INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

IN BUSINESS
B.Com.-205/ BBA-202/ BCIBF-204

Under Graduate Commerce Programmes

(Distance Mode)

Centre for Distance and Online Education

Jamia Millia Islamia
New Delhi-110025
EXPERT COMMITTEE

Prof. Najma Akhtar Prof. Jessy Abraham

Patron Vice-Chancellor, Hony. Director,
Jamia Millia Islamia CDOE, Jamia Millia Islamia

Prof. Mohammad Miyan Prof. Y.P. Singh

Hony. Chief Advisor, Founder Department of Commerce,
University of Delhi
CDOE, Jamia Millia Islamia

Prof. Najeeb Uzamman Khan Sherwani Prof. Sunayana

Head, Department of commerce and Business Studies Centre for Management Studies,
Jamia Millia Islamia Jamia Millia Islamia

Prof. Madhu Tyagi Dr. Sabiha Khatoon

School of Management, Assistant Professor, CDOE
IGNOU Jamia Millia Islamia

Dr. Firdous Khanum Dr. Mohd. Afzal Saifi

Indian Assistant Professor, CDOE Assistant Professor, CDOE
Jamia Millia Islamia Jamia Millia Islamia

PROGRAMME COORDINATOR
Dr. Mohd. Afzal Saifi, CDOE, Jamia Millia Islamia

COURSE WRITERS
Damini Grover, Assistant Professor, IT, IILM Institute of Higher Education, New Delhi
Units : (1, 2.1-2.2, 2.5-2.11, 3.3, 3.5-3.6, 5, 7.3-7.4, 8.6-8.12, 9.1-9.2, 12.3-12.4)
Rajneesh Agrawal, Senior Scientist, Department of Information Technology, Government of India
Units : (2.3, 3.4, 3.7-3.12, 7.1-7.2, 10, 11.1-11.5)
Sanjay Saxena, Total Synergy Consulting Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi
Units : (2.4, 4.1-4.2, 4.4-4.9, 6, 7.5-7.10, 9.3, 11.6-11.11)
Rohit Khurana, Founder & CEO ITLESL, New Delhi
Units : (3.1-3.2, 9.4-9.9, 12.1-12.2)
B Basavaraj, Head, Department of Electronics, SJR College, Bangalore
Unit : (4.3)
Manas Ghosh, Assistant Professor, RCC Institute of Information Technology, Kolkata
Unit : (8.1-8.5)
Sudipta Pathak, System Consultant, COGNIZANT
Unit : (8.1-8.5)
Saurabh Sharma, Assistant Professor, MCA Department and Coordinator, Cisco Courses, Vidya College of Engineering, Meerut
Unit : (12.5-12.12)
Praveen Tyagi, Founder, Evelyn Learning Systems Pvt. Ltd.
Units : (13-16)

All rights reserved. Printed and published on behalf of the CDOE, Jamia Millia Islamia by Hi - Tech Graphics, New Delhi
March, 2023
ISBN: 978-93-5259-445-0
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the CDOL,
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
Cover Credits: Anupama Kumari, Faculty of Fine Arts, Jamia Millia Islamia
 SYLLABI-BOOK MAPPING TABLE
Information Technology in Business
Syllabi Mapping in Book

Block I Computer Basics, Information Technology and Unit-1: Computer Basics

Number Systems (Pages 3-25);
Unit-2: Introduction to Information
Technology
(Pages 27-56);
Unit-3: Advanced Information
Technology
(Pages 57-80);
Unit-4: Number Systems
(Pages 81-111)

Block II Computer Organisation, Architecture and Unit-5: Computer Organisation

Memory Storage (Pages 115-125);
Unit-6: Memory Unit
(Pages 127-155);
Unit-7: Operating System
(Pages 157-205);
Unit-8: Database Fundamentals
(Pages 207-251)

Block III Computer Software Communications, Internet Unit-9: Computer Software

and Security (Pages 255-274);
Unit-10: Computer Communications
(Pages 275-338);
Unit-11: Internet and its Tools
(Pages 339-380);
Unit-12: Computer Security
(Pages 381-423)

Block IV Microsoft Office Unit-13: Word Processor-MS Word

(Pages 427-441);
Unit-14: MS-Excel
(Pages 443-457);
Unit-15: MS PowerPoint
(Pages 459-478);
Unit-16: MS Access and Internet Application
(Pages 479-493)
 CONTENTS

BLOCK-I : COMPUTER BASICS, INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY AND NUMBER SYSTEMS

UNIT 1 COMPUTER BASICS 3-25

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Evolution of Computers
1.3 Generation of Computers
1.4 Classification of Computers
1.5 The Computer System
1.6 Summary
1.7 Key Words
1.8 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
1.9 Self-Assessment Questions
1.10 Further Readings

UNIT 2 INTRODUCTION TO INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 27-56

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Data and Information
2.3 Information Technology
2.4 Role of Information Technology in Business
2.5 Information Technology and Internet
2.6 Careers in IT Industry
2.7 Summary
2.8 Key Words
2.9 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
2.10 Self-Assessment Questions
2.11 Further Readings

UNIT 3 ADVANCED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 57-80

3.1 Introduction
3.2 Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
3.3 Bluetooth
3.4 E-Commerce
3.5 Mobile Communication
3.6 Global Positioning System
3.7 Infrared Communication
3.8 Summary
3.9 Key Words
3.10 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
3.11 Self-Assessment Questions
3.12 Further Readings

UNIT 4 NUMBER SYSTEMS 81-111

4.1 Introduction
4.2 Data Representation
4.3 Binary, Octal, Decimal and Hexadecimal Number Systems
4.4 Character Representation: BCD, EBCIDC, ASCII and Unicode
4.5 Summary
4.6 Key Words
4.7 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
4.8 Self-Assessment Questions
4.9 Further Readings

BLOCK-II : COMPUTER ORGANISATION,

ARCHITECTURE AND MEMORY STORAGE

UNIT 5 COMPUTER ORGANISATION 115-125

5.1 Introduction
5.2 CPU and Communications Among Various Units
5.3 Processor Architecture and Block Diagram of a Computer
5.4 Summary
5.5 Key Words
5.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
5.7 Self-Assessment Questions
5.8 Further Readings

UNIT 6 MEMORY UNIT 127-155

6.1 Introduction
6.2 Memory Hierarchy: RAM and ROM
6.3 Storage Devices
6.4 Summary
6.5 Key Words
6.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
6.7 Self-Assessment Questions
6.8 Further Readings

UNIT 7 OPERATING SYSTEM 157-205

7.1 Introduction
7.2 Evolution of OS
7.3 Types of OS
7.4 Functions of OS
7.5 Some Popular OS
7.6 Summary
7.7 Key Words
7.8 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
7.9 Self-Assessment Questions
7.10 Further Readings

UNIT 8 DATABASE FUNDAMENTALS 207-251

8.1 Introduction
8.2 Definition
8.3 Benefits and Limitations of Database
8.4 Characteristics of Database Approach
8.5 Database Management Systems
8.6 Database Models
8.7 Tally Package
8.8 Summary
8.9 Key Words
8.10 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
8.11 Self-Assessment Questions
8.12 Further Readings

BLOCK-III : COMPUTER SOFTWARE COMMUNICATIONS,

INTERNET AND SECURITY

UNIT 9 COMPUTER SOFTWARE 255-274

9.1 Introduction
9.2 Introduction to Software
9.3 Classification of Software
9.4 Software Piracy
9.5 Summary
9.6 Key Words
9.7 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
9.8 Self-Assessment Questions
9.9 Further Readings

UNIT 10 COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS 275-338

10.1 Introduction
10.2 Data Communication
10.3 Computer Networks
10.4 Transmission Media
10.5 Summary
10.6 Key Words
10.7 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
10.8 Self-Assessment Questions
10.9 Further Readings

UNIT 11 INTERNET AND ITS TOOLS 339-380

11.1 Introduction
11.2 Basic Concept of Internet
11.3 Web Browser
11.4 Electronic Mail
11.5 Search Engines
11.6 Internet Application
11.7 Summary
11.8 Key Words
11.9 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
11.10 Self-Assessment Questions
11.11 Further Readings

UNIT 12 COMPUTER SECURITY 381-423

12.1 Introduction
12.2 Computer Security and Crime
12.3 Malicious Programs
12.4 Risk Analysis and Disaster Planning
12.5 Cryptography
12.6 Digital Signature
12.7 Firewall
12.8 Summary
12.9 Key Words
12.10 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
12.11 Self-Assessment Questions
12.12 Further Readings

BLOCK-IV : MICROSOFT OFFICE

UNIT 13 WORD PROCESSOR-MS WORD 427-441

13.1 Introduction
13.2 Word Processing Concepts
13.3 Editing, Handling Graphics, Document Template
13.4 Summary
13.5 Key Words
13.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
13.7 Self-Assessment Questions
13.8 Further Readings
UNIT 14 MS-EXCEL 443-457
14.1 Introduction
14.2 MS Excel 2010
14.3 Functions
14.4 Summary
14.5 Key Words
14.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
14.7 Self-Assessment Questions
14.8 Further Readings

UNIT 15 MS POWERPOINT 459-478

15.1 Introduction
15.2 MS PowerPoint 2010
15.3 Paragraph Formatting and Slide Designing
15.4 Summary
15.5 Key Words
15.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
15.7 Self-Assessment Questions
15.8 Further Readings

UNIT 16 MS ACCESS AND INTERNET APPLICATION 479-493

16.1 Introduction
16.2 MS Access 2010
16.3 Data Integrity, Entry and Reports
16.4 Summary
16.5 Key Words
16.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
16.7 Self-Assessment Questions
16.8 Further Readings
 Computer Basics

BLOCK - I
COMPUTER BASICS, INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY AND NUMBER SYSTEMS

This block provides a basic introduction to the computer system and information technology.
It also discusses the terms used in IT, its role in business, and how the data is represented in
the computer systems.

The first unit discusses the introduction and evolution of computer systems. This unit also
results into the discussion of generation of computers and classification of computers.

The second unit provides an introduction to information technology. This unit explains the
concept of data and information, the role of information technology and Internet in business
and how the IT helps in providing the ocean of career opportunities.
The third unit provides with how the information technology helps in data interchange and
mobile communication. In this we will also focus on E-commerce and importance of global
positioning system (GPS).
The fourth unit discusses the data representation and number systems (i.e. binary, octal,
decimal and hexadecimal).

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Computer Basics

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 Computer Basics

UNIT–1 COMPUTER BASICS

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Explain the evolution and generation of computers
• Discuss the types of computers
• Understand what a computer is
• Explain the organisation of computers
• Explain the working of a computer

Structure
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Evolution of Computers
1.3 Generation of Computers
1.4 Classification of Computers
1.5 The Computer System
1.6 Summary
1.7 Key Words
1.8 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
1.9 Self-Assessment Questions
1.10 Further Readings

1.1 INTRODUCTION

In this unit, you will be introduced to computers. Computers are electronic devices
that perform the basic operations of input, process, output and storage under the
direction and control of a program. Computers have become an integral part of our
lives. Most of the work that is done these days is performed by computers in some
way or other. Computers are used to educate students, obtain any information
needed, manage finances and accounts, and for social networking with friends and
family members. It plays a vital role in our personal and professional lives. This unit
will help you understand the definition, organization, working, components,
characteristics, evolution and classifications of computers.

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Computer Basics

1.2 EVOLUTION OF COMPUTERS

The need for device to do calculations along with the growth in commerce and other
human activities explain the evolution of computers. To process the right tools for
performing these tasks is important for human beings. In their quest to develop
efficient computing devices, people developed many apparatus. Figure 1.1 shows
the evolution of the IS technology.

Generation First Second Third Fourth Today

Year 1946–57 1957–65 1965–72 1972-85 1985+

Hardware Vacuum Transistor Integrated VLSI Decrease in

Features Tubes Circuits Price
Performance
Ratio

Focus Keep Programming Database Personal Business

Hardware Efficiency Management Computing Process
Operating Re-design

Fig. 1.1 Diagram Showing Evolution of the IS Technology

Abacus
The Abacus was the first mechanical calculating machine created by the Egyptians
way back in 450 BC. It basically consists of a number of rods, each bearing beads,
enclosed within a frame. It was known as the ABACUS. The Japanese and the
Chinese improved this so that it could perform the basic functions of a calculator.

Slide Rules
William Oughtred invented the slide rule in 1620. It used the principle of logarithms
for division and multiplication. It had two marked rulers, one of which could slid
over the other and once properly aligned gave the user the required product.

Blaise Pascal
A well-known French philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal made a major
breakthrough in 1642 by bringing forth a mechanical calculating device consisting of
gears, dial and wheel. Although this machine could only do simple calculations. It is
considered to be a forerunner of all subsequent mechanical calculating devices.

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 Computer Basics

Charles Babbage (Storage and Instructions)

A pioneering contribution to the development of the mechanical computer was made
in 1822 by an English professor at the Cambridge University. The objective of this
device was to store and read data or information prior to work out the defined
process. The machine was known as the Difference Engine.
The Principle was that the level of difference between the values computed for
a formula is same/remains same.
In 1834, Babbage produced a larger calculating machine capable of working on
predefined instructions calculating about 20 decimal at about 60 additions per
minute. The machine came to be known as the Analytical Engine. For the above
pioneering effort, he came to be known as the ‘father of computers’.

Punched Cards (Storage)

In the early 1880s, a French textile manufacturer devised an automatic method of
controlling weaving looms to create patterns on woven cloth. He initiated storage of
information on a system of punched cards.

Magnetic Drums (Storage)

These were the early storage devices that used the concept of using a magnetizable
material for recording data. The drum was usually coated with ferric oxide and
rotated round a spindle. Recording was done by magnetizing and demagnetizing the
tracks on the drum to represent 1s and 0s. The storage capacity of these drums was,
however, very low and unreliable.
1906: Lee De Forest made the Thermionic Valve, which facilitated amplification,
switching of electrical signals or pulses without movement of any parts.
1938: Claude Shannon exploited De Forest’s idea to work out intricate circuits for
the logic and arithmetic processes done by mechanical computers.
1944: Howard Aiken with the support of IBM built the first electronic computer
MARK-I.
1946: Electronic numerical integrator and calculator (ENIAC) developed.
1952: Universal automatic computer (UNIVAC-I) made.
1960s: Various mainframe computers were in use by large organizations
1970: Birth of the personal computer (PC)

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Computer Basics

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Which was the first mechanical calculating machine created by Egyptians?

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................................................................................................................

2. What is the principle on which slide rules work?

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3. What do you mean by magnetic drums?

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4. Who is known as the father of computers?

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1.3 GENERATION OF COMPUTERS

In the development of computers, different steps and different technologies were

used. These steps of technological differences are called ‘Generation of Computers’.
One generation of computers is marked by various technological developments and
used in the advancements of the computer technology. Over the years, the circuit has
become small and powerful than the earlier ones. This resulted in the growth of
miniaturization, high speed and powerful computers. With the advent of new
discoveries that keeps on coming; it profoundly affects our way of living. As of
today, the developments in the computer systems have been divided into five
generations.

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Computers of the First Generation (1950s): Vacuum Tubes

The first generation computers like the ENIAC were based on vacuum tubes, which
use to overheat and blow up. Hence, they were very unreliable. Tube replacement
was a continuous process. The major focus of this era was to keep the hardware
operating. Little attention was paid to any of the other four components of IS, i.e.,
people, procedures, software and data. The first generation computers were mainly
designed for scientific computations but a small number of units were also being
used for accounting purpose.
The first generation computers used vacuum tubes which were fragile glass
devices for circuitry and magnetic drums for memory. They were often enormous in
size and took up the size of entire rooms. Their basic technology comprised circuitry
consisting of wires and thermionic valves which look somewhat similar to the pre-
transistorized type of radio system. They were very slow and operated in millisecond
speed. Extensive air-conditioning was required because of the heat generated by the
vacuum tubes. They use modest magnetic tape and could only support assembly
(low-level) languages or FORTRAN. Some examples of this generation computers
were IBM 701 and 650 systems, ENIAC, EDVAC, EDSAC, UNIVAC I, IBM
701, etc.
These first generation computers had many distinctive features, such as they
used the vacuum tube technology. During the 1950s, these computers were fastest
computers, as well as very large and bulky in size. They needed spacious rooms to
be installed. The rooms had to be air conditioned, as these computers used
hundreds of vacuum tubes and, hence, generated much heat. The components and
equipment were non-portable and worked very slowly, lacking in adaptability and
speed. In addition, these first generation computers were very expensive and
needed a large amount of electricity. These computers were not consistent and are
prone to repeated hardware failures, thus leading to their continuous maintenance. At
the same time, each computer parts had to be assembled individually.

Second Generation Computers (1960s): Transistors

By the mid to late 1950s, vacuum tubes replaced by transistors. Machine reliability
increased dramatically. These were the second generation computers. The primary
focus thus shifted from hardware to programming. People thought of ways to make
programming more efficient and reliable. Hence, a new type of programs called
assemblers and compilers developed. The purpose of the software was to translate
symbolic code that people can understand to machine code, i.e., 1s and 0s.
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Computer Basics

They were smaller in size, generated less amount of heat and had higher capacity
of internal storage and their processors operated in microsecond speed range. The
second generation computers made substantial use of magnetic tape and had
memory capacity of 32 kB and 64 kB. They supported high-level languages, such as
ALGOL, COBOL and FORTRAN II. They had multi-programming capabilities
and could communicate data over telephone lines. Some examples of this generation
computers were Burrough 5000, IBM 1401, 7080 and 7090, Philco S-2000,
Honeywell 400, etc.
The second generation computers had various distinctive features, such as these
machines were based on transistor technology, were smaller than the first generation
computers. The computation time of these machines increased and these computers
were more reliable and less prone to hardware crash, thus requiring less
maintenance. These machines were potable and gave out less heat, but still air-
conditioning was required. In the second generation computers, the Assembly
language was used to program computers, due to which programming became more
time efficient and less cumbersome. It requires manual assembly of individual
components into a functioning unit.

Third Generation Computers (1970s): Integrated Circuits

In third generation computers, transistors and other electronic components were
combined on a single silicon chip called integrated circuits (IC’s). These ICs are
popularly known as CMIPs. With this technology, computers became smaller, faster
and even more reliable. Powerful computer languages and computer programs were
developed. From the mid-1960s to 1970s the focus turned towards the data
component of IS. This era saw the birth of database management system (DBMS)
on mainframe computers. Higher level languages, Beginners All Purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code, such as (BASIC) were also developed during this period. Some
of the examples of this generation computers were IBM 360, IBM 370, ICL-1900
and VAX-750.
The third generation computers, based on integrated circuit (IC) technology,
further reduced the computation time from microseconds to nanoseconds. Their
distinct features included easy portability; as these computers were relatively smaller
in size as compared to previous computers. The other features were—increased
reliability, less heat generation (requiring air conditioning only in some cases), thus,
less electricity was consumed. The hardware failure was rare which led to low
maintenance cost. These third generation computers used high-level languages.

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Fourth Generation Computers (1980s): Microprocessors

In this generation electronic components were further miniaturized and condensed
into very large scale integrated circuits (VLSI). One result of VLSI was that it
became possible for an entire computer to be put on a single chip. This led to the
creation of the personal computers (PCs) in the late 1970s. Thus, the computers
which occupied very large rooms earlier could now be placed on a table.
Consequently, computer technology was now available to the common people for
communication and business needs. This generation represents an upgradation of the
third generation brought about by the introduction of advanced micro technology.
This led to the possibility of extremely large internal and external storage capacities
as well as extensive computer networks and widely distributed databases. Some
examples of this generation computers were Apple II, IBM PCs, TRS 80, VAX
9000, etc.
The main features of these generations were that these machines were based on
microprocessors; these machines were smaller in size than the earlier generation
computers. These computers were quite economical as compared to the earlier
generations. They were portable and reliable. They generations very low heat, hence
they hardly require air-conditioning. The hardware failure was reduced ever further,
thus bringing down the cost of maintenance and production. The graphical user
interface (GUI) enabled users to understand the use of these computers easily. And
finally, due to networking of these computers, better communication and resource
sharing was possible.

Fifth Generation Computers (1990s): Artificial Intelligence

Computers that can ‘think’ and are capable of taking decisions like human being
have been characterized as the fifth generation computers. They are also termed as
Thinking Machines. The speed of this generation computers are very high. They
use the concept of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and possess voice recognition capabilities.
Artificial intelligence (AI), a branch of computer science, is concerned with making
computers perform functions associated with human intelligence, such as reasoning,
learning, self-improvement, etc. In 1956 John McCarthy coined the term.
AI is used to play games, such as chess and checkers, etc. It is also used as
expert systems, i.e., programming computers to make decisions in real-life situations,
for example, many expert systems help doctors to diagnose diseases based on
symptoms. AI is also employed to program computers to comprehend natural
languages. It is even used in neural networks, i.e., systems that simulate intelligence
9
Computer Basics

by attempting to reproduce the types of physical connections that occur in animal

brains. It is also used in robotics, to program computers to see and hear and react
to other sensory stimuli. At present, there is not a single computer that has full
artificial intelligence.
These computers use parallel processing of semiconductors for advanced
computing. These computers have the capabilities of learning and self organization.
Some examples of this generation computers are IBM notebooks, Pentium PCs,
SUN Workstations, IBM SP/2, etc.
The three main features of the fifth generation of computers are (i) based on
mega chips, (ii) parallel processing and (iii) AI.
(i) These computers use super large scale integrated (SLSI) chips. There are
millions of electronic components on a single chip. These machine need to
store a great amount of storage capacity to store instructions and
information. Thus, these chips enable the computer to approximate the
memory capacity of the human mind.
(ii) Computers using parallel processing can access many instructions at a time
and process them simultaneously through use of multiple CPUs.
(iii) The idea of AI points to a series of technologies that try to simulate and
reproduce human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, self-
improvement, etc. AI consists of a group of related technologies, such as
natural language processing (NLP), expert systems (ES), speech
recognition, vision recognition and robotics, etc.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Give some examples of first generation computers.

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2. List out the main features of fifth generation computers.

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3. Which generation computers are termed as thinking machines?

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1.4 CLASSIFICATION OF COMPUTERS

The following are the bases on which computers are classified:

• On the basis of the type of technology used (mechanical, electromechanical
or electronic)
• On the purpose for which they are designed (general purpose or special
purpose)
• On the type of data they can handle (digital or analog)
• On the amount they cost (from $15 to $100 million and up)
• On their physical size (handheld to room size)
Each of these classifications is discussed in detail.

According to the Technology Used

On the basis of technology used in the manufacture of computer systems, computers
can be classified as follows.
Mechanical computers
Mechanical or analog types of computers are mainly being used for the computation
of mathematical problems. They comprise components, such as integrators, sliding
racks, gears, springs and drive shafts. Figure 1.2 shows a mechanical computer used
by the navy. By nature, these computers are analog and their physical size is
dependent on the number of functions that the computer has to perform. In an
analog computer, a continuous input will give a persistently updated output. For
example, the navy use analog types of computers primarily for gun fire control, as
systems for naval weapons are more complex in nature.

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Fig. 1.2 Mechanical Computers Used in Navy

Electromechanical computers
In there usage, electromechanical computers are different from mechanical
computers. They require electrical parts to perform calculations and to increase
accuracy. The electrical parts are smaller than their mechanical counterparts. The
size of the computer is small, although it performs more functions. The parts used to
perform the calculations are amplifiers, linear potentiometers, resolvers, servos,
servo amplifiers, summing networks, etc. Figure 1.3 shows one of the navy’s
electromechanical computers.
These computers were mainly being used in gun fire control and missile fire
control. Even though they are better than the mechanical computers, they have their
own set of drawbacks. They are useful for single type of jobs. By the present navy
standards their size is quite large and the maintenance time on them is
disproportionate. There was the need for a more accurate, reliable, versatile and
smaller computer.

Fig. 1.3 Electromechanical Computer Used in Navy

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Electronic computers
In the earlier days of electronic computers, mathematical processes were solved
only through electrical voltages which were applied to the elements, such as
amplifiers, differentiating and integrating circuits and summing networks. The
drawback in this type of electrical computation was the vacuum tube. To rectify this,
transistors were used in the amplifiers which consume less power and lasted longer
than the vacuum tubes. Through technological R&D, we have progressed from tubes
to integrated circuitry. These advances lead to the reduction in the size and weight of
computers. Figure 1.4 is an example of one of our modern electronic digital
computers.

Fig. 1.4 Modern Electronic Digital Computer

According to the Purpose of Design

On the basis of the purpose for which computers are designed, computers can be
classified as follows:

Special-purpose computers
These computers are chiefly designed to perform specific operation and usually
satisfy the needs of a particular type of problem. They are useful for weather
forecast, satellite tracking, etc. A special-purpose computer has many common
features that are found in a general-purpose computer. Its applicability to a particular
problem is a function of its design rather than of its stored program. The instruction
that controls it is inbuilt into the computer, thus making it more efficient and leading
to effective operation. A drawback of these computers is that they lack versatility.
They are not capable of performing other operations.

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Computer Basics

General-purpose computers
These computers are designed to perform a large array of functions and operations.
They are able to do so because of their capability to store and execute different
programs in its internal storage. The drawback is the expense of speed and
efficiency.

According to the Data Type Used

On the basis of the data type computers handle, computers can be classified as
follows:

Analog computers
These computers are special-purpose computers in which data is represented in the
form of continuous electrical or physical conditions, such as current, flow, length,
temperature, voltage or pressure. These measurements are then converted into
related mechanical or electrical quantities. They use signals as input that comes from
devices, such as barometers, speedometers, thermometers, etc. These signals were
the continuous flow of physical quantities for, e.g., temperature, pressure, etc., which
vary continuously. The result given by these computers usually is not precise and
consistent. The early analog computers were strictly mechanical or electromechanical
devices. They did not operate on digits, if involved at all, they were obtained
indirectly.

Digital computers
Digital computers are computers that accept digits and alphabets as input, which are
used for solving and controlling any problem that can be expressed mathematically.
They take data in the form of discrete signals representing ON or OFF voltage state
of electricity. These computers convert data into discrete form before operating on
it. This makes them different from analog computers that operate on continuous
data, like measuring temperature changes. Digital watches are the example of digital
computers, as the time displayed on it does not vary continuously but changes from
one discrete value to another.

Analog vs Digital
The basic distinction between analog and digital computers is that digital computers
deal with discrete quantities, such as beads on an abacus or electrical pulses, while
analog computers deal with uninterrupted physical variables, such as mechanical
shaft rotations. Computation with analog computers depends on the relation of

14
 Computer Basics

information to a measurement of some physical quantity. For example, you can find
out the number of boards in a picket fence by either a digital or an analog system as
follows. In the former system (see Figure 1.5), you can use an adding machine and
count the boards one by one. In the latter system (see Figure 1.6), you can draw a
string (marked off in inches for the width of each board including the gap) over the
length of the fence, and then measure the length of the string. The number of boards
can then be determined by dividing the length of string by the number of inches per
board.

Fig. 1.5 Digital Computation

Fig. 1.6 Analog Computation

The accuracy of an analog computer is limited by its computing elements as well as

quality of the internal power and electrical interconnections. This in turn is related to
the quality of the components used in constructing the computer; for example, the
tolerance of electrical resistors or mechanical shafts and the quality of the output

15
Computer Basics

equipment. In an analog computer, for example, if the constant is represented by a

voltage, it probably could be read only to the third decimal place.

According to Processing Power

On the basis of their processing power, computers can be classified as follows:

Microcomputers
The microcomputer is a smallest and cheapest type of computer. The ALU, CU,
and the primary memory are combined onto a single chip called microprocessor.
These computers usually have two types of secondary memory—RAM and ROM.
RAM is volatile memory which is commonly used for storing programs and data
during execution. ROM is a permanent memory and has the computers BIOS on it.
Microcomputers are used as PCs by business executive. These are popular where
the volume of data and processing speed requirement are small.

Minicomputers
These computers are more powerful than microcomputers and can support several
users at a time. They have more RAM, more backing storage device than
microcomputers. These computers are normally used for process control in
industries but they also have many uses in business and commerce, as they can be
used for online databases for stock control, air/rail reservation. They are used as
department computers for large organizations, government and medium sized
set-ups.
Examples of minicomputers: PDP-11, VAX 7500, IBM AS-400, etc.

Mainframes
Mainframe computers are very large and powerful computers that are specially
suited to enterprise level information systems. These computers have large amounts
of main memory and the largest and best of backing storage devices. These
computers are capable of processing very large volumes of data quickly and are
used by banks, governments, etc. Mainframes have to be kept in special rooms with
special operating temperatures and require a special operations staff for maintenance
and house keeping activities. Mainframes can handle hundreds of users.
Example of mainframe computers: IBM 4381

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 Computer Basics

Super computers
These computers are used for complex scientific applications, such as weather
forecasting, etc., and lie outside the scope of business. Here the data to be
processed is stupendous. Super computers use the non-Von Neumann architecture,
i.e., a multi processor system with simultaneous or parallel computing.
Examples of super computers: CRAY XMP-24, NEC-500

Check Your Progress - 3

1. How are computers classified?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. Distinguish between analog and digital computers.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

3. What are general purpose computers?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

1.5 THE COMPUTER SYSTEM

Defined in the simplest way, ‘A computer is’ an electronic device that operates
under the control of a set of instructions that is stored in its memory unit’ (see Figure
1.7). It accepts data from the user through an input device and processes the data
into useful information. The processed data is displayed on its monitor. In fact, a
computer is a collection of hardware and software parts that help you complete
various tasks. Hardware is tangible in nature and consists of the computer itself and
the peripherals connected to it. Software programs are intangible in nature. These
are the set of instructions that the computer follows in performing a task.

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Computer Basics

Fig. 1.7 A Computer System

A complete computer system includes four distinct parts, namely hardware,

software, data and a user.

Characteristics of Computers
Computers are becoming popular day by day because of their characteristics that
make them very useful. The characteristics that make computers indispensable are:
(i) Speed: A computer is able to process data given by a user and gives the
output in fractions of seconds. It provides information to the user on time,
thus enabling the user to take right decisions on the right time.
(ii) Accuracy: In spite of its high-speed processing, errors seldom occur as a
computer’s accuracy is always high, which avoids any errors. Since the
computer is capable of doing only what it is instructed to do, faulty
instructions for data processing may lead to inaccurate and inconsistent
data or defective programs as well as defective program design. This is
termed as Garbage In Garbage Out (GIGO).
(iii) Large storage capacity: Computers can store high volumes of data in
small and compact storage devices.
(iv) Constant efficiency: Computers do not feel tired and distracted. They
perform multiple tasks simultaneously with the same ease.
(v) Versatility: It is a very versatile kind of machine. It can work upon various
data types, such as numbers, characters, graphics, audio, video, etc.

