This chapter extensively discusses hardware technologies relevant for MIS.

1. MIS- Information
Technology Concepts
Filmon Habtemichael

2. Why Learn About Hardware?
• Organizations invest in computer hardware to improve
– worker productivity,
– Increase revenue,
– reduce costs,
– provide better customer service,
– speed up time-to-market, and
– enable collaboration among employees.
• Organizations that don’t make wise hardware investments
will be stuck with outdated equipment that is unreliable
and cannot take advantage of the latest software advances.
• Such obsolete hardware can place an organization at a
competitive disadvantage.

4. Hardware
• Any machinery (most of which uses digital
circuits) that assists in the input, processing,
storage, and output activities of an
information system.

5. COMPUTER SYSTEMS: INTEGRATING THE POWER
OF TECHNOLOGY
• As auto manufacturers must match the
intended use of a vehicle to its components,
so too must business managers select the
hardware components of an effective
information system.
• E.g The Iowa Health System
– Store and manage image data such as magnetic
resonance images (MRIs).
– NHS failure

6. Central Processing Unit (CPU)
• It is also called microprocessor or processor
• The part of the computer that consists of three associated elements: the
arithmetic/logic unit, the control unit, and the register areas.
Arithmetic/logic unit (ALU)
• Performs mathematical calculations and makes logical comparisons.
Control unit
• Sequentially accesses program instructions, decodes them, and coordinates the
flow of data in and out of the ALU, registers, primary storage, and even secondary
storage and various output devices.
Register
• A high-speed storage area in the CPU used to temporarily hold small units of
program instructions and data immediately before, during, and after execution by
the CPU.
• Registers provide temporary memory storage locations within the processor.

8. • Three kinds of buses link the CPU, primary storage, and
the other devices in the computer system.
• The data bus moves data to and from primary storage.
• The address bus transmits signals for locating a given
address in primary storage, indicating where data
should be placed.
• The control bus transmits signals specifying whether
to read or write data to or from a given primary storage
address, input device, or output device.

9. CPU speed
• The speed and performance of a computer’s
microprocessors help determine a computer’s
processing power.
• The first factor is Word length: the number of
bits that the computer can process at one
time.
– 32 bit-process 4 bytes
– 64 bit process 8 bytes data at the same time

10. • A second factor affecting chip speed is cycle
speed
– measured in megahertz
• A third factor affecting speed is the data bus
width.
– For better performance the word length and data
bus width should match

11. Memory
Random access memory (RAM)
– A form of memory in which instructions or data
can be temporarily stored.
Read-only memory (ROM)
– A nonvolatile form of memory.
Cache memory
– A type of high-speed memory that a processor can
access more rapidly than main memory.

12. Secondary Storage Technology
Magnetic Disk
• The most widely used secondary-storage
medium today is magnetic disk. There are two
kinds of magnetic disks:
– floppy disks (used in PCs) and
– hard disks (used on large commercial disk drives
and PCS

13. Magnetic Tape
• is a type of sequential secondary storage
medium, now used primarily for storing
backups.
• Cheaper and slower in retrieval
• U.S. federal government is the largest user of
magnetic tape in the world, buying over 1
million reels of tape each year

14. DVD
• DVD-5 (DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW)
– single sided single layered
– is capable of holding up to 4.37 GB worth of data
and is available in each of the media formats listed
in the above heading.
• DVD-9 (DVD+R9 or DVD+R DL (Dual Layered))
– singled sided dual layered
– DVD-9 is capable of holding up to 8.5 GB worth of
data

15. cont
• DVD-10 (DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW)
– double sided single layered
– is capable of holding up to 9.4 GB worth of data and is
available in each of the media formats listed in the
above heading.
– It is important to understand when buying these discs
they are labeled as "DVD-RW Only" or "DVD+RW
Only", make sure to purchase the discs designed for
your drive.
• DVD-18 (DVD+R9 or DVD+R DL (Dual Layered))
– double sided dual layered,
– is capable of holding up to 15.9 GB worth of data

16. DVD standards
• Unfortunately, unlike recordable CD drives,
there are many different competing standards
for creating DVD discs
• DVD-R And DVD-RW arean approved standard
by DVD Forum
• DVD+R And DVD+RW are DVD+RW Alliance
standard of disc.

