Creating The World

Process management

pooja — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:54:54 +0000

Process management is the ensemble of activities of planning and monitoring the performance of a process. The term usually refers to the management of business processes and manufacturing processes. Business process management (BPM) and business process reengineering are interrelated, but not identical.
Process management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, techniques and systems to define, visualize, measure, control, report and improve processes with the goal to meet customer requirements profitably. It can be differentiated from program management in that program management is concerned with managing a group of inter-dependent projects. But from another viewpoint, process management includes program management. In project management, process management is the use of a repeatable process to improve the outcome of the project.
Business process management (BPM) is a systematic approach to making an organization’s workflow more effective, more efficient and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment. A business process is an activity or set of activities that will accomplish a specific organizational goal.
The goal of BPM is to reduce human error and miscommunication and focus stakeholders on the requirements of their roles. BPM is a subset of infrastructure management, an administrative area concerned with maintaining and optimizing an organization’s equipment and core operations.
BPM is often a point of connection within a company between the line-of-business (LOB) and the IT department. Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and Business Process Management Notation (BPMN) were both created to facilitate communication between IT and the LOB. Both languages are easy to read and learn, so that business people can quickly learn to use them and design processes. Both BPEL and BPMN adhere to the basic rules of programming, so that processes designed in either language are easy for developers to translate into hard code.
There are three different kinds of BPM frameworks available in the market today. Horizontal frameworks deal with design and development of business processes and are generally focused on technology and reuse. Vertical BPM frameworks focus on a specific set of coordinated tasks and have pre-built templates that can be readily configured and deployed. Full-service BPM suites have five basic components:
• Process discovery and project scoping
• Process modeling and design
• Business rules engine
• Workflow engine
• Simulation and testing

Information Technology (IT)

pooja — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:09:55 +0000

Information Technology (IT) is the branch of engineering that deals with the use of computers and telecommunications to store, retrieve and transmit information. The acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications are its main fields. In the 1960s and 1970s, the term information technology (IT) was a little known phrase that was used by those who worked in places like banks and hospitals to describe the processes they used to store information. With the paradigm shift to computing technology and “paperless” workplaces, information technology has come to be a household phrase. It defines an industry that uses computers, networking, software programming, and other equipment and processes to store, process, retrieve, transmit, and protect information.
IT is the area of managing technology and spans a wide variety of areas that include computer software, information systems, computer hardware, programming languages but are not limited to things such as processes, and data constructs. In short, anything that renders data, information or perceived knowledge in any visual format whatsoever, via any multimedia distribution mechanism, is considered part of the IT domain. IT provides businesses with four sets of core services to help execute the business strategy: business process automation, providing information, connecting with customers, and productivity tools.
Great technological advances have been made since the days when computers were huge pieces of equipment that were stored in big, air conditioned rooms, getting their informationfrom punch cards. The information technology industry has turned out to be a huge employer of people worldwide, as the focus shifts in some nations from manufacturing to service industries. It is a field where the barrier to entry is generally much lower than that of manufacturing, for example. In the current business environment, being proficient in computers is often a necessity for those who want to compete in the workplace.
Jobs in information technology are widely varied, although many do require some level ofhigher education. Positions as diverse as software designer, network engineer, and database administrator are all usually considered IT jobs. Nearly any position that involves the intersection of computers and information may be considered part of this field.

Electronic Payment

pooja — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:42:33 +0000

Electronic Payment is a financial exchange that takes place online between buyers and sellers. The content of this exchange is usually some form of digital financial instrument (such as encrypted credit card numbers, electronic cheques or digital cash) that is backed by a bank or an intermediary, or by a legal tender. The various factors that have lead the financial institutions to make use of electronic payments are:

Decreasing technology cost:-The technology used in the networks is decreasing day by day, which is evident from the fact that computers are now dirt-cheap and Internet is becoming free almost everywhere in the world.

Reduced operational and processing cost:-Due to reduced technology cost the processing cost of various commerce activities becomes very less. A very simple reason to prove this is the fact that in electronic transactions we save both paper and time.

Increasing online commerce:The above two factors have lead many institutions to go online and many others are following them.

Ways available to pay online:

Electronic Tokens:An electronic token is a digital analog of various forms of payment backed by a bank or financial institution. There are two types of tokens:

Real Time: (or Pre-paid tokens) – These are exchanged between buyer and seller, their users pre-pay for tokens that serve as currency. Transactions are settled with the exchange of these tokens. Examples of these are DigiCash, Debit Cards, Electronic purse etc.