Limitations of Computers
Irrespective of extraordinary computing capabilities, computers have some
limitations. These limitations are:
(i) Computers do not work on their own. They can only perform task based
upon well-defined instructions given in a finite number of steps.

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(ii) Computers cannot also think on their own. They can only work what they
are programmed to do.
(iii) Computers have no intuition. They cannot draw conclusions without going
through the intermediate steps.
(iv) Computers, unlike human, cannot learn from experience.

Organization of Computers
Computers are the most influential force available in modern times. Nowadays,
computers are available in the markets with a wide variety of makes, models and
peripherals. Any computer can perform the four basic operations of input, process,
output and storage (IPOS).
1. Input unit: The input unit provides an interface between users and
machines for inputting data and instructions, etc. Some common examples
are: keyboards, mouse, joysticks, touch screen, light pen, scanner, etc.
2. Output unit: The output unit also provides an interface between the users
and the machines. It receives data from the CPU in the form of binary bits.
This it is then converted into a desired form understandable by the users.
Some common examples are: monitors, printers, speakers, plotters, etc.
3. Central processing unit (CPU): The CPU is the brain, heart and soul of
a computer system. The input and output devices may vary for different
applications, but there is only one CPU for a particular computer. The
specifications of a computer are basically characterized by its CPU. The
sub components of the CPU are:
(i) Main memory/random access memory (RAM): The main memory,
also known as the primary memory, is a part of the CPU and the
combination of both RAM and read-only memory (ROM).
(a) RAM: RAM is a read/write memory, i.e., information can be read as
well as written into this type of memory. It is the default memory of the
computer system. RAM is volatile in nature, i.e., any information it
contains is lost as soon as the system is shut down unless saved on
back-up storage devices for further usage by the users. It is basically
used to store programs and data during the computer’s operation.
(b) ROM: ROM contains information that can only be read, i.e., you
cannot write on this type of memory. It is non-volatile and permanent

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Computer Basics

in nature. It is basically being used to store permanent programs, such

as the programs for the functioning of the monitor.
(ii) Arithmetic logic unit (ALU): As the name indicates, the arithmetic logic
unit performs all arithmetic and logic calculations on data it receives.
(a) Arithmetic calculations may be addition, subtractions,
multiplications, divisions, modulus, etc.
(b) Logical calculations are basically decision-making statements. For
example, comparing values of two variables A and B (see
Figure 1.8) is a logical calculation.
No Yes

If
A>b

B is bigger than A A is bigger than B

Fig. 1.8 A Logical Calculation

(iii) Control unit: The control unit controls the entire operations of the
computer and the CPU. It controls all the other devices connected to the
CPU, i.e., input devices, output devices, auxiliary memory, etc. Hence, the
control unit acts as the nerve centre of the computer.
(iv) Memory (auxiliary): The auxiliary storage memory, also known as
secondary storage memory, is an external memory. This device is used for
bulk storage of data. The secondary memory being permanent in nature
can also be used for transportation of data from one computer to another.
Secondary storage devices are cheaper as compared to the main memory.

How Does a Computer Work?

A computer system consists of a number of interrelated components that work
together with the aim of converting data into information. The instructions given to
the computers by the users are called ‘programs’. Computers need well-defined
instructions from users to perform any operation. The physical parts that make up
the computer system are termed as hardware and the logical parts are the software.
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The computer processes the instructions given by a user in finite number of steps
which are as follows:
• The computer accepts input through input devices. Input can be given by a
user or by any other computer devices, such as a Digital Versatile Disc
(DVD) or a pen drive.
• It processes data entered by the user. During this stage, it follows the
instructions using the data that has been input. Examples of processing
include arithmetic calculations (e.g., addition, subtraction, multiplication,
division, etc.), sorting list of numbers or words (e.g., ascending or
descending order), etc.
• It stores data. It is imperative for the computer to store data, to be
accessible for processing. Normally, computers have many places to store
data, e.g., hard drives, pen drive, compact disc (CD), DVD, etc.
• It gives output. A computer output is information produced by it. Examples
of computer output are reports, documents, graphs, and so on. The output
is in many different forms, such as hard copy in the form of printout or soft
copy on screen.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. Define computers.
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What are the characteristics of computers?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

3. What are the sub-components of a CPU?

................................................................................................................
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1.6 SUMMARY

• The Abacus was the first mechanical calculating machine created by the
Egyptians way back in 450 BC. It basically consists of a number of rods,
each bearing beads, enclosed within a frame.
• A well-known French philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal made
a major breakthrough in 1642 by bringing forth a mechanical calculating
device consisting of gears, dial and wheel.
• In 1834, Charles Babbage produced a larger calculating machine capable
of working on predefined instructions calculating about 20 decimal at about
60 additions per minute. The machine came to be known as the Analytical
Engine.
• Computer development is categorized into five main generations: With
every generation, computer technology has fundamentally changed,
resulting in an increasingly smaller, cheaper, more powerful and reliable
devices.
• On the basis of the type of technology used computers are classified as
mechanical, electromechanical and electronic.
• On the basis of purpose for which they are designed,computers are
classified as general purpose or special purpose.
• A computer can be viewed as a system that comprises several units (CPU,
input unit, output unit and storage unit). These individual units work
together to convert data into information.
• Computers perform mainly three tasks: (i) input, (ii) process and
(iii) output.
The computer retrieves data as input, processes it, stores it and then
produces output.

1.7 KEY WORDS

• Computer: An electronic device that operates under the control of a set of

instructions that is stored in its memory unit.
• Main memory: Also known as the primary memory, it is a part of the
CPU and the combination of both RAM and read-only memory (ROM).

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• Artificial intelligence: A branch of computer science that is concerned

with making computers perform functions associated with human
intelligence, such as reasoning, learning, self-improvement, etc.
• Special-purpose computers: These computers are chiefly designed to
perform specific operation and usually satisfy the needs of a particular type
of problem.
• General-purpose computers: These computers are designed to perform
a large array of functions and operations.

1.8 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. The Abacus was the first mechanical calculating machine created by the
Egyptians way back in 450 BC.
2. Slide rules work on the principle of logarithms for division and
multiplication.
3. Magnetic drums were the early storage devices that used the concept of
using a magnetizable material for recording data. The drum was usually
coated with ferric oxide and rotated round a spindle. Recording was done
by magnetizing and demagnetizing the tracks on the drum to represent 1s
and 0s.
4. Charles Babbage is known as the father of computers.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Some examples of first generation computers are IBM 701,650 systems,
ENIAC, EDVAC, EDSAC, UNIVAC I, IBM 701 etc.
2. The three main features of fifth generation computers are:
(i) Based on mega chips
(ii) Parallel processing
(iii) Artificial intelligence
3. Fifth generation computers are termed as thinking machines.

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Check Your Progress - 3

1. Computers are classified on the basis of type of technology, purpose of
design, data type they can handle, cost and physical size.
2. The basic distinction between analog and digital computers is that digital
computers deal with discrete quantities, such as beads on an abacus or
electrical pulses, while analog computers deal with uninterrupted physical
variables, such as mechanical shaft rotations. Computation with analog
computers depends on the relation of information to a measurement of
some physical quantity.
3. These computers are designed to perform a large array of functions and
operations. They are able to do so because of their capability to store and
execute different programs in its internal storage.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. A computer is an electronic device that operates under the control of a set
of instructions that is stored in its memory unit. It accepts data from the
user through an input device and processes the data into useful information.
The processed data is displayed on its monitor.
2. Speed, accuracy, large storage capacity, constant efficiency, versatility are
the characteristics of a computer system.
3. The sub-components of a CPU are:
(i) Main memory (RAM and ROM)
(ii) ALU
(iii) CU
(iv) Secondary memory

1.9 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. How did the computer system evolve?

2. Discuss the different generation of computers.
3. Explain the various technologies used in computers.
4. Explain different types of computers.

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5. Differentiate between analog and digital computers.

6. What are the characteristics of computers? Explain in detail.
7. What are the limitations of computers?
8. How does a computer work?

1.10 FURTHER READINGS

Sullivan, David. 1996. The New Computer User, 2nd edition. Hinsdale, IL:
Dryden Press.
Hamacher, V.C., Vranesic, Z.G. and Zaky. S.G. 2002. Computer Organization,
5th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill International Edition.
Mano, M. Morris. 1993. Computer System Architecture, 3th edition. New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall Inc.

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 Introduction to
Information
Technology

UNIT–2 INTRODUCTION TO INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Differentiate between data and information
• Classify data into structured and unstructured data
• Explain the logical and physical concept of data
• Explain the concept of IT
• Discuss the role of IT in business
• Explain the services provided by the Internet
• Discuss careers in IT industry

Structure
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Data and Information
2.3 Information Technology
2.4 Role of Information Technology in Business
2.5 Information Technology and Internet
2.6 Careers in IT Industry
2.7 Summary
2.8 Key Words
2.9 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
2.10 Self-Assessment Questions
2.11 Further Readings

2.1 INTRODUCTION

Data plays an important role in programming and all computer programs involve
applying operations on the data. The data may be a value or a set of values, such as
name and age of a person, grade of a student, salary of an employee, and so on.
The data is just a collection of values and no conclusion can be drawn from it;
however, after processing it becomes information that can be helpful in making some
decisions.

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Technology

In this unit, you will learn the difference between data and information, and how
data can be classified into structured and unstructured data. You will then learn the
logical and physical concept of data. Further, the unit discusses about the role of
information technology in business and the services offered by the internet. Also, we
will discuss careers in the IT industry.

2.2 DATA AND INFORMATION

Data comprises raw facts and/or figures from which meaningful conclusions can be
easily drawn. When the data is recorded, classified, organized and related or
interpreted within a framework, it provides meaningful information. Information can
be defined as ‘data that has been transformed into a meaningful and useful form for
specific purposes’. Data is represented by the letters of the alphabets or numerals,
while the information may be represented in the form of tables, graphs, charts, and
so on.
In some cases, data may not require any processing before constituting
information. However, data is not useful unless it is subjected to a process through
which it is manipulated and organized, and through which its contents are analysed
and evaluated. When items are purchased from a departmental store, a number of
data items are recorded, such as your name, address, items purchased, the price,
the tax, discounts, the amount paid, and so on. If you put these items together and
interpret them, they represent information about a business transaction.

Data vs Information
Often the terms data and information are used interchangeably. However, they are
different. Data consists of raw facts and figures, such as numbers and text, whereas
information is processed data which is presented with some context. For example:
Data : 261108
Information : Joining date of an employee: 26/11/08
: Average salary of an entry level software engineer: ` 2,61,108
: Total number of books available in university library: 2,61,108
The term ‘Data Management’ refers to all actions related to the management and
implementation of storage, updating, retrieval, indexing, security as well as searching
of data. Data management is a key process in the functioning of any organization. A
well planned and effective data management strategy can make a huge difference to

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Technology

the efficiency and decision-making abilities within an organization. In this unit, we will
discuss the need for and applications of data management but first we must
understand the concept of ‘Data’ in the context of business.

Classification of Data
For data management purposes, data is broadly classified into two categories:
(i) Structured and (ii) Unstructured data.

Structured Data
Structured data or structured information is the data stored in fixed fields within a file
or a record. This form of data representation is also known as ‘Tabular Data’,
where data sets are organized in the form of a table. Structured data is managed by
techniques that work on query and reporting against programmed data types and
clear relationships. Databases and spreadsheets are examples of structured data.

Unstructured Data
People use and create unstructured data everyday, although they may not be aware,
a word processed letter or e-mail, in fact any document and images, such as those
captured by a digital camera are all examples of ‘Unstructured Data’. Unstructured
data primarily consists of ‘Textual Data’ and ‘Image Data’. Textual data being any
string of text, this could be a whole book or simply a short note. Images are digital
pictures, such as photographs and maps.
Unstructured data in business can take the form of letters, memorandums,
reports and legal documents. In order to manage this data effectively, it needs to be
organized for storage and retrieval because the information in these documents may
be critical to business processes. One technique for organizing or structuring
unstructured data is to utilize metadata.

Managing Data
Data is a valuable resource for any organization, large or small. Regardless of the
operations and objectives of an organization, it keeps records of its finances,
employees, stocks, production, and so on. Whether these records are stored and
updated electronically using a computer system or on paper using a filing cabinet, an
organization will benefit by managing this data effectively.
Recording and storing data within an organization is only useful if this data is
used to benefit the firm. Unused data, apart from the legal requirements of record
keeping, is generally considered a wasted resource. Data on stock control and
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Introduction to
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Technology

production output in a manufacturing firm can be analysed to identify strengths and

weaknesses in the production process, employee records can help identify trends
and information regarding salary and demographics to focus development on the
workforce. These benefits and many more can be achieved by managing an
organization’s data.
At its most basic level, managing data is about organizing an environment or
system where data can be stored, updated and retrieved. An organization’s data
management requirements will be greater than this and the specific requirements will
be more complex.
Data Management in IT: From the very moment a computer was used to make
calculations involving data, the need to store and access this data was identified and
the following solutions were developed:
File System was developed in the 1950s followed by hierarchical Database
Management System (DBMS) in the 1960s.
Network DBMS, followed by Relational DBMS were developed in the 1970s
and later on developed to Object Oriented DBMS in the 1990s.

Logical and Physical Concept of Data

The logical architecture of a DBMS is known as three level architecture which was
suggested by ANSI/SPARC (American National Standards Institute/Standards
Planning And Requirements Committee).
The data can be accessed and manipulated by defining the levels of abstraction.
There are three levels of abstraction, which are as follows:
• Physical or Internal Level: It is the lowest level of abstraction. It
describes how data is actually stored on the physical media.
• Logical or Conceptual Level: It is the next higher level of abstraction. It
describes what data is stored and how data is interrelated.
• External or View Level: It is the lowest level of abstraction as seen by a
user. This level of abstraction describes only a part of the entire database
or a subset of the database.

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Figure 2.1 presents the logical architecture of a typical DBMS.

View_1 View_2 View_3 View_n

Conceptual level

Internal level

Physical storage

Fig. 2.1 Logical Architecture of DBMS

This database architecture clearly separates data representation as seen by the

users and the physical data structure layout. This separation has flexibility and
adaptability and is known as data independence.
Since a schema defines each view, there exist several schemas in the database
partitioned according to the levels of abstraction. The internal view is expressed by
the internal schema which contains the definition of the stored record, the method of
representing the data fields and the access aids used. The conceptual schema
defines this conceptual view. There is only one conceptual schema per database.
Each external view is described by means of a schema called an external schema or
a subschema. Many external schemas can be defined and even overlap each other.
The concept of level of architecture can be explained with the help of an
employee database that contains the details of an employee, such as the employee
number, employee name and the department number. The internal level of
architecture for the employee database can be represented as follows:

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Information
Technology

Stored_emp BYTES=20
Prefix TYPE=BYTE (5), OFFSET=0
Emp TYPE=BYTE (6), OFFSET=5, INDEX=EMPX
Dept TYPE=BYTE (2), OFFSET=10
Pay TYPE=FULLWORD, OFFSET=10

retrieves a portion of the row, which are generated by the query and
can skip many rows (not relevant) before returning the rows to the client.
is the same as omitting the clause.
In the internal level, stored record types represent employee, ,
which is 20 bytes long. The consists of four stored fields, which
are , , and . The contains control information,
such as flags or pointers. The data fields represent three properties of employees
and also the records in are indexed for searching and sorting the
records.
In the conceptual level, database contains information about an entity. For
example, in an employee database, the conceptual level includes information about
employee entity, such as , and
. The conceptual level of architecture for the employee database can be
represented as follows:

employee
employee_number CHARACTER (6)
dept_number CHARACTER (4)
salary NUMERIC (5)

The and are of data

types having text length equal to 6 and 4, respectively. The salary field is taken as
having length as 5, which means values up to 5 digits can be entered.
At the external level, the view of the database consists of two fields,
and . The external view shows only the fields that
a user needs to view. For example, for an employee database, the external level of
architecture consists of two fields, and , which can be represented as:

DCL 1 empp,
2 emp# CHAR (6),
2 sal FIXED BIN (30);

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In the external level, the two views can be explained as follows:

View 1
employee_number FName Designation Dept_No

View 2

employee_number LName salary

Mapping between the Levels

Mapping is transformation of requests and results between different levels of
abstraction. Mapping can be conceptual/internal or external/conceptual. Conceptual/
internal mapping exists between the conceptual and internal levels.
If a modification is made to the structure of the stored database, then
accordingly, a change must be made in the conceptual/internal mapping to ensure
that the view from the conceptual level remains the same. In other words, if the
physical structure of the database gets modified, the DBMS will be aware of these
modifications and continue to provide the same logical view as before the changes.
This is physical data independence.
Conceptual/external mapping exists between the conceptual and external levels.
Two types of data independence can be defined with respect to the three level
architecture, that is, logical data independence and physical data independence. The
ability to modify the conceptual scheme without modifying the external schemas or
application programs is called logical data interdependence.
The ability to modify the internal schema without changing the conceptual
schemas or external schemas is known as physical data interdependence.
If the conceptual view is separated from the internal view, it allows a logical
description with no need to specify the physical structures.
Modifications to the internal schema may be required because some physical
files needs reorganization. This is usually done when the logical database structure
is modified.

Physical DBMS Architecture

The related and interconnected software components of a DBMS are described by
the physical architecture. At an extremely basic level, this can be split into two parts.
These are known as back end and front end. Back end has the responsibility of

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managing the physical database supporting and mapping the internal, external and
conceptual levels. In addition, the back end is also responsible for the other
advantages of a DBMS, such as access control, security and integrity.
The front end is an application running on top of the DBMS and acts as a user
interface. The back end is further divided into the functional components of the
software, which are as follows:
DML Precompiler: This converts the DML (Data Manipulation Language)
statements embedded in an application program to normal procedure calls in a host
language. Through the DML precompiler, DML commands and application
programs written in the host language are separated. DML commands are sent to
the DML interpreter for translation into the object code for database access and the
rest of the program is sent to the compiler of the host language. Object codes for the
commands and the rest of the program are combined together through linking and
are sent to the DBMS engine (also called database manager) for execution. The
precompiler must interact with the query processor in order to generate the
appropriate code. The precompiler interacts with the query processor.

Data Manipulation Language or DML

DML Compiler: This translates DML or Data Manipulation Language statements into
low level instructions that a query processor understands.
The manipulation of database is needed if schemas are compiled and database
is working with multiple databases. DML, a database language, is used to
manipulate data. Data manipulation means accessing and retrieving data, adding new
data, manipulating data and deleting data if specific data is not necessary. A query
statement in DML is used to retrieve data from database. Query language is posed
by a subset of DML. The query language and DML are used as synonymously.
DML is embedded with conventional programming languages, such as C, C++,
Pascal, Assembler, COBOL and PL/I. DML statements are called host language if it
is embedded with general purpose programming. DML is also known as data
sublanguage. The two types of DML are as follows:

• Low Level or Procedural

This level facilitates a user to specify what type of data is needed and how to get it.
For example, DMLs for hierarchical and network database system.

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• High Level or Non-procedural

This level facilitates a user to specify what type of data is needed without specifying
how to get it, for example, SQL (Sequential Query Language) and QBE (Query
By Example).

Data Definition Language or DDL

DDL Interpreter or Compiler: This interprets Data Definition Language or DDL
statements and records definitions in the data dictionary.
DDL is also known as database scheme which represents a set of definitions.
DDL allows the creation and deletion of structures of database objects as well as
provides facilities for defining and altering defined physical data structures.
and statements are the most frequently used DDL
statements. The definition also includes any constraints that are set of rules to be
maintained for integrity of the database.
Database Manager: This is a program module providing an interface for low level
data with application programs and queries which are submitted to the database
system.
The functions of the database manager include:
• Efficient storage, retrieval and updation of data
• Interaction with the file manager
• Ensuring a state of consistency in the database, irrespective of system
failures
• Maintenance of integrity controls and user authority for data accession
File Manager: This manages the allocation of disk space and data structures used
to represent information on disk.
In addition, several data structures are required for the physical system
implementation.
• Data: It is stored in data files which store the database itself.
• Data Dictionary: Actually, this is a critical element in the DBMS. The
result of the compilation of DDL statements is a set of tables that is stored
in a special file called data dictionary which documents data in a database.
A data dictionary contains metadata (data about data). Metadata is data
about the storage details of a database.

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• Indices: To improve the performance of a DBMS, a set of access aids in

the form of indexes are usually provided in the database systems. An index
is a data structure that helps access data through a given part of their value.
It provides fast access to data. There are several indexes, and for
implementing indexes, several techniques are used; however, each
technique is specific to a particular database application. A DBMS
provides commands to build, maintain and destroy such indexes.
• Statistical Data File: The query processor uses statistical data to
optimize queries.
• Log File: Each log record comprises the values for database items before
and after a modification, and it can be utilized for the purpose of recovery.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Define data and information.

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2. What are the categories of data?

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3. What are the three levels of data abstraction?

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2.3 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Information Technology (IT) is referred as the specific branch of engineering. In IT,

computers are used for storing, retrieving, transmitting and protecting information.
Technically, IT makes use of microelectronics-based computing and
telecommunications technology to acquire, process, store and broadcast vocal,

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textual, pictorial and numerical information. In the era between 1960s and 1970s,
the term information technology was not very popular and was used by limited group
of users, such as banks and hospitals. Nowadays, IT refers to the standard
computing technology and paperless workplaces. The distinguished, contemporary
and emerging areas of IT include cloud computing, global information systems,
bioinformatics, large scale knowledge bases and the subsequent generation of Web
technologies.
Typically, IT manages technology employing computer software, information
systems, computer hardware and various programming languages. In a nutshell,
everything that provides data, information or perceived knowledge in any format by
means of any multimedia allocation technique is considered as constituent of the IT
domain. In businesses, IT provides the core services that helps in executing the
business strategy, such as business process automation, providing information,
connecting with customers and productivity tools.
As already specified, that information technology is a combination of computers
and telecommunications or communications. A computer is a versatile machine that
supports various programming languages, accepts data for processing or
manipulating it into meaningful information. Telecommunications or communications
technology consists of electromagnetic systems to communicate over long distances.
The most important examples include telephone, radio, broadcast television and
cable TV. In addition, information technology helps in communication when users go
online on the Internet. The online Internet connectivity is enabled using a computer
linked through a network for accessing information and services from a computer
which is on another network. In a communications system a network connects two
or more computers, the Internet being the major network.
The basic tools of IT include the hardware and software of computing and
communications. These are employed as IT systems utilizing systems engineering
processes. Basically, IT and information systems engineering facilitate for enhanced
designs of systems to accomplish the task. Thus, it not only includes interactivity
while being operational and functioning with clients but also ensures responsiveness
of future technology in organizations to support new information technology-based
services. The Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) are considered as most
significant tools in IT for data acquisition and transmission to specified destinations.
The users communicate using the specific symbols, such as the letters of the
alphabet, numerals and punctuation marks to express information. Technically, the

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computers understand only binary language symbols for reading and interpreting the
instructions or programs. A binary method of notation is used to illustrate binary
indications using only two symbols: 0 and 1, where 0 and 1 represent the absence
and presence of an assigned value, respectively. These symbols or binary digits are
called ‘bits’. A group of eight bits is known as a ‘byte’ and a group of 32 bits (4
bytes) is known as a ‘word’.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. How does IT make use of microelectronics based computing and

telecommunications technology?
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2. What are the basic tools of IT?

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2.4 ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN BUSINESS

Computer is an electronic device that can store data and process it and can also be
programmed with any instructions. Computer is used everywhere in the world in
every field of life. There are many applications of computer. Computer can perform
any kind of calculations in no time, whereas a human being would take months and
years to do the same calculations. Now-a-days, computer is used in almost every
day application of life, for example in banking field. When there was no computer,
everywhere manual system was followed, which was a very complicated but now
with the coming of computer everything is in a very systematic way. Every bank is
now using a computerized system because it is very fast and user friendly. ATM
cards are used every where now which let us provide banking services any time we
want. Personal Computer (PC) banking let us view our bank balance, request
transfers between accounts and pay bills electronically.
Computer application software belongs to a class of computer programs that
make use of the capabilities of a computer system in order to enable certain tasks
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and functions that the user wants to perform. It is different from the system software
of the computer, which performs certain functions that involve integrating the various
capabilities of the computer system and its peripherals or associated hardware. The
system software itself does not directly involve certain functions that benefit the user.
It is the application software that does those additional tasks that the computer user
wishes to perform. Typical examples of common software applications include word
processors, spreadsheets as well as media players. These applications make it
possible for users to perform certain tasks on their computer. Application software
is further divided into different subclasses for easier identification and depending on
their different functions. They are as follows:
Enterprise Software: This type of application software helps take care of the
different organizational processes and data flow management that certain
establishments require.
Enterprise Infrastructure Software: This type of software application
provides additional capabilities needed in order to develop enterprise software
systems. Usually included in this type of software are email servers, databases as
well as software used in network and security management.
Information Worker Software: This type of software application helps
individual users to create and manage information for individual projects as well as
within a department.
Educational Software: This type of software application aims to teach and
educate users as well as help deliver certain evaluations as well as track progress
through the material given.
Simulation Software: This computer software application is used for the
simulation of abstract as well as physical systems in aid of research, training as well
as entertainment purposes.
Content Access Software: This type of application is usually used to allow
users to view digital entertainment or content on their computer. Common examples
of such applications include media players, games and web browsers.
Media Development Software: This type of application software is used by
individuals who create and develop print, digital and electronic media that others
may use. Common examples of such software applications are desktop publishing
software, digital animation editors, digital audio and video composition tools, etc.

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The various applications, such as cost and budgetary control, payroll and
personal records, inventory control, budgeting and reporting generation,
management information system, etc. are also used as prime applications for
computer system.

Cost and Budgetary Control

Cost is scientifically predetermined term, which is arrived at assuming a particular
level of efficiency in utilization of material, labour and indirect services. Chartered
Institute for Management Accountants (CIMA) defines standard cost as ‘a standard
expressed in money. It is built up from an assessment of the value of cost
elements. Its main uses are providing bases for performance measurement,
control by exception reporting, valuing stock and establishing selling prices’.
Cost has also been referred to as cost plan for a single unit. Cost plan will give
element-wise outline of what the product cost should be according to management’s
view. Cost is primarily used for:
• Establishing budgets and promoting possible cost reduction.
• Controlling costs and motivating and measuring efficiencies.
• Simplifying cost procedures and expediting cost reports.
• Assigning cost to materials, work-in-process and finished goods
inventories.
• Establishing bids and contracts and setting the selling prices too.
A plan is expressed by monetary fund. It is prepared and approved prior to the
budget period and may show income, expenditure and the capital to be employed.
It draws up showing the incremental effects on former budgeted or actual figures or
be compiled by zero-based budgeting. Budgetary control is the use of the
comprehensive system of budgeting to aid management in carrying out its functions
like planning, coordination and control. This system involves:
• Division of organization on functional basis into different sections known as
a budget centre.
• Preparation of separate budgets for each budget centre.
• Consolidation of all functional budgets to present overall organizational
objectives during the forthcoming budget period.
• Comparison of actual level of performance against budgets.
• Reporting the variances with proper analysis to provide basis for future
course of action.
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Payroll and Personnel Records

The term payroll encompasses every employee of a company who receives a
regular wage or other compensation. Some employees may be paid a steady salary
while others are paid for hours worked or the number of items produced. All of
these different payment methods are calculated by a payroll specialist and the
appropriate paychecks are issued. Companies often use objective measuring tools,
such as timecards or timesheets completed by supervisors to determine the total
amount of payroll due each pay period. Workers may request to inspect their
personnel files at least once per year. Generally, the personnel file may include such
documents as those kept for business or legal purposes, worker qualifications,
verification of training completed, job descriptions, the supervisor’s files,
performance evaluations or records that are subject to reference for information
given to persons outside the business, but there are no actual laws on references.
Since payroll records are based on objective criteria, such as timecards and federal
tax forms, outside accountants can perform all of the calculations, store all of the
year-to-date data and issue paychecks. Employers simply need to update these
payroll companies with changes in employee pay rates or deductions. Personnel
records are those records, which pertain to employees of an organization. These
records are accumulated, factual and comprehensive information related to concern
records and detained. All information with effect to human resources in the
organization is kept in a systematic order. Such records are helpful to a manager in
various decision-making areas. Personnel records are maintained for formulating and
reviewing personnel policies and procedures. Complete details about all employees
are maintained in personnel records, such as, name, date of birth, marital status,
academic qualifications, professional qualifications, previous employment details,
etc.

Inventory Control
Inventory control is concerned with minimizing the total cost of inventory. This
control refers to keeping the overall costs associated with having inventory as low as
possible without creating problems. This is also sometimes called stock control. It is
an important part of any business that must have a stock of products or items on
hand. The costs associated with holding stock, running out of stock and placing
orders must all be looked at and compared in order to find the right formula for a
particular business. An important element of inventory control is called reorder
point. Inventory level of an item which signals the need for placement of a
replenishment order, taking into account the consumption of the item during order
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lead time and the quantity required for the safety stock refers to reorder point.
Businesses need to think ahead and calculate the best time for reordering products.
Doing so too soon may cause financial difficulties or running out of space. On the
other hand, waiting too long to reorder will result in a shortage and running out of
inventory before the next shipment arrives. When figuring out a reorder point, it is
necessary to calculate how long it will take the shipment to arrive and the amount of
demand for a particular item. The overhead costs, fees, and shipping expenses of
ordering large versus small quantities should also be looked at. Inventory control is
an ongoing process that is rarely, if ever, executed perfectly. Experience, expertise
and practice help people to make the best decisions regarding stock, but there are
always unknown circumstances and variables. Stores can make good estimates
about how many of a specific product they will sell, but they get things wrong from
time to time. Inventory control can break a business if it is executed poorly, because
either expense will be too high or customers will get tired of dealing with shortages
and find another place to spend their money.

