Management of Information Systems 4 Discussion - Voice Recognition

Week 4 Lecture 1 - Databases and Data Warehouses

 

Management of Information Systems

Databases and Data Warehouses

The impact of database technology on how business is conducted today cannot be overemphasized. This technology has enabled an information industry with comprehensive influences on businesses and individuals. Databases store data that populate web pages and other interactive networked technologies. Search engines, e-commerce, and social media would not exist without databases. With database support, larger tasks can be accomplished by fewer people.

Effective data management is the principal benefit of IT. Database management systems (DBMSs) enable the fast creation of databases and manipulation of data on an aggregate basis or down to the smallest detail for business purposes. Databases support most web pages and other interactive networked technology. DBMSs support target marketing, financial management, decision-making, distribution of goods and services, customer service, and other activities. It is imperative, in the age of data mining, and “big data,” for knowledge workers to understand how databases work and how data are used operationally and strategically in business management.

Database analysis and management skills are mandatory in the marketplace. IT professionals develop and implement databases. However, data is essential to the non-technical professional who uses the data for decision making regarding accounting, marketing, logistics, senior management, and other functional areas.

The relational database model is common. However, data can be organized in other ways. “Big Data” prompted the use of other database models. “NoSQL” database models are non-relational and do not require SQL to retrieve data. NoSQL databases can be structured by object, document, key-value, graph, column, and other possibilities

In relational databases, a primary key is a field in a table that contains a unique value used to differentiate between rows of data. The primary key is usually a number, or a computer generated globally unique identifier (GUID). Sometimes a composite key is used differentiate between table rows. A composite key is a combination of the values in two or more fields in a table that when combined are unique in the table and serve as a primary key. A foreign key is used to link data between two tables. A foreign key in a table is the primary key of a related table.

Databases contain different types of fields. Some types are, number, text, image, video, audio, geographical coordinates, and others. If a number is not used for mathematical calculations, it is best to assign a text type to it in a database to avoid the need to convert it from a number to a string after retrieval.

SQL is a popular query language used to retrieve data from relational databases. SQL can be used to retrieve data from more than one table by use of a “join.” A join query retrieves data from rows in two or more tables, where the value of the foreign key in one table is equal to the value of the primary key in another table.

Storage of large quantities of data can be achieved through data warehousing. Large organization use data warehouses for management decision making and data mining. Data marts are smaller segments of data warehouses set-up to support different functional business areas.

Week 4 Lecture 2 - The Web-enabled Enterprise

 

Management of Information Systems

The Web-enabled Enterprise

Today, the Internet has developed into an ordinary resource. However, novel Web technologies are appearing every day. New business technologies, services, models, designs, and functionality are visible on the Web as competition and business needs change. A company’s public view is displayed on the Web. A website’s design, functionality, and contents represent a company’s personality and style of doing business. In dollar terms, a substantially larger amount of business-to-business transactions takes place over the Internet than business-to-consumer transactions.

The Web provides a richness of information, entertainment, and the ability to chat and network. However, the Web as an asset to business entities is one of its greatest potentials. As disruptive as the Web has been, the sweeping adoption of mobile services and devices has made the fast pace of web growth look like a crawl in comparison.

View the video clip about the  history of the Internet . The foremost reason any one organization can not totally control the Internet is that the U.S. Department of Defense, which funded the network’s development, required that the destruction of any individual computer could not take down the entire network. The internet consists of over 500 million servers in different countries. Far-reaching influence would be required by an entity to control the Internet. Many telecommunications companies in different countries would have to be swayed for a single entity to control the Internet.

permits running applications on the Web in the same manner as if the applications were installed on local computers. Software defines intranets and extranets, not hardware. LANs can become intranets. HTML can be used as an authoring tool for presenting a presentation on a local Web browser. None technical people can now use Web authoring tools to create websites using hosting services. Businesses are now moving their websites to host services. Web 2.0