ASP (Application Service Provider) is a third party “outsourced” business that provides software applications as a service over a network for a recurring fee, as opposed to the traditional software licensing model that entails a one-time license purchase and local installation and operation. In recent years the ASP model has evolved in to the software-as-a-service model, which is described later. Authenticity is a way of conclusively verifying and demonstrating records, evidence and other information are in fact true and what they purport to be.
Bar codes are a well-established method for fast data entry. In essence they are a series of varying vertical lines (called bars) and spaces. Bar codes typically only have ID data in them. A bar code scanner linked to a computer reads this ID. The computer then looks up all the pertinent information associated with the ID data. The correct use of bar codes can decrease employee data entry time, increase data entry accuracy and enhance an organisation's operational efficiency.
Benchmarking is a comparison of the cost of service delivery in one business with the costs incurred by other organisations in performing similar tasks.
Bio-metrics refers to technologies for measuring and analysing human body characteristics. The market has been categorised into seven technologies: face scan, signature verification, iris scan, finger scan, voice authentication, hand/finger geometry and keystroke dynamics. Bio-metrics is seen as a way of enhancing security by uniquely distinguishing a person and to replace the need for passwords, PIN numbers or security keys. The technology is starting to be incorporated in to items requiring high security such as passports and smart cards. Bio-technology is an offshoot of information technology and entails the application of technology to biology. Bio-metrics is one example of this. Other areas include gene cell research and bioagriculture such as genetically modified foods and cloned animals.
BlackBerry is a wireless hand-held device from Research in Motion (RIM). It supports ‘push’ e-mail, (an always on capability in which new e-mail is instantly and actively transferred or pushed to the Blackberry without the recipient having to formally request its transfer), a mobile telephone, text messaging, web browsing and other wireless information services. It is made available through partnerships between RIM and telecommunications vendors in a number of countries.
Blogs (Web logs) are online journal entries of thoughts and web links that anyone can create and post. Usually they are built around a common subject matter. These can have variations such as video blogging or vlogs, which consist of video diaries, as well as ones consisting only of photographs.
Browser based business systems utilise a web browser as the front-end interface screen to a computer program.
Browsers are a software application used to locate and display web pages. Most modern browsers can display multi-media formats such as graphics, sound and video as well as text. Browser based business systems facilitate remote access to central computer systems and provide a much more versatile and user-friendly interface to these systems.
Business Continuity Planning determines how a company will keep functioning until its normal facilities are restored after a disruptive event. This encompasses how employees will be contacted, where they will go and how they will keep doing their jobs.
Business Intelligence (BI) is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analysing and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions.
Business Process Management (BPM) is an approach that focuses on optimising processes to help make a business more effective and efficient. BPM differs from the traditional approach to IT because it focuses on the business processes around which the organisation operates rather than the information or data needs of a department or operating unit.
Chargeback entails the IT department charging user departments on whose behalf IT costs are incurred. The goal of a Chargeback system is to regulate demand for IS services by linking the user departments consumption of IT to a financial charge.
Cloud computing describes the provision of IT functionality as a service over the Internet. The equipment itself, (e.g. hardware, software, communications equipment and storage) would be owned by an external service provider who would allow clients to access these resources for a fee on an 'as needed' basis. Concepts such as Software as a Service are components within a Cloud computing architecture.
The advantage of Cloud Computing is that it would save an organisation from the challenges of managing and maintaining their own IT infrastructure. However, the concept is still relatively embryonic and as businesses are increasingly dependant on their information assets the jury is still out as to whether the Cloud Computing approach may impair organisations from effectively exploiting the information contained within their computer systems.
Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) is a category of software that provides a development environment for programming teams. CASE systems offer tools to automate, manage and simplify the software programming development process.
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) is defined as the area of business intelligence that deals with monitoring and managing an organisation's performance, according to key performance indicators (KPIs) such as revenue, return on investment (ROI), overhead and operational costs.
Customer relationship Management (CRM) applications automate the customer-facing business processes within an organisation. Collectively, these applications serve to manage the entire life cycle of a customer, including the conversion of a prospect to a customer, and help an organisation build and maintain successful relationships with its clients.
Data mining differs from traditional business intelligence query environments. In the BI scenario the user knows that certain information exists and asks it to be displayed in a certain way. In the data mining scenario the user does not know relationships exist, or even if there are any relationships at all, between different pieces of data. As such, they cannot ask a question. Instead they start with one piece of data and compare it to others to assess what relationships emerge.
Data warehousing is the physical separation of an organisations operational data into a separate system where it can be interrogated without impacting the performance of the core transactional systems that run the business.