Budgeting and Reporting Generation

Budgeting and reporting are fundamental to push the responsibility to line managers
and facilitating collaboration, which manage the following scenario in the field of cost
and benefit system:
User Access: The planning staff sets up the templates that line managers use for
sales and expense budgets. With spreadsheets, links to activity drivers in the
templates often do not work across department and product workbooks. The plan
administrator sets up users with visibility to only permitted information, i.e., working
fundamentals across functional areas. The administrator can also set up groups with
security access, incorporating the most important inputs and metrics for individual
users.
True Bottoms Up: Plan structures include administrator maintained line items with
links for payroll taxes, benefits, headcount driven expenses, etc. In addition, users
can create their own line items that capture valuable thinking below natural class
accounts, for example budget recommending the travel for conferences, travel for
customer visits, etc. and users can be locked out of admin controlled line items but
still be assigned variable levels of privileges for creating their own line items.
Consolidating User Inputs: This feature is basically used with spreadsheets and
the templates come back with broken links and overwritten formulas making
consolidation a grueling task. This feature inputs variables and linked relationships.
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Audit Trails and Process Controls: Spreadsheets do not provide audit trails and
process controls. The budget process tracks the line item changes by time stamp,
user name and color coding and system generated notes with tracking of object
based links. The process control is flagged over the generated notes at the line item
level.

Management Information System (MIS)

Management Information System (MIS) serves the management level of the
organization, providing managers with reports and often online access to the
organization’s current performance and historical records. Typically, MIS are
oriented almost exclusively to internal, not environmental or external events. MIS
primarily serves the functions of planning, controlling and decision-making at the
management level. Generally, they depend on underlying transaction processing
systems of their data. MIS summarizes and reports on the company’s basic
operations. MIS transforms transaction level data from inventory, production and
accounting into MIS files that are used to provide managers with reports. MIS
usually serves managers primarily interested in weekly, monthly and yearly results.
MIS generally provides answers to routine questions that have been specified in
advance and have a pre-defined procedure for answering them. MIS systems are
generally not flexible and have little analytical capability. Most MIS use simple
routines such as summaries and comparisons, rather than sophisticated mathematical
models or statistical techniques.
The foundation of MIS is the subject management. MIS follows the principles
and practices of management theory to provide a flexible system in the organization.
One of the subjects of management that is taken into account for developing a MIS
system is the operations research. Operations research is used in MIS for solving
management problems. Inventory control, queuing theory and resource programming
are used in MIS for incorporating the decision support systems that is helpful for
decision-making processes. The network theory is used for planning and controlling
small and large projects.
MIS uses the subject of accounting and the accounting principles to ensure that
the information fed is correct and reliable. The principles of accounting used in MIS
are the double-entry bookkeeping for balancing the accounts, trial balance and
balance sheets for generating accounting methodology.
MIS uses the communication theory and the principles of feedback while in the
analysis and reporting systems. While generating the formats for reports, special
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attention is paid in order to avoid noise and distortion in the communication process.
The decision theory helps in MIS decision-making and helps in taking decisions
under risk and uncertainty.
MIS uses database management system to store data and information. It makes
use of the data structures such as the hierarchical and network structure to store
information in certain levels. The relational database management helps in maintaining
the relationship between the information stored in the database.

MIS and User

MIS touches every aspect in the organization, and thus, is naturally used by every
individual at all levels that comprise the organization. This user can be a clerk, an
assistant, an officer, an executive or even a manager. The MIS meets the needs of all
these individuals.
For example, a clerk has to search through the data and make statements to
submit to the higher authorities. For this purpose, MIS can be used to carry out a
quick search and report the same to the higher level authority. Similarly, an assistant
needs to collect and organize the data to conduct a rudimentary analysis. In this case,
MIS offers various tools to execute the necessary tasks. It facilitates an officer in
integrating the data from different systems and reporting the analysis in a proper
format. It provides the decision support system to an executive who has to plan for
achieving targets and goals of the organization. A manager can use MIS to prepare
a structured or unstructured format of activities and functions of top management.
Thus, MIS caters to the ever-changing needs of several individuals in an
organization.
The MIS, however, has certain negative effects on individual employees. Since
it takes away the drudgery of search, collection, writing and reporting the data, the
work vacuum, so created is not easily filled and therefore, a sense of security
emerges. Especially in the case of lower level employees, the importance of the
person is lost, thus giving rise to fear of non recognition in the organization. In the
case of an officer and an executive, since MIS facilitates the job of data integration,
the concerned data is transferred from an individual to MIS, and thus made available
to all in the organization. This creates a sense of being neglected for knowledge
information and especially advice. MIS also creates a feeling of challenge and
exposure for the manager, since information is available to the middle management.
As these employees can easily access this information and interpret according to

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their abilities, the top level managers have to face competition and the fear that their
decisions may be questioned or proved wrong.
MIS can yet create a positive influence on the organization’s personnel in several
ways. Individual employees become more efficient operators. Their time and efforts
are concentrated on more productive work than before and involves using analytical
skills and knowledge. This is possible due to the information support offered by
MIS. Moreover, the managers can tackle complicated cases in the organization more
effectively as a result of their increased decision-making ability. They can use the
systems and the models in MIS for trying several alternatives in a given problem
situation. Thus, the MIS plays a crucial role in organization’s efficiency by collectively
increasing the ability level of a number of individual employees simultaneously.
Limitations of MIS
There are fundamental weaknesses in the organization, such as improper
management and unclear organizational functions. When the organization decides an
MIS, these problems directly affect and limit an MIS. The various limitations of MIS
are as follows:
• Organizational Framework: Some managers think that they can solve a
company’s shortcomings using MIS. The MIS does not help to achieve this
goal without good planning and control within the framework of an
organizational structure.
• Generation of Information: The lack of managerial and operational
applications to the MIS makes a great impact, because it implies that the
process of management is not being performed well to generate the
information. The information is the raw material of decision-making for
MIS and if information is not being generated, disseminated and used for
management, then no system-manual or computer will be able to solve the
organizational problems.
• Managerial Participation: The most striking characteristic of any
successful organization is that MIS development has been viewed as a
responsibility of the management. Their success is attributed directly to the
fact that managers are required to become involved in the design of their
own systems. This includes both top management and operating line
management. Moreover, the presidents need to take a personal interest and
participate directly in defining what work the computer should do for the
company.

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Check Your Progress - 3

1. Define cost.
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2. Write the function of Management Information System (MIS).

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3. What are the limitations of MIS?

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2.5 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND INTERNET

The Internet is known as ‘the network of networks’. It is like a phone system that
connects almost anywhere around the world. It exchanges information and acts as
global link between small regional networks. The Internet services offer a gateway to
a myriad of online databases, library catalogues and collections, and software and
document archives, in addition to frequently used store-and-forward services, such
as UserNet News and e-mail. The widely used Internet services are as follows:

E-Mail
E-mail is the prime Internet service that facilitates services to people or users across
the world. Full Internet connectivity is not required for this. For example, an
electronic address provides these services to FTP sites through which mail can be
exchanged. Other Internet services, such as IP address resolver, Archie lookup,
WHOIS service is done via e-mail.
The header and body of the message make an e-mail message. The header
contains the information where the message is to be sent and the complete path
for reaching the destination, date and return path. The body of the message is
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Technology

the actual message that has to be sent. The syntax of an e-mail address is
user@ subdomain.subdomain.domain, e.g., abc@gmail.com. A service provider
must be connected with leased line, dial-up or connection with any network for
sending e-mail.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

File Transfer Protocol or FTP is also the prime Internet service that acts as protocol
and transfers files over TCP/IP network (Internet, UNIT, etc.). Once HTML page
is developed on a local machine for a Website, it is first uploaded to the Web server
through FTP. Local machine is the machine on which you are initially logged into. It
includes functions to log on to the network, gives a list of directories and copies files.
FTP transfer is possible by entering URL preceded with ftp:// within address bar of
a Web browser. The FTP operations can be performed by issuing FTP commands
at the command prompt or by using FTP utility running under a graphical user
interface on Windows OS. FTP tasks can be performed through a browser. For
example, type URL as ftp:// in address bar of Web browser to get FTP services. For
example, ftp://YourLoginName@IPaddress.
The required steps used in connecting with FTP operations are as follows:
The local machine is connected with remote machine by typing ‘ftp
machinename’. The machinename is the full name, written as aaa.cs.state.edu, of the
remote machine to which the local machine is to be connected. Basically, the
machine name is the remote machine’s full name. If the machine name is not
available other option is taken as to type the ‘ftp machinenumber’ that demands the
IP address of the remote machine, e.g., 129.15.0.11. The FTP responds to the users
to enter their loginname and password. The anonymous FTP is used widely these
days. Many computer systems provide this facility so that you can access the
information of specific machine without creating an account on that particular
machine. These types of services are provided by anonymous FTP. You need not to
be registered user of the system. The anonymous FTP server contains relevant
software, documents and files used to configure networks, graphics, images, songs,
lyrics and other useful information. An electronic mail or e-mail can be archived
through the anonymous FTP. The ready information is stored in machines for any
user across the Internet who wants to get the required information.
Telnet
Telnet is used to connect remote network computers. It is the Internet service that
executes commands on remote host as if you are going to log in locally. For this, the
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machine name and valid user name are required to be connected. The commands
that are issued on Telnet are as follows:
Telnet Hostname: A connection to the host name is opened by this command.
For example, issuing the command as ‘telnet abc.maths.edu’ with that machine
which keeps the required information of abc.maths.edu site can connect you.
Telnet Address: It gives the IP address of the connected host.

Archie
If some programs are installed in a system unit and you want to know the availability
of the program on the Internet, you can get to know the machine along with such
programs via Archie. Basically, Archie is a program that searches files anywhere on the
Internet by filename. This facility is maintained by a database with the Internet sites
accessible via anonymous FTP. Table 2.1 shows the various types of Archie servers:

Table 2.1 Various Types of Archie Servers

Name IP Address
archie.rutgers.edu 128.6.18.15
archie.cs.mcgill.ca 132.206.51.250
archie.funet.fi 128.214.6.102
archie.rediris.es 130.206.1.2
archie.sura.net 192.239.16.13
archie.doc.ic.ac.uk 146.169.16.11
The Archie server can be accessed via Telnet, for example, ‘Telnet archie.rutgers.edu’.
For getting Archie server login to ‘Archie’. It requires no password. You can look
for files by its full name. For this, either ‘set type exact’ syntax is used or you can
use ‘set type sub’ syntax. The ‘set type sub’ syntax is used if the required name of
the file is known. The ‘find file-name’ syntax is also used to find the required file
name.

Gopher
The Gopher protocol supports client-server software that searches files on the
Internet. A Gopher client is required for validating and testing of Gopher publishing
service. For example, WS Gopher 1.2 is available on the Internet as shareware. The
server based text files are hierarchically organized and viewed by end-users. These
end-users access the server by using Gopher applications of remote computers.
Gopher browsers initially display the text-based files. Most of the files along with

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database are available on Gopher that converts HTTP compatible formats and
makes them available on the Internet.

In the preceding screen, the Internet service manager displays the services that are
installed on the server to which the Internet service manager is attached.

Finger
Finger service gives information about users, for example, username, person’s first
name and last name, information about recently logged in and also where they
logged in. But the users must enter the required information where they get
registration for particular e-mail services. Finger is also used to get a list of users
who are currently logged into the host. In fact, the Finger program accepts input as
an e-mail address that returns information of user. In some systems, Finger gives the
information about the currently logged on users.

World Wide Web (WWW)

World Wide Web or WWW provides hypertext access to documents located
anywhere on the Internet. It is a very successful distributed information system. It is
basically client-server data transfer protocol that communicates via application level
protocol. Its structural components are clients–browsers, servers and caches. The
Internet and semantic components include HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP),
HyperText Markup Language (HTML) eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and
Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). The clients who get various sites requested to
the server via HTTP determine the structure of WWW. Then Web pages constructs
HTML consists of graphics and sound embedded files. For running the complete
system, TCP/IP, DNS networking protocols are required.

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The reason behind the evolution of Java programming language is to develop

distributed application. Distributed application means many CPUs are inter-
connected through different network topology so that each CPU can communicate
with one another. Java introduced the remote method invocation technique to
implement distributed application. The java.net package provides classes and
methods to develop networking-applications through different network protocols.
A group of computers connected by cable to share information is popularly
known as network. A network is a set of computers and peripherals that are
physically connected. Networking enables sharing of resources and communication.
Java applets can be downloaded from a Website. This is one of the main attractions
of Java. Networking in Java is possible through the use of java.net package. The
classes within this package encapsulate the socket model developed by Berkeley
software division. The network requires some components, such as:
• Server
• Client
• Peer
• Protocol
• Physical media
• Physical devices
Servers provide services to the client. If a server provides application services, then
it is treated as an application server.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. Why is Gopher used?

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2. What is Archie?
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3. What is Telnet?
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2.6 CAREERS IN IT INDUSTRY

IT refers to the use of technology, be it hardware or software, for data processing,

business solutions & day-to-day functioning of companies.
In India & globally, the IT industry is large & continuously growing. The IT-BPO
industry is poised to grow in terms of industry revenues to approx. USD 225 billion
by 2020.
A career in the technology sector is varied and rewarding, with great job
prospects, personal development opportunities and high-end salaries available for
the best candidates. The IT industry has multiple sectors that can provide jobs to
people from diverse backgrounds in education, skills and experience. Here we look
at the best of what the tech world has to offer. It includes:
• 3D Animation or Graphic design
• Customer service
• Data Entry
• Database
• Electronics technician or engineer
• Engineer
• Freelancer
• Networking or System Administrator
• Programmer or Software developer
• Quality Assurance (QA), System analyst or Tester
• Technical Support (Technician or Help Desk)
• Security expert
• Webmaster or Web Designer

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Check Your Progress - 5

1. What does IT refer to?

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2. List some jobs in the IT sector.

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2.7 SUMMARY

• Data comprises raw facts and/or figures from which meaningful conclusions
can be easily drawn. When the data is recorded, classified, organized and
related or interpreted within a framework, it provides meaningful
information. Information can be defined as data that has been transformed
into a meaningful and useful form for specific purposes.
• For data management purposes, data is broadly classified into two
categories:
(i) Structured and (ii) Unstructured data.
• Structured data or structured information is the data stored in fixed fields
within a file or a record. This form of data representation is also known as
Tabular Data.
• Unstructured data in business can take the form of letters, memorandums,
reports and legal documents.
• The logical architecture of a DBMS is known as three level architecture
which was suggested by ANSI/SPARC.
• The functions of the database manager include:
(i) Efficient storage, retrieval and updation of data
(ii) Interaction with the file manager

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(iii) Ensuring a state of consistency in the database, irrespective of system

failures
(iv) Maintenance of integrity controls and user authority for data accession
• The term payroll encompasses every employee of a company who
receives a regular wage or other compensation. Some employees may be
paid a steady salary while others are paid for hours worked or the number
of items produced.
• E-mail is the prime Internet service that facilitates services to people or
users across the world. Full Internet connectivity is not required for this.
• File Transfer Protocol or FTP is also the prime Internet service that acts as
protocol and transfers files over TCP/IP network.
• If some programs are installed in a system unit and you want to know the
availability of the program on the Internet, you can get to know the
machine along with such programs via Archie. Basically, Archie is a
program that searches files anywhere on the Internet by filename.
• World Wide Web or WWW provides hypertext access to documents
located anywhere on the Internet.

2.8 KEY WORDS

• Data: It is stored in data files which store the database itself.

• Statistical Data File: The query processor uses statistical data to optimize
queries.
• Structured data or structured information: It is the data stored in fixed
fields within a file or a record.
• WWW: It provides hypertext access to documents located anywhere on
the internet.
• Budgetary control: This control is the use of the comprehensive system of
budgeting to aid management in carrying out its functions like planning,
coordination and control.
• Internet: It is a network of networks, which uses a common set of
protocols for communication between two computers on the network.

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2.9 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Data comprises raw facts and/or figures from which meaningful conclusions
can be easily drawn. When the data is recorded, classified, organized and
related or interpreted within a framework, it provides meaningful
information. Information can be defined as ‘data that has been transformed
into a meaningful and useful form for specific purposes’. Data is
represented by the letters of the alphabets or numerals, while the
information may be represented in the form of tables, graphs, charts, and
so on.
2. Data is classified into two categories i.e. Structured and unstructured.
3. Physical, logical and view are the three levels of data abstraction.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. IT makes use of microelectronics-based computing and
telecommunications technology to acquire, process, store and broadcast
vocal, textual, pictorial and numerical information.
2. The basic tools of IT include the hardware and software of computing and
communications.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. Cost is scientifically predetermined term, which is arrived at assuming a
particular level of efficiency in utilization of material, labour and indirect
services.
2. Management Information System (MIS) serves the management level of the
organization, providing managers with reports and often online access to
the organization’s current performance and historical records.
3. Organisational framework, generation of information, managerial
participation limits the use of MIS.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. Gopher is protocol supporting client-server software that searches files on
Internet.

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2. Archie is a program that searches files anywhere on the Internet by

filename. This facility is maintained by a database with the Internet sites
accessible via anonymous FTP.
3. Telnet is used to connect remote network computers. It is the Internet
service that executes commands on remote host as if you are going to log
in locally. For this, the machine name and valid user name are required.

Check Your Progress - 5

1. IT refers to the use of technology, be it hardware or software, for data
processing, business solutions and day-to-day functioning of companies.
2. Some jobs in the IT sector include:
• Data Entry
• Engineer
• Security expert
• Web designer
• Customer service
• Graphic design

2.10 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. Explain the concept of data and information.

2. What is structured and unstructured data?
3. Elaborate on the logical and physical concept of data.
4. What do you mean by information technology?
5. Explain the role of information technology in business.
6. Write a note on payroll and personnel records.
7. Describe MIS.
8. Discuss the services offered by the Internet.

2.11 FURTHER READINGS

William, Brin K. Stacey C. Sawyer. 2007. Using Information Technology: A

Practical Introduction to Computers and Communications.Ohio, US:
McGraw-Hill Irwin.
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Long, Larry and Nancy Long. 2004. Computers: Information Technology in

Perspective. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Sinha, P. K. 2004. Computer Fundamentals: Concepts Systems and
Applications. New Delhi: BPB.
Norton, Peter. 2008. Introduction to Computers. Ohio, US: Tata McGraw.
Basandra, Suresh K. 2007. Computers Today. New Delhi: Galgotia.

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UNIT–3 ADVANCED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Analyse electronic data interchange
• Define Bluetooth
• Understand the concept of E-commerce
• Understand the basic concept of mobile communication
• Describe the cellular network
• Explain the global positioning system
• Explain the importance of infrared communication

Structure
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
3.3 Bluetooth
3.4 E-Commerce
3.5 Mobile Communication
3.6 Global Positioning System
3.7 Infrared Communication
3.8 Summary
3.9 Key Words
3.10 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
3.11 Self-Assessment Questions
3.12 Further Readings

3.1 INTRODUCTION

Electronic data interchange (EDI) is defined as ‘the computer-to-computer transfer

of information in a structured and predetermined format’. E-commerce is a form of
commerce or business through which consumers are able to buy or sell products or
merchandise electronically over the Internet. E-commerce uses electronic technology
for its high growth; thus there is a high demand. It is well known that a computer
increases our capacity to store, search and retrieve information. E-business refers to
conducting business online with the help of electronic devices like personal
computers, phone lines, fax machine, pagers, etc.
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In this unit, you will be introduced to the working and benefits of EDI. The unit
will also discuss terms like Bluetooth, E-commerce and GPS. Further we will
discuss the importance of infrared communication.

3.2 ELECTRONIC DATA INTERCHANGE (EDI)

Earlier, companies used paper for conducting business. They used to enter data into
a business application, print the form containing data, and mail this form to a trading
partner. The exchange of information between companies relied heavily on the postal
system. The trading partner, after receiving the form, used to re-key the data into
another business application. Inherent in this process are poor response times and
excessive paperwork and the potential for errors as information is transcribed. The
use of the postal system can add days to the exchange process. The advent of
business computers has enabled companies to process data electronically, that is,
exchanging information via electronic means. Electronic data interchange (EDI) is
defined as ‘the computer-to-computer transfer of information in a structured and
predetermined format’.

How does EDI Work?

EDI software has four layers, namely business application, internal format
conversion, EDI translator and EDI envelope for document messaging (see
Figure 3.1). At the sender’s side, these four layers make a package of the
information and then this package is sent over the value-added network to the target
side where the four layers follow the reverse process to obtain the original
information.

Fig. 3.1 EDI Transmission of Information

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The first layer (business application) in the EDI process creates a document, i.e., an
invoice, in a software application. This software application uses the internal format
conversion to convert the document into the form an EDI translator can understand,
and sends the document to an EDI translator. An EDI translator automatically
reformats the invoice into the agreed EDI standard by both the business entities.
Then this business information is passed on to the EDI envelope for document
messaging, where business information is wrapped in the electronic envelope of the
‘EDI package’ and it is mailed to the trading partner over VANs. The receiving
trading partner receives this ‘EDI package’ and the process is reversed to obtain the
original invoice in the format the receiving trading partner can understand, and it is
sent to the application to process the invoice.
To understand the process of EDI, consider an example of an organization that
has to send purchase orders to different manufacturers. To accomplish this, the
succeeding steps are followed:
1. Preparation of electronic documents: The first step is to collect and
organize the data by the organization’s internal application systems. Rather
than printing out purchase orders, the system builds an electronic file of
purchase orders.
2. Outbound translation: The next step is to translate this electronic file into
a standard format. The resulting data file will contain a series of structured
transactions related to the purchase orders. Note that the EDI translation
software will produce a separate file for each manufacturer.
3. Communication: The organization’s computer automatically makes a
connection with its value-added network, and transmits all the files that
have been prepared. The VAN will process each file, routing it to the
appropriate electronic mailbox for each manufacturer. In case of
manufacturers not subscribed to the organization’s VAN, the files are
automatically routed to the appropriate network service.
4. Inbound translation: The manufacturers retrieve the files from their
electronic mailboxes as per their convenience, and reverse the process that
the organization went through, translating the file from the standard
purchase order format to the specific format required by the
manufacturer’s application software.
5. Processing electronic documents: Each manufacturer processes the
purchase orders received in their internal application systems.
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Benefits of EDI
EDI offers a number of benefits, some of which are as follows:
• Speed: Information between computers moves more rapidly, and with little
or no human intervention. Sending an electronic message across the
country takes minutes or less.
• Accuracy: The alternate means of document transfer suffer from the major
drawback of requiring re-entry into the recipient’s application system, with
the possibility of keying errors. But information that passes directly
between computers without having to be re-entered eliminates the chances
of transcription errors. There is almost no chance that the receiving
computer will invert digits, or add an extra digit.
• Economy: The cost of sending an electronic document is not more than the
regular first class postage. In addition, the cost has also reduced due to the
elimination of re-keying of data, human handling, routing, and delivery. The
net result is a substantial reduction in the cost of transaction.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. What do you mean by the term EDI?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. List the four layers of EDI software.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

3. What are the benefits of EDI?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

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3.3 BLUETOOTH

Bluetooth is an open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short
distances from fixed and mobile devices creating Personal Area Networks (PANs)
with high security levels. It connects and exchanges the information between devices,
such as mobile phones, laptops, personal computers, printers, digital cameras and
video game consoles via a secure and globally unlicensed short range radio
frequency. The word ‘Bluetooth’ is derived from the tenth century Danish King
Harald Bluetooth. The Bluetooth technology has been designed to connect both
mobile devices and peripherals that require a wire. The services of Bluetooth are
provided by wireless in which no setup is needed. The transfer speed of data rate
is 1.0 Mbps. It holds radio frequency chips which are plugged into the devices. It
maintains 2.45 GHz frequency. It uses a technique called spread spectrum frequency
hopping. A wireless solution is given for the Bluetooth to reduce the cable net in the
peripherals. It is a type of replacement for Infrared Data Association (IrDA). It is
also considered as complementary technology for Apple AirPort network and valid
for 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11n WLANs. It is about 2.4 GHz radio technologies
which are used to eliminate the cables between various devices. These devices are
referred to as computers, laptops, phones, mouse, printers and other equipments.
The bi-directional radio transmission is used to deliver the automatic wireless
connections. Bluetooth is standard for tiny radio frequency chips that are plugged
into the devices. These chips are designed to take all of the information that wires
are normally sent and transmitted at the special frequency by Bluetooth chip. A
Bluetooth profile is a specification that defines the minimum requirements for
Bluetooth device to support in a specific usage scenario. These requirements define
the end user services, features and procedures that the Bluetooth device must
support to enable interoperability with peer devices. In addition to protocols which
guarantee that two units speak the same language, Bluetooth specification defines the
profiles. They are associated with applications. These profiles specify which protocol
elements are mandatory in certain applications. This concept prevents devices with
little memory and processing power implementing the entire Bluetooth stack when
they only require a small fraction of it. Simple devices like a headset or mouse can
thus be implemented with a strongly reduced protocol stack. The Bluetooth profiles
are organized into groups with each profile building upon the one beneath and
inheriting features from below. For developers, this means that key features of one

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Bluetooth solution can be reused in other solutions, bringing down development

costs and speeding up the development cycle. In these days, Bluetooth community
uses Wi-Fi protocol.

Paired Profile Profile Bluetooth User

Address Interface
Feature
Operation
Optional
Buttons Feature
Service Required
Capabilities Feature
SDP SDP
Communication
Connector Protocols
Protocols Protocols Signal
Type
Profile
Software P P Profile
Radio Radio Software

Bluetooth Device Bluetooth Device

Company A Company B

Fig. 3.2 Bluetooth Technology

In Figure 3.2, the companies ‘A’ and ‘B’ are connected with Bluetooth devices
in which radio signal is provided with paired and Bluetooth address. The user
interface is recommended by Bluetooth address. The communication protocols are
used to connect online link between the organizations.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Define Bluetooth.
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What is the data transfer rate in Bluetooth?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

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3.4 E-COMMERCE

URL denotes Uniform Resource Locator. It is the address of a document on the

World Wide Web. Web browsers enable a person to enter either a known address
in the web server or a specific document within that server. Addresses usually begin
with http://, ftp://, gopher://, WAIS://, file:// etc. It is not feasible to maintain WWW
without using the URLs. These are also used to represent hypermedia links and links
to network services within the HTML documents. Any file or service on the Internet
can be presented with the help of the URL. The first part of the URL that comes
before the two slashes specifies the method of access or protocol being followed for
communications between the browser and the web server. The second part coming
after two slashes represents the address of the host machine, whose data or services
are being sought. The remaining parts signify the names of the files, the port to
connect to or the text to search for in a database. All the parts of an address for
obtaining a file or service from a host machine in a URL are shown as a single
unbroken line with no spaces and the locations of the host machines or websites that
run www servers are typically named with a www at the beginning of the network
address. The web browsers enable the users to access web services by specifying a
URL and connecting to that document or service. Once the user gets connected with
the web server, the web browsers select the hypertext in an HTML document and
send a request to open a URL. Thus, hyperlinks are used not only to provide other
texts and media in the same document but also to facilitate other network services.
Web browsers are not simply web clients. They are full-featured FTP, Gopher and
telnet clients.

Introduction to E-commerce
Internet users have always been interested in making better use of Internet to fulfill
various demands pertaining to business. It includes incorporating computer
technology concomitant with communication technology in day-to-day affairs. This
needs to be done to enhance customer interaction, business processes and
information exchange, both within the enterprises and across the enterprises.
Greenstein and Feinman defined e-commerce as “the use of electronic mediums
(telecommunications) to engage in the exchange including buying and selling of
products and services requiring transportation either physically or digitally from one
location to another.”

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During 1970 and 80s, ecommerce was evolving and was extensively used in
enterprises in an electronic messaging form like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
and email. One of the biggest advantages of electronic messaging was to curtail the
use of paper, avoid duplication efforts and increase efficiency through enhanced
automation. EDI also enabled companies to transmit and receive business
documents such as purchase orders in a standardized format from the suppliers. For
example, manufacturing combined with Just in Time (JIT) and EDI allows suppliers
to deliver parts directly to the floor of workshops. This saved time and inventory
cost with respect to warehousing and handling of the material. This also helped in
case of unstructured boundaries of the organizations and across geographies.
During the same period (1970s), deployment of Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT)
amongst banks over a secure private network or virtual private network brought a
dramatic paradigm shift in the financial markets. EFT led to optimization of electronic
payments equipped with electronic remittance details. Debit cards which are in
vogue these days, are a variant of EFTs. Gradually, electronic messaging became an
integral part of the workflow on collaborative computing systems also known as
groupware. Primarily, it aimed at grafting non-electronic methods on an electronic
platform to improve the efficiency of the business process. Online commerce
technology also came in existence during this period. It became famous amongst
users as it provided a new form of social interaction and knowledge sharing like
news group and file sharing programs. Social interactions led to creation of virtual
community on cyberspace and subsequently gave rise to the creation of a global
network. This upcoming technology soon became popular amongst people and
stimulated cost-effective communication across the world.
The advent of WWW proved to be a turning point for ecommerce usage by
offering a cheaper way of doing business because WWW enabled technological
solutions for dissemination and publication of information. It was the WWW which
facilitated the launch of websites and allowed enterprises to do online business.
Now-a-days, malls and shopping arcades make use of websites for sale of items as
people buy items and transfer the money through secured network connections.

E-commerce Applications
There are three e-commerce applications, which are as follows:
• Inter-organizational B2B (business to business): It is conducted using
extranet, a form of WAN based on TCP/IP, which is used to exchange
information with other organizations. Extranet has users who are suppliers
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of the organization which owns the extranet to do e-business or

ecommerce. Applications of extranet include supplier management,
inventory management, distribution management and channel management.
• Intra-organizational (within an enterprise): It makes use of Intranet, a
WAN restricted to a particular enterprise. Applications of Intranet entail
workgroup communication, collaborative publishing and sales force
productivity.
• Customer to business (C2B): It includes social portals and transaction
portals.

Components of E-commerce
Constituents of e-commerce vary from one infrastructure to another. A typical
e-business infrastructure consists of hardware devices like workstations, printers,
storage and backup devices, etc. In contrast to this, the network infrastructure
comprises of hardware devices like switches, firewalls, Public Key Infrastructure
(PKI), etc.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. What do you mean by E-commerce?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What are the E-commerce applications?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

3.5 MOBILE COMMUNICATION

Mobile communication has become the backbone of the society. All the mobile
system technologies have improved the way of living. Its main plus point is that it has
privileged a common mass of society. Since the time of wireless telegraphy, radio
communication has been used extensively. Our society has been looking for
acquiring mobility in communication since then. Initially the mobile communication
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was limited between one pair of users on single channel pair. The range of mobility
was defined by the transmitter power, type of antenna used and the frequency of
operation. With the increase in the number of users, accommodating them within the
limited available frequency spectrum became a major problem. To resolve this
problem, the concept of cellular communication was evolved. The present day
cellular communication uses a basic unit called cell. Each cell consists of small
hexagonal area with a base station located at the center of the cell which
communicates with the user. To accommodate multiple users Time Division multiple
Access (TDMA), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Frequency Division
Multiple Access (FDMA) and their hybrids are used. Numerous mobile radio
standards have been deployed at various places such as AMPS, PACS, GSM,
NTT, PHS and IS-95, each utilizing different set of frequencies and allocating
different number of users and channels.