17. Blu Ray
• The Blu-ray high-definition video-disc format
based on blue-laser technology stores at least
three times as much data as a DVD now holds.
• The primary use for this new format is in
home entertainment equipment to store high-
definition video, though this format can also
store computer data.

18. Holographic versatile disc
• Holographic versatile disc (HVD) is a
holographic storage format that looks like a
DVD but is capable of storing far more data.
• Prototype HVD devices have been created
with a capacity of 3.9 terabytes (TB) and a
transfer rate of 1 gigabit per second (1 Gbps).
At that capacity, an HVD could store as much
information as 830 DVDs or 160 Blu-Ray discs.

19. Access Method
• Sequential access A retrieval method in which data
must be accessed in the order in which it is stored.
• Direct access A retrieval method in which data can be
retrieved without the need to read and discard other
data.
• sequential access storage devices (SASDs) A device
used to sequentially access secondary storage data.
• direct access storage devices (DASDs). A device used
for direct access of secondary storage data.

20. Redundant array of independent
disks (RAID)
• A method of storing data that generates extra bits of
data from existing data, allowing the system to create a
“reconstruction map” so that if a hard drive fails, it can
rebuild lost data.
• With this approach, data is split and stored on different
physical disk drives using a technique called striping to
evenly distribute the data.
Disk mirroring
• A process of storing data that provides an exact copy
that protects users fully in the event of data loss.
• One application of RAID

21. Enterprise Storage Options
• Attached Storage
• Network-Attached Storage
– Storage devices that attach to a network instead
of to a single computer.
– NAS includes software to manage storage access
and file management and relieve the users’
computers of those tasks
– both application software and files can be served
faster because they are not competing for the
same processor resources

22. • Storage Area Network
– a special-purpose, high-speed network that
provides direct connections between data-storage
devices and computers across the enterprise
– Using a SAN, an organization can centralize the
people, policies, procedures, and practices

24. Computing
• Parallel computing is the simultaneous
execution of the same task on multiple
processors to obtain results faster.

25. cont
• Grid computing is the use of a collection of
computers, often owned by multiple individuals
or organizations, to work in a coordinated
manner to solve a common problem.
• Grid computing is a low-cost approach to parallel
computing.
• European and Asian researchers are using a grid
consisting of some 40,000 computers spread
across 45 countries to combat the deadly bird flu.

26. Examples of grid computing
• SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) @Home project
– SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected
computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
– You can participate by running a free program that downloads and
analyzes radio telescope data.
• BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing)
– Developed by University of California, Berkeley, BOINC lets you
contribute computing power on your home PC to projects doing
research in many scientific areas.
– BOINC is a common one for academic projects seeking public
volunteers
• Folding@home (abbreviated as FAH or F@h)
– Understanding how proteins self-assemble (“protein folding”) is a holy
grail of modern molecular biophysics.

27. cont
• Einstein@Home
Einstein@Home is a program that uses your
computer’s idle time to search for spinning neutron
stars (also called pulsars) using data from the LIGO
gravitational wave detector. It also searches for radio
pulsars in binary systems, using data from the Arecibo
Observatory in Puerto Rico.
• LHC@home
LHC@home is a volunteer computing program which
enables you to contribute idle time on your computer
to help physicists develop and exploit particle
accelerators, such as CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.

28. • Cloud computing involves using a giant cluster
of computers that serves as a host to run
applications that require high-performance
computing.
• Cloud computing supports a wider variety of
applications than grid computing and pools
computing resources so they can be managed
primarily by software rather than people.

