Throughput.
 
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Video
Overview
Sequence of pictures
Raster-scan images
Electron beam
Scanning process
Interlacing
Networking Implications
Television
Teleconferencing
Closed circuit TV
Multimedia

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The video service carries sequences of pictures in time. In essence, video makes use of a sequence of raster-scan images. To produce a picture on the screen, an electron beam scans across the surface of the screen from left to right and top to bottom. At the end of the scan line, the beam is swept rapidly back to the left. When the beam reaches the bottom, it is swept rapidly back to the top. The beam is turned off during the retrace intervals.
 
To achieve adequate resolution, the beam produces a total of four-hundred-eighty three horizontal lines at a rate of thirty complete scans of the screen per-second. To provide a flicker free image without increasing the bandwidth requirement, a technique known as interlacing is used.
 
Applications based on video include instructional and entertainment television, teleconferencing, closed circuit TV, and multimedia.
 
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Performance Measures
Response Times
System reaction to an input
Cost of better response time
Computer processing power
Competing requirements
User response time
System response time
Critical for transaction processing systems
Throughput
Increased capabilities
Demands of services

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In the following section we will discuss two key parameters related to performance requirements:
 
Response time, and
Throughput.
 
Response time is the time it takes a system to react to a given input. In general, it is the time it takes for the system to respond to a request to perform a particular task.
 
Ideally, one would like the response time for any application to be short. However, it is almost always the case that shorter response time imposes greater cost. This cost comes from the following sources:
 
Computer processing power, and
Competing requirements.
 
Thus, the value of a given level of response time must be assessed versus the cost of achieving that response time.
 
Studies have shown that when a computer and a user interact at a pace that ensures that neither has to wait for the other, productivity increases significantly. The cost of work done on the computer drops, and quality tends to improve.
 
A transaction consists of a user command from a terminal and the system’s reply. It is the fundamental unit of work for only system users. It can be divided into two time sequences:
 
User response time, and
System response time.
 
In terms of types of computer-based information systems, rapid response time is most critical for transaction processing systems. The output of management information systems and decision support systems is generally a report or the results of some modeling exercise. In these cases, rapid turnaround is not essential.
 
The implication in terms of communications is this:
 
If there is a communications facility between an interactive user and the application and a rapid response time is required, then the communications system must be designed so that its contribution to delay is compatible with that requirement.
 
Another area where response time has become critical is the use of the World Wide Web, either over the Internet or over a corporate intranet. Response times can be gauged based on the level of user involvement in the session.
 
The trend toward higher and higher transmission speed makes possible increased support for different services that once seemed too demanding for digital communications. To make effective use of these new capabilities, it is essential to have a sense of the demands each service puts on the storage and communications of integrated information systems. Services can be grouped into data, audio, image, and video, whose demands vary greatly.
 
Next slide.

Summary
Audio
Data
Image
Video
Performance measures

*
We have now reached the end of this lesson. Let’s take a look at what we’ve covered.
 
We started the lecture off by examining that audio service supports applications based on sounds, usually of human voice. The primary application using audio service is telephone communication. Other applications include telemarketing, voice mail, audio teleconferencing, and entertainment radio. The quality of sound is characterized mainly by bandwidth. Audio information can also be represented digitally.
 
Next, we saw that data consists of information that can be represented by a finite alphabet of symbols, such as the digits zero through nine or the symbols represented on a terminal keyboard. Common examples of data include text and numerical information.
 
We then discussed that the image service supports the communication of individual pictures, charts, or drawings. Image-based applications include facsimile, computer-aided design, publishing, and medical imaging.
 
Lastly, we discovered that video service carries sequences of pictures in time. In essence, video makes use of a sequence of raster-scan images. To produce a picture on the screen, an electron beam scans across the surface of the screen from left to right and top to bottom.
 
This completes this lesson.