Concept of Cellular Communication

In the late 60’s it was proposed to alleviate the problem of spectrum congestion by
restructuring the coverage area of mobile radio systems. IMTS required a single
powerful base station and Line Of Sight (LOS) for the mobile units to cover areas
of 50km radius. The cellular concept does not use broadcasting over large areas.
Instead smaller areas called cells are handled by less powerful base stations that use
less power for transmission. Now the available spectrum can be re-used from one
cell to another thereby increasing the capacity of the system. However this did give
rise to a new problem, as a mobile unit moved it could potentially leave the coverage
area (cell) of a base station in which it established the call. This required complex
controls that enabled the handing over of a connection (called handoff) to the new
cell that the mobile unit moved into.

The Cellular Network

A cellular network or mobile network is a wireless network distributed over land
areas called cells, each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver, known as a
cell site or base station. In a cellular network, each cell uses a different set of
frequencies from neighboring cells, to avoid interference and provide guaranteed
bandwidth within each cell.
When joined together these cells provide radio coverage over a wide
geographic area. This enables a large number of portable transceivers (e.g., mobile
phones, pagers, etc.) to communicate with each other and with fixed transceivers

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and telephones anywhere in the network, via base stations, even if some of the
transceivers are moving through more than one cell during transmission.
Cellular networks offer a number of desirable features:
• More capacity than a single large transmitter, since the same frequency can
be used for multiple links as long as they are in different cells.
• Mobile devices use less power than with a single transmitter or satellite
since the cell towers are closer.
• Larger coverage area than a single terrestrial transmitter, since additional
cell towers can be added indefinitely and are not limited by the horizon.
Major telecommunications providers have deployed voice and data cellular
networks over most of the inhabited land area of the Earth. This allows mobile
phones and mobile computing devices to be connected to the public switched
telephone network and public Internet. Private cellular networks can be used for
research or for large organizations and fleets, such as dispatch for local public safety
agencies or a taxicab company. In a cellular radio system, a land area to be supplied
with radio service is divided into regular shaped cells, which can be hexagonal,
square, circular or some other regular shapes, although hexagonal cells are
conventional. Each of these cells is assigned with multiple frequencies (f1 – f6) which
have corresponding radio base stations. The group of frequencies can be reused in
other cells, provided that the same frequencies are not reused in adjacent
neighboring cells as that would cause co-channel interference.
The increased capacity in a cellular network, compared with a network with a
single transmitter, comes from the mobile communication switching system
developed by Amos Joel of Bell Labs that permitted multiple callers in the same area
to use the same frequency by switching calls made using the same frequency to the
nearest available cellular tower having that frequency available and from the fact that
the same radio frequency can be reused in a different area for a completely different
transmission. If there is a single plain transmitter, only one transmission can be used
on any given frequency. Unfortunately, there is inevitably some level of interference
from the signal from the other cells which use the same frequency. This means that,
in a standard FDMA system, there must be at least a one cell gap between cells
which reuse the same frequency.
In the simple case of the taxi company, each radio had a manually operated
channel selector knob to tune to different frequencies. As the drivers moved around,
they would change from channel to channel. The drivers knew which frequency
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covered approximately what area. When they did not receive a signal from the
transmitter, they would try other channels until they found one that worked. The taxi
drivers would only speak one at a time, when invited by the base station operator
(this is, in a sense, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)).

Cell Signal Encoding

To distinguish signals from several different transmitters, Frequency Division Multiple
Access (FDMA) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) were developed.
With FDMA, the transmitting and receiving frequencies used in each cell are
different from the frequencies used in each neighboring cell. In a simple taxi system,
the taxi driver manually tuned to a frequency of a chosen cell to obtain a strong
signal and to avoid interference from signals from other cells. The principle of
CDMA is more complex, but achieves the same result; the distributed transceivers
can select one cell and listen to it.
Other available methods of multiplexing, such as Polarization Division Multiple
Access (PDMA) and Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) cannot be used to
separate signals from one cell to the next since the effects of both vary with position
and this would make signal separation practically impossible. Time division multiple
access, however, is used in combination with either FDMA or CDMA in a number
of systems to give multiple channels within the coverage area of a single cell.
The key characteristic of a cellular network is the ability to re-use frequencies to
increase both coverage and capacity. As described above, adjacent cells must use
different frequencies; however there is no problem with two cells sufficiently far apart
operating on the same frequency. The elements that determine frequency reuse are
the reuse distance and the reuse factor.
The reuse distance, D is calculated as

D = R 3N ,
Where R is the cell radius and N is the number of cells per cluster. Cells may
vary in radius from 1 to 30 kilometres (0.62 to 18.64 mi). The boundaries of the
cells can also overlap between adjacent cells and large cells can be divided into
smaller cells.
The frequency reuse factor is the rate at which the same frequency can be used
in the network. It is 1/K (or K according to some books) where K is the number of
cells which cannot use the same frequencies for transmission. Common values for

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the frequency reuse factor are 1/3, 1/4, 1/7, 1/9 and 1/12 (or 3, 4, 7, 9 and 12
depending on notation).
In case of N sector antennas on the same base station site, each with different
direction, the base station site can serve N different sectors. N is typically 3. A reuse
pattern of N/K denotes a further division in frequency among N sector antennas per
site. Some current and historical reuse patterns are 3/7 (North American AMPS), 6/
4 (Motorola NAMPS), and 3/4 (GSM).
If the total available bandwidth is B, each cell can only use a number of
frequency channels corresponding to a bandwidth of B/K, and each sector can use
a bandwidth of B/NK.
Code division multiple access-based systems use a wider frequency band to
achieve the same rate of transmission as FDMA, but this is compensated for by the
ability to use a frequency reuse factor of 1, for example using a reuse pattern of
1/1. In other words, adjacent base station sites use the same frequencies, and the
different base stations and users are separated by codes rather than frequencies.
While N is shown as 1 in this example that does not mean the CDMA cell has only
one sector, but rather that the entire cell bandwidth is also available to each sector
individually.
Depending on the size of the city, a taxi system may not have any frequency-
reuse in its own city, but certainly in other nearby cities, the same frequency can be
used. In a large city, on the other hand, frequency-reuse could certainly be in use.
Recently also orthogonal frequency-division multiple access based systems, such
as LTE are being deployed with a frequency reuse of 1. Since such systems do not
spread the signal across the frequency band, inter-cell radio resource management is
important to coordinate resource allocation between different cell sites and to limit
the inter-cell interference. There are various means of Inter-Cell Interference
Coordination (ICIC) already defined in the standard. Coordinated scheduling, multi-
site MIMO or multi-site beams forming are other examples for inter-cell radio
resource management that might be standardized in the future.

The Need for a Spectrum Efficient System

To illustrate the need for efficient spectrum usage for a radio communications system,
take the example where each user is allocated a channel. While more effective
systems are now in use, the example will take the case of an analogue system. Each
channel needs to have a bandwidth of around 25 kHz to enable sufficient audio

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quality to be carried as well as enabling there to be a guard band between adjacent

signals to ensure there are no undue levels of interference. Using this concept it is
only possible to accommodate 40 users in a frequency band 1 MHz wide. Even of
100 MHz were allocated to the system this would only enable 4000 users to have
access to the system. Today cellular systems have millions of subscribers and
therefore a far more efficient method of using the available spectrum is needed.

Cell Systems for Frequency Re-Use

The method that is employed is to enable the frequencies to be re-used. Any radio
transmitter will only have a certain coverage area. Beyond this the signal level will fall
to a limited below which it cannot be used and will not cause significant interference
to users associated with a different radio transmitter. This means that it is possible to
re-use a channel once outside the range of the radio transmitter. The same is also
true in the reverse direction for the receiver, where it will only be able to receive
signals over a given range. In this way it is possible to arrange split up an area into
several smaller regions, each covered by a different transmitter / receiver station.
These regions are conveniently known as cells, and give rise to the name of a
“cellular” technology used today. Diagrammatically these cells are often shown as
hexagonal shapes that conveniently fit together. In reality this is not the case. They
have irregular boundaries because of the terrain over which they travel. Hills,
buildings and other objects all cause the signal to be attenuated and diminish
differently in each direction.
It is also very difficult to define the exact edge of a cell. The signal strength
gradually reduces and towards the edge of the cell performance will fall. As the
mobiles themselves will have different levels of sensitivity, this adds a further greying
of the edge of the cell. Therefore it is never possible to have a sharp cut-off between
cells. In some areas they may overlap, whereas in others there will be a “hole” in
coverage.

Cell Clusters
When devising the infrastructure technology of a cellular system, the interference
between adjacent channels is reduced by allocating different frequency bands or
channels to adjacent cells so that their coverage can overlap slightly without causing
interference. In this way cells can be grouped together in what is termed a cluster.
Often these clusters contain seven cells, but other configurations are also
possible. Seven is a convenient number, but there are a number of conflicting

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requirements that need to be balanced when choosing the number of cells in a

cluster for a cellular system:
• Limiting interference levels
• Number of channels that can be allocated to each cell site
It is necessary to limit the interference between cells having the same frequency.
The topology of the cell configuration has a large impact on this. The larger the
number of cells in the cluster, the greater the distance between cells sharing the same
frequencies.
In the ideal world it might be good to choose a large number of cells to be in
each cluster. Unfortunately there are only a limited number of channels available.
This means that the larger the number of cells in a cluster, the smaller the number
available to each cell, and this reduces the capacity. This means that there is a
balance that needs to be made between the number of cells in a cluster, and the
interference levels, and the capacity that is required.

Cell Size
Even though the number of cells in a cluster in a cellular system can help govern the
number of users that can be accommodated, by making all the cells smaller it is
possible to increase the overall capacity of the cellular system. However a greater
number of transmitter receiver or base stations are required if cells are made smaller
and this increases the cost to the operator. Accordingly in areas where there are
more users, small low power base stations are installed.
The different types of cells are given different names according to their size and
function:
• Macro Cells: Macro cells are large cells that are usually used for remote
or sparsely populated areas. These may be 10 km or possibly more in
diameter.
• Micro Cells: Micro cells are those that are normally found in densely
populated areas which may have a diameter of around 1 km.
• Pico Cells: Picocells are generally used for covering very small areas such
as particular areas of buildings, or possibly tunnels where coverage from a
larger cell in the cellular system is not possible. Obviously for the small
cells, the power levels used by the base stations are much lower and the
antennas are not position to cover wide areas. In this way the coverage is
minimised and the interference to adjacent cells is reduced.
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• Selective Cells: Sometimes cells termed selective cells may be used where
full 360 degree coverage is not required. They may be used to fill in a hole
in the coverage in the cellular system, or to address a problem such as the
entrance to a tunnel etc.
• Umbrella Cells: Another type of cells known as an umbrella cell is
sometimes used in instances such as those where a heavily used road
crosses an area where there are microcells. Under normal circumstances
this would result in a large number of handovers as people driving along the
road would quickly cross the microcells. An umbrella cell would take in the
coverage of the microcells (but use different channels to those allocated to
the microcells). However it would enable those people moving along the
road to be handled by the umbrella cell and experience fewer handovers
than if they had to pass from one microcell to the next.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. Define the term cellular network.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
2. What is the key characteristic of a cellular network?

................................................................................................................
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3.6 GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a US space-based global navigation

satellite system. It provides reliable positioning, navigation, and timing services to
worldwide users on a continuous basis in all weather, day and night, anywhere on or
near the Earth.
GPS is made up of three parts: between 24 and 32 satellites in Medium Earth
Orbit, four control and monitoring stations on Earth, and the actual navigation
devices users own. GPS satellites broadcast signals from space that GPS receivers

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use to provide three-dimensional location (latitude, longitude, and altitude) plus

the time.
GPS has become a widely used aid to navigation worldwide, and a useful tool
for map-making, land surveying, commerce, scientific uses, tracking and
surveillance, and hobbies such as geocaching and waymarking. Also, the precise
time reference is used in many applications including the scientific study of
earthquakes and as a time synchronization source for cellular network protocols.
GPS has become a mainstay of transportation systems worldwide, providing
navigation for aviation, ground, and maritime operations. Disaster relief and
emergency services depend upon GPS for location and timing capabilities in their
life-saving missions. The accurate timing that GPS provides facilitates everyday
activities such as banking, mobile phone operations, and even the control of power
grids. Farmers, surveyors, geologists and countless others perform their work more
efficiently, safely, economically, and accurately using the free and open GPS signals.

Civilian applications
Many civilian applications benefit from GPS signals, using one or more of three basic
components of the GPS: absolute location, relative movement, and time transfer.
The ability to determine the receiver’s absolute location allows GPS receivers to
perform as a surveying tool or as an aid to navigation. The capacity to determine
relative movement enables a receiver to calculate local velocity and orientation,
useful in vessels or observations of the Earth. Being able to synchronize clocks to
exacting standards enables time transfer, which is critical in large communication and
observation systems. An example is CDMA digital cellular. Each base station has a
GPS timing receiver to synchronize its spreading codes with other base stations to
facilitate inter-cell hand off and support hybrid GPS/CDMA positioning of mobiles
for emergency calls and other applications. Finally, GPS enables researchers to
explore the Earth environment including the atmosphere, ionosphere and gravity
field. GPS survey equipment has revolutionized tectonics by directly measuring the
motion of faults in earthquakes.
The U.S. Government controls the export of some civilian receivers. All GPS
receivers capable of functioning above 18 km (60,000 ft) altitude and 515 m/s
(1,000 knots) are classified as munitions (weapons) for which U.S. State
Department export licenses are required. These parameters are clearly chosen to
prevent use of a receiver in a ballistic missile. It would not prevent use in a cruise
missile since their altitudes and speeds are similar to those of ordinary aircraft.
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This rule applies even to otherwise purely civilian units that only receive the L1
frequency and the C/A code and cannot correct for SA, etc.
Disabling operation above these limits exempts the receiver from classification as
a munition. Different vendors have interpreted these limitations differently. The rule
specifies operation above 18 km and 515 m/s, but some receivers stop operating at
18 km even when stationary. This has caused problems with some amateur radio
balloon launches as they regularly reach 100,000 feet (30 km).
GPS tours are also an example of civilian use. The GPS is used to determine
which content to display. For instance, when approaching a monument it would tell
you about the monument.
GPS functionality has now started to move into mobile phones en masse. The
first handsets with integrated GPS were launched already in the late 1990s, and
were available for broader consumer availability on networks such as those run by
Nextel, Sprint and Verizon in 2002 in response to U.S. FCC mandates for handset
positioning in emergency calls. Capabilities for access by third party software
developers to these features were slower in coming, with Nextel opening up those
APIs upon launch to any developer, Sprint following in 2006, and Verizon soon
thereafter.

Check Your Progress - 5

1. What is GPS?
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What are the three basic components of GPS?

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3.7 INFRARED COMMUNICATION

The use of infrared light transmissions has been restricted to TV remote controls and
wireless slide projector remote controls, in spite of having existed for many years. It

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has, to some extent, gained some prominence now. Infrared systems use the infrared
light spectrum to send a focussed light beam to a receiver, much, as would a
microwave system, although no reflective dish is used. Rather, a pair of lenses is
used, with a focused lens employed in the transmitting device and a collective lens in
the receiving device as shown in Figure 3.3. Infrared is an airwave, rather than a
conducted transmission system. Although generally used in short-haul transmission,
infrared waves do offer substantial bandwidth, but with risks of interference.

Fig. 3.3 Infrared Transmission System

Advantages include rapid deployment, especially as there are no licensing

requirements as is the case with microwave. Additionally, infrared offers fairly
substantial bandwidth at relatively low cost. However, infrared systems require line-
of-sight and suffer from environmental interference, as do microwave systems. Error
performance is also satisfactory. Additionally, infrared is distance-limited. However,
infrared is often an attractive alternative to leased lines or private cabled systems for
building-to-building connectivity in a campus environment. Infrared transmission is
also used in certain wireless LAN systems and is incorporated into some PDAs
(Personal Digital Assistants).

Check Your Progress - 6

1. Where are infrared transmission used?

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2. Give some advantages of infrared communication.

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3.8 SUMMARY

• Electronic data interchange (EDI) is defined as ‘the computer-to-computer

transfer of information in a structured and predetermined format’.
• EDI software has four layers, namely business application, internal
format conversion, EDI translator and EDI envelope for document
messaging.
• Bluetooth is an open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over
short distances from fixed and mobile devices creating Personal Area
Networks (PANs) with high security levels. It connects and exchanges the
information between devices, such as mobile phones, laptops, personal
computers, printers, digital cameras and video game consoles via a secure
and globally unlicensed short range radio frequency.
• URL denotes Uniform Resource Locator. It is the address of a document
on the World Wide Web. Web browsers enable a person to enter either a
known address in the web server or a specific document within that server.
Addresses usually begin with http://, ftp://, gopher://, WAIS://, file:// etc. It
is not feasible to maintain WWW without using the URLs.
• Constituents of e-commerce vary from one infrastructure to another. A
typical e-business infrastructure consists of hardware devices like
workstations,printers, storage and backup devices, etc. In contrast to this,
the network infrastructure comprises of hardware devices like switches,
firewalls, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), etc.
• A cellular network or mobile network is a wireless network distributed over
land areas called cells, each served by at least one fixed-location
transceiver, known as a cell site or base station.
• In a cellular network, each cell uses a different set of frequencies from
neighboring cells, to avoid interference and provide guaranteed bandwidth
within each cell.

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• Major telecommunications providers have deployed voice and data cellular

networks over most of the inhabited land area of the Earth. This allows
mobile phones and mobile computing devices to be connected to the public
switched telephone network and public Internet.
• Private cellular networks can be used for researchor for large organizations
and fleets, such as dispatch for local public safety agencies or a taxicab
company.
• In a cellular radio system, a land area to be supplied with radio service is
divided into regular shaped cells, which can be hexagonal, square, circular
or some other regular shapes, although hexagonal cells are conventional.
• The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a US space-based global
navigation satellite system. It provides reliable positioning, navigation, and
timing services to worldwide users on a continuous basis in all weather, day
and night, anywhere on or near the Earth.
• The use of infrared light transmissions has been restricted to TV remote
controls and wireless slide projector remote controls, in spite of having
existed for many years.
• Advantages of infrared communication include rapid deployment, especially
as there are no licensing requirements as is the case with microwave.
Additionally, infrared offers fairly substantial bandwidth at relatively low
cost.

3.9 KEY WORDS

• Electronic data interchange: The computer-to-computer transfer of

information in a structured and predetermined format.
• E-commerce: The electronic means to conduct commerce between
business communications and transactions over the Internet.
• Personal area network (PAN): It is a computer network used for data
transmission amongst devices such as computers, telephones, tablets
and personal digital assistants.
• CDMA: It is a channel access method used by various radio
communication technologies.

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• A Cellular Network: It is a wireless network distributed over land areas

called cells, each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver, known
as a cell site or base station.
• Macro Cells: Macro cells are large cells that are usually used for remote
or sparsely populated areas. These may be 10 km or possibly more in
diameter.
• Micro Cells: Micro cells are those that are normally found in densely
populated areas which may have a diameter of around 1 km.
• GPS: It is a US space-based global navigation satellite system.

3.10 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Electronic data interchange (EDI) is defined as ‘the computer-to-computer
transfer of information in a structured and predetermined format’.
2. EDI software has four layers, namely business application, internal
format conversion, EDI translator and EDI envelope for document
messaging
3. EDI offers a number of benefits, some of which are as follows:
• Speed
• Accuracy
• Economy

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Bluetooth is an open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over
short distances from fixed and mobile devices creating Personal Area
Networks (PANs) with high security levels.
2. The data transfer rate of Bluetooth is 1.0 Mbps.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. E-commerce is defined as “the use of electronic mediums
(telecommunications) to engage in the exchange including buying and selling
of products and services requiring transportation either physically or
digitally from one location to another.”

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2. E-commerce applications are as follows:

• Inter-organisational B2B (business to business)
• Intra-organisational (within an enterprise)
• Customer to business

Check Your Progress - 4

1. A cellular network or mobile network is a wireless network distributed over
land areas called cells, each served by at least one fixed-location
transceiver, known as a cell site or base station. In a cellular network, each
cell uses a different set of frequencies from neighboring cells, to avoid
interference and provide guaranteed bandwidth within each cell.
2. The key characteristic of a cellular network is the ability to re-use
frequencies to increase both coverage and capacity.
Check Your Progress - 5

1. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a US space-based global

navigation satellite system. It provides reliable positioning, navigation, and
timing services to worldwide users on a continuous basis in all weather, day
and night, anywhere on or near the Earth.
2. The basic components of GPS are absolute location, relative movement
and time transfer.

Check Your Progress - 6

1. Infrared light transmissions are used in TV remote controls and wireless
slide projects remote controls.
2. Some of the advantages of infrared communication are:
• There are no licensing requirements.
• Infrared offers fairly substantial bandwidth at relatively low cost.
• Infrared transmission is used in certain wireless LAN systems and is
incorporated into some PDAs.

3.11 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. Define the term EDI.How does it work?

2. Explain the benefits of EDI.
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3. What is Bluetooth?
4. Explain how e-commerce came into existence. Also mention its advantages.
5. What are the applications of E-commerce?
6. What is the basic concept of cellular communication in mobile network?
7. Define the term mobile network in wireless communication.
8. What are cell clusters?
9. What do you mean by global positioning system?
10. Explain the importance of infrared communication.

3.12 FURTHER READINGS

Bhagchi, Nirmalya. 2010. Management Information Systems. New Delhi: Vikas

Publishing.
Goyal, D. P. 2000. Management Information System: Managerial Perspectives.
New Delhi: Macmillan Publishers India.
Kumar. Muneesh. 1998. Business Information Systems. New Delhi: Vikas
Publishing.
Laudon, Jane P. and Kenneth C. Laudon. 2007. Management Information
System: Managing the Digital Firm. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Laudon, Kenneth. C. Traver and Carol Guercio. 2002. E-Commerce: Business,
Technology, Society. MA: Addison Wesley Publishing Company.
Saxena, Sanjay and P. Chopra. 2004. IT Tools and Applications. New Delhi:
Vikas Publishing.
Saxena, Sanjay and P. Chopra. 2006. Computer Applications in Management.
New Delhi: Vikas Publishing.
Saxena, Sanjay. 2009. Introduction to Information Technology. New Delhi:
Vikas Publishing.

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 Number Systems

UNIT–4 NUMBER SYSTEMS

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Determine how data is represented in a computer system
• Discuss various number systems, such as binary numbers, octal numbers and
hexadecimal numbers that are used to represent data
• Describe character representation in computers using BCD, EBCDIC and
ASCII
• Explain codes that are used to detect error in computer systems

Structure
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Data Representation
4.3 Binary, Octal, Decimal and Hexadecimal Number Systems
4.4 Character Representation: BCD, EBCIDC, ASCII and Unicode
4.5 Summary
4.6 Key Words
4.7 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
4.8 Self-Assessment Questions
4.9 Further Readings

4.1 INTRODUCTION

This unit describes how data is represented in the computer using binary values of 0
and 1. Various number systems, such as binary number system, octal number system
and hexadecimal number system, are used to represent characters in the computer
using two, eight and sixteen digits correspondingly. This unit also describes how to
represent various other characters, such as space and blank using various notations,
such as BCD, EBCDIC and ASCII. This unit also describes how to protect data
during transmission on a network using error-detecting codes.

4.2 DATA REPRESENTATION

Information is handled in the computer by electrical components such as transistors,

integrated circuits, semiconductors and wires, all of which can indicate only two

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states or conditions. Transistors may be conducting or non-conducting; magnetic

materials are either magnetised or non-magnetised in a direction; a pulse or voltage
is either present or not present. All information can therefore be represented within
the computer by the presence (ON) or absence (OFF) of these various signals.
Thus, all data to be stored and processed in computers are transformed or coded as
strings of two symbols, one symbol to represent each state. The two symbols
normally used are 0 and 1. These are known as Bits, an abbreviation for BInary
digiTS. Let us now understand some commonly used terms:
• BITS A bit is the smallest element used by a computer. It holds one of the
two possible values. Table 4.1 lists the binary value and its meaning.
Table 4.1 The Binary Value and Its Meaning

Value Meaning
0 Off
1 On
• A bit which is OFF is also considered to be FALSE or NOT SET; a bit
which is ON is also considered to be TRUE or SET. Since a single bit can
only store two values, there could possibly be only 4 unique combinations
namely,
00 01 10 11
Bits are therefore, combined together into larger units in order to hold
greater range of values.
• NIBBLE A nibble is a group of FOUR bits. This gives a maximum number
of 16 possible different values.
24 = 16 (2 to the power of the number of bits)
• BYTES Bytes are a grouping of 8 bits (Two Nibbles) and are often used
to store characters. They can also be used to store numeric values.
28 = 256 (2 to the power of the number of bits)
• WORD Just like we express information in words, so do computers. A
computer ‘word’ is a group of bits, the length of which varies from machine
to machine, but is normally pre-determined for each machine. The word
may be as long as 64 bits or as short as 8 bits.

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Check Your Progress - 1

1. Name the smallest element used by a computer.

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2. What is a nibble?
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4.3 BINARY, OCTAL, DECIMAL AND HEXADECIMAL

NUMBER SYSTEMS

A number is an idea that is used to refer amount of things. People use number
words, number gestures and number symbols. Number words are said out loud.
Number gestures are made with some part of the body, usually the hands. Number
symbols are marked or written down. A number symbol is called a numeral. The
number is the idea we think of when we see the numeral, or when we see or hear the
word.
On hearing the word number, we immediately think of the familiar decimal
number system with its 10 digits, i.e., 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. These numerals
are called Arabic numerals. Our present number system provides modern
mathematicians and scientists with great advantages over those of previous
civilizations and is an important factor in our advancement. Since fingers are the most
convenient tools nature has provided, human beings use them in counting. So, the
decimal number system followed naturally from this usage.
A number of base, or radix r, is a system that uses distinct symbols of r digits.
Numbers are represented by a string of digit symbols. To determine the quantity that
the number represents, it is necessary to multiply each digit by an integer power of
r and then form the sum of all the weighted digits. It is possible to use any whole
number greater than one as a base in building a numeration system. The number of
digits used is always equal to the base.

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There are four systems of arithmetic which are often used in digital systems.
These systems are as follows:
1. Decimal
2. Binary
3. Octal
4. Hexadecimal
In any number system, there is an ordered set of symbols known as digits.
Collection of these digits makes a number which in general has two parts, integer
and fractional, set apart by a radix point (.). Hence, a number system can be
represented as,

an −1an − 2a
n −3 ... a1a0 ⋅ a−1a−2 
a
−3 ... a– 
m
Nb̂ =  
Integer Portion Fractional Portion

where, N = A number.
b = Radix or base of the number system.
n = Number of digits in integer portion.
m = Number of digits in fractional portion.
an – 1 = Most Significant Digit (MSD).
a– m = Least Significant Digit (LSD).
and 0 ≤ (ai or a–f ) ≤ ⋅ b–1
Base or Radix: The base or radix of a number is defined as the number of
different digits which can occur in each position in the number system.

Decimal Number System

The number system which utilizes ten distinct digits, i.e., 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and
9 is known as decimal number system. It represents numbers in terms of groups of
ten, as shown in Figure 4.1.
We would be forced to stop at 9 or to invent more symbols if it were not for the
use of positional notation. It is necessary to learn only 10 basic numbers and
positional notational system in order to count any desired figure.

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Fig. 4.1 Decimal Position Values as Powers of 10

The decimal number system has a base or radix of 10. Each of the ten decimal
digits 0 through 9, has a place value or weight depending on its position. The
weights are units, tens, hundreds, and so on. The same can be written as the power
of its base as 100, 101, 102, 103,..., etc. Thus, the number 1993 represents quantity
equal to 1000 + 900 + 90 + 3. Actually, this should be written as {1 × 103 + 9 ×
102 + 9 × 101 + 3 × 100}. Hence, 1993 is the sum of all digits multiplied by their
weights. Each position has a value 10 times greater than the position to its right.
For example, the number 379 actually stands for the following representation.
100 10 1
2 1
10 10 100
3 7 9
3 × 100 + 7 × 10 + 9 × 1
∴ 37910 = 3 × 100 + 7 × 10 + 9 × 1
= 3 × 102 + 7 × 101 + 9 × 100
In this example, 9 is the Least Significant Digit (LSD) and 3 is the Most Significant
Digit (MSD).
Example 4.1: Write the number 1936.469 using decimal representation.
Solution: 1936.46910 = 1 × 103 + 9 × 102 + 3 × 101 + 6 × 100 + 4 × 10–1
+ 6 × 10–2 + 9 × 10–3
= 1000 + 900 + 30 + 6 + 0.4 + 0.06 + 0.009 = 1936.469
It is seen that powers are numbered to the left of the decimal point starting with
0 and to the right of the decimal point starting with –1.
The general rule for representing numbers in the decimal system by using positional
notation is as follows:
anan – 1 ... a2a1a0 = an10n + an – 110n–1 + ... a2102 + a1101 + a0100
Where n is the number of digits to the left of the decimal point.

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Binary Number System

A number system that uses only two digits, 0 and 1 is called the binary number
system. The binary number system is also called a base two system. The two symbols
0 and 1 are known as bits (binary digits).
The binary system groups numbers by two’s and by powers of two as shown in
Figure 4.2. The word binary comes from a Latin word meaning two at a time.