Post Paid Tokens – are used with fund transfer instructions between the buyer and seller. Examples – Electronic cheques, Credit card data etc.

Electronic or Digital Cash:This combines computerized convenience with security and privacy that improve upon paper cash. Cash is still the dominant form of payment as: The consumer still mistrusts the banks. The non-cash transactions are inefficiently cleared. In addition, due to negative real interests rates on bank deposits. Now we will enumerate some qualities of cash:

Cash is a legal tender i.e. payee is obligatory to take it,It is negotiable i.e. can be given or traded to someone else,I t is a bearer instrument i.e. possession is proof of ownership, It can be held & used by anyone, even those without a bank certificate, It places no risk on part of acceptor.

Electronic Commerce

pooja — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:20:22 +0000

Electronic commerce or ecommerce is a term for any type of business, or commercial transaction, that involves the transfer of information across the Internet. It covers a range of different types of businesses, from consumer based retail sites, through auction or music sites, to business exchanges trading goods and services between corporations. It is currently one of the most important aspects of the Internet to emerge.Ecommerce allows consumers to electronically exchange goods and services with no barriers of time or distance. Electronic commerce has expanded rapidly over the past five years and is predicted to continue at this rate, or even accelerate. In the near future the boundaries between “conventional” and “electronic” commerce will become increasingly blurred as more and more businesses move sections of their operations onto the Internet.

Types of E-commerce
B2C:- stands for Business to Consumer as the name suggests, it is the model taking businesses and consumers interaction. Online business sells to individuals. The basic concept of this model is to sell the product online to the consumers.
B2c is the indirect trade between the company and consumers. It provides direct selling through online. For example: if you want to sell goods and services to customer so that anybody can purchase any products directly from supplier’s website.
Directly interact with the customers is the main difference with other business model. As B2B it manages directly relationship with consumers, B2C supply chains normally deal with business that are related to the customer.
B2B:- stands for Business to Business. It consists of largest form of Ecommerce. This model defines that Buyer and seller are two different entities. It is similar to manufacturer issuing goods to the retailer or wholesaler. Dell deals computers and other associated accessories online but it is does not make up all those products. So, in govern to deal those products, first step is to purchases them from unlike businesses i.e. the producers of those products.
C2C :-stands for Consumer to Consumer. It helps the online dealing of goods or services among people. Though there is no major parties needed but the parties will not fulfill the transactions without the program which is supplied by the online market dealer such as eBay.
Peep-to-Peer:-It is a discipline that deal itself which assists people to instantly shares related computer files and computer sources without having to interact with central web server This kind of e-commerce has very low revenue propagation as from the starting it has been tended to the release of use due to which it sometimes caught involved in cyber laws.
Mobile commerce:-It deals with conducting the transactions with the help of mobile. The mobile device consumers can interact each other and can lead the business. Mobile Commerce involves the change of ownership or rights to utilize goods and related services.

Data Mining

pooja — Fri, 11 May 2012 09:51:40 +0000

Data mining, the extraction of hidden predictive information from large databases, is a powerful new technology with great potential to help companies focus on the most important information in their data warehouses. Data mining tools predict future trends and behaviors, allowing businesses to make proactive, knowledge-driven decisions. The automated, prospective analyses offered by data mining move beyond the analyses of past events provided by retrospective tools typical of decision support systems. Data mining tools can answer business questions that traditionally were too time consuming to resolve. They scour databases for hidden patterns, finding predictive information that experts may miss because it lies outside their expectations.

Data mining techniques are the result of a long process of research and product development. This evolution began when business data was first stored on computers, continued with improvements in data access, and more recently, generated technologies that allow users to navigate through their data in real time. Data mining takes this evolutionary process beyond retrospective data access and navigation to prospective and proactive information delivery. Data mining is ready for application in the business community because it is supported by three technologies that are now sufficiently mature:
• Massive data collection
• Powerful multiprocessor computers
• Data mining algorithms

Data mining is primarily used today by companies with a strong consumer focus – retail, financial, communication, and marketing organizations. It enables these companies to determine relationships among “internal” factors such as price, product positioning, or staff skills, and “external” factors such as economic indicators, competition, and customer demographics. And, it enables them to determine the impact on sales, customer satisfaction, and corporate profits. Finally, it enables them to “drill down” into summary information to view detail transactional data.
Data mining derives its name from the similarities between searching for valuable business information in a large database — for example, finding linked products in gigabytes of store scanner data — and mining a mountain for a vein of valuable ore. Both processes require either sifting through an immense amount of material, or intelligently probing it to find exactly where the value resides. Given databases of sufficient size and quality, data mining technology can generate new business opportunities by providing these capabilities:
Automated prediction of trends and behaviors:- Data mining automates the process of finding predictive information in large databases. Questions that traditionally required extensive hands-on analysis can now be answered directly from the data quickly.
Automated discovery of previously unknown patterns:-Data mining tools sweep through databases and identify previously hidden patterns in one step.

