Computers in Practice

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Computers in Practice

• Semester 2, Week 9

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Information in Organisations

• Most business organisations exist to make a
  profit.
• They attempt to attain profit by providing
  products and/or services to customers.

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Organisational Structure

• The organisation is usually best to adopt a
  structure, usually hierarchical. In this
  structure are levels such as
• senior management,
• general or middle management,
• knowledge workers,
• operational workers.

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Organisational Structure (2)

• In the hierarchy each level will find that there
  are occupational requirements for information.
• For example, the strategic level of senior
  management will have strategic problems to tackle
  and will require or create strategic information.

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Information System Examples

• Examples of
• Strategic information systems for senior
  management
• Executive information systems,
• Decision support systems.
• Tactical information systems for middle
  management
• Project management tools,
• Forecasting (database).

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Information System Examples (2)

• Knowledge information systems for knowledge
  workers
• Computer aided design (CAD),
• Computer aided manufacturing (CAM),
• Administrative systems.

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Information System Examples (3)

• Operational systems for production workers
• Applications (Word, Excel)
• Robotics
• Input-output systems

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Structuring Organisations

• It is necessary to structure an organisation - no
  matter what its size.
• Most successful organisations apply a top-down
  approach to structuring work, and so departments
  within organisations are set up.
• With a top-down structure for an organisation it
  is usually easy to fit a top-down structured
  information system on this design.

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The Role of Information in Organisations

• Complete and accurate information is very
  important to organisations.
• Systems analysis attempts to draw out the most
  important and formal information - to highlight
  the areas of an organisation that would most
  benefit from an information system.

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The Role of Information in Organisations (2)

• The role of information is to allow
  organisational professionals to make judgements
  and decisions which are vital to the efficient
  running of the organisation.
• Applying computer technology to organisations is
  an attempt to control information parameters.

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The Role of Information in Organisations (3)

• Information might be
• processed faster,
• shared by different parts of the organisation
  and
• will be up-to-the-minute.
• If information is out of date it can be changed
  quickly and easily.
• An example of all of these is a database.

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The Role of Information in Organisations (4)

• To help an organisation to make decisions about
  what sort of business to do - for example, to
  allow a factory to decide what range of products
  to make, the factory must be able to gather
  information on what will sell (and so what is
  worth manufacturing).
• For this the factory will need information about
  the productivity of each of the items.

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The Role of Information in Organisations (5)

• The organisation must collect information on the
  production costs and investment needed for the
  manufacture of each item.
• Identifiable factors will each make up the
  important elements of the decision-making
  process.

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The Role of Information in Organisations (6)

• Example factors
• market price,
• sales volume,
• existing products,
• raw materials costs,
• sales outlets and
• production location

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Information for Outside Organisations

• Organisations hold a lot of information because
  of their involvement with other organisations and
  individuals.
• They exchange information with other
  organisations to operate efficiently or within
  the law.

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Information for Outside Organisations (2)

• Business organisations will exchange information
  with parties outside such as
• customers,
• suppliers,
• other businesses,
• shareholders,
• trade unions,
• banks,
• local government,
• central government to name but a few.

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Information for Outside Organisations (3)

• For such exchanges of information to take place
  efficiently, an organisation must organise the
  way it handles its information.
• For example, an organisation might choose to set
  up departments to take responsibility for
  controlled information-flow in sections of the
  whole organisation.

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Information for Outside Organisations (4)

• Top management may make decisions about the
  organisation and formulate policies based on such
  information as market trends, the organisation's
  competitors and similar types of information.
• Middle management requires information about
  future orders, targets to be met and policies
  that must be implemented.

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Information for Outside Organisations (5)

• Supervisory management often requires immediate
  and rapidly-changing information such as order
  filling and staffing information - schedules and
  suchlike.
• Computers can help manage information for each of
  these sorts of managers and systems can be used
  to gather, hold and distribute information
  relevant to each of them.

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How Critical are Computer Systems?

• Banks, for example, need Information Technology
  (IT). Without computing retail banking would
  break down.
• Government health and social welfare agencies
  (departments) need IT. Distributed processing and
  large databases are needed for such an
  establishment.
• Other government sectors such as the Revenue
  Commissioners require complex and secure
  information systems.

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New Hardware

• The Intel processors that have become associated
  most specifically with personal computers (PCs)
  have developed from the 86 processors, Pentium
  processors (I 4, Pentium M) and now multicore
  processors. With Pentium and multicore chips,
  motherboards have been developed that allow those
  processors to operate within PC hardware systems.

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New Hardware (2)

• In recent times motherboards have become more
  task-specific.
• If a PC is to be used as a stand-alone computer
  then it should have a motherboard that is simpler
  than a PC that is to be used to support a local
  area network.
• The processor and chipsets can be integrated into
  a motherboard to have a high specification and
  will be, therefore, more expensive than a simpler
  version.
• Alternatively it can be lower in specification
  and less expensive.