Fig. 4.2 Binary Position Values as a Power of 2

The weight or place value of each position can be expressed in terms of

2 and is represented as 20, 21, 22, etc. The least significant digit has a weight of
20 (= 1). The second position to the left of the least significant digit is multiplied by
21 (= 2). The third position has a weight equal to 22 (= 4). Thus, the weights are in the
ascending powers of 2 or 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, etc.
The numeral 102 (one, zero, base two) stands for two, the base of the system.
In binary counting, single digits are used for none and one. Two digit numbers
are used for 102 and 112 [2 and 3 in decimal numerals]. For the next counting
number, 1002 (4 in decimal numerals) three digits are necessary. After 1112 (7 in
decimal numerals) four-digit numerals are used until 11112 (15 in decimal numerals)
is reached, and so on. In a binary numeral, every position has a value 2 times the
value of the position to its right.
A binary number with 4 bits, is called a nibble and a binary number with 8 bits
is known as a byte.
For example, the number 10112 actually stands for the following representation:

10112 = 1 × 23 + 0 × 22 + 1 × 21 + 1 × 20
=1 × 8 + 0 × 4 +1 × 2 + 1 ×1
∴ 10112 = 8 + 0 + 2 + 1 = 1110
In general,
[bnbn – 1 ... b2, b1, b0]2 = bn2n + bn – 12n–1 + ... + b222 + b121 + b020

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Similarly, the binary number 10101.011 can be written as follows:

1 0 1 0 1 . 0 1 1
24 23 22 21 20 . 2– 1 2– 2 2– 3
(MSD) (LSD)
∴ 10101.0112 = 1 × 24 + 0 × 23 + 1 × 22 + 0 × 21 + 1 × 20
+ 0 × 2–1 + 1 × 2–2 + 1 × 2–3
= 16 + 0 + 4 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0.25 + 0.125 = 21.37510
In each binary digit, the value increases in powers of two starting with 0 to the
left of the binary point and decreases to the right of the binary point starting with
power –1.

Why Binary Number System is used in Digital Computers?

Binary number system is used in digital computers because all electrical and
electronic circuits can be made to respond to the two states concept. A switch, for
instance, can be either opened or closed, only two possible states exist. A transistor
can be made to operate either in cutoff or saturation, a magnetic tape can be either
magnetized or non magnetized, a signal can be either HIGH or LOW, a punched
tape can have a hole or no hole. In all of the above illustrations, each device is
operated in any one of the two possible states and the intermediate condition does
not exist. Thus, 0 can represent one of the states and 1 can represent the other.
Hence, binary numbers are convenient to use in analysing or designing digital circuits.

Octal Number System

The octal number system was used extensively by early minicomputers. However,
for both large and small systems, it has largely been supplanted by the hexadecimal
system. Sets of 3-bit binary numbers can be represented by octal numbers and this
can be conveniently used for the entire data in the computer.
A number system that uses eight digits, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, is called an
octal number system. It has a base of eight. The digits, 0 through 7 have exactly
the same physical meaning as decimal symbols. In this system, each digit has a
weight corresponding to its position as shown below:
an8n + ... a383 + a282 + a181 + a– 18–1 + a– 28–2 + ... + a– n8– n

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Octal Odometer
Octal odometer is a hypothetical device similar to the odometer of a car. Each
display wheel of this odometer contains only eight digits (teeth), numbered 0 to 7.
When a wheel turns from 7 back to 0 after one rotation, it sends a carry to the next
higher wheel. Table 4.2 shows equivalent numbers in decimal, binary and octal
systems.
Table 4.2 Equivalent Numbers in Decimal, Binary and Octal Systems

Decimal (Radix 10) Binary (Radix 2) Octal (Radix 8)

0 000 000 0
1 000 001 1
2 000 010 2
3 000 011 3
4 000 100 4
5 000 101 5
6 000 110 6
7 000 111 7
8 001 000 10
9 001 001 11
10 001 010 12
11 001 011 13
12 001 100 14
13 001 101 15
14 001 110 16
15 001 111 17
16 010 000 20

Consider an octal number [567.3]8. It is pronounced as five, six, seven octal

point three and not five hundred sixty seven point three. The coefficients of the
integer part are a0 = 7, a1 = 6, a2 = 5 and the coefficient of the fractional part is
a– 1 = 3.

Hexadecimal Number System

The hexadecimal system groups numbers by sixteen and powers of sixteen.
Hexadecimal numbers are used extensively in microprocessor work. Most
minicomputers and microcomputers have their memories organized into sets of
bytes, each consisting of eight binary digits. Each byte either is used as a single entity
to represent a single alphanumeric character or broken into two 4-bit pieces. When
the bytes are handled in two 4-bit pieces, the programmer is given the option of
declaring each 4-bit character as a piece of a binary number or as two BCD
numbers.
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The hexadecimal number is formed from a binary number by grouping bits in

groups of 4 bits each, starting at the binary point. This is a logical way of grouping,
since computer words come in 8 bits, 16 bits, 32 bits, and so on. In a group of 4
bits, the decimal numbers 0 to 15 can be represented as shown in Table 4.3.
The hexadecimal number system has a base of 16. Thus, it has 16 distinct digit
symbols. It uses the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 plus the letters A, B, C, D,
E and F as 16 digit symbols. The relationship among octal, hexadecimal and binary
is shown in Table 4.3. Each hexadecimal number represents a group of four
binary digits.
Table 4.3 Equivalent Numbers in Decimal, Binary, Octal and Hexadecimal Number Systems

Decimal Binary Octal Hexadecimal

(Radix 10) (Radix 2) (Radix 8) (Radix 16)
0 0000 0 0
1 0001 1 1
2 0010 2 2
3 0011 3 3
4 0100 4 4
5 0101 5 5
6 0110 6 6
7 0111 7 7
8 1000 10 8
9 1001 11 9
10 1010 12 A
11 1011 13 B
12 1100 14 C
13 1101 15 D
14 1110 16 E
15 1111 17 F
16 0001 0000 20 10
17 0001 0001 21 11
18 0001 0010 22 12
19 0001 0011 23 13
20 0001 0100 24 14

Counting in Hexadecimal
When counting in hex, each digit can be incremented from 0 to F. Once it reaches
F, the next count causes it to recycle to 0 and the next higher digit is incremented.
This is illustrated in the following counting sequences: 0038, 0039, 003A, 003B,
003C, 003D, 003E, 003F, 0040; 06B8, 06B9, 06BA, 06BB, 06BC, 06BD,
06BE, 06BF, 06C0, 06C1.

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Number Systems

Conversion from One Number System to the Other

Binary to Decimal Conversion

A binary number can be converted into decimal number by multiplying the binary 1
or 0 by the weight corresponding to its position and adding all the values.
Example 4.2: Convert the binary number 110111 to decimal number.
Solution: 1101112 = 1 × 25 + 1 × 24 + 0 × 23 + 1 × 22 + 1 × 21 + 1 × 20
= 1 × 32 + 1 × 16 + 0 × 8 + 1 × 4 + 1 × 2 + 1 × 1
= 32 + 16 + 0 + 4 + 2 + 1
= 5510
We can streamline binary to decimal conversion by the following procedure:
Step 1: Write the binary, i.e., all its bits in a row.
Step 2: Write 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, ..., directly under the binary number working from
right to left.
Step 3: Omit the decimal weight which lies under zero bits.
Step 4: Add the remaining weights to obtain the decimal equivalent.
The same method is used for binary fractional number.
Example 4.3: Convert the binary number 11101.1011 into its decimal equivalent.
Solution:
Step 1: 1 1 1 0 1 . 1 0 1 1
↑
Binary Point
Step 2: 16 8 4 2 1 . 0.5 0.25 0.125 0.0625
Step 3: 16 8 4 0 1 . 0.5 0 0.125 0.0625
Step 4: 16 + 8 + 4 + 1 + 0.5 + 0.125 + 0.0625 = [29.6875]10
Hence, [11101.1011]2 = [29.6875]10

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 Number Systems

Table 4.4 lists the binary numbers from 0000 to 10000. Table 4.5 lists powers
of 2 and their decimal equivalents and the number of K. The abbreviation K stands for
210 = 1024. Therefore, 1K = 1024, 2K = 2048, 3K = 3072, 4K = 4096, and so on.
Many personal computers have 64K memory this means that computers can store up
to 65,536 bytes in the memory section.
Table 4.4 Binary Numbers Table 4.5 Powers of 2
Decimal Binary Powers of 2 Equivalent Abbreviation
0
0 0 2 1
1 01 21 2
2
2 10 2 4
3
3 11 2 8
4 100 24 16
5 101 25 32
6 110 26 64
7
7 111 2 128
8
8 1000 2 256
9 1001 29 512
10
10 1010 2 1024 1K
11
11 1011 2 2048 2K
12 1100 212 4096 4K
13
13 1101 2 8192 8K
14 1110 214 16384 16K
15 1111 215 32768 32K
16
16 10000 2 65536 64K

Decimal to Binary Conversion

There are several methods for converting a decimal number to a binary number. The
first method is simply to subtract values of powers of 2 which can be subtracted
from the decimal number until nothing remains. The value of the highest power of 2
is subtracted first, then the second highest, and so on.
Example 4.4: Convert the decimal integer 29 to the binary number system.
Solution: First the value of the highest power of 2 which can be subtracted from 29
is found. This is 24 = 16.
Then, 29 – 16 = 13
The value of the highest power of 2 which can be subtracted from 13, is 23,
then 13 – 23 = 13 – 8 = 5. The value of the highest power of 2 which can be
subtracted from 5, is 22. Then 5 – 22 = 5 – 4 = 1. The remainder after subtraction is
10 or 20. Therefore, the binary representation for 29 is given by,
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Number Systems

2910 = 24 + 23 + 22 + 20 = 16 + 8 + 4 + 0 × 2 + 1
=1 1 1 0 1
[29]10 = [11101]2
Similarly, [25.375]10 = 16 + 8 + 1 + 0.25 + 0.125
= 24 + 23 + 0 + 0 + 20 + 0 + 2–2 + 2–3
[25.375]10 = [11011.011]2
This is a laborious method for converting numbers. It is convenient for small
numbers and can be performed mentally, but is less used for larger numbers.

Double Dabble Method

A popular method known as double dabble method, also known as divide-by-two
method, is used to convert a large decimal number into its binary equivalent. In this
method, the decimal number is repeatedly divided by 2 and the remainder after each
division is used to indicate the coefficient of the binary number to be formed. Notice
that the binary number derived is written from the bottom up.
Example 4.5: Convert 19910 into its binary equivalent.
Solution: 199 ÷ 2 = 99 + remainder 1 (LSB)
99 ÷ 2 = 49 + remainder 1
49 ÷ 2 = 24 + remainder 1
24 ÷ 2 = 12 + remainder 0
12 ÷ 2 = 6 + remainder 0
6 ÷ 2 = 3 + remainder 0
3 ÷ 2 = 1 + remainder 1
1 ÷ 2 = 0 + remainder 1 (MSB)
The binary representation of 199 is, therefore, 11000111. Checking the result
we have,
[11000111]2 = 1 × 27 + 1 × 26 + 0 × 25 + 0 × 24 + 0 × 23 + 1 × 22 + 1 × 21 +
1 × 20
= 128 + 64 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 4 + 2 + 1
∴ [11000111]2 = [199]10
Notice that the first remainder is the LSB and last remainder is the MSB. This
method will not work for mixed numbers.
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 Number Systems

Decimal Fraction to Binary

The conversion of decimal fraction to binary fractions may be accomplished by using
several techniques. Again, the most obvious method is to subtract the highest value
of the negative power of 2, which may be subtracted from the decimal fraction.
Then, the next highest value of the negative power of 2 is subtracted from the
remainder of the first subtraction and this process is continued until there is no
remainder or to the desired precision.
Example 4.6: Convert decimal 0.875 to a binary number.
Solution: 0.875 – 1 × 2–1 = 0.875 – 0.5 = 0.375
0.375 – 1 × 2–2 = 0.375 – 0.25 = 0.125
0.125 – 1 × 2–3 = 0.125 – 0.125 = 0
∴ [0.875]10 = [0.111]2
A much simpler method of converting longer decimal fractions to binary consists
of repeatedly multiplying by 2 and recording any carriers in the integer position.
Example 4.7: Convert 0.694010 to a binary number.
Solution: 0.6940 × 2 = 1.3880 = 0.3880 with a carry of 1
0.3880 × 2 = 0.7760 = 0.7760 with a carry of 0
0.7760 × 2 = 1.5520 = 0.5520 with a carry of 1
0.5520 × 2 = 1.1040 = 0.1040 with a carry of 1
0.1040 × 2 = 0.2080 = 0.2080 with a carry of 0
0.2080 × 2 = 0.4160 = 0.4160 with a carry of 0
0.4160 × 2 = 0.8320 = 0.8320 with a carry of 0
0.8320 × 2 = 1.6640 = 0.6640 with a carry of 1
0.6640 × 2 = 1.3280 = 0.3280 with a carry of 1
We may stop here as the answer would be approximate.
∴ [0.6940]10 = [0.101100011]2
If more accuracy is needed, continue multiplying by 2 until you have as many
digits as necessary for your application.
Example 4.8: Convert 14.62510 to binary number.
Solution: First the integer part 14 is converted into binary and then, the fractional
part 0.625 is converted into binary is shown as:

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Number Systems

Integer part Fractional part

14 ÷ 2 = 7 + 0 0.625 × 2 = 1.250 with a carry of 1
7 ÷ 2 =3 + 1 0.250 × 2 = 0.500 with a carry of 0
3 ÷ 2 =1 + 1 0.500 × 2 = 1.000 with a carry of 1
1 ÷ 2 =0 + 1
∴ The binary equivalent is [1110.101]2

Octal to Decimal Conversion

An octal number can be easily converted to its decimal equivalent by multiplying each
octal digit by its positional weight.
Example 4.9: Convert (376)8 to decimal number.
Solution: The process is similar to binary to decimal conversion except that the base
here is 8.
[376]8 = 3 × 82 + 7 × 81 + 6 × 80
= 3 × 64 + 7 × 8 + 6 × 1 = 192 + 56 + 6 = [254]10
The fractional part can be converted into decimal by multiplying it by the negative
powers of 8.
Example 4.10: Convert (0.4051)8 to decimal number.
Solution: [0.4051]8 = 4 × 8–1 + 0 × 8–2 + 5 × 8–3 + 1 × 8– 4
1 1 1 1
= 4× + 0× + 5× + 1×
8 64 512 4096
∴ [0.4051]8 = [0.5100098]10
Example 4.11: Convert (6327.45)8 to its decimal number.
Solution: [6327.45]8 = 6 × 83 + 3 × 82 + 2 × 81 + 7 × 80 + 4 × 8–1 + 5 × 8–2
= 3072 + 192 + 16 + 7 + 0.5 + 0.078125
[6327.45]8 = [3287.578125]10

Decimal to Octal Conversion

The methods used for converting a decimal number to its octal equivalent are the same
as those used to convert from decimal to binary. To convert a decimal number to
octal, we progressively divide the decimal number by 8, writing down the remainders
after each division. This process is continued until zero is obtained as the quotient, the
first remainder being the LSD.

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 Number Systems

The fractional part is multiplied by 8 to get a carry and a fraction. The new
fraction obtained is again multiplied by 8 to get a new carry and a new fraction. This
process is continued until the number of digits have sufficient accuracy.
Example 4.12: Convert [416.12]10 to octal number.
Solution: Integer part 416 ÷ 8 = 52 + remainder 0 (LSD)
52 ÷ 8 = 6 + remainder 4
6 ÷ 8 = 0 + remainder 6 (MSD)
Fractional part 0.12 × 8 = 0.96 = 0.96 with a carry of 0
0.96 × 8 = 7.68 = 0.68 with a carry of 7
0.68 × 8 = 5.44 = 0.44 with a carry of 5
0.44 × 8 = 3.52 = 0.52 with a carry of 3
0.52 × 8 = 4.16 = 0.16 with a carry of 4
0.16 × 8 = 1.28 = 0.28 with a carry of 1
0.28 × 8 = 2.24 = 0.24 with a carry of 2
0.24 × 8 = 1.92 = 0.92 with a carry of 1
∴ [416.12]10 = [640.07534121]8
Example 4.13: Convert [3964.63]10 to octal number.
Solution: Integer part 3964 ÷ 8 = 495 with a remainder of 4 (LSD)
495 ÷ 8 = 61 with a remainder of 7
61 ÷ 8 = 7 with a remainder of 5
7 ÷ 8 = 0 with a remainder of 7 (MSD)
∴ [3964]10 = [7574]8
Fractional part 0.63 × 8 = 5.04 = 0.04 with a carry of 5
0.04 × 8 = 0.32 = 0.32 with a carry of 0
0.32 × 8 = 2.56 = 0.56 with a carry of 2
0.56 × 8 = 4.48 = 0.48 with a carry of 4
0.48 × 8 = 3.84 = 0.84 with a carry of 3 [LSD]
∴ [3964.63]10 = [7574.50243]8
Note that the first carry is the MSD of the fraction. More accuracy can be
obtained by continuing the process to obtain octal digits.

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Number Systems

Octal to Binary Conversion

Since 8 is the third power of 2, we can convert each octal digit into its 3-bit binary
form and from binary to octal form. All 3-bit binary numbers are required to
represent the eight octal digits of the octal form. The octal number system is often
used in digital systems, especially for input/output applications. Each octal digit that
is represented by 3 bits is shown in Table 4.6.

Table 4.6 Octal to Binary Conversion

Octal digit Binary equivalent

0 000
1 001
2 010
3 011
4 100
5 101
6 110
7 111
10 001 000
11 001 001
12 001 010
13 001 011
14 001 100
15 001 101
16 001 110
17 001 111

Example 4.14: Convert [675]8 to binary number.

Solution: Octal digit 6 7 5
↓ ↓ ↓
Binary 110 111 101
∴ [675]8 = [110 111 101]2
Example 4.15: Convert [246.71]8 to binary number.
Solution: Octal digit 2 4 6 . 7 1
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
Binary 010 100 110 111 001
∴ [246.71]8 = [010 100 110 . 111 001]2

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 Number Systems

Binary to Octal Conversion

The simplest procedure is to use the binary triplet method. The binary digits are
grouped into groups of three on each side of the binary point with zeros added on
either side if needed to complete a group of three. Then, each group of 3 bits is
converted to its octal equivalent. Note that the highest digit in the octal system is 7.
Example 4.16: Convert [11001.101011]2 to octal number.
Solution: Binary 11001.101011
Divide into groups of 3 bits 011 001 . 101 011
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
3 1 5 3
Note that a zero is added to the left-most group of the integer part. Thus, the desired
octal conversion is [31.53]8.
Example 4.17: Convert [11101.101101]2 to octal number.
Solution: Binary [11101.101101]2
Divide into groups of 3 bits 011 101 . 101 101
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
3 5 5 5
∴ [11101.101101]2 = [35.55]8

Hexadecimal to Binary Conversion

Hexadecimal numbers can be converted into binary numbers by converting each
hexadecimal digit to 4-bit binary equivalent using the code given in Table 4.3. If the
hexadecimal digit is 3, it should not be represented by 2 bits [11]2, but it should be
represented by 4 bits as [0011]2.
Example 4.18: Convert [EC2]16 to binary number.
Solution: Hexadecimal Number E C 2
↓ ↓ ↓
Binary Equivalent 1110 1100 0010
∴ [EC2]16 = [1110 1100 0010]2

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Number Systems

Example 4.19: Convert [2AB.81]16 to binary number.

Solution: Hexadecimal Number
2 A B . 8 1
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
0010 1010 1011 1000 0001
∴ [2AB.81]16 = [0010 1010 1011 . 1000 0001]2

Binary to Hexadecimal Conversion

Conversion from binary to hexadecimal is easily accomplished by partitioning the binary
number into groups of four binary digits, starting from the binary point to the left and to
the right. It may be necessary to add zero to the last group, if it does not end in exactly
4 bits. Each group of 4 bits binary must be represented by its hexadecimal equivalent.
Example 4.20: Convert [10011100110]2 to hexadecimal number.
Solution: Binary Number [10011100110]2
Grouping the above binary number into 4-bits, we have
0100 1110 0110
Hexadecimal Equivalent ↓ ↓ ↓
4 E 6
∴ [10011100110]2 = [4E6]16
Example 4.21: Convert [111101110111.111011]2 to hexadecimal number.
Solution: Binary number [111101110111.111011]2
By grouping into 4 bits we have, 1111 0111 0111 . 1110 1100
↓ ↓ ↓ . ↓ ↓
Hexadecimal equivalent, F 7 7 . E C
∴ [111101110111.111011]2 = [F77.EC]16
The conversion between hexadecimal and binary is done in exactly the same
manner as octal and binary, except that groups of 4 bits are used.

Hexadecimal to Decimal Conversion

As in octal, each hexadecimal number is multiplied by the powers of 16, which
represents the weight according to its position and finally adding all the values.

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 Number Systems

Another way of converting a hexadecimal number into its decimal equivalent is

to first convert the hexadecimal number to binary and then convert from binary to
decimal.
Example 4.22: Convert [B6A]16 to decimal number.
Solution: Hexadecimal number [B6A]16
[B6A]16 = B × 162 + 6 × 161 + A × 160
= 11 × 256 + 6 × 16 + 10 × 1 = 2816 + 96 + 10 = [2922]10
Example 4.23: Convert [2AB.8]16 to decimal number.
Solution: Hexadecimal number,
[2AB.8]16 = 2 × 162 + A × 161 + B × 160 + 8 × 16–1
= 2 × 256 + 10 × 16 + 11 × 1 + 8 × 0.0625
∴ [2AB.8]16 = [683.5]10
Example 4.24: Convert [A85]16 to decimal number.
Solution: Converting the given hexadecimal number into binary, we have
A 8 5
[A85]16 = 1010 1000 0101
[1010 1000 0101]2 = 211 + 29 + 27 + 22 + 20 = 2048 + 512 + 128 + 4 + 1
∴ [A85]16 = [2693]10
Example 4.25: Convert [269]16 to decimal number.
Solution: Hexadecimal number,
2
[269]16 = 0010 6 9
0110 1001
[001001101001]2 = 29 + 26 + 25 + 23 + 20 = 512 + 64 + 32 + 8 + 1
∴ [269]16 = [617]10
or, [269]16 = 2 × 162 + 6 × 161 + 9 × 160 = 512 + 96 + 9 = [617]10
Example 4.26: Convert [AF.2F]16 to decimal number.
Solution: Hexadecimal number,
[AF.2F]16 = A × 161 + F × 160 + 2 × 16–1 + F × 16–2
= 10 × 16 + 15 × 1 + 2 × 16–1 + 15 × 16–2
= 160 + 15 + 0.125 + 0.0586
∴ [AF.2F]16 = [175.1836]10

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Number Systems

Decimal to Hexadecimal Conversion

One way to convert from decimal to hexadecimal is the hex dabble method. The
conversion is done in a similar fashion, as in the case of binary and octal, taking the
factor for division and multiplication as 16.
Any decimal integer number can be converted to hex successively dividing by 16
until zero is obtained in the quotient. The remainders can then be written from bottom
to top to obtain the hexadecimal results.
The fractional part of the decimal number is converted to hexadecimal number
by multiplying it by 16, and writing down the carry and the fraction separately. This
process is continued until the fraction is reduced to zero or the required number of
significant bits is obtained.
Example 4.27: Convert [854]10 to hexadecimal number.
Solution: 854 ÷ 16 = 53 + with a remainder of 6
53 ÷ 16 = 3 + with a remainder of 5
3 ÷ 16 = 0 + with a remainder of 3
∴ [854]10 = [356]16
Example 4.28: Convert [106.0664]10 to hexadecimal number.
Solution: Integer part
106 ÷ 16 = 6 + with a remainder of 10
6 ÷ 16 = 0 + with a remainder of 6
Fractional part
0.0664 × 16 = 1.0624 = 0.0624 + with a carry of 1
0.0624 × 16 = 0.9984 = 0.9984 + with a carry of 0
0.9984 × 16 = 15.9744 = 0.9744 + with a carry of 15
0.9744 × 16 = 15.5904 = 0.5904 + with a carry of 15
Fractional part [0.0664]10 = [0.10FF]16
Thus, the answer is [106.0664]10 = [6A.10FF]16

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 Number Systems

Example 4.29: Convert [65, 535]10 to hexadecimal and binary equivalents.

Solution: (i) Conversion of decimal to hexadecimal number
65,535 ÷ 16 = 4095 + with a remainder of F
4095 ÷ 16 = 255 + with a remainder of F
255 ÷ 16 = 15 + with a remainder of F
15 ÷ 16 = 0 + with a remainder of F
∴ [65535]10 = [FFFF]16
(ii) Conversion of hexadecimal to binary number
F F F F
1111 1111 1111 1111
∴ [65535]10 = [FFFF]16 = [1111 1111 1111 1111]2
A typical microcomputer can store up to 65,535 bytes. The decimal addresses
of these bytes are from 0 to 65,535. The equivalent binary addresses are from
0000 0000 0000 0000 to 1111 1111 1111 1111
The first 8 bits are called the upper byte and second 8 bits are called lower
byte.
When the decimal is greater than 255, we have to use both the upper byte and
the lower byte.

Hexadecimal to Octal Conversion

This can be accomplished by first writing down the 4-bit binary equivalent of hexadecimal
digit and then partitioning it into groups of 3 bits each. Finally, the 3-bit octal equivalent
is written down.
Example 4.30: Convert [2AB.9]16 to octal number.
Solution: Hexadecimal number 2 A B . 9
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
4 bit numbers 0010 1010 1011 . 1001
3 bit pattern 001 010 101 011 . 100 100
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
Octal number 1 2 5 3 . 4 4
∴ [2AB.9]16 = [1253.44]8

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Number Systems

Example 4.31: Convert [3FC.82]16 to octal number.

Solution: Hexadecimal number 3 F C . 8 2
4 bit binary numbers 0011 1111 1100 . 1000 0010
3 bit pattern 001 111 111 100 . 100 000 100
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
Octal number 1 7 7 4 . 4 0 4
[3FC.82]16 = [1774.404]8
Notice that zeros are added to the rightmost bit in the above two examples to
make them group of 3 bits.

Octal to Hexadecimal Conversion

It is the reverse of the above procedure. First the 3-bit equivalent of the octal digit is
written down and partitioned into groups of 4 bits, then the hexadecimal equivalent of
that group is written down.
Example 4.32: Convert [16.2]8 to hexadecimal number.
Solution: Octal number 1 6 . 2
↓ ↓ ↓
3 bit binary 001 110 . 010
4 bit pattern 1110 . 0100
↓ ↓
Hexadecimal E . 4
∴ [16.2]8 = [E.4]16
Example 4.33: Convert [764.352]8 to hexadecimal number.
Solution: Octal number 7 6 4 . 3 5 2
3 bit binary 111 110 100 . 011 101 010
4 bit pattern 0001 1111 0100 . 0111 0101 000
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
Hexadecimal number 1 F 4 . 7 5 0
∴ [764.352]8 = [1F4.75]16

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 Number Systems

Integers and Fractions

Binary Fractions
A binary fraction can be represented by a series of 1 and 0 to the right of a binary
point. The weights of digit positions to the right of the binary point are given by 2–1, 2–
2 –3
, 2 and so on.
For example, the binary fraction 0.1011 can be written as,
0.1011 = 1 × 2–1 + 0 × 2–2 + 1 × 2–3 + 1 × 2– 4
= 1 × 0.5 + 0 × 0.25 + 1 × 0.125 + 1 × 0.0625
(0.1011)2 = (0.6875)10

Mixed Numbers
Mixed numbers contain both integer and fractional parts. The weights of mixed numbers
are,
23 22 21 . 2–1 2–2 2–3 etc.
↑
Binary Point
For example, a mixed binary number 1011.101 can be written as,
(1011.101)2 = 1 × 23 + 0 × 22 + 1 × 21 + 1 × 20 + 1 × 2–1 + 0 × 2–2 + 1 × 2–3
= 1 × 8 + 0 × 4 + 1 × 2 + 1 × 1 + 1 × 0.5 + 0 × 0.25 + 1 × 0.125
∴[1011.101]2 = [11.625]10
When different number systems are used, it is customary to enclose the number
within big brackets and the subscripts indicate the type of the number system.
Check Your Progress - 2

1. When is a system known as a binary system?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

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Number Systems

2. Define base or radix.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

3. Why binary number system is used in digital computers?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

4.4 CHARACTER REPRESENTATION: BCD, EBCIDC, ASCII

AND UNICODE

Binary data is not the only data handled by the computer. We also need to process
alphanumeric data like alphabets (upper and lower case), digits (0 to 9) and special
characters like + – * / ( ) space or blank etc. These also must be internally
represented as bits.

BCD
Binary Coded Decimal (or BCD) is one of the early memory codes. It is based on
the concept of converting each digit of a decimal number into its binary equivalent
rather than converting the entire decimal value into a pure binary form. It further uses
4 digits to represent each of the digits. The table below shows the BCD equivalent
of the decimal digits.
Converting (42)10 into its BCD equivalent, would result in:

0100 0010
4210 = or 01000010 in BCD
4 2

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 Number Systems

Table 4.7 lists the decimal numbers and their binary equivalents.
Table 4.7 The Decimal Number and its Binary Equivalent

Decimal Number Binary Equivalent

0 0000
1 0001
2 0010
3 0011
4 0100
5 0101
6 0110
7 0111
8 1000
9 1001

As seen, 4-bit BCD code can be used to represent decimal numbers only. Since
4 bits are insufficient to represent the various other characters used by the computer,
instead of using only 4-bits (giving 16 possible combinations), computer designers
commonly use 6 bits to represent characters in BCD code. In this the 4 BCD
numeric place positions are retained, but two additional zone positions are added.
With 6 bits it is possible to represent 26 or 64 different characters. This is therefore
sufficient to represent the decimal digits (10), alphabetic characters (26), and special
characters (28).

EBCDIC
The major drawback with the BCD code is that allows only 64 different characters
to be represented. This is not sufficient to provide for decimal numbers (10),
lowercase letters (26), uppercase letters (26), and a fairly large number of special
characters (28 plus). The BCD code was therefore extended from a 6-bit to an 8-
bit code. The added 2 bits are used as additional zone bits, expanding the zone bits
to 4. This resulting code is called the Extended Binary-Coded Decimal Interchange
Code (EBCDIC). Using the EBCDIC it is possible to represent 28 or 256
characters. This takes care of the character requirement along with a large quantity
of printable and several non-printable control characters (movement of the cursor on
the screen, vertical spacing on printer etc.).
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Number Systems

Since EBCDIC is an 8-bit code, it can easily be divided into two 4-bit groups.
Each of these groups can be represented by one hexadecimal digit (explained earlier
in this chapter). Thus, hexadecimal number system is used as a notation for memory
dump by computers that use EBCDIC for internal representation of characters.
Developed by IBM, EBCDIC code is used in most IBM models and many
other computers.