Database management system (DBMS)

pooja — Fri, 11 May 2012 09:39:18 +0000

A database management system (DBMS) is a software package with computer programs that control the creation, maintenance, and use of a database. It allows organizations to conveniently develop databases for various applications by database administrators(DBAs) and other specialists. A database is an integrated collection of data records, files, and other objects. A DBMS allows different user application programs to concurrently access the same database. It is a software program that enables the creation and management of databases. Generally, these databases will be more complex than the text file/spreadsheet example in the previous lesson. In fact, most of today’s database systems are referred to as a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), because of their ability to store related data across multiple tables.
Some of the more popular relational database management systems include:Microsoft Access,Filemaker,Microsoft SQL Server,MySQL,Oracle. It allows organizations to conveniently develop databases for various applications by database administrators(DBAs) and other specialists. A database is an integrated collection of data records, files, and other objects. A DBMS allows different user application programs to concurrently access the same database. DBMSs may use a variety of database models, such as the relational model or object model, to conveniently describe and support applications. It typically supports query languages, which are in fact high-level programming languages, dedicated database languages that considerably simplify writing database application programs. Database languages also simplify the database organization as well as retrieving and presenting information from it. A DBMS provides facilities for controlling data access, enforcingdata integrity, managing concurrency control, and recovering the database after failures and restoring it from backup files, as well as maintaining database security.

Database

pooja — Fri, 11 May 2012 06:24:36 +0000

A database is an organized collection of data, today typically in digital form. Often abbreviated DB. A collection of information organized in such a way that a computer program can quickly select desired pieces of data.
Traditional databases are organized by fields, records, and files. A field is a single piece of information; a record is one complete set of fields; and a file is a collection of records. For example, a telephone book is analogous to a file. It contains a list of records, each of which consists of three fields: name, address, and telephone number.
An alternative concept in database design is known as Hypertext. In a Hypertext database, any object, whether it be a piece of text, a picture, or a film, can be linked to any other object. Hypertext databases are particularly useful for organizing large amounts of disparate information, but they are not designed for numerical analysis.
The database concept has evolved since the 1960s to ease increasing difficulties in designing, building, and maintaining complex information systems (typically with many concurrent end-users, and with a large amount of diverse data). It has evolved together with database management systems which enable the effective handling of databases. The introduction of the term database coincided with the availability of direct-access storage (disks and drums) from the mid-1960s onwards. The term represented a contrast with the tape-based systems of the past, allowing shared interactive use rather than daily batch processing.
In the simplest terms, a computer database is a program that catalogs information for retrieval. A basic form of a database is a spreadsheet. Spreadsheet programs allow you to catalog information easily. However, you need database management so you can find relationships in the data on the spreadsheets. Databases go the extra step and allow you to access information in new ways and apply the information in different formats, such as Web pages.
Databases allow you to collect and organize information. They are easier to use than spreadsheets because they allow you to update information across the board, and they also help reveal connections between data on different sheets. Database programs like Microsoft Access can be used for personal or business use to keep track of information, like names and addresses, orders or projects. These databases are defined as “desktop databases” and can be purchased as software for personal or office use. Server databases are used for more complex computer functions. They are used by organizations to manage large amounts of data. They also allow this data to be updated in real time. Server databases are hosted on servers offsite because they need a lot of processing power to manage that much information at once. Although databases are commonly used to access data, they are also used frequently in order to make Web sites run. The information stored in a database populates Web pages, and users can update a Web site quickly and easily by adding content to a database using an HTML interface.

Data Security

pooja — Fri, 11 May 2012 06:08:56 +0000

Data Security means protecting a database from destructive forces and the unwanted actions of unauthorised users.
Data Security Technologies:
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.
Hardware based Mechanisms for Protecting Data:-Hardware based or assisted computer security offers an alternative to software-only computer security. Security tokens such as those using PKCS#11 may be more secure due to the physical access required in order to be compromised. Access is enabled only when the token is connected and correct PIN is entered (see two factor authentication). However, dongles can be used by anyone who can gain physical access to it. Newer technologies in hardware based security solves this problem offering fool proof security for data.
Backups:-Backups are used to ensure data which is lost can be recovered.
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 information is not exposed to unauthorized personnel. This may include masking the data from users (for example so banking customer representatives can only see the last 4 digits of a customers national identity number), developers (who need real production data to test new software releases but should not be able to see sensitive financial data), outsourcing vendors, etc.
Data Erasure:-Data erasure is a method of software-based overwriting that completely destroys all electronic data residing on a hard drive or other digital media to ensure that no sensitive data is leaked when an asset is retired or reused.