29. Cloud computing

30. Grid computing Cloud computing
What? Grids enable access to shared computing
power and storage capacity from your
desktop
Clouds enable access to leased computing
power and storage capacity from your
desktop
Who provides the service? Research institutes and universities
federate their services around the world
through projects such as EGI-InSPIRE and
the European Grid Infrastructure.
Large individual companies e.g. Amazon
and Microsoft and at a smaller scale,
institutes and organisations deploying
open source software such as Open Slate,
Eucalyptus and Open Nebula.
Who uses the service? Research collaborations, called "Virtual
Organisations", which bring together
researchers around the world working in
the same field.
Small to medium commercial businesses
or researchers with generic IT needs
Who pays for the service? Governments - providers and users are
usually publicly funded research
organisations, for example through
National Grid Initiatives.
The cloud provider pays for the computing
resources; the user pays to use them
Where are the computing resources? In computing centres distributed across
different sites, countries and continents.
The cloud providers private data centres
which are often centralised in a few
locations with excellent network
connections and cheap electrical power.

31. Why use them? - You don`t need to buy or
maintain your own large computer
centre
- You can complete more work
more quickly and tackle more
difficult problems.
- You can share data with your
distributed team in a secure way.
- You don`t need to buy or
maintain your own personal
computer centre
- You can quickly access extra
resources during peak work periods
What are they useful for? Grids were designed to handle large
sets of limited duration jobs that
produce or use large quantities of
data (e.g. the LHC and life sciences)
Clouds best support long term
services and longer running jobs
(E.g. facebook.com)
How do they work? Grids are an open source
technology. Resource users and
providers alike can understand and
contribute to the management of
their grid
Clouds are a proprietary technology.
Only the resource provider knows
exactly how their cloud manages
data, job queues, security
requirements and so on.

32. Benefits? - Collaboration: grid offers a
federated platform for
distributed and collective work.
- Ownership : resource
providers maintain ownership
of the resources they
contribute to the grid
- Transparency: the
technologies used are open
source, encouraging trust and
transparency.
- Resilience: grids are located at
multiple sites, reducing the risk
in case of a failure at one site
that removes significant
resources from the
infrastructure.
- Flexibility: users can quickly
outsource peaks of activity
without long term commitment
- Reliability: provider has
financial incentive to guarantee
service availability (Amazon, for
example, can provide user
rebates if availability drops
below 99.9%)
- Ease of use: relatively quick
and easy for non-expert users
to get started but setting up
sophisticated virtual machines
to support complex applications
is more difficult.

33. Drawbacks? - Reliability: grids rely on distributed
services maintained by distributed staff,
often resulting in inconsistency in
reliability across individual sites, although
the service itself is always available.
- Complexity: grids are complicated to
build and use, and currently users require
some level of expertise.
- Commercial: grids are generally only
available for not-for-profit work, and for
proof of concept in the commercial sphere
- Generality: clouds do not offer many of
the specific high-level services currently
provided by grid technology.
- Security: users with sensitive data may
be reluctant to entrust it to external
providers or to providers outside their
borders.
- Opacity: the technologies used to
guarantee reliability and safety of cloud
operations are not made public.
- Rigidity: the cloud is generally located at
a single site, which increases risk of
complete cloud failure.
- Provider lock-in: there’s a risk of being
locked in to services provided by a very
small group of suppliers.
When? The concept of grids was proposed in
1995. The Open science grid (OSG) started
in 1995 The EDG (European Data Grid)
project began in 2001.
In the late 1990`s Oracle and EMC offered
early private cloud solutions . However the
term cloud computing didn't gain
prominence until 2007.

34. Advanced input
• A magnetic stripe card
– stores limited amounts of data by modifying the
magnetism of tiny iron-based particles contained
in a band on the card.
– Magnetic stripe cards are commonly used in credit
cards, transportation tickets, and driver’s licenses.
– the card contain any information about the
cardholder in the magnetic stripe.

35. • Point-of-Sale Devices
– are terminals used in retail operations to enter
sales information into the computer system. The
POS device then computes the total charges,
including tax.