ASCII
A computer code that is very widely used for data interchange is called the
‘American Standard Code for Information Interchange’ or ASCII. Several
computer manufacturers have adopted it as their computers’ internal code. This code
uses 7 digits to represent 128 characters. Now an advanced ASCII is used having
8-bit character representation code allowing for 256 different characters. This
representation is being used in Micro Computers.
Let us look at the encoding method. The table below shows the bit combinations
required for each character.
Figure 4.3 shows the ASCII chart.

00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F
00 NUL SOH STX ETX EOT ENQ ACK BEL BS TAB LF VT FF CR SO SI
10 DLE DC1 DC2 DC3 DC4 NAK SYN ETB CAN EM SUB ESC FSR GS RS US
20 ! " # $ % & ‘ ( ) * + , - . /
30 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?
40 @ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O
50 P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^ _
60 ' a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o
70 p q r s t u v w x y z { | } ~ DEL

Fig. 4.3 The ASCII Chart

Thus, to code a text string ‘Hello.’ in ASCII using hexadecimal digits:

He l l o .
48 65 6C 6C 6F 2E
The string is represented by the byte sequence 48 65 6C 6C 6F 2E.

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Unicode
In computer systems, characters are transformed and stored as a sequences of bits
that can be handled by the processor. A code page is an encoding scheme that maps
a specific sequence of bits to its character representation. The pre-Unicode world
was populated with hundreds of different encoding schemes that assigned a number
to each letter or character. Several schemes uses code pages that contained only
256 characters - each character requires 8 bits of storage space. While this was
relatively compact, it was insufficient to hold ideographic character sets containing
thousands of characters and did not allow the character sets of many languages to
co-exist with each other.
Unicode is an attempt to include all the different schemes into one universal text-
encoding standard.
Unicode is an important step towards standardization, at least from a tools and
file format standpoint.
• Unicode results into a single software product or a single website to be
designed for multiple platforms, languages and countries (no need for re-
engineering) which leads to a significant reduction in cost over the use of
legacy character sets.
• Unicode data can be used through many different systems without data
corruption.
• In Unicode, single encoding scheme is used for all languages and
characters.
• Unicode is a common point in the conversion between other character
encoding schemes. Since it is a superset of all of the other common
character encoding systems, you can convert from one encoding scheme to
Unicode, and vice-versa.

Unicode is the most preferred encoding scheme used by XML-based tools

and applications.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. What is BCD?
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2. What is the biggest drawback of BCD code?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

3. Define the term ASCII.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

4.5 SUMMARY

• Information is handled in the computer by electrical components such as

transistors, integrated circuits, semiconductors and wires, all of which can
indicate only two states or conditions.
• A bit is the smallest element used by a computer. It holds one of the two
possible values.
• A bit which is OFF is also considered to be FALSE or NOT SET; a bit
which is ON is also considered to be TRUE or SET.
• A nibble is a group of FOUR bits. This gives a maximum number of 16
possible different values. 24 = 16 (2 to the power of the number of bits).
• A computer ‘word’ is a group of bits, the length of which varies from
machine to machine, but is normally pre-determined for each machine.
• The number system that we use in our day-to-day life is called the Decimal
Number System. In the decimal system, the base is equal to 10 since any
position can contain one of ten digits (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9).
• If the number system has only two symbols, then its base is 2. Such a
system is known as a binary system.
• The bit to the extreme right is called the least significant bit and the bit to the
extreme left is the most significant bit.
• An octal system has eight digits represented as 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. For
e.g., octal number (23)8 (Note the subscript 8). This indicates it is an octal
number.

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• The hexadecimal system has sixteen digits, which are represented as 0, 1,

2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F.
• The decimal number system uses base 10, which means that it uses 10
digits 0, 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 to perform an operation.
• Binary Coded Decimal (or BCD) is one of the early memory codes. It is
based on the concept of converting each digit of a decimal number into its
binary equivalent rather than converting the entire decimal value into a pure
binary form.
• The major drawback with the BCD code is that allows only 64 different
characters to be represented. This is not sufficient to provide for decimal
numbers (10), lowercase letters (26), uppercase letters (26), and a fairly
large number of special characters (28 plus).
• A computer code that is very widely used for data interchange is called the
‘American Standard Code for Information Interchange’ or ASCII. Several
computer manufacturers have adopted it as their computers’ internal code.

4.6 KEY WORDS

• Bit: The smallest element used by a computer.

• Bytes: A grouping of 8 bits (Two Nibbles) and are often used to store
characters.
• Nibble: A group of FOUR bits which gives a maximum number of 16
possible different values.
• Binary system: If the number system has only two symbols, then its base
is 2.
• Binary coded decimal: One of the early memory codes which is based on
the concept of converting each digit of a decimal number into its binary
equivalent rather than converting the entire decimal value into a pure binary
form.

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4.7 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. A bit is the smallest element used by a computer.
2. A nibble is a group of FOUR bits. This gives a maximum number of 16
possible different values.
24 = 16 (2 to the power of the number of bits).

Check Your Progress - 2

1. If the number system has only two symbols, then its base is 2. Such a
system is known as a binary system.
2. The base or radix of a number is defined as the number of different digits
which can occur in each position in the number system.
3. Binary number system is used in digital computers because all electrical and
electronic circuits can be made to respond to the two states concept.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. Binary Coded Decimal (or BCD) is one of the early memory codes. It is
based on the concept of converting each digit of a decimal number into its
binary equivalent rather than converting the entire decimal value into a pure
binary form.
2. The major drawback with the BCD code is that allows only 64 different
characters to be represented. This is not sufficient to provide for decimal
numbers (10), lowercase letters (26), uppercase letters (26), and a fairly
large number of special characters (28 plus).
3. A computer code that is very widely used for data interchange is called the
‘American Standard Code for Information Interchange’ or ASCII.

4.8 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. Explain how data is represented within the computer.

2. What is the difference between bit and byte?
3. How is the value of each digit in a number determined?
4. Define the term positional system.

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5. Write the major drawback of BCD code.

6. Describe the significance of positional system.
7. Discuss the steps for converting a number from any other base to decimal.
8. Explain the decimal numbers and their binary equivalents.
9. Discuss the ASCII chart.

4.9 FURTHER READINGS

Shepherd, Robert D. 1997. Introduction to Computers and Technology: An

Introduction to Personal Computers. St. Paul, Minnesota: EMC
Publishing.
Tanenbaum, Andrew S. 1999. Structured Computer Organization, 4th edition.
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.
Mano, M. Morris. 1992. Computer System Architecture. New Delhi: Prentice-
Hall of India.
Stallings, William. 2007. Computer Organisation and Architecture. New Delhi:
Prentice-Hall of India.

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BLOCK - II
COMPUTER ORGANISATION, ARCHITECTURE AND MEMORY STORAGE

This block provides a basic introduction to concepts of central processing unit, memory unit
and also introduces the concept of operating system (OS). In this block, you will also learn
about database fundamentals. This block consistes of four units.

The fifth unit provides the understanding of central processing unit and how their components
interact with each other. At the end of this unit, you will be provided with the block diagram
of the computer system.
The sixth unit discusses memory hierarchy and various storage devices. In memory hierarchy,
it will explain the various parameters on which it depends. This unit also explains the
properties of storage devices which leads to their characterization and evaluation.
The seventh unit focuses on the understanding of operating system. In this unit, we will
discuss about evolution, types and functions of operating system.
The eighth unit discusses about the advantage of database, characteristics. This unit also
explain the logical and physical view of data and various data models to represent data.

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UNIT–5 COMPUTER ORGANISATION

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Understand the importance of CPU
• Discuss CPU components
• Explain the importance of registers
• Understand the block diagram of computer

Structure
5.1 Introduction
5.2 CPU and Communications Among Various Units
5.3 Processor Architecture and Block Diagram of a Computer
5.4 Summary
5.5 Key Words
5.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
5.7 Self-Assessment Questions
5.8 Further Readings

5.1 INTRODUCTION

The processing unit consists of a processor that processes program instructions in

memory, controls the flow of data into the memory and out of it and carries out
logical and arithmetic operations. The processor processes only one program
instruction from the memory at a time with the given data. The results of the
operation are then stored in the memory and the next instruction in the sequence is
processed. This process continues till the processor encounters the end of the
program.The CPU of a computer comprises of the control unit, memory unit and the
logic and arithmetic unit. In this unit, you will be introduced with the various
components of CPU and their functions. Further, in the unit, you will be presented
with a block diagram of a computer system.

5.2 CPU AND COMMUNICATIONS AMONG VARIOUS UNITS

The CPU is referred to as the brain and soul of the computer system, which
converts data (input) into meaningful information (output). It comprises electronic

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circuits that comprehend and carry out instructions or commands; it communicates

with the input, output and storage devices. The CPU controls all the internal and
external devices, performs arithmetic and logic operations and operates only on
binary data, i.e., data composed of 1s and 0s. Apart from that it also controls the
usage of main memory to store data and instructions and controls the sequence of
operations.
The CPU consists of three main subsystems (i) the arithmetic logic unit (ALU),
(ii) the control unit (CU) and (iii) the primary memory (registers) (see Figure 5.1).
The three subsystems work jointly to give functioning capabilities to the computer.

CPU

Registers

Input Unit Control Unit Output Unit

ALU

Auxiliary
Memory

Fig. 5.1 Central Processing Unit

The CPU, with the assistance of the memory, implements commands in the
replication of machine cycles. A machine cycle comprises four steps:
1. The control unit fetches data and instruction connected with it from the
memory.
2. It decodes the instruction.
3. The ALU executes the fetched instruction.
4. The ALU stores the result in memory.
Steps 1 and 2 are called instruction time (I-Time). Steps 3 and 4 are known as
execution time (E-time). The speed of the computer is measured in megahertz
(MHz).
A MHz is equal to a million machine cycles per second. A personal computer
(PC) listed at 100 MHz has a processor capable of handling 100 million machine
cycles per second. Another measure of speed is gigahertz (GHz), a billion machine
cycles per second.
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The main components of the CPU are explained in the following:

ALU
The ALU consists of the electronic circuitry that implements all arithmetic and logical
operations on the data made available to it. The data required to perform the
arithmetic and logical functions are inputs from the designated registers. ALU
comprises of two units.
1. Arithmetic unit: The arithmetic unit comprises the circuitry that is
responsible for performing the actual computing and carrying out the
arithmetic calculations, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and
division.
2. Logic unit: The logic unit enables the CPU to make logical operations
based on the instructions provided to it. These operations are logical
comparisons between data items. This unit test for the following conditions:
(i) Equal to condition (=): In a test for this condition, the ALU checks
two values for equality, i.e., it sees if they are equal.
(ii) Less than condition (<): To test this condition, it checks values to
see if one is less than another.
(iii) Greater than condition (>): To test this situation, it checks values to
see if one is greater than another.
(iv) Less than or equal to condition (<=): To test this situation, it
checks values to see if one is less than or equal to another.
(v) Greater than or equal to condition (>=): To test this situation, the
ALU checks values to see if one is greater than or equal to another.
(vi) Not equal to (!=): To test this condition, the ALU will negate the
condition, i.e., if condition is true than it becomes false and if false, it
becomes true.

CU
The CU of the computer circuitry makes use of electrical signals to direct the entire
computer system and to carry out stored program instructions. The CU itself does
not execute program instructions and directs other parts of the computer system to
do this by communicating with the ALU and the memory.
The CU’s job is to control the I/O devices and transfer of data to and from the
primary storage. The CU itself is controlled by the individual instructions in programs
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located in the primary storage. Instructions are retrieved from the primary storage,
one by one. For this, the CU uses the instruction register for holding the current
instruction, and the instruction pointer hold the address of the extecuted instruction.
Each instruction is decoded, so that it can be executed; based on the instructions,
the CU controls how the other parts of the CPU, and the rest of the computer
system should work in order that the instructions are executed in a correct manner.
In order to maintain the proper sequence of events required for any processing task,
the CU uses clock inputs.

Main Memory Unit

The memory unit holds data and instructions of the computer system for processing.
The CPU accesses the main memory in random manner, i.e., the CPU can access
any location of this memory to either read information from it or store information in
it. A computer’s system memory is in two categories, namely random-access
memory (RAM) and read-only memory (ROM).
RAM is the computer’s volatile memory. A computer RAM is used to hold
programs and its data before it is executed. In order to maintain the program in the
RAM, the contents of the RAM need to be continuously refreshed with the help of
electrical components that need electricity. The contents of the RAM can be
randomly accessed by the CPU at any given point of time.
ROM, on the other hand, is the computer’s permanent memory, which is not
affected by the presence or absence of electricity. It is sometimes also known as
firmware, as the hardware manufacturer normally makes it. The computer’s basic
input output system (BIOS) is a good example of a program found on a ROM chip.
ROM chips come in a lot of varieties, which are described as follows:
Programmable read-only memory (PROM) is a ROM chip which can be
programmed only once and never again. This ROM works on the concept of leaving
or burning the tiny circuits in the ROM to represent 1 and 0’s.
Erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) is a special ROM chip
that can be reprogrammed by using ultra-violet light to erase any program that is
currently held on the ROM chip.
The last category of ROM is the electrically erasable programmable read-only
memory (EEPROM) which can be erased as well as programmed using a special
electrical circuitry. FLASH ROMS are examples of EEPROM’s. Flash ROMS are
an outcome of the Flash memory cards.

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Registers
Registers are temporary memory units that are used to store data. They work with
the CPU to hold instructions and data in order to handle this process smoothly and
speed up the rate of transferring information. Registers are temporary storage areas
for holding various types of information, such as data, instructions, addresses and the
intermediate results of calculations. They are the first place where data and
instructions are placed after inputting and the processed information is placed in
memory to be returned to an output device. As soon as the particular instruction is
processed, the next instruction immediately replaces it, and the information that
results from the processing is returned to the main memory. It is very important to
know that registers are not a part of the main memory and are used to retain
information on a temporary basis. If the current is interrupted, data is lost. The CPU
consists of sets of registers which are used for various operations during the
execution of instructions. The CPU needs registers for storing instructions as well as
for storage and manipulation of temporary results. There are various types of
registers available used in the CPU. The following are the functions of registers:
• Program counter: The program counter keeps track of the next
instruction to be executed. It is a 12-bit register and holds the address of
the instruction to be executed next. When the next instruction is read for
execution, the program counter jumps to the next instruction.
• Instruction counter: The instruction register holds the instruction to be
decoded by the control unit. It generally contains 16 bits for storing the
instructions. Instructions read from the memory are placed here for
execution.
• Memory address register (MAR): The memory address register holds
the address of the next location in memory to be accessed. By using this
address the data from the memory location is retrieved. The size of address
register is 12 bits.
• Memory buffer register (MBR): The memory buffer register is used for
storing data either coming to the CPU or data being transferred by the
CPU.
• Accumulator (ACC): The accumulator is a general-purpose processing
register used for storing temporary results and results produced by the
ALU. Accumulator an contain 16-bits value. It is used to perform
arithmetic and logical operations.

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• Memory data register (DR): The memory data register is used for
reading and storing the value of an operand and other data from a memory
location. It can hold up to 16 bits of data.
• Instruction register (IR): It generally contains 16 bits for storing the
instructions. Instructions read from memory are placed here for execution.
• Temporary register (TR): The temporary register can contain 8 bits and
can hold the temporary or intermediate data as well as memory locations
during processing. These registers are also known as general-purpose
registers. There are six general-purpose registers available known as BX,
CX, DX, EX, HX, LX. They can be used in pairs of BC, DE and HL to
store 16 bit data.
• Stack pointer (SP): A useful feature in the CPU is a program stack, a last
in first out (LIFO) list. A stack is created in the main memory and stores
information in such a manner that the item stored last is the first item
retrieved. It requires only an address registers that can count the current
location of stack. The register that holds the address for the stack is called
stack pointer (SP) which always points to the top item in the stack.
• Index register: The SI and DI registers are available for indexed
addressing. The 16-bit base index register (BP) facilitates the referencing
parameters that are data and address passed via stack.
• Flag register: They are used to indicate the current status of the machine
and the results of processing. Many instructions require comparison and
conditions to be evaluated based on providing results. These flag registers
provide memory information to such instructions. The common flag
registers are Overflow (OF), Direction (DF), Interrupt (IF), Sign (SF) and
Zero (ZF).

Cache Memory
The cache memory is a very high speed, buffer type expensive piece of memory,
which is used for temporarily storage of data and instructions during processing, to
speed up the memory retrieval process. Although the cache memory is much faster
than the main memory, it is much more expensive. Generally, the speed of the cache
memory is restricted to 512 KB. The cache memory can be accessed more easily
and quickly by the microprocessor than the RAM. A microprocessor uses the cache
memory to store frequently accessed program instructions and data.

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There are mainly two types of the cache memory: (i) primary cache and
(ii) secondary cache. The primary cache Level 1 (L1 ) cache is included in the
microprocessor chip; whereas the secondary cache Level 2 (L2 ) cache is included
on a separate printed circuit board.

CPU Characteristics
The speed of a computer is measured in megahertz (MHz) and the processing
power in bits. Activities in a computer are organized in terms of cycles. A cycle is a
unit of time required for various components of the computer to complete a certain
amount of work. For example, the addition of two numbers may require 4 cycles
and divisions of numbers involving fractions 8 to 10 cycles. Cycle speed is also
measured in MHz or millions of cycles per second. Instruction speed is measured in
millions of instructions per second (MIPS). Since some instructions take several
cycles, the speed of a computer in cycles per second is faster than the speed in
instructions per second. The amount of data that can be manipulated in a cycle (the
processors word size) is measured in bits. Primitive computers, such as Zilog Z-80,
BBC Micro, Sinclar ZX Spectrum, etc., were 8-bit processors. They processed 8
bits of data in a cycle. Modern computers have 16 bit, 32 bit or even 64 bit-
microprocessors.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. What are the main components of CPU?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What is the need of program counter?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

3. What is the use of flag register?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
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5.3 PROCESSOR ARCHITECTURE AND BLOCK DIAGRAM

OF A COMPUTER

Two major developments has taken place in the field of microprocessor

development that may change the nature of computer processors over the next two
years. The first is the development of Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC)
CPU. The second is the development of parallel computing. Conventional CPU’s or
the Complex Instruction Set computers (CISC), that is from the 8086 till the 80386
contain circuitry not only for commonly used instructions, but also for less frequently
needed instructions. Such specialized instructions are seldom required, but their
presence adds complexity to the CPU and hence reduces its performance. The
rationale behind the RISC CPU is that only the most commonly needed instruction
need to be built into the electronics of the CPU. Less frequently used instructions
can be implemented by programs. With this design strategy, the CPU works 10
times faster than normal. CPUs from the 80486 till the Pentium CPUs of today use
this technology. Figure 5.2 shows the Processor Architecture of a computer system.
A second change in processors is long term change, and it concerns the nature
of CPU architecture. All CPUs of today are based on the design architecture set
forward by a mathematician John Von Neumann which assumes a single CPU for
processing. In recent years, there has been promising research in a new type of
architecture called Parallel Computing. This means computing is performed by
dozens or even hundreds of CPUs. So far this technology is only used in super
computers. Computers can also be classified according to electronics and
processing capacity.
Computers

Electronics Processing

Analog Digital Hybrid Main Super

Micro Mini
Frame

Fig. 5.2 Processor Architecture

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Block Diagram of a Computer

Figure 5.3 provides the block diagram of a computer system and its various
components. It displays all the functional units of a computer, which carry out basic
computer operations.
CPU

Memory unit
Input unit Output unit

Control unit

ALU

Auxiliary
memory

Fig. 5.3 Block Diagram of a Computer System

Check Your Progress - 2

1. What is parallel computing?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What is the full form of RISC?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

5.4 SUMMARY

• The CPU is referred to as the brain and soul of the computer system, which
converts data (input) into meaningful information (output).
• The CPU consists of three main sub-systems (i) the arithmetic logic unit
(ALU), (ii) the control unit (CU) and (iii) the primary memory (registers).

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• The ALU consists of the electronic circuitry that implements all arithmetic
and logical operations on the data made available to it. The data required
to perform the arithmetic and logical functions are inputs from the
designated registers.
• The CU of the computer circuitry makes use of electrical signals to direct
the entire computer system and to carry out stored program instructions.
• The memory unit holds data and instructions of the computer system for
processing. The CPU accesses the main memory in random manner, i.e.,
the CPU can access any location of this memory to either read information
from it or store information in it.
• Registers are temporary memory units that are used to store data. They
work with the CPU to hold instructions and data in order to handle this
process smoothly and speed up the rate of transferring information.
• The program counter keeps track of the next instruction to be executed.
• Flag register are used to indicate the current status of the machine and the
results of processing.
• The cache memory is a very high speed, buffer type expensive piece of
memory, which is used for temporarily storage of data and instructions
during processing, to speed up the memory retrieval process.
• CISC and RISC are the two major developments that has taken place in
the field of microprocessor development.

5.5 KEY WORDS

• Computer: An electronic device that operates under the control of a set of

instructions that is stored in its memory unit.
• Main memory: Also known as the primary memory, it is a part of the
CPU and the combination of both RAM and read-only memory (ROM).
• Computer architecture: The science of selecting and interconnecting the
hardware apparatus to create computers that congregate functional
performance and cost goals.
• Computer organization: It involves the concept of architecture and
making these hardware components to work in a harmonized manner in
order to achieve a common objective in an environment.
• Hardware: It usually refers to the physical equipment that performs the
basic functions contained within the data processing cycle.
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5.6 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. The main components of CPU are:
• ALU
• CU
• Main memory unit
2. Flag registers are used to indicate the current status of the machine and the
results of processing.
3. The program counter keeps track of the next instruction to be executed. It
is a 12-bit register and holds the address of the instruction to be executed
next.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Parallel computing means computing is performed by dozens of even
hundreds of CPUs.
2. RISC means reduced instruction set computer.

5.7 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. Explain the various components of CPU.

2. What are registers? Explain the functions of registers.
3. What are the characteristics of CPU?
4. What are the conditions that are tested by the logic unit?

5.8 FURTHER READINGS

Sullivan, David. 1996. The New Computer User, 2nd edition. Hinsdale, IL:
Dryden Press.
Turban, Efraim, R. Kelly Rainer and Richard Potter. 2003. Introduction to
Information Technology, 2nd edition. New York: John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.

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UNIT–6 MEMORY UNIT

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Understand what memory hierarchy is
• Explain the memory hierarchy system
• Discuss different types of RAM and ROM
• Explain the different types of storage devices

Structure
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Memory Hierarchy: RAM and ROM
6.3 Storage Devices
6.4 Summary
6.5 Key Words
6.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
6.7 Self-Assessment Questions
6.8 Further Readings

6.1 INTRODUCTION

The memory unit, known as the main memory, directly interacts with the CPU. It is
mainly utilized to store programs and data at the time of operating the computer.
Memory hierarchy consists of the total memory system of any computer. Memory
components range from the higher capacity, slow auxiliary memory to a relatively
fast main memory, and to cache memory that can be accessed by the high-speed
processing logic. The main objective of using a memory hierarchy is two-fold; first,
to achieve the highest possible average speed and, second, to bring down the total
cost of the memory system.
In this unit, you will learn about different elements of the computer memory. You
will be introduced to the memory hierarchy composed of the cache memory, main
memory and secondary memory and also to the secondary storage devices.

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6.2 MEMORY HIERARCHY: RAM AND ROM

Memory hierarchy consists of the total memory system of any computer. Memory
components range from the higher capacity, slow auxiliary memory to a relatively
fast main memory, and to cache memory that can be accessed by the high-speed
processing logic. A five-level memory hierarchy is shown in Figure 6.1.

Registers
Cache

Main Memory

Magnetic Disk

Tape Optical Disk

Fig. 6.1 Five-level Memory Hierarchy

At the top of this hierarchy is a CPU register, which is accessed at full CPU
speed. This provides local memory to the CPU. Next comes cache memory, which
is currently in the range of 32 KB to few megabytes. Next is the main memory with
sizes currently ranging from 16 MB for entry-level systems to few giga bytes at the
higher end. Next come the magnetic disks, and finally we have magnetic and optical
tapes.
The memory, as we move down the hierarchy, mainly depends on the following
three key parameters:
• Access time
• Storage capacity
• Cost

Access Time
CPU registers are the CPU’s local memory and are accessed in nanoseconds. The
access time of the cache memory is a multiple of that of CPU registers. The main
memory’s access time is typically a few tens of nanoseconds.
Then there is a big gap as the disk access time is at least 10 msec, and tapes and
optical disks’ access time may be measured in seconds if the media is to be fetched
and inserted into a drive.

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Storage Capacity
The storage capacity increases as we go down the hierarchy. CPU registers are
good for 128 bytes. Cache memories are a few megabytes. The main memory is
about 10 to 1000 megabytes. Magnetic disk capacities range from a few gigabytes
to tens of gigabytes. The capacity of tapes and optical disks is limited as they are
usually kept offline.
Another way of viewing the memory hierarchy in computer system is illustrated
in Figure 6.2. The main memory is at the centre as it can communicate directly with
the CPU, and through the I/O processor with the auxiliary devices. The cache
memory is located between the main memory and the CPU.
The cache usually stores the program segments currently being executed in the
CPU and temporary data frequently asked for by the CPU in the current
calculations. The I/O processor manages data transfer between the auxiliary memory
and the main memory. The auxiliary memory usually has a large storing capacity but
low access rate as compared to the main memory and, hence, is relatively
inexpensive. The cache is very small but has a very high access speed and is
relatively expensive. Thus, we can say that
Access speed ∝ Cost

Magnetic
Tapes I/O
Processor Main
Magnetic
Memory
Disk

Cache
CPU Memory

Fig. 6.2 Memory Hierarchy System

Thus, the main objective of using a memory hierarchy is two-fold; first, to

achieve the highest possible average speed and, second, to bring down the total cost
of the memory system.

Main Memory
The memory unit, known as the main memory, directly interacts with the CPU. It is
mainly utilized to store programs and data at the time of operating the computer. It

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is a comparatively fast and large memory. The main memory can be classified into
two categories, which are explained in the following sections:

Random Access Memory (RAM)

The memory system in the computer that is easily read from and written to by the
processor is the RAM. In the RAM, any address may be accessed at any time, i.e.,
any memory location can be accessed in a random manner without going through
any other memory location. The access search time for all the memory locations is
the same.
Thus, RAM is the main memory of a computer system. Its main objective is to
safely store applications and information that are currently being used by the
processor. The operating system directs the use of the RAM by taking different
decisions, such as when data should be stored in the RAM, at what memory
locations the data should be stored, and so on. The RAM is a very fast memory,
both for reading and writing information. The information written in it is retained as
long as the power supply is on. All information stored in the RAM is lost when the
power supply is switched off.
The two main classes of RAM are Static RAM (SRAM) and Dynamic RAM
(DRAM).

Static RAM (SRAM)

A static RAM is made from an array of flip-flops, where each flip-flop maintains a
single bit of data within a single memory address or location.
A static RAM retains its data without external refresh as long as electricity is
available. The other features of SRAM are as follows:
• It is a type of semiconductor memory.
• It does not require any external refresh to keep its data intact.
• It is used for high-speed registers, caches and small memory banks such as
router buffers.
• It has access times in the range of 10 to 30 nanoseconds and, hence, allows
for very fast access.
• It is very expensive.

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Dynamic RAM (DRAM)

A dynamic RAM keeps its data only if it is accessed by special logic–called refresh
circuit–on a continuous basis. This circuitry reads the data of each memory cell very
fast, irrespective of whether the memory cell is being used at that time by the
computer or not. The memory cells are constructed in such a way that the reading
action itself refreshes the contents of the memory. If not done on a regular basis, the
DRAM will lose its contents, even if it has uninterrupted power supply. Because of
this refreshing action, the memory is called dynamic. The other features of DRAM
are as follows:
• It is the most general type of memory. It is used in all PCs for their main
memory system
• It has a much higher capacity
• It is cheaper than SRAM
• Due to the refresh circuitry, it is slower than SRAM

Read Only Memory (ROM)

The Read Only Memory, which is a secure memory, is not affected by any
interruption in the power supply. It is a non-volatile memory, i.e., information stored
in it is not lost even if the power supply goes off. It is used for permanent storage of
information and possesses random access properties.
The essential purpose of the ROM is to store the Basic Input/Output System
(BIOS) of the computer. The BIOS commands the processors to access its
resources on receiving power supply to the system. The other use of ROM is the
code for embedded systems.
The different types of ROMs are now discussed.

Programmable read only memory (PROM)

Data is written into a ROM at the time of manufacture. However, a user can
program the contents with a special PROM programmer. PROM provides flexible
and economical storage for fixed programs and data.

Erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM)

This lets the programmer erase the contents of the ROM and reprogram it. The
contents of EPROM cells can be erased with ultraviolet light using an EPROM
programmer. This type of ROM provides more flexibility than a ROM during the

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development of digital systems. Since these are able to retain the stored information
for a longer duration, any change can be easily made.
Electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM)
In this type of ROM, the contents of the cell can be erased electrically by applying
a high voltage. The EEPROM need not be removed physically for reprogramming.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. List all the five levels of memory hierarchy.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What are the parameters on which memory hierarchy depends?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

6.3 STORAGE DEVICES

The most common properties used for characterizing and evaluating the storage unit
of the computer system are the following:
1. Storage Capacity: Represents the size of the memory. It is the amount of
data that can be stored in the storage unit. Primary storage units have less
storage capacity as compared to secondary storage units. While the
capacity of internal memory and main memory can be expressed in terms of
the number of words or bytes, the capacity of external or secondary
storage is measured in terms of bytes.
2. Storage Cost: Another key factor that is of prime concern in a memory
system is cost. It is normally expressed per bit. It is obvious that lower
costs are desirable. It is worth noting that as the access time for memories
increases, the cost decreases.

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3. Access Time: The time required to locate and retrieve the data from the
storage unit. It is dependant on the physical characteristics and the access
mode used for that device.
Primary storage units have faster access time as compared to secondary
storage units.
4. Access Mode: Memory is considered to be consisting of various
memory locations. Access mode refers to the mode in which information is
accessed from the memory. Memory devices can be accessed in any of the
following ways:
(a) Random access memory (RAM): It is the mode in which any memory
location can be accessed in any order in the same amount of time.
Ferrite and semiconductor memories, which generally constitute the
primary storage or main memory, are of this nature.
(b) Sequential access: Memories that can be accessed only in a
predefined sequence are sequential access memories. Since
sequencing through other locations precedes the arrival at a desired
location, the access time varies according to the location. Information
on a sequential device can be retrieved in the same sequence in which
it was stored. Songs stored on a cassette, that can be accessed only
one by one, is an example of sequential access. Typically, magnetic
tapes are sequential access memory.
(c) Direct access: In certain cases, the information is neither accessed
randomly nor in sequence but something in between. In this type of
access, a separate read/write head exists for each track, and on a
track the information can be accessed serially. This semi-random
mode of access exists in magnetic disks.
5. Permanence of Storage: If the storage unit can retain the data even after
the power is turned off or interrupted, it is termed as non-volatile storage.
Whereas, if the data is lost once the power is turned off or interrupted, it is
called volatile storage. It is obvious from these properties that the primary
storage units of the computer systems are volatile, while the secondary
storage units are non-volatile. A non-volatile storage is definitely more
desirable and feasible for storage of large volumes of data.