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New Hardware (3)

• Because a computer has a lower specification a
  slower processor or one with less cache memory
  does not mean that the computer will run
  noticeably slower or less efficiently when used
  as it has been designed.
• For example, if a single user uses a desktop
  computer without the Internet, or any other type
  of network, then a machine with 1.7 Gigahertz
  will appear to work as quickly as a machine with
  2.8 Gigahertz.

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New Hardware (4)

• The 2.8 Gigahertz (533 Megahertz system bus)
  machine would be more efficient if used as part
  of a network or to support a number of peripheral
  devices.
• From a software perspective it would be well
  specified for multitasking where several
  software jobs are being run concurrently.
  Example consider running the Internet and a
  large database at the same time and moving from
  one to the other as you work.

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Multi Core Processors

• Place two or more processor circuits on one IC
  (integrated circuit) or two or more individual
  processors to work together - and you have a
  multicore (or multi-core) architecture. A core
  is a collection of one or more processor threads
  with the components to execute instructions
  such as Arithmetic Logic Unit, Cache, RAM
• (N.B. Multi core arrangements usually contain
  much more cache than regular processors.)

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Multi Core Processors (2)

• A thread (thread of execution) is placeholder
  information associated with a single use of a
  program that can handle multiple concurrent
  users. A thread is like a task but is not
  actually an instruction task. Many ordinary,
  single-core processors can perform
  multithreading - multiple threads are executed
  in parallel by time slicing the processing
  cpability of the procesor and the processor
  switches between different threads.

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Multi Core Processors (3)

• Multiple terms for multi-core
• Multi-core more than one core
• Dual-core two CPU cores on one IC or two
  separate ICs
• Multi-chip module an alternative name for
  two or more separate ICs
• Double core or twin core - alternative names
  for two separate ICs
• Quad-core four CPU cores on one IC or two
  separate ICs

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Multi Core Processors (4)

• Microsofts multi-core diagrams

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Multi Core Processors (5)

• Dual core block diagram

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Multi Core Processors (6)

• Dual core picture

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Multi Core Processors - Summary

• A dual core set-up is comparable to having
  multiple, separate processors installed in the
  same computer, but because the two processors are
  actually plugged into the same socket, the
  connection between them is faster. Ideally, a
  dual core processor is nearly twice as powerful
  as a single core processor. In practice,
  performance gains are about fifty percent a dual
  core processor is about one-and-a-half times as
  powerful as a single core processor.

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Multicore Example Intel Core 2 Duo

• Intel Core 2 Duo processors for desktop and
  laptop PCs
• Up to 4MB of shared L2 cache,
• Up to 1066 MHz Front Side Bus for desktop,
• and up to 667 MHz Front Side Bus for laptop

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A New Operating System

• Microsoft Windows has become the operating system
  that is used globally on personal computers
  even Macintosh computers allow newer versions of
  windows to run on their hardware.

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A New Operating System

• Microsoft Vista is the latest operating system
  from Microsoft.
• Four current versions
• Home Basic
• Home Premium
• Business
• Ultimate
• with increasing features and expense!

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A New Operating System (2)

• Vista claims
• To have better security than any other operating
  system
• TCP/IP including native IPv6 support and
  auto-tuning via TCP window scaling
• Built-in Wi-Fi support
• SuperFetch feature which tracks frequently used
  programs and preloads them.
• / continued

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A New Operating System (3)

• ReadyBoost lets you use flash memory on a
  high-speed USB drive as a supplemental swap file
  (- so is faster than a spinning hard drive)
• ReadyDrive supports hybrid hard drives with
  built-in flash-memory caches
• A low-priority I/O mechanism that lets programs
  such as Windows Defender run scans in the
  background with less disruption to foreground
  activity
• Automatically schedules drive defragmentation

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New Web Browsers

• Firefox
• A minimalist Web browser. Does not support
  ActiveX so it is more secure from spyware. (At
  version 2, I believe).
• Internet Explorer (Version 6)
• The most popular browser - about 80 percent
  usage.
• Internet Explorer 8
• Version 8 (IE 8) is here, Suggested Sites and
  Accelerator, whatever that is. Zooming, and
  redesigned interfaces from Version 7.

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New Web Browsers (2)

• Netscape
• Netscape is a browser with extra features that
  make it an information platform. Useful features
  are the Multibar and the ability to choose
  between two rendering engines. The interface can
  be cluttered and confusing but, overall, Netscape
  is a good product.
• OperaOpera 8.0 was first with features such as
  rearrangement of tabs and page zooming. The
  latest version of Opera is supposed to include
  integrated BitTorrent support.

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The End

• This is the end
• of the notes.
• Next time, after Easter break, is the revision
  session the end of Computer Technology, good
  and proper!