Cryptography

pooja — Fri, 11 May 2012 05:56:02 +0000

The art of protecting information by transforming it (encrypting it) into an unreadable format, called cipher text. Only those who possess a secret key can decipher (or decrypt) the message into plain text. Encrypted messages can sometimes be broken by cryptanalysis, also called code breaking, although modern cryptography techniques are virtually unbreakable. Cryptography is the science of information security. The word is derived from the Greek kryptos, meaning hidden. Cryptography is closely related to the disciplines of cryptology and cryptanalysis. Cryptography includes techniques such as microdots, merging words with images, and other ways to hide information in storage or transit. However, in today’s computer-centric world, cryptography is most often associated with scrambling plaintext(ordinary text, sometimes referred to as clear text) into cipher text (a process called encryption), then back again (known as decryption). Individuals who practice this field are known as cryptographers.

Modern cryptography concerns itself with the following four objectives:
1) Confidentiality (the information cannot be understood by anyone for whom it was unintended)
2) Integrity (the information cannot be altered in storage or transit between sender and intended receiver without the alteration being detected)
3) Non-repudiation (the creator/sender of the information cannot deny at a later stage his or her intentions in the creation or transmission of the information)
4) Authentication (the sender and receiver can confirm each others identity and the origin/destination of the information)

Procedures and protocols that meet some or all of the above criteria are known as cryptosystems. Cryptosystems are often thought to refer only to mathematical procedures and computer programs; however, they also include the regulation of human behavior, such as choosing hard-to-guess passwords, logging off unused systems, and not discussing sensitive procedures with outsiders.

The origin of cryptography is usually dated from about 2000 BC, with the Egyptian practice of hieroglyphics. These consisted of complex pictograms, the full meaning of which was only known to an elite few. The first known use of a modern cipher was by Julius Caesar (100 BC to 44 BC), who did not trust his messengers when communicating with his governors and officers. For this reason, he created a system in which each character in his messages was replaced by a character three positions ahead of it in the Roman alphabet.

Storage Technology

pooja — Fri, 11 May 2012 05:44:38 +0000

In a computer, storage is the place where data is held in an electromagnetic or optical form for access by a computer processor. There are two general usages.
1) Storage is frequently used to mean the devices and data connected to the computer through input/output operations .
2) In a more formal usage, storage has been divided into: (1) primary storage, which holds data in memory (sometimes called random access memory or RAM) and other “built-in” devices such as the processor’s L1 cache, and (2) secondary storage, which holds data on hard disks, tapes, and other devices requiring input/output operations.
Storage technologies are the techniques, equipment, and organization for providing the memory capability required by computers in order to store instructions and data for processing at high electronic speeds.

Memory hierarchy:-Memory hierarchy refers to the different types of memory devices and equipment configured into an operational computer system to provide the necessary attributes of storage capacity, speed, access time, and cost to make a cost-effective practical system. The fastest-access memory in any hierarchy is the main memory in the computer. In most computers, random-access memory (RAM) chips are used because of their high speed and low cost. The secondary storage in the hierarchy usually consists of disks. The last, or bottom, level (sometimes called the tertiary level) of storage hierarchy is made up of magnetic tape transports and mass-storage tape systems.
Main memory:-Random access memory (RAM) chips come in a wide variety of organizations and types. Computer main memories are organized into random addressable words in which the word length is fixed to some power-of-2 bits (for example, 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64 bits). But there are exceptions, such as 12-, 18-, 24-, 48-, and 60-bit word-length machines.
Secondary memory:-High-capacity, slower-speed memory consists of two major functional types: random-access, which has been provided primarily by disk drives, and sequential-access, which has been provided primarily by tape drives. Since tape drives provide removability of the medium from the computer, tape is used for the majority of off-line, archival storage, although some disks are removable also.
Magnetic tape units:-In magnetic tape units, the tape maintains physical contact with the fixed head while in motion, allowing high-density recording. The long access times to find user data on the tape are strictly due to the fact that all intervening data have to be searched until the desired data are found.
Mass storage systems:-With the gradual acceptance of virtual memory and sophisticated operating systems, a significant operational problem arose with computer systems, particularly the large-scale installations.