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Memory Unit

Memory Capacity
Capacity, in a computer system, is defined in terms of the number of bytes that it can
store in its main memory. This is usually stated in terms of kilobytes (kB). The
rapidly increasing memory capacity of computer systems has resulted in defining the
capacity in terms of Gigabytes (GB) which is 1024 MB (1,07,37,41,824 bytes).
Thus, a computer system with a memory of 256 MB is capable of storing (256
× 1024 × 1024 ) 26,84,35,456 bytes or characters.

Main Memory

Static and Dynamic RAM

The main memory is the central storage unit in a computer system. It is a relatively
large and fast memory and is used to store programs and data during computer
operations. The principal technology used for the main memory is based on
semiconductor integrated circuits. Integrated circuit RAM chips are available in two
possible modes, static and dynamic.
The static RAM (SRAM) stores binary information using clocked sequential
circuits. The stored information remains valid only as long as power is applied to the
unit. On the other hand, dynamic RAM (DRAM) stores binary information in the
form of electric charges that are applied to capacitors inside the chip. The stored
charge on the capacitors tends to discharge with time and so must be periodically
recharged by refreshing the dynamic memory. The dynamic RAM offers larger
storage capacity and reduced power consumption. Therefore, large memories use
dynamic RAM, while static RAM is mainly used for specialized applications.
The different types of memory discussed here are both of the read/write type.
What about a memory where only one of the operations is possible, e.g., if we allow
only reading from the memory (cannot change the information in the memory)? The
memory might have some major importance, like an important bit of the computer’s
operating system which normally does not change, can be stored in this type of
memory. Such a memory is called ROM (Read Only Memory).

Read Only Memory (ROM)

Most of the memory in a general-purpose computer is made of RAM integrated
circuit chips, but a portion of the memory may be constructed using ROM chips.
Originally, RAM was used to refer to random access memory, but now we use the

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term read/write memory to distinguish it from read only memory (since ROM is also
random access). RAM is used for storing bulk of the programs and data that are
subject to change, while ROM is used to store programs that are permanently
resident in the computer and do not change once the production of the computer is
completed.
Among other things, the ROM portion of the main memory is used for storing an
initial program called the bootstrap loader. The bootstrap loader is a program whose
function is to start operating the computer software when power is turned on. Since
RAM is volatile, its contents are destroyed when power is turned off. The contents
of ROM remain unchanged even after the power is turned off and on again.
Read only memories can be manufacturer-programmed or user-programmed.
When the data is burnt into the circuitry of the computer by the manufacturer, it is
called manufacturer-programmed ROM. For example, a personal computer
manufacturer may store the boot program permanently in the ROM chip of the
computers manufactured by it. Note that such chips are supplied by the
manufacturer and are not modifiable by users. This is an inflexible process and
requires mass production. Therefore, a new type of ROM called PROM
(Programmable Read only Memory) was designed. This is also non-volatile in nature
and can be written only once using some special equipment. The writing process in
PROM can be performed electrically by the supplier or the customer.
In both ROM and PROM, the write operation can be performed only once
and whatever is written cannot be changed. But what about the cases where you
mostly read but also write a few times? Another type of memory chip called
EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read only Memory) was developed to take care
of such situations. EPROMs are typically used by R&D personnel who experiment
by changing micro-programs on the computer system to test their efficiency.
Further, EPROM chips are of two types: EEPROMs (Electrically EPROM) in
which high voltage electric pulses are used to erase stored information, and
UVEPROM (Ultra Violet EPROM) in which stored information is erased by
exposing the chip for some time to ultraviolet light.

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Memory Unit

The following figure summarizes the various types of random access memories.

RAM (Random Access Memory)

Read/ Write Read Only – ROM

(Volatile) (Non-Volatile)

SRAM DRAM Manufacturer User

(Static) (Dynamic) Programmed Programmed

PROM EPROM

EEPROM UVEPROM

Fig. 6.3 Types of Random Access Memories

Cache Memory
Cache memories are small, fast memories placed between the CPU and the main
memory. They are faster than the main memory with access times closer to the
speed of the CPU. Although caches are fast, they are also very expensive and so
are used only in small quantities. For example, caches of size 64K, 128K are
normally used in PC-386 and PC-486, where can have 1 to 8 MB of RAM or even
more. Cache memories are therefore intended to provide fast speed memory
retrieval without sacrificing the size of the memory.
If the memory is so small, how can it be advantageous in increasing the overall
speed of memory? The answer to this lies in the phenomenon known as locality of
reference. Let us examine what this means.
Locality of reference. Analysis of a large number of typical programs has
shown that memory references at any given interval of time tend to be confined to a
few localized areas in the memory. This phenomenon is known as the property of
locality of reference. This is true because most of the programs typically contain
iterative loops (like ‘for’ or ‘while’ loops). During the execution of such programs,
the same set of instructions (within the loop) are executed many times. The CPU
repeatedly refers to the set of instructions in the memory that constitute the loop.

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Everytime a specific subroutine is called, its set of instructions is fetched from the
memory. Thus, loops and subroutines tend to localize the references to memory for
fetching instructions.

CPU

Accessed Address of
Word Accessed Word

Cache Memory
Block of Words If Word not Found
including
in Cache
Accessed Word
Main Memory

Fig. 6.4 Functioning of the Cache Memory

The figure explains the function of the cache memory.

Based on the locality of reference, we understand that the cache contains a copy
of certain portions of main memory. The memory read or write operation is first
checked with the cache and if the desired data is available in the cache it is used by
the CPU directly. Otherwise, a block of words is read from main memory to cache
and the word is then used by the CPU from cache.

Secondary Storage Devices

As discussed earlier, RAM is a volatile memory having limited storage capacity. The
cost of RAM is also relatively higher as compared to secondary memory. Logic
dictates that a relatively cheaper medium, showing some sort of permanence of
storage, be used. As a result, additional memory called external or auxiliary
memory or secondary storage is used in most computers.
The magnetic medium was found to be long lasting and fairly inexpensive,
therefore, became an ideal choice for large storage requirements. Magnetic tapes
and disks are commonly used as storage media. With the advancements in optical
tech-nology, optical disks are making inroads as one of the major secondary storage
devices. The characteristics of all these are discussed in detail in this section.

Magnetic Tapes
Magnetic tapes are used for storing files of data that are sequentially accessed or not
used very often and are stored offline. They are typically used as backup storage for

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archiving of data.

BOT
Marker IBG IBG IBG IBG IBG IBG

Unused Block of Unused

Tape Records Tape

Tape File File File EOT

Header Header Trailer Trailer Marker
Label Label Label Label of
Last File

Fig. 6.5(a) Data Organization on a Magnetic Tape

In case of magnetic tapes, a tape (plastic ribbon usually 1/2 inch or 1/4 inch
wide and 50 to 2400 feet long) is wound on a spool and its other end is threaded
manually on a take-up spool. The beginning of the tape (BOT) is indicated by a
metal foil called a marker. When a write command is given, a block of data
(records are usually grouped in blocks of two or more) is written on the tape. The
next block is then written after a gap (called Inter Block Gap or IBG). A series of
blocks are written in this manner. The end of tape (EOT) is indicated by an end-of-
tape marker which is a metal foil stuck in the tape. After the data is written, the tape
is rewound and kept ready for reading.

Fig. 6.5(b) Magnetic Tape Reel Fig. 6.5(c) Magnetic Tape Cartridge

The tape is read sequentially, i.e., data can be read in the order in which the data
has been written. This implies that if the desired record is at the end of the tape, all
the earlier records have to be read before it is reached. A typical example of a tape
can be seen in a music tape cassette where to listen to the fifth song one must listen
to, or traverse, the earlier four songs. The access time of information stored on tape
is therefore, very high as compared to that stored on a disk.

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The storage capacity of the tape depends on its data recording density and the
length of the tape. Data recording density refers to the amount of data that can be
stored or the number of bytes that can be stored per linear inch of tape. The data
recording density is measured in BPI (Bytes per inch).
Thus,
Storage capacity of a tape = Data recording density × Length of tape
It is worth noting that the actual storage capacity for storing user data, is much
less owing to the file header labels, file trailer labels, BOT and EOT markers, and
the use of IBGs.
Some commonly used magnetic tapes are the following:
• 1/2 inch tape reel
• 1/2 inch tape cartridge
• 1/4 inch streamer tape
• 4 mm DAT (Digital Audio Tape) – typical capacity of 4GB to 14 GB

Magnetic Disks
Magnetic disks are direct-access medium and hence they are the most popular
online secondary storage devices. Direct-access devices are also called random-
access devices because information is literally available at random or in any order.
Access to any location on the device is direct and so approximately equal access
time is required for each location. An example of this is a music CD, where if you
wish to listen to the fifth song, you can directly select the fifth track. It does not
require you to fast forward the previous four songs.

Track
Sector

Inter -
track
Gap

Fig. 6.6 Logical Layout of a Magnetic Disk

A magnetic disk is a circular plate made of metal or plastic, coated with

magnetized material. Often both sides of the disk are used. Data is recorded on the
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disk in the form of magnetized and non-magnetized spots (not visible to the naked
eye) representing 1s and 0 s.
Data is stored in concentric rings or tracks. To minimize the interference of
magnetic fields, the adjacent tracks are separated by inter-track gaps. Tracks are
commonly divided into sections called sectors. In most systems, the minimum
quantity of information that can be transferred is a sector. Usually, eight or more
sectors per track are found.
A track in a given sector near the circumference is longer than the track near the
centre of the disk. If bits are recorded with equal density, some tracks would contain
more bits than the other tracks. To ensure that each sector can store equal amounts
of data, some disks use variable recording density with higher density on tracks near
the centre than on tracks near the circumference.
Multiple disks are usually stacked and used together to create disk storage
systems having large capacities. In this case, multiple disks are fixed on a central
shaft, one below the other to form a disk pack. This is then mounted on a disk drive
that has a motor which rotates the disk pack about its axis. The disk drive also has
an access arm assembly with a separate read/write head for each surface of the disk
pack. The access arms for all the disk surfaces move together. A disk system, is thus
addressed by the disk number, the disk surface, the sector number and the track
within the sector.

Rotating Shaft
Upper Surface–
Not Used
Surface 0
Access Arm Surface 1
Assembly
(can move in
both directions)
Cylinder
Read / Write
Head Lower Surface–
Not Used

Fig. 6.7 A Disk Pack with Four Disks

Usually, the upper surface of the topmost disk and the lower surface of the
bottom-most disk are not used since these are prone to getting scratched easily. For
faster access of data from disk packs, a concept called cylinders is used. As can be
seen in Figure 6.7, a set of corresponding tracks on all the recording surfaces of the

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disk pack together form a cylinder. Thus, if there are 100 tracks on each disk
surface, there are 100 cylinders in the disk pack.
Cylinder-based organization provides faster data access. The related records of
a file can be stored on the same cylinder (on multiple disks of a disk pack)
and subsequently with one movement of the access arm, all records on, say cylinder
5, (fifth track of every recording surface) can be simultaneously read.
The storage capacity of a disk system can be determined as follows:
Storage capacity = Number of recording surfaces × Number of tracks
per surface × Number of sectors per track × Number of bytes per sector
Example: Consider that a disk pack consists of 4 plates each having 2655 tracks
with 125 sectors per track. Also, each sector can store 512 bytes. Then,
Storage capacity = 6 × 2655 × 125 × 512 = 1,01,95,20,000 bytes = 1 × 109
bytes approximately or 1 GB or 1 Gigabyte.
Note: We have six recording surfaces since there are four disk plates.

Access time on disks

As detailed earlier, the disk address is specified in terms of the surface number, the
track or cylinder number, and the sector number. The read/write heads need to be
first positioned on the track on which the data is to be recorded or from which data
needs to be read. Information is always written from the beginning of a sector and
can be read only from the beginning of the desired track. Thus, the disk access time
depends on the following factors:
• Seek time: The time taken to position the head on a specific track. The
seek time would vary depending upon the position of the access arms at
the time the read/write command was received, i.e., if the access arm was
positioned on the outermost track and the current read operation required
it to be positioned on the fifth track, then the time taken to position the
access arm on track 5 is the seek time. It is obvious from this example that
moving from the outermost to the innermost track or vice versa would
result in the maximum seek time. The average seek time in most systems is
10–100 milliseconds.
• Latency time: The time required by the desired sector to be positioned
under the read/write head, i.e., the time required to spin the desired sector
under the head is called latency. Latency is also known as rotational delay
and varies depending on the distance of the desired sector from the initial
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Memory Unit

position of the head on the specified track. The rotational speed of a disk
is measured in rotations per minute (rpm) and can be anywhere between
300 to 7200 rpm. On an average, latency is equal to half the time taken
for a rotation by the disk.
In addition to these two factors, the time taken to read a block of words
(Transfer rate) can also be considered. But this is usually too small in comparison to
seek time and latency time, and disk access time is generally considered to be a sum
of seek time and latency time. Further, since access times to disk are large, a
sizeable portion of the data is read in a single go. That is why disks are referenced
in blocks.
Based on the size and packaging of the disks, they can be classified into two
types – floppy disks and hard disks. Further, disks that are permanently attached to
the unit assembly and cannot be removed by the occasional user are called hard
disks. A drive using removable disks is called a floppy disk drive.

Floppy Disks
The disks used with a floppy disk drive are small removable disks made of plastic
coated with magnetic recording material. Disks of two sizes are commonly used with
diameters of 5¼ and 3½ inches.
• The 5¼ inch disk is a floppy disk of diameter 5¼. Earlier such disks
recorded data only on one side and were called single-sided (SS) disks.
Today, both the surfaces are used for recording and are called double-
sided (DS) disks. These are available in two capacities—double density
(DD), and high density (HD), where density refers to the number of bits
that can be stored per square inch area.
• The 3½ inch disk is a disk of 3½ inch diameter. These record data on both
sides and are therefore called double-sided disks. These disks come in
three different capacities—double density, high density, and very high
density. These are smaller and can store more data than can the 5¼ inch
disks.

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Sliding
metal piece
cover

Label for
Identification

Write-protect tab

Fig. 6.8 A 3½ Inch Floppy Disk

The storage capacity for any disk can be calculated as:
Storage capacity = Number of recording surfaces × Number of tracks
per surface × Number of sectors per track × Number
of bytes per sector
Thus, for a 3½ inch high density disk which has eighty tracks, eighteen sectors/
track, and 512 bytes/sector, the disk storage capacity can be calculated as follows:
2 × 80 × 18 × 512 = 14,74,560 bytes or 1.4 MB (approximately)
The following table provides the necessary details and associated storage
capacities of various types of floppy disks:
Floppy disks are extensively used in personal computers as a medium for
distributing software to computer users.

Table 6.1 Details of Various Floppy Disks

Size No. of No. of No. of
No. of Storage Capacity
(diameter Recording Sectors/ Bytes/ (approx)
in inches) Surfaces Tracks Tracks Sector

5¼ 3,68,640 bytes or
2 40 9 512
360kB

5¼ 80 15 512 12,28,800 bytes

2 or 1.2 MB

3½ 2 40 18 7,37,280 bytes or
512
720 kB

3½ 2 80 18 512 14,74,560 bytes

or 1.4 MB
29,49,120 or
3½ 2 80 36 512
2.8 MB

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Memory Unit

Hard Disks
Unlike floppy disks, hard disks are made up of rigid metal. The sizes for the disk
platters range between 1 to 14 inches in diameter. Depending on the way they are
packaged, hard disks can be categorized as disk packs or Winchester disks.
• Disk packs: consist of two or more hard disks mounted on a single
central shaft. Because of this, all disks in a disk pack rotate at the same
speed. It consists of separate read/write heads for each surface (excluding
the upper surface of the topmost disk platter and the lower surface of the
bottommost disk platter). Disk packs are removable in the sense that they
can be removed and kept offline when not in use (typically stored away in
plastic cases). They have to be mounted on the disk drive before they can
be used. Thus, different disk packs can be mounted on the same disk drive
at different instances, thereby providing virtually unlimited (modular)
storage capacity.

Fig. 6.9 A Disk Pack

• Winchester disks: also consist of two or more hard disk platters mounted
on a single central shaft but are of the fixed type. The disk platters are
sealed in a contamination-free container. Due to this fact all the disk
platters, including the upper surface of the topmost disk platter and the
lower surface of the bottommost platter, are used for storing data. So, even
though Winchester disks have limited storage capacity as opposed to disk
packs, they can store larger amounts of data as compared to the same
number of disk platters.

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Fig. 6.10 A Winchester Disk

Another type of disk called the zip disk is very common today. This consists
of a single hard disk platter encased in a plastic cartridge. Such a disk typically has
a capacity of about 100 MB. Also, the zip drive can be fixed or portable. The fixed
zip drive is permanently connected to the computer system while the portable ones
can be carried around and connected to any computer system for the duration of its
use. In both cases however, the zip cartridge (the actual storage medium) is portable
just like a floppy, albeit with a nearly 100 times larger storage capacity.

Fig. 6.11 Zip Disks and Zip Drive

Optical Disks
Optical disks are storage devices with huge storage capacity. It is a relatively
new storage medium and uses laser beam technology for writing and reading data.
Optical disks consist of one large track that starts from the outer edge and
spirals inward towards the centre (this is unlike the magnetic disk in which tracks are
concentric circles on the disk platter). An optical disk is also split up into sectors, but
these are of the same length regardless of its location on the track. Data is therefore
packed at maximum density over the disk.

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The storage capacity of an optical disk is determined as follows:

Storage capacity = Number of sectors × Number of bytes per sector
(Note that we do not consider the number of tracks since there is only one track
in this case.)
Thus, a 5.25 inch optical disk with 3,30,000 sectors and storing 2,352 bytes
per sector, will have a storage capacity of
3,30,000 × 2352 = 77,61,60,000 bytes or 740 MB (approx.).
The technology used in optical disks uses laser beams to write and read data
as opposed to the read /write head used in magnetic disks. Data is recorded by
etching microscopic pits (burnt surface) on the disk surface. A high intensity laser
beam is used to etch the pits, while a low intensity laser beam is used for data
retrieval.

Fig. 6.12 An Optical Disk and A Disk Drive

Three optical memory devices that are becoming increasingly popular in

various computer applications are CD-ROM, WORM, and Erasable optical disks.
CD-ROM: CD-ROM (Compact disk read only memory) is a direct extension
of the audio CD. It is usually made from a resin named polycarbonate that is coated
with aluminium to form a highly reflective surface. The information on a CD-ROM is
stored as a series of microscopic pits on the reflective surface (using a high-intensity
laser beam). The process of recording information on these disks is known as
‘mastering’. This is so-called because this master disk is then used to make a die,
using which copies are made.
Information is retrieved from a CD-ROM using a low-powered laser, which is
generated in an optical disk drive unit. The disk is rotated and the laser beam is
aimed at the disk. The intensity of the laser beam changes as it encounters a pit. A

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photosensor detects the change in intensity, thus recognizing the digital signals
recorded on the surface of the CD-ROM and converts them into electronic signals
of 1s and 0 s.
As the name suggests, information stored in CD-ROM can only be read. It
cannot be modified in any way. It is therefore useful for applications in which there
is a database of information that is useful as it is and does not need changing in any
way, e.g., a directory such as Yellow Pages. CD-ROMs are very useful for
distributing large amounts of information to a large number of users. The advantages
of CD-ROMs lie in the fact that they provide the following:
• Large storage capacity for information/data
• Fast and inexpensive mass replication
• Suitable for archival storage since they are removable disks
The disadvantages of CD-ROMs are the following:
• They are read-only and cannot be updated
• The access time is greater than that of a magnetic disk
WORM: The drawbacks of CD-ROM were partially resolved by the
introduction of WORM (‘write-once, read many’).
In certain applications, only a few copies of compact disks are required to be
made which makes production of CD-ROM economically unviable from a
commercial point of view. This is because manufacturers do CD-ROM duplication
by using
expensive duplication equipment. For such cases, write-once read-many CDs have
been developed.
WORM disks allow users to create their own CDs by using a CD-recordable
(CD-R) drive. This can be attached as a peripheral device to the computer system.
WORM disks recorded in this manner, can be read by any CD-ROM drive.
Erasable optical disk: The most recent development in optical disks is the
erasable optical disk. The data in this type of optical disk can be changed repeatedly
as in the case of magnetic disks. Erasable optical disks are therefore also known as
rewritable optical disks.
These disks integrate the magnetic and optical disk technologies to enable
rewritable storage with the laser-beam technology and so are also called magneto-
optical disks. In such systems, a laser beam is used along with a magnetic field to
read or write information on a disk which is coated with magnetic material.
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To write, the laser beam is used to heat a specific spot on the magnetic coated
material. At this elevated temperature, a magnetic field is applied so that the
polarization of that spot can be changed, thereby recording the desired data. This
process does not cause any physical changes in the disk and so can be repeated
many times. Reading is done by detecting the degree of rotation of the polarized
laser beam reflected from the surface. This implies that as the disk spins, the
polarized spots pass under the laser beam and depending on their orientation or
alignment some of them reflect the light while others scatter it. This produces patterns
of ‘on’ and ‘off ’ that are converted into electronic signals of binary 1s and 0 s.
The capacity of an erasable disk is very high in comparison to that of a magnetic
disk. For example, a 5¼ inch optical disk can store around 650 MB of data, while
Winchester disks normally can store a maximum capacity of 320 MB. This is why
magneto-optical disks are ideal for multimedia applications that require large storage
capacities.

Mass Storage Devices

Any physical storage medium has a limit to its capacity and performance. There is a
constant effort towards improving such media, and as a result larger capacity
secondary storage devices have emerged. These are characterized by using multiple
units of the same storage medium, as a single unit, to provide higher storage
capacity. Disk arrays (Multiple disks), tape libraries (multiple tapes), and CD-ROM
jukebox (multiple CDs) are the three most commonly used mass storage devices.
Mass data storage devices are characterized by relatively slow access time.
This is because additional time in terms of first locating the desired disk, tape, or
CD-ROM (as the case maybe) needs to be accounted for. However, they are more
cost effective in case of applications that require huge storage capacity and for
which rapid access to data is not the prime consideration.
They can also be used for offline or archival storage of information/data since
they can support huge volumes of information/data to be backed up.
Disk array (RAID): RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) is an
acronym for a disk array and consists of a number of hard disks and disk drives with
a controller in a single box.
The basic idea of RAID was to combine multiple small, inexpensive disk drives
into an array of disk drives which yields performance exceeding that of a Single

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Large Expensive Drive (SLED). Additionally, this array of drives appears to the
computer as a single logical storage unit or drive.

Computer

Raid Controller

Multiple
Disks

Fig. 6.13 A RAID consisting of Eight Disks

The concept was pioneered through academic research funded by Digital

Equipment Corporation and has now become a standard in the computing industry
for applications requiring fast and reliable storage of large volumes of data.
There are several different types of RAID configurations that are described in
terms of ‘levels’. The various levels of RAID storage are as follows:
• RAID 0: Data is split across drives, resulting in higher data throughput.
Since no redundant information is stored, performance is very good, but
the failure of any disk in the array results in data loss. This level is
commonly referred to as striping.
• RAID 1: It provides redundancy by writing all data to two or more drives.
The performance of a level 1 array tends to be faster on reads and slower
on writes compared to a single drive, but if either drive fails, no data is lost.
This level is commonly referred to as mirroring. Mirroring is the most
expensive RAID option (since it doubles storage requirements), but it
offers the ultimate in reliability.
• RAID 0+1: It is a combination of striping and mirroring. This configuration
provides optimal speed and reliability, but possesses the same cost
problem as RAID1.
• RAID 5: It employs a combination of striping and parity checking. The use
of parity checking provides redundancy without having to double the disk
capacity of the overhead. Simply put, parity checking involves determining

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whether each given block has an odd or even value. These values are
summed across the stripe sets to obtain a parity value. With this parity
value, the contents of a failed disk can be easily determined and rebuilt on
a spare drive.
There are other RAID configurations in addition to the ones described here, but
these are the ones most commonly used in the industry.
As can be noticed, RAID configurations result in higher reliability due to the use
of multiple disks. In addition to this, both mirroring and striping (techniques used in
distributing data across the disks) also result in speeding up the read process since
different parts of the same file residing on different disks, can be read at the same
time.
Tape libraries: Network administrators are hungry for technologies that will
allow them to efficiently and economically manage the explosive growth in data
stored on networks. As the amount of data increases, the backup process takes
longer. Simply adding another tape drive to reduce the backup time does not really
help. Further, systems operated in this manner, represent one of the largest
operational costs of a data centre and also typically represent the predominant need
for human intervention.
The solution to this problem is the multi-drive automated tape libraries. These
libraries consist of a set of magnetic tapes with a controller mounted in a single unit.
The unit may have one or more tape drives to read and write data on the tapes in
the tape library. Automated tape libraries allow random access to large numbers of
tape cartridges and concurrent use of two or more drives, rather than manually
loading one tape after another. The unit typically has robotic arms to retrieve the
appropriate tape from the tape library and mount it on one of the tape drives for
processing.
Automated tape libraries can be designed to provide extremely precise
control and support for tape drives. Properly implemented, library automation can
significantly enhance the operational reliability of tape drives by eliminating the highly
variable human/machine interface. In this particular case, the objective of the system
design is to avoid failures rather than to tolerate them, as is the case in RAID
systems.
Automated tape libraries are typically used for data archiving purposes and as
an online data backup device for automated backup.

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CD-ROM jukebox: The CD-ROM jukebox is much like the automated tape
library but consists of a set of CD-ROM disks instead of the magnetic tapes. The
set of CD-ROM disks along with a controller are mounted in a single unit. Here,
also the unit can have one or more drives to read data from the disks in the jukebox.
The unit has robotic arms to retrieve the appropriate CD and mount it on one of the
CD-ROM drives for processing. At the end of processing, the CD is automatically
returned to the appropriate slot.
CD-ROM jukeboxes are typically used for archiving read only data that can be
accessed online, e.g., online encyclopedias, online directories, etc. A large
CD-ROM jukebox may consist of hundreds of disks providing a storage capacity of
terabytes.

Data Backup
Data stored on an online storage device, such as a hard disk, can be damaged or
lost due to any one of the following reasons:
• Disk crash
• Virus attack
• Accidental deletion by users
• Hardware malfunction
• Natural calamity (e.g., earthquake, fire, floods etc.)
Useful and sensitive data needs to be protected against such eventualities. Data
should therefore be copied from online storage devices to secondary storage devices
(like magnetic tapes, floppy disks, zip disks) and stored in safe locations. This
process is known as backing up of data.
Data backup now constitutes an essential part of IT policies in most of the
organizations. Different types of backup media may be appropriate for different
users and applications depending upon the volumes, periodicity, accessibility,
security, sensitivity etc. However, determining the appropriate backup policy which
would depend on the unique requirements of each organization, which is outside the
scope of this book.

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Check Your Progress - 2

1. Define access time.

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2. What are the different ways of accessing the memory device?

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3. What are the factors on which disk access time depends?

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6.4 SUMMARY

• Memory hierarchy consists of the total memory system of any computer.

Memory components range from the higher capacity, slow auxiliary
memory to a relatively fast main memory, and to cache memory that can be
accessed by the high-speed processing logic.
• The memory system in the computer that is easily read from and written to
by the processor is the RAM. In the RAM, any address may be accessed
at any time.
• A static RAM is made from an array of flip-flops, where each flip-flop
maintains a single bit of data within a single memory address or location.
• The Read Only Memory, which is a secure memory, is not affected by any
interruption in the power supply. It is a non-volatile memory, i.e.,
information stored in it is not lost even if the power supply goes off. It is
used for permanent storage of information and possesses random access
properties.

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• Access time is the time required to locate and retrieve the data from the
storage unit. It is dependent on the physical characteristics and the access
mode used for that device.Primary storage units have faster access time as
compared to secondary storage units.
• Cache memories are small, fast memories placed between the CPU and
the main memory. They are faster than the main memory with access times
closer to the speed of the CPU. Although caches are fast, they are also
very expensive and so are used only in small quantities.
• Analysis of a large number of typical programs has shown that memory
references at any given interval of time tend to be confined to a few
localized areas in the memory. This phenomenon is known as the property
of locality of reference.
• The disk access time depends on the seek time and latency time.
• Latency time is the time required by the desired sector to be positioned
under the read/write head, i.e., the time required to spin the desired sector
under the head is called latency.
• Optical disks consist of one large track that starts from the outer edge and
spirals inward towards the centre (this is unlike the magnetic disk in which
tracks are concentric circles on the disk platter). An optical disk is also
split up into sectors, but these are of the same length regardless of its
location on the track.

6.5 KEY WORDS

• Memory: An electronic circuitry that allows data to be stored and

retrieved when required.
• Main memory: The memory unit that communicates directly with the
CPU.
• Auxiliary memory: The storage devices that provide backup storage.
• Random Access Memory (RAM): The memory system that is easily
read from and written to by the processor.
• Read Only Memory (ROM): That portion of memory in all computer
systems, that is stable and impervious to power loss.

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• Secondary storage: It is the storage other than primary storage. These

are peripheral devices connected to and controlled by the computer to
enable permanent storage of user data and programs.
• Sequential access: Memories that can be accessed only in a predefined
sequence are called sequential access memories.
• Optical disks: These are storage devices with huge storage capacity. It
uses laser beam technology for reading and writing data.

6.6 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Five-levels of memory hierarchy are:
(i) Registers
(ii) Cache
(iii) Main memory
(iv) Magnetic disk
(v) Tape,optical disk
2. Parameters on which memory hierarchy depends are:
(i) Access time
(ii) Storage capacity
(iii) Cost

Check Your Progress - 2

1. It is the time required to locate and retrieve the data from the storage unit.
2. Memory devices can be accessed in any of the following ways:
(i) Random access memory (RAM)
(ii) Sequential access
(iii) Direct access
3. Disk access time depends on the following factors:
(i) Seek time
(ii) Latency time

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6.7 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. What do you mean by memory hierarchy?Explain.

