3.1 Internet

Internet is a global wide area network that connects computers throughout the world. It is used in all sectors of the economy. It provides different types of services like web, email, social media, online gaming, software updates, online payments, online education etc. the roots of the Internet go back a long way, mostly to the post-World War II era, but in some respects to the late 1930s. The evolution of internet is summarised under some phases-

Figure: Phases of evolution of internet

1        Pre-history (1956–1966): The Soviet Union's successful launch of the Sputnik satellite in October 1957, an event that profoundly shocked the US defence establishment and led to the setting up of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the Department of Defense. Early in its organisational life, ARPA morphed into the agency within the Pentagon that funded advanced, ‘blue-skies’ research which could have military applications. In due course, ARPA found itself funding the purchase, operation, and maintenance of at least a dozen expensive mainframe computers for the various university departments and institutes which held research contracts from the agency. The problem was that these machines were incompatible with one another, and therefore could not function as shared resources for the community of ARPA-funded researchers across the US. From this came the idea, and the funding, for a network that would enable these valuable resources to be shared. ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) was the result.

2        The ARPANET (1967–1972); The idea of a ‘resource-sharing’ network first emerged in ARPA in 1966. Design work, conducted in a collegial style unusual in the defence industry, then proceeded over the next two years. The contract to build the network was awarded in early 1969 to Bolt, Beranek and Newman, a Boston-based consultancy firm with strong links to MIT.

3        Development of the TCP/IP-based ‘internetwork’(1973–1983): By the early to mid-1970s, therefore, ARPA found itself running three separate ‘experimental’ networks – ARPANET, PRNET, and SATNET – all of which used packet switching technology, but in different ways. An obvious next step was to see whether a method for ‘internetworking’ them, so that they functioned as an apparently seamless whole, could be developed. The ‘internetworking’ project began in late 1973. A suite of interlocking protocols centred on two new ones – TCP and IP – evolved.

4        Transition from a military/research network to a ‘civilian’ (1983–1995): In mid-1984, the foundation began funding the establishment of several new supercomputing centres around the US. To make these available to the widest possible community of researchers, a national network was required. On 28 February 1990, the ARPANET was officially decommissioned and it remains a publicly funded operation.

5        The first Internet boom (1995–2000): The Web was the creation of a single individual – the physicist and computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who was employed in the late 1980s and early 1990s at CERN, the multinational particle-research laboratory located just outside Geneva in Switzerland.

6        ‘Web 2.0’: 2000–2003: The Web was originally conceived as a means of sharing information among particle physicists who were scattered across the world. Web 2.0 carries features that they harnessed the collective intelligence available on the Web, either via software such as Google's PageRank algorithm or by exploiting the willingness of users to engage with the enterprise.

7        Mobile connectivity, surveillance, cybercrime, corporate power, changing patterns of use and their implications: (2004–present): The most recent phase in the evolution of the Internet has been characterised by significant changes in the ways that people access and use the network and by the ways in which the infrastructure of the network has evolved to cope with these changes. The most prominent use of internet are the rise of mobile connectivity; the rapid expansion of so-called social media; pervasive surveillance by both state and commercial entities; increase of the power and influence wielded by a small number of large technology companies and consolidation of their grip on the network.

Key takeaways

3.2 IT Infrastructure

Different components of internet information technology structure are-

Figure: Components of IT infrastructure

This is the physical technology that works with information which also includes the peripheral devices that work with computers, such as keyboards, external disk drives, and routers.

2. Computer software

Software is of two types: system software and application software. The primary piece of system software is the operating system, such as Windows or iOS, which manages the hardware’s operation. Application software is designed for specific tasks, such as handling a spread-sheet, creating a document, or designing a Web page.

This component connects the hardware together to form a network. Connections can be through wires, such as Ethernet cables or fibre optics, or wireless, such as through Wi-Fi. A network can be designed to tie together computers in a specific area, such as an office or a school, through a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN).

2.     Databases and data warehouses

A database is a place where data is collected and from which it can be retrieved by querying it using one or more specific criteria. A data warehouse contains all of the data in whatever form that an organization needs. Databases and data warehouses have assumed even greater importance in information systems with the emergence of “big data”.

5. Human resources and procedures

The people that are needed to run the system and the procedures they follow so that the knowledge in the huge databases and data warehouses can be turned into learning that can interpret what has happened in the past and guide future action.

Key takeaways

3.3 Middleware domain names

Middleware is software which lies between an operating system and the applications running on it. It enables communication and data management for distributed applications. Using middleware allows users to perform such requests as submitting forms on a web browser or allowing the web server to return dynamic web pages based on a user’s profile. Some of the middleware names are

All middleware performs communication functions, the type a company chooses to use will depend on what service is being used and what type of information needs to be communicated. This can include security authentication, transaction management, message queues, applications servers, web servers and directories. Middleware can also be used for distributed processing with actions occurring in real time rather than sending data back and forth.

3.4 Text and Integrating E-business applications

In order to support business processes and data sharing across applications, integration of e-business applications is necessary.  Different reasons for e-business integration are-

Figure: Integrating e-business applications

E-businesses require a consistent, global, enterprise-level view of their business objects or information.  The fundamental integration need in all of these cases is for a consistent global view of information across the different systems that synchronises data between the different information systems.

2.     Batch-Style Data Synchronization:

Synchronizing data between an online transaction processing system and a data warehouse is typically done by synchronization batch transfer. A batch job extracts new information from the transactional system, transforms it into the appropriate format, and loads or populates the data warehouse.

3.     Transactional Data Synchronization:

When a banking customer makes an account transfer on a self-service Web site, the site must immediately reflect changes to his account. Account information stored in the bank's back-office systems must be synchronized through a transaction with the database backing the Web site. In some cases, the bank does not maintain two copies of a customer's account information: one in the database backing the Web site and another in the bank's back-office systems. Instead, the bank simply maintains customer information in one system and provides multiple applications with access to that system. This method has benefits and trade-offs associated with performance, scalability, and security that we discuss in the next section.

Different types of e-business integration

Different types of e-business integration are discussed below-

Figure: Types of e-business integration

A number of different mechanisms are used to synchronize data between systems, but they can be broadly classified into two categories:

2.     Component-Oriented Development Technologies: In order to isolate applications from each other, limited communication between applications occurs through a small set of well-defined interfaces that remain stable even as the applications change. In the modular development paradigm, components interact through program-to-program communication using well-defined standardized interfaces. Three primary component models are used in the industry today:

3.     Message-Oriented Middleware Technologies: Message-oriented middleware enables applications and business processes to communicate by sending a message from one application to the other. Since the applications are mission-critical, the middleware provides features such as guaranteed once-only delivery of the message, store queuing, and forward queuing. Additionally, these messaging platforms add sophisticated message routing and distribution facilities like

Key takeaways

References