Digital signatures are a specific type of electronic signature that use special software to create a unique digital fingerprint of a document (called a “hash”) that can subsequently be used to verify who the original signer was and that the contents of a document have not been changed.
Disaster recovery planning falls under the umbrella of business continuity services. Disaster recovery typically focuses on the critical IT infrastructure and the need for the restoration of that infrastructure after a major disaster. A disaster recovery plan is typically a comprehensive statement of consistent actions to be taken before, during and after a disaster.
Document Management is the computerised management of electronic as well as paper documents. Document management systems, typically, include an optical scanner (to convert paper documents into an electronic form), a database (to organise stored documents), and a search mechanism (to quickly find specific documents). With the growing importance attached to effective governance procedures in business document management systems are becoming increasingly important in many organisations.
EFTPOS (online payment or epayment) is the capture of payment information, for example direct bank debit or credit card information, online at the merchants site.
eLearning or Online training entails using the Internet to deliver training to replace more traditional training methods such as classrooms and self paced studies.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the transfer of data between different companies using networks such as the Internet. EDI is a mechanism for companies to electronically buy, sell and trade information via an approved set of standard interface protocols.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software emerged in the 1990s as an application to address the fractured nature of the corporate data resource. Information was typically held in disparate systems from which it was difficult and laborious to provide a consolidated view of the enterprise. ERP sought to integrate all these systems into one comprehensive set of business systems which could quickly provide the executive with better insights into operating costs and profits.
Encryption Software scrambles plain text and other digital information in such a way that it can only be unscrambled and read by a person with the ability to decrypt. This helps protect the confidentiality of data, applications, and users' identities.
Enterprise Systems Management software (ESM) are programs that comprise a comprehensive suite of tools to assist organizations manage all facets of their IS operations. ESM helps automate many routine and laborious systems management tasks such as software distribution, change management and backup,
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a standard that defines rules for representing data in Web documents. An XML document packages the data so it can be accessed by anything from an Excel spreadsheet to an enterprise order processing application.
Extranets are defined as a network that links business partners to one another over the Internet by tying together their corporate intranets. The links enable key trading partners, (eg customers, dealers, distributors, suppliers or contractors), to exchange correspondence such as invoices, purchase orders and working documents and designs. They are a significant indicator of the rise of business to business ecommerce (B2B).
Fault tolerant/high availability systems are able to respond gracefully to an unexpected hardware or software failure. There are many levels of fault tolerance, the lowest being the ability to continue operations in the event of a power failure. Many fault tolerant systems mirror all operations – that is every operation is performed on two or more duplicate systems, so if one fails the other can take over.
Firewalls are applications that enforce security restrictions and restrict inappropriate access to internal networks. They work by analysing each network access request against a list or database of approved source IP addresses.
Governance is the process by which information technology is managed in an organisation. The discipline of information technology governance derives from the increasing business focus on improving overall corporate management. The primary goal for information technology governance is to assure that investments in IT generate business value and to mitigate the risks often associated with IT projects.
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are applications for capturing, storing, checking, integrating, manipulating, analysing and displaying data related to positions on the Earth's surface. Typically, a GIS is used for handling maps of one kind or another. These might be represented as several different layers where each layer holds data about a particular kind of feature. Each feature is linked to a position on the graphical image of a map.
Help Desk Management systems are applications that automate and formalise the process of supporting either internal end users or external customers.
I-Mode is a service provided by the DoCoMo company in Japan that now offers subscribers continuous access to the Internet via the mobile telephone. The service lets users send and receive email, exchange photographs, do online shopping and banking and navigate more than 7,000 specially formatted Web sites.
Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) is comprised of the policies, processes, practices, and tools used to align the business value of information with the most appropriate and cost effective IT infrastructure from the time information is conceived through to its final disposition. Information is aligned with business processes through management policies and service levels associated with applications, metadata, information, and data.
Intranets are a self-contained, internal network linking multiple users by means of Internet technology, enabling users with Web browsers and Internet clients to access information and applications hosted on servers.
IT Architecture is the overall structure of, and interrelationships among, the data, business logic, and interfaces of a company’s computers and other hardware, applications, databases, operating systems and networks..
The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL(®)) is a series of documents that are used to aid the implementation of a framework for IT service management (ITSM). This framework defines how service management is applied within specific organisations. Although originally developed by the UK government it is now rapidly being adopted across the world as the standard for best practice in the provision of IT service.
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is the Internet's equivalent of two-way radio. It lets people participate in real-time conversations. Using an IRC client (program) you can exchange messages interactively with other people all over the world. When logged into a chat session the user "converses" by typing messages that are instantly sent to other chat participants.