36. Automated Teller Machine (ATM) Devices
• Another type of special-purpose input/output device, the
automated teller machine (ATM)
• is a terminal that bank customers use to perform
withdrawals and other transactions with their bank
accounts.
• The ATM, however, is no longer used only for cash and bank
receipts.
– Companies use various ATM devices, sometimes called kiosks, to
support their business processes.
– Some can dispense tickets, such as for airlines, concerts, and
soccer games.
– Some colleges use them to produce transcripts.

37. Pen Input Devices
• By touching the screen with a pen input
device, you can activate a command or cause
the computer to perform a task, enter
handwritten notes, and draw objects and
figures.

38. Touch-Sensitive Screens
• Advances in screen technology allow display
screens to function as input as well as output
devices
• E.g windows 8 pcs

39. Bar-Code Scanners
• A bar-code scanner employs a laser scanner to read a
bar-coded label widely used in grocery store checkouts
and warehouse inventory control.
• A radio frequency signal can update this memory as
the status of the item changes. The data transmitted by
the tag might provide identification, location
information, or details about the product tagged, such
as date manufactured, retail price, color, or date of
purchase.

40. Advanced Output Devices
• Eyebud Screens
• Eyebud screens are portable media devices
that display video in front of one eye.
• They employ optical technology that provides
very high resolution and “enlarges” the video
or images.

41. Categories of Computers
• A personal computer (PC), which is sometimes
referred to as a microcomputer, is one that can be
placed on a desktop or carried from room to
room
• A workstation also fits on a desktop but has more
powerful mathematical and graphics processing
capability than a PC and can perform more
complicated tasks than a PC in the same amount
of time. Workstations are used for scientific,
engineering, and design work that requires
powerful graphics or computational capabilities.

42. Thin Client
• A thin client is a low-cost, centrally managed
computer with no extra drives, such as a CD or
DVD drive, or expansion slots.
• A mainframe is the largest computer, a
powerhouse with massive memory and
extremely rapid processing power. It is used for
very large business, scientific, or military
applications where a computer must handle
massive amounts of data or many complicated
processes.

43. • A supercomputer is a highly sophisticated and
powerful computer that is used for tasks requiring
extremely rapid and complex calculations with
hundreds of thousands of variable factors.
• Supercomputers use parallel processing and can
perform billions and even trillions of calculations
per second, many times faster than the largest
mainframe.
• Server computer specifically optimized to
provide software and other resources to other
computers over a network.

44. Capacity Planning and Scalability
• Capacity planning is the process of predicting when a
computer hardware system becomes saturated.
• It considers factors such as the
– maximum number of users that the system can
accommodate,
– the impact of existing and future software applications,
and
– performance measures such as minimum response time
for processing business transactions.
• Although capacity planning is performed by
information system specialists, input from managers is
essential.

45. • Scalability refers to the ability of a computer, product,
or system to expand to serve a larger number of users
without breaking down.
• There are several approaches to achieving scalability.
– One is to scale up, replacing, for example, a small server
with a larger multiprocessor server or even a mainframe.
– Another approach is to scale out, which involves adding a
large number of smaller servers.
• The choice of approach depends on the nature of the
application or set of applications requiring upgraded
hardware capacity.

46. Hardware Acquisition and the Total Cost
of Ownership (TCO) of Technology Assets
• The actual cost of owning technology
resources includes both direct and indirect
costs,
• TCO designates the total cost of owning
technology resources, including initial
purchase costs, the cost of hardware and
software upgrades, maintenance, technical
support, and training.

47. cont
• A key to reducing TCO is to create a
comprehensive asset management plan.
• Software tools are now available to help identify
and track these technology assets.
• TCO for a PC might run up to three times the
original purchase price
• Some of these tools even show managers what
assets are breaking down and why, and when
these assets should be cycled out of service.

49. Monitoring Technology Trends
• Computing technology continues to change at
a blinding pace, requiring managers to
constantly monitor technology trends and
make decisions about upgrading the
organization’s information technology
infrastructure.
• New hardware technologies can provide new
ways of organizing work and sources of new
products and services.