Knowledge management is a formal process that evaluates a company's people, organisational processes and technology and develops a solution to get the right information to the right people at the right time to improve productivity. Knowledge management software can be classified into knowledge management infrastructure (i.e. capturing information) and knowledge management access (i.e. harnessing the data captured).
Legacy systems are any information system, including software and hardware, which may no longer be fully supported by its manufacturer or the user or have been in use for a long time.
Linux is a Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers around the world. Developed under the GNU General Public Licence the source code for Linux is literally freely available to everyone.
Managed Services are a form of selective outsourcing in which an organisation selects a service provider to assume responsibility for delivering a specific technical function or capability. These services are typically sold on an annual subscription basis with a usage-based fee structure. The potential advantage of managed services is that it enables companies to better utilise internal staff; it could reduce maintenance costs and it might bring a commercial focus to the delivery of an IT service.
Marketplaces or online exchanges add another option to the supply chain. To all intents and purposes these are electronic equivalents of the traditional shopping mall. Whereas shopping centre managers charge retailers rent to set up shop, eBusiness exchanges which host the online trading environment enlist participants for a similar fee. The idea is that competition between participants drives down prices but that the volume of business compensates for the trading discounts.
A Mashup is a website or web application that seamlessly combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience. Content used in mashups is typically sourced from a third party via a public interface or API. Other methods of sourcing content for mashups include Web feeds (e.g. RSS) and JavaScript.
Metadata is data that describes other data. For example, the index or table of contents in a book could be considered a form of metadata.
Middleware is defined as a set of common services that enable applications and end users to exchange information across networks.
Multi-function peripherals (MFP) or Multi-function devices (MFD) are single devices that can perform multiple functions such as printer, photocopier, fax machine and scanner.
Object orientated programming (O/O) is a type of programming in which programmers define not only the data type of a data structure but also the types of operations (functions) that can be applied to the data structure. The principal advantage of object-orientated programming techniques is that they enable programmers to create modules that do not need to be changed when a new type of object is added. This makes object-orientated programs easier to modify. Offshoring describes an increasing global business practice for companies to relocate various parts of their operations to locations outside the country where the service is being delivered. It can be viewed as outsourcing to foreign countries.
Outsourcing involves paying another company to provide services for which a company might otherwise have employed its own staff to perform. The decision to outsource various functions is a business model decision, whereby an organisation determines how and where internal resources will be utilised and how external resources can be applied to deliver value and ultimately drive operational efficiency and focus.
PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) is a broad category of handheld hardware devices commonly used in place of an appointment and address book. As PDAs increase in power and speed, their functionality is also growing to include audio/video and wireless e-mail capabilities. A growing number of PDAs are being integrated with mobile phones to provide a single mobile handheld solution. Phishing and pharming are ways that hackers seek to get computer users to disclose sensitive security data such as access details to Internet banking sites. With phishing people are sent emails claiming to be from their bank asking them to “confirm” their account details and passwords. More recently this practice has evolved to pharming. In this case hackers have devised a virus-laden email that invades computers and secretly redirects users’ computers from financial sites to a scammers fake site that look almost exactly the same as the real one. As such, when people type in their account details and passwords they are unaware they have been hijacked to a scammer’s “pharm” site.
Performance Management Systems is the latest term for what was once called Executive Information Systems (EIS) and Business Intelligence (BI). It takes the concept further by highlighting that the role of these systems is to assist the organisation achieve desirable business outcomes.
PKI or Public Key Infrastructure is a system of people, processes and technology for issuing and managing digital certificates that can be used for online identification, digital signing, encryption and other information security related functions.
Quality certification is a process that identifies that an organisation has achieved a level of service delivery commensurate with an internationally agreed standard.
Radio frequency ID (RFID) tags are coils that allow for the reading and writing of information remotely by specialist devices. They have potential for a number of applications in the supply chain and in retail, principally in replacing barcodes. Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a programming system that enables programmers to quickly build working programs.
Routers are hardware devices and/or software applications that route packets of information travelling over the Internet and divert them to the appropriate location on the Internet, as determined by their destination IP address.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an XML based format which allows web publishers to create and disseminate feeds of data based on the content of their web site. RSS feeds typically contain article headlines, links and descriptions. When the website is updated the feeds are simultaneously dispatched to interested recipients. Readers can view the content of RSS feeds using specialist news readers which allow people to view feeds from multiple sources.
Sales Force Automation (SFA) are software applications to automate the business tasks of sales, including order processing, contact management, information sharing, inventory monitoring and control, order tracking, customer management, sales force analysis and employee performance evaluation. SFA is often used interchangeably with CRM. However, CRM does not necessarily imply automation of sales tasks.
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) defines how two computing entities, such as programs, interact in such a way as to enable one entity to perform a unit of work on behalf of another entity. SOA is a higher level of application development that, by focusing on business processes, and using standard interfaces, helps mask the underlying technical complexity of the IT environment. This ability assists the integration of different IT environments. In reality SOA is something of an IT version of a philosophy. As with other philosophies, such as Buddhism and economic rationalism, SOA is not something that you can purchase. It is a way of living and working. The gains come through long term commitment rather than instant gratification. However, this does require business users to take something of a ‘leap of faith’ that the promised gains will eventually be realised.
Single sign-on (SSO) is a solution to the problem of too many passwords to too many IT applications. Single sign-on is an authentication process that permits a user to enter a single identity and password in order to access all systems and resources where the user has access permission. After initial authentication, the user is known throughout the network and additional requests for authentication are unnecessary.
Smart card technology is an identification card or key that can combine an access key, identity card and cash or credit card functionality.
Software-as-a-service (Saas) is the on-demand delivery of software as an internet service via a web browser, rather than as a product that must be purchased, installed and maintained. In a nutshell, software-as-a-service turns the acquisition of software from a licence sale to a subscription service.
Storage area networks (SANs), and their counterparts network attached storage (NAS), are dedicated networks of storage arrays in which multiple disk drives are presented to the attached servers as a single “virtual” storage entity. They consolidate disk and, thus, data resources into storage farms for cost savings and easier maintenance.
Storage over IP (SoIP) technology allows for accessing storage devices over the Internet so data can be shared between users and separate computers at different locations. This functionality ensures more efficient use of storage and it provides for greater data security since files can be automatically backed up to off-site locations.
Supply chain management entails the automation of the selling, procurement and delivery process. It aims to streamline the mechanics of acquiring and distributing product to provide cost savings for both suppliers and their customers. At its most advanced it entails the integration of systems between different companies so purchase orders, order processing, dispatch and invoicing occur online.
Systems development is the task of building computer systems and applications by computer programmers and business analysts.
Tablet PCs are a type of notebook computer that has a screen on which the user can write using a special-purpose pen or stylus. This handwriting is digitised and can be converted to standard text through a handwriting recognition program. Tablet PCs also typically have a keyboard and/or mouse for input. Telecommuting is a term coined in the early 1970s to describe a geographically dispersed office where employees can work at home on a computer and transmit data and documents to a central office via telephone lines. Hotelling or Hot desking is often associated with telecommuting and entails desk sharing in a central office among those who either telecommute or else who spend most of their working life outside of the office (e.g. sales representatives).
Thin client computing was first popularised by Citrix in the late 1990’s. It entails consolidating PC systems resources such as disks and software around a central server and using smaller PC clients integrated with these servers. This offers cost savings in resources as these disks and software can serve multiple users. It also simplifies the systems management tasks, eg software distribution or backup, at the desktop.
Videoconferencing technology allows two or more people at different locations to see and hear each other at the same time. In addition, it is often possible to share computer applications such as Internet pages, library catalogues, documents, or software. This communications technology offers new possibilities for remote learning and is a mechanism to conduct some meetings without the need for participants to travel from remote locations.
Virtualization refers to the pooling of IT resources in a way that masks the physical nature and boundaries of those resources from resource users. In effect it decouples software from hardware. The benefit is that it can help raise the utilization rates of servers and, so, facilitates server consolidation for cost savings and simplified maintenance.
Viruses are a man made program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without your knowledge and runs against your wishes. Viruses can also replicate themselves. A virus is dangerous because it will quickly use all available memory and bring the system to a halt. More disconcertingly it may even delete critical system files without your knowledge.
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoiP) is a method of transmitting voice traffic over the Internet using Internet Protocol (IP). Many VoiP companies offer international long distance rates that are much lower than those offered by the major long distance carriers, making VoiP an attractive alternative for consumers who frequently place international calls. VoiP service is not limited to the international market; it can also be used to place domestic calls.
Web services allow different Internet based applications from different sources to communicate with each other without time-consuming custom coding. These software-based functions can be found and accessed by other applications using standard common protocols.
Wiki – a wiki is any website that allows users to easily add and edit content. The most recognised example is the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. However, a business could easily apply the wiki concept to many areas such as process mapping, project management or business continuity plans.
Workflow software can automatically redirect files to alternative staff if a series of business rules are activated. Such a rule could be the fact that a file has not been accessed for a period of time. Therefore, workflow has the ability to circumnavigate blockages in an organisation and can accelerate the processing of work.
Worms are a type of “human created” malicious code or computer virus that replicates itself on a computer, using up more and more of the computer’s memory and system resources until the computer becomes sluggish or even inoperable.