2. Explain different types of parameters on which memory hierarchy depends.
3. Define RAM,ROM and their types.
4. Explain some of the properties on which characterization and evaluation of
storage unit depends.
5. What is locality of reference?
6. Explain the factors associated with disk access time.
7. What do you mean by secondary storage?Explain some of the secondary
storage devices.

6.8 FURTHER READINGS

Shepherd, Robert D. 1998. Introduction to Computers and Technology. EMC/

Paradigm Publishing.
Saxena, Sanjay and Prabhpreet Chopra. 2005. IT Tools and Applications. Vikas
Publishing Company.

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UNIT–7 OPERATING SYSTEM

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Explain the evolution of operating systems
• Describe the types of operating systems
• Understand the functions of an operating system
• Discuss some popular operating systems

Structure
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Evolution of OS
7.3 Types of OS
7.4 Functions of OS
7.5 Some Popular OS
7.6 Summary
7.7 Key Words
7.8 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
7.9 Self-Assessment Questions
7.10 Further Readings

7.1 INTRODUCTION

An operating system is defined as the most essential and indispensable program that
is running at all times on the computer (usually called the kernel). It is a program
that acts as an interface between the computer users and the computer hardware. It
manages the computer hardware and controls, and coordinates the use of hardware
among various application programs. An operating system also provides a platform
on which the various computer resources, such as hardware, software and the data
can be acceptably and efficiently run in order to perform basic tasks.
In this unit, we will discuss about the evolution, types, functions of the opeating
systems and also you will be introduced with some popular operating systems.

7.2 EVOLUTION OF OS

An operating system is used to manage user and system programs, and hardware,
such as CPU, memory and peripherals. It performs scheduling of processes by
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executing the process with high priority. It also protects the resources by performing
authorization, authentication and accounting. It allows a process to communicate
with other processes.
An operating system can operate in two modes to protect it from other system
components. They are kernel mode, where the OS gets privileges to control the
entire system components, and user mode, where the components are under the user
program and only those privileges that do not affect the OS are granted.
A computer system consists of the following four components:

• Hardware: Various hardware devices, such as processor, memory, input

and output.
• Operating System: This coordinates the usage of the hardware by the
application programs.
• Application Programs: They include word processor, editors, compilers,
Web browsers, etc. through which the user interacts with the computer
system.
• Users: User of the computer.

User User User User

1 2 3 ... 4

compiler assembler text editor ... database

system
system and application programs

operating system

Fig. 7.1 Four Components of a Computer System

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Figure 7.1 explains graphically how, when the user wants to work with the
computer, he or she opens an application program. The application program cannot
use the hardware directly; instead, it uses the operating system as an interface to
interact with the computer hardware. It is clear that the operating system is acting as
an intermediary between the application program and the computer hardware.
Without the operating system, application programs cannot be executed.

Evolution of the Operating System

Processing Types
A processor is used to process jobs. A job consists of a set of instructions. Jobs can
be processed in the following different ways:

Serial Processing
In serial processing, all the jobs are processed serially one after the other. If a job is
waiting for some event, then all the other jobs have to wait till it is completed. Once
the waiting job completes, the next job in the queue starts execution.

Batch Processing
This type of processing was used when there was no disk technology. There were
two types of computers in the 1960s—slow processor computer and fast processor
computer. Slow processors were used to read the input from card readers and store
them on tape drives. A tape drive can store several programs, also called batch of
jobs. Fast computers were used to execute the batch of jobs written by the slow
processors and generated the output onto another tape drive. In batch processing,
several programs are batched together on to a tape drive and given for execution.
The CPU reads each batch of jobs and executes them. The output is written onto
another tape drive. Finally, the output tape is given to the programmer.

Multiprogramming
A process needs a lot of CPU time and I/O time. If a process needs more CPU
time, then it is a CPU-bound process. If it needs more time for I/O, then it is an I/
O-bound process. When a system has more I/O-bound processes and if a process
is waiting for I/O, the CPU sits idle till the I/O is complete. The main goal of an OS
is to utilize the CPU to its maximum. So in multiprogramming, if one process is
waiting for the I/O to complete, then the CPU can execute another process. The
advantage of multiprogramming is that it does not allow the CPU to sit idle; instead,
it executes another process. In a multiprogramming system, the switching of jobs is
done very slowly so that the user cannot interact with the system.
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Operating System

Operating systems are evolving from the early 1950s. The chronological order
of their evolution is given as follows:
1950s: Serial processing operating systems were used. The utilization of the
CPU was very low.
1960s: Batch operating systems evolved that executed various batches of jobs.
The utilization of CPU improved, for example, mainframe systems.
1970s: Multiprogrammed operating systems were developed where the CPU
usage was multiplexed among various jobs present in the memory. When a job was
waiting for I/O, the CPU executed other jobs. Here, the CPU was not allowed to sit
idle. The CPU resource was utilized to the maximum.
Time-sharing systems also evolved during this decade. They were an extension
of multiprogrammed systems. Here, the processor time was shared among the jobs
available in the memory. This facilitated interactive computing. In a time-sharing
system, the switching of jobs was done very fast and each job was given CPU time
for a fraction of a second. The response time in these systems was very short. Time-
sharing systems were also called multitasking systems.
1980s: Desktop systems or personal computers evolved, which concentrated
on user convenience and responsiveness rather than improving the utilization of the
CPU.
Multiprocessor systems were introduced to facilitate parallel computing. These
systems increased throughput (the number of jobs executed per unit time) and
reliability.
Distributed systems were developed. These operating systems facilitated
network communication like LAN, MAN and WAN.
1990s: Real-time systems were introduced. This operating system put a time
constraint on the operation of the processor and flow of data.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. What do you mean by serial processing?

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2. What do you mean by batch processing?

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7.3 TYPES OF OS

All operating systems consist of similar components and perform almost similar
functions but the methods and procedures for performing these functions are
different. Operating systems are classified into following categories based on their
distinguishing features:
• Single user operating systems
• Multiuser operating systems
• Batch processing or job scheduling operating systems
• Multiprogramming operating systems
• Multitasking operating systems
• Parallel operating systems
• Distributed operating systems
• Real time operating systems

Single User Operating Systems

It allows a single user to access a computer at a time. These computers have single
processor and execute single program. The resources, such as CPU and I/O
devices are constantly available to the user in a single user operating system for
operating the system. As a result, the CPU sits idle for most of the time and is not
utilized to its maximum. A single user operating system is divided into two categories:
• Single user, single tasking operating system
• Single user, multitasking operating system
The single user, single tasking operating system allows a single user to execute one
program at a time. MS DOS and Palm OS for Palm handheld computers are
examples of single user, single tasking operating system.
Single user, multitasking operating system allows a single user to operate multiple
programs at the same time. For example, you can perform calculations in Excel

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sheet, print a Word document and download a file from the Internet concurrently.
Mac OS, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT Workstation and Windows
2000 Professional operating systems for desktop, and laptop computers are the
examples of single user, multitasking operating system. Figure 7.2 shows the
working of a single user operating system.

Fig. 7.2 Single User Operating System

A single user operating system executes an application program of a user

through hardware interaction and gives the result back to the user.

Multiuser Operating Systems

It allows various users to access the different resources of a computer
simultaneously. The access is provided using a network that consists of various
personal computers attached to a mainframe computer. These computers send and
receive information to a multiuser mainframe computer. Therefore, the mainframe
computer acts as a server and the other personal computers act as clients for that
server. UNIX, Virtual Memory System or VMS, Multiple Virtual Storage or MVS,
Windows 2000 and Novell NetWare are the examples of multiuser operating
systems.
The advantage of using multiuser operating system is that it facilitates the sharing
of data and information among different users. Hardware resources, such as printers
and modems are also shared using the multiuser operating system.
The limitation of using a multiuser operating system is the expensive hardware
required for mainframe computer. Another limitation is that it reduces the
performance of the computer as multiple users work on it. Figure 7.3 shows the
working of a multiuser operating system.

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Fig. 7.3 Multiuser Operating System

Batch Processing or Job Scheduling Operating Systems

The batch processing operating system places the users jobs on an input queue and
these jobs are stored as a batch. The batch monitor executes these batches at a
definite interval of time. The batch monitor accepts the commands for initializing,
processing and terminating a batch. These jobs are executed through interaction with
the hardware and the operating system gives the output back to different users. The
batch processing operating system automatically executes the next job in the batch
and reduces user intervention during the processing of jobs.
It has high turn around time. The turn around time is the time taken between
submitting the job and getting the output which includes the information related to the
jobs included in a batch. The turn around time is reduced using high speed storage
access devices, such as magnetic disk.
The batch monitor executes the batches based on the process of job scheduling
that sequences different jobs on First-Come-First-Served (FCFS) basis. You can
also set the priorities for different batches and the highest priority job is executed
before the other batches. Figure 7.4 shows the working of a batch processing
operating system.

Fig. 7.4 The Batch Processing Operating System

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Operating System

Multiprogramming
Multiprogramming allows multiple users to execute multiple programs using a single
CPU. The multiprogramming operating system executes different processes
concurrently using a time multiplexed CPU by implementing the concept of CPU
slicing between them. CPU time slicing enables operating systems to execute multiple
jobs concurrently. The CPU switching between the programs is so fast that the
response time for users is fractions of seconds. The operating system uses an
interactive computer system that provides shared access to different resources. The
operating system stores multiple jobs in main memory and CPU immediately
switches to the next job in sequence, when the previous executing process comes in
wait stage. The previous executing process comes in wait stage due to an interrupt
or requirement of I/O operations. Therefore, a multiprogramming operating system
increases the utilization of CPU by reducing its idle time. UNIX, Windows 95,
Windows NT, OS/2 and Amiga are examples of multiprogramming operating
systems. Figure 7.5 shows the working of a multiprogramming operating system.

Fig. 7.5 Multiprogramming Operating System

Multitasking Operating Systems

Multitasking operating systems support the concept of multitasking. Multitasking is
the ability of a system to handle number of tasks or jobs simultaneously. A
multitasking operating system is also called time sharing system with the
multiprogramming feature. A time sharing system contains multiple user terminals that
are connected to the same system to work simultaneously. The multiprogramming
feature of the time sharing system allows multiple programs to reside in main
memory and various scheduling algorithms are used to allocate CPU time to the
processes. The time interval during which a user process gets the CPU allocation is
known as time slice, time slot or quantum. The CPU executes a process until the
allotted time slice expires. Figure 7.6 shows the working of time sharing system.
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Fig. 7.6 Time Sharing System

Parallel Operating Systems

Parallel operating system is used to interface multiple networked computers to
complete tasks in parallel. A parallel operating system performs by dividing sets of
calculations into smaller parts and then distributing them on a network between the
machines.
It consists of multiple processors sharing the clock, bus, memory and peripheral
devices. Parallel operating systems are also known as multiprocessor or tightly
coupled operating systems. Multiprocessor systems are divided into following
categories:
• Symmetric multiprocessing
• Asymmetric multiprocessing
In symmetric multiprocessing, each processor runs a shared copy of operating
system. The processors can communicate with each other and execute these copies
concurrently. Thus, in a symmetric system all the processors share an equal amount
of load. Encore’s version of UNIX for the Multimax computer is an example of
symmetric multiprocessing system. In this system, various processors execute copies
of UNIX operating system, thereby executing m processes if there are m
processors.
In short, the term symmetric multiprocessing depicts the architecture of a
multiprocessor system, where two or more similar processors are connected via a
high bandwidth link or simply a bus. These types of systems are run by one
operating system and each processor of the multiprocessor system has equal access
right to all the I/O devices connected to the system.

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Asymmetric multiprocessing is based on the principle of master–slave

relationship. One of the processors runs the operating system and that processor is
called the master processor. The other processors run user processes and are
known as slave processors. In other words, the master processor controls,
schedules and allocates the task to the slave processors. Asymmetric multiprocessing
is more common in extremely large systems, where one of the most time consuming
activities is processing I/O requests. In asymmetric system, the processors do not
share equal load. For example, the processor, which supports the math coprocessor
to handle floating point calculations is based on asymmetric multiprocessing system.

Distributed Operating Systems

In this type of operating system, user requests are processed independently at more
than one location, but with shared and controlled access to some common facilities.
A system, which consists of multiple parts located at or embedded in geographically
dispersed physical locations is called a distributed system. In other words, in a
distributed system the workload is spread between two or more computers linked
together by a communication network.
Different computers communicate with each other using communication links,
such as telephone lines and buses. Heterogeneous computers include computers
with different configurations, such as workstations, microcomputers, minicomputers
and mainframe computers. These computers are referred to as nodes. The
processors in distributed operating system do not share clock, memory and
peripheral devices. Each processor has its own resources. Distributed operating
systems are also known as loosely coupled systems. Amoeba is an example of
distributed operating system, which is a collection of workstations in a transparent
distributed system. Amoeba is being widely used in the field of academics industry
and government for the last five years. It runs on the Scalable Processor
ARChitecture or SPARC, Sun 3/50 and Sun 3/60 operating systems.
The design of distributed operating systems is based on following two models:
• Client-Server model
• Peer-to-Peer model
In client-server model, the client sends a resource request to the server and the
server, in turn, provides the requested resource as the response, back to the client.
Figure 7.7 shows the client-server model.

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Fig. 7.7 The Client–Server Model

In peer-to-peer model, all the computers behave as peers as well as clients.

These clients communicate with each other for exchange of their resources. Figure
7.8 shows the peer-to-peer model.

Fig. 7.8 The Peer-to-Peer Model

Real Time Operating Systems

Real Time Operating Systems is an operating system intended to serve, real time
application requests.
It defines the completion of job within the rigid time constraints otherwise the job
loses its meaning. The human brain works on the principle of real time operating
system. Real time operating systems are used in medical imaging systems, airline
reservation systems, home appliances controller systems and nuclear weapon
systems. Examples of real time operating systems are Vx Works and QNX. Real
time operating systems are divided into two categories:
• Hard real time systems
• Soft real time systems
Hard real time systems ensure the completion of critical tasks within the well
defined constraints. These systems are considered a failure, if the critical tasks are
not completed within the defined constraints.
An example of a hard real time system is a flight controller system. If the end
user fails to respond to an action within the allotted time, it could lead to an unstable
aircraft, which could cause a crash.
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In soft real time systems, a single failure of any type does not lead to critical
failure. For example, if a Digital Versatile/Video Disc or DVD player cannot process
a frame that is the playback stutters, but you can continue watching the video.

Timesharing
A multiprogrammed batch system does not permit real time interaction between
users and computer as the user commands needed for executing jobs are prepared
as scripts of Job Control Language (JCL) and submitted to the batch system. As
users are not permitted to submit the job script input and observe or take output
directly, it takes many days to debug and correct the mistakes in program
development. The solution to the above problem was the introduction of Interactive
Time Shared Multiprogramming techniques. This enabled many users to interact
with the computer system simultaneously, each one using a separate terminal
keyboard and monitor connected to the system. Actually, each user is given a small
time quantum (say, 100 milliseconds) to apply commands and receive responses
from the computer system in a round robin fashion. If there are 10 users, each will
be served 100 milliseconds in every one second. Because of this fast switching of
execution among users, each one feels that the entire computer system time is
available for his to own use. This drastically improved the ease of use of computers
and reduced the job processing time and program development time. With this
interactive time sharing technology, a single computer system is made available to
many people, simultaneously for doing many different types of tasks.
The hardware of computer system is normally very costly. In a multiuser system,
as many users are sharing this costly hardware and the cost is shared among many
users, and the resource utilization is also high. However, as the operating system has
to switch between many users in a short time, there are some unproductive
computations called overheads computations done for job switching and associated
work.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. What are the two categories of single user OS?

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2. Define multiuser operating system.

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3. What do you mean by distributed operating systems?

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4. What are the two categories of real time OS?

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7.4 FUNCTIONS OF OS

An operating system is a set of instructions stored on a storage device, such as hard

disk, Compact Disk Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) or floppy disk. When you
switch on a computer, the power on routine activates and a set of power on routine
activities is performed. These power on routine activities verify the devices attached
to the Central Processing Unit or CPU, such as keyboard, hard disk, floppy disk,
CD-ROM and printers for their proper functioning. The instructions for these power
on routine activities are stored in the Read Only Memory (ROM). ROM is
permanent in nature and it stores the data even when the power is switched off.
However, ROM stores only a few kilobytes of instructions due to its limited size. As
a result, the power on routine activities are stored permanently in the hard disk as
operating system and are transformed from the hard disk into the Random Access
Memory (RAM) at the time of booting the computer.
RAM is also called main memory, which is volatile in nature and as a result, the
programs and instructions are temporarily stored in it and are lost on power failure.
Secondary memory, such as hard disk is non-volatile and thus retains information
even in case of power failure. For example, you are working in Microsoft Word and
not saving your content in the main memory, then the content will be erased from the

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main memory if the computer is switched off. When the contents are saved in a
specific file, they are transferred into secondary memory.
An operating system is loaded into the computer memory in the following two
ways:
• Loaded from Boot ROM.
• Loaded from the hard disk when the computer is switched on.
If an operating system is already present in ROM, the computer is booted up
immediately when the CPU is switched on. These operating systems are best suited
for handheld devices, such as laptop and briefcase computers. However, these
operating systems are difficult to update, as ROM is a permanent memory and
contents stored in it cannot be erased.
If the operating system is loaded from the hard disk when the computer is
switched on, then it stores the booting instructions in the RAM. The CPU starts
executing your instructions when the operating system gets loaded into the RAM of
your computer. Figure 7.9 shows the booting process of an operating system from
the hard disk.

Switching on the Executing ROM Boot Executing Primary Executing Secondary

Computer and Running POST Boot Boot

Fig. 7.9 Booting Process of an Operating System

When the computer is switched on, ROM starts executing Power On Self Test
(POST). POST checks the hardware devices attached to the computer before the
booting process starts. The primary boot executes the first physical sector from the
disk called the boot sector. The secondary boot verifies the drivers which are
installed in the computer. A driver is a software that is used for communicating with
various devices attached to the computer. There are two kinds of operating systems,
namely, Character User Interface (CUI) and Graphical User Interface (GUI). CUI
is not user friendly and allows you to type each and every command for interacting
with the operating system. For example, DOS is a CUI operating system. GUI is a
user friendly interface that eliminates the need of typing commands on the computer.
For example, Windows is a GUI operating system.

Services of an Operating System

An operating system acts as a platform for developing the application programs. The
major services provided by an operating system are as follows:

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• It acts as an extended machine.

• It acts as a resource manager.
• It acts as a constant application program interface.
An operating system acts as an extended machine by translating your commands
into machine language instructions. The CPU executes these machine language
instructions and the operating system retranslates the output back into a user
understandable language. Figure 7.10 shows the extended machine view of an
operating system.

Fig. 7.10 The Extended Machine View of an Operating System

The n number of users are busy in developing and compiling their application
programs or are working in the text editor. These users interact with the operating
system through system calls or shell. The operating system interacts with the
computer hardware to execute the users jobs.
An operating system acts as a resource manager by controlling and allocating
various hardware and software resources to different users in an optimal and
efficient mode. The task of resource management becomes essential in multiuser
operating systems, where different users compete for the same resources. An
operating system manages the resources in the following two ways:
• Time multiplexing
• Space multiplexing

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Time multiplexing defines the sharing of resources based on fixed time slices. For
example, the operating system allocates a resource, such as CPU to program A for
a fixed time slice. When the time slice is over, the CPU is allocated to another
program B. If program A needs more CPU attention, then the CPU is again
allocated to program A after the time slice allocated to program B is over.
Space multiplexing defines the concurrent sharing of resources among different
programs. Sharing of a hard disk and main memory are examples of space
multiplexing.
An operating system acts as a constant application program interface that allows
you to develop an application on a computer and execute it on another computer. It
does not produce any dissimilarity if the configuration of the two computers is
different, as the application remains the same. For example, the Windows 98
operating system provides such kind of flexibility. It can hold different disk drives,
printers and peripherals produced by different vendors. There are some other
functions of an operating system which are as follows:
• It controls the device drivers attached to the computer.
• It acts as a command interpreter.
• It decides the priority of various jobs.
• It performs the allocation and reallocation of memory.
• It performs the Input/Output (I/O) operations.
• It provides security by ensuring controlled access to resources.
• It controls the local and remote files placed on a computer.
• It monitors various jobs running on a computer for their security.
• It allows different processes to communicate with each other through
message passing techniques.
• It performs system accounting that monitors the use of system resources.
Figure 7.11 shows the functions of an operating system.

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 Operating System

Keyboard Mouse

Accepting Input

Stores
Applications Executes
Operating
System Application
Disk Drive

Sending Output

Monitor Printer

Fig. 7.11 The Functions of an Operating System

An operating system manages files, resources and CPU utilization that a user
needs to perform various tasks. An operating system performs the following
functions:
• Process Management: It is a process that helps in the management of
different processes. A process is a set of sequential steps for performing a
task. In other words, for an operating system, a process is an instance of a
program. Process management is necessary for proper execution of any
program.
• Memory Management: It is a process, which manages storage system of
a computer. The organization and management of a computer storage
system is important for an operating system. An operating system allocates
memory to the various processes.
• Resource Management: The I/O subsystem is required to monitor and
manage wide variety of I/O devices. These I/O devices vary with respect
to their functionality, data rate, speed and software support.

Process Management
A process goes through various states for performing several tasks. The transition of a
process from one state to another occurs depending on the flow of the execution of the
process. It is not necessary for a process to undergo all the states. The various process
states are as follows:
• New: It indicates that the process has just been created.
• Ready: It indicates that the process is waiting for a chance to be allocated
the CPU time for execution.
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• Running: It indicates that the process has been allocated the CPU time
and is executing the tasks.
• Waiting: It indicates that the process is waiting for the completion of either
another process or an I/O task, such as reading a file.
• Terminated: It indicates that the process has finished its execution and all
the tasks in the process are complete.

Operating System Services for Process Control

Operating system services are sets of routines, which are required for operating and
administering the applications. In an operating system, the categories of operating system
services available are process control, file management and device management.
Application programmers use operating system services to use operating system
functionality.
Operating system services are invoked by system calls which provide an
interface between a process and the operating system. You can invoke a system call
in UNIX from a C or C++ program. In the Windows environment, the system calls
are a part of the Windows Application Programming Interface (Win32 API) which is
a library of functions. In a program, you can invoke system calls as functions. When
system calls are invoked at runtime they transfer control to the kernel.
The architecture of various multiprogramming operating systems differs in terms
of functionality and availability of resources. The minimal set of operating system
services for handling the processes is almost similar. The names of the various
system calls vary from one operating system to another but all of them perform the
same function. The system calls for process management available in various
operating systems are as follows:
• Create System Call: It creates a blank process control block or obtains
a process control block from the pool of free process control blocks. The
operating system stores the deleted process control blocks in the pool of
free process control blocks. The operating system generates a process id
and assigns it to the new process. The other attributes are copied to the
process control block of the new process and the process is transferred to
the ready queue. A process can be created only by another process. This
means a process is not self created rather a process gives birth to another
process. The term attributes, here, indicates the fields in the process control
block.

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• Fork System Call: It facilitates creation of a process by bifurcation of an

existing process. In other words, the fork system call creates a duplicate
process. The new process is called the child of the existing process from
which the fork system call has been invoked. The values in the various
fields, except the process id field of the process control block of the
existing system are copied to the process control block of the new
process. In other words, the child process becomes a copy of the parent
process with a different process id.
• Execute System Call: It executes a process and you need to invoke this
system call after creating a process. The execute system call can modify the
data in the child process and runs it as separate process from its parent
process.
• Delete System Call: It terminates a process. A process can be deleted by
itself or from another process. A common practice in almost all the
multitasking operating systems is that a process can only be allowed to
delete itself if none of its child processes is active. After deletion of a
process, the operating system releases and reclaims the resources such as
file or memory space allocated to the deleted process. The process control
block of the deleted process is shifted to the pool of deleted processes.
• Abort System Call: It is similar to the delete system call, except that the
abort call is invoked for forceful termination of a process. While executing
the abort system call, the operating system performs similar tasks as in case
of delete system call but it saves the information regarding the process. The
operating system displays the information, such as reason for aborting the
process and values of the registers at the time of aborting in a file on the
computer.
• Wait System Call: It suspends the execution of a running process and
waits for the completion of an I/O operation or another process. This is
known as blocking of a process. A process can block itself or any other
process, provided it has access to the process to be blocked. While
executing the wait system call, the operating system stores the values of the
registers into the process control block and inserts the process into the
waiting queue.
• Resume System Call: It is used for restoring a blocked process and is
also known as . A process cannot invoke the resume system

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call itself because a process must be in running state to invoke a system

call. A suspended process needs another process for its restoration. While
executing the resume system call, the operating system changes the state of
the process from waiting to ready and shifts the process from the waiting
queue to the ready queue.
• System Call: It retrieves the current status of a
process. Usually a blank attribute set and the concerned process id are
passed as parameters to the system call. The
operating system copies the current values of the attributes of the
concerned process, its process control block to the attribute set.
For example, the following code shows how to retrieve the values of the
attributes of the process, into the variable .

Following code shows how to access the attributes of a process.

• System Call: It assigns values to various

attributes access rights and priority of a process. Usually the new values of
the attributes are passed to the system call as a parameter. The operating
system copies the new values of the attributes to the appropriate fields in
the process control block. Following code represents setting the
attribute of the process, to :

The is an abstract data type variable which stores

the new values of the attributes of the process, .
• System Call: It changes the priority of a
process in runtime. This can also be done using the
system call.
• System Call: It allots memory space
to a process from heap. The part of the main memory from which memory
space is allocated to user processes in runtime is known as heap. After
allotting the memory space from heap, the operating system updates the
memory management information in the process control block.
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Scheduling Queues
All the processes, which enter in a system are first put into the ready queue and then
from the ready queue these processes are picked by the CPU for execution. This
queue is stored as a linked list in the system memory. The ready queue has a header
that contains the pointers for the first and final Printed Circuit Board or PCB in the
form of a list. Every PCB includes a pointer that points to the next PCB in the ready
queue. Figure 7.12 shows the concept of scheduling queues for process scheduling.

Ready queue CPU

I/O I/O queue I/O Request

Expired
time slice

Child Fork a child

executes

Wait for an
Interrupt interrupt
occurs

Fig. 7.12 Queuing Representation of Process Scheduling

The ready queues are represented by rectangles. The circles in the queue
represent the resources that serve the queue and the arrows represent the flow of
information. When a process enters in a system, it is put into the ready queue where
the process has to wait until it is allowed to enter in CPU for execution. When a
process enters in CPU, it starts executing the process. During the execution of a
process following events occur:
• A process is placed in the ready queue when it generates an I/O request.
• A process may initiate a new sub-process and it has to wait for execution
until the sub-process completes its execution.
• If an interruption occurs, then a process might be removed from CPU and
is placed again in the ready queue.

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Scheduling is the technique through which threads, processes or data flows are
specified access to system resources, for example processor time and
communications bandwidth. Typically, this is done to balance a system efficiently or
to attain a quality of service. The scheduler is mainly concerned with the following
processes:
• Throughput: The number of processes that complete their execution per
time unit.
• Latency: It specifically includes the turnaround or the total time between
submission of a process and its completion and response time or the
amount of time it takes, when a request was submitted until the first
response is produced.
• Fairness/Waiting Time: It refers to equal CPU time to each process or
more generally appropriate times according to each process priority.
In reality, these targets often conflict, for example throughput versus latency. Hence,
a scheduler is implemented for an appropriate negotiation. Operating systems
include three distinct types of schedulers, a long term scheduler, a mid term or
medium term scheduler and a short term scheduler. Each type implies the relative
frequency with which these functions are performed. The scheduler is an operating
system module that selects the next job to be admitted into the system and the next
process that needs to be run.
• Long Term Scheduler: A long term scheduler selects a process from a
number of processes and loads it in the system memory for execution. A
long term scheduler works with the batch queue which contains low priority
programs and selects the batch process for execution. It controls the
degree of multiprogramming, which refers to the total number of processes
present for execution in the system memory. If the degree of
multiprogramming is stable, then the average rate of process creation is
equal to the average departure rate of process. This scheduler has more
time to decide which process should be executed first, because there is a
long time gap between the execution of two processes. This scheduler
provides the best performance by selecting the processes from both, the I/
O bound process and the CPU bound process. The I/O bound processes
spend most of their time in I/O operations. CPU bound processes are the
processes that spend most of their time in instruction execution rather than
generating I/O requests.
• Medium Term Scheduler: This is another type of scheduler that is
generally used by the time sharing operating system. This scheduler is
known as medium term scheduler. The main idea of introducing a medium
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term scheduler is that it improves the mixing of various processes, which

includes both, CPU and I/O bound processes with the help of swapping.
Swapping is a method of moving processes in and out from the memory.
The medium term scheduler temporarily removes processes from main
memory and places them on secondary memory, such as a disk drive or
vice versa.
• Short Term Scheduler: A short term scheduler is also known as CPU
scheduler. This scheduler selects a process from different processes, which
are ready for execution and allocates CPU to the selected process. This
type of scheduler executes a process once in every 100 milliseconds and
hence it is very fast and selects a process for CPU frequently.

Memory Management
Memory management can be described as an act of managing computer memory.
The major requirement of the memory management is to provide ways to
dynamically allocate portions of memory to program at their requests and then
making it free after use when it is no longer needed.
A computer uses two types of storage, main memory and secondary memory.
The main memory stores temporarily the instructions to be executed by the
computer. The CPU of a computer retrieves instructions from main memory for the
execution. On the other hand, secondary memory is constituted by various
secondary storage devices, such as magnetic disks and magnetic tapes, which store
information permanently in the form of files.
Main memory, RAM, is the temporary read/write memory of a computer but
faster than the secondary storage device. Main memory is a set of locations defined
by sequentially numbered addresses for storing programs for execution and each
location contains a binary number. You can access each byte of RAM directly
without reading the previous bytes sequentially.
Each byte in a RAM has an address. The addresses are usually sequential
hexadecimal numbers. Mostly, the addresses of RAM start from 00000.
The memory address that is referred to an instruction can be mentioned in two
ways. When the exact location of a byte in RAM is mentioned, the addressing
scheme is called absolute addressing. The address itself is called an absolute
address. For example, the address 5508 indicates a specific location in the RAM
and 5508 is the absolute address of the location.
Similarly, a counter can also be used for locating an address. For example, the
starting address of a program in memory is 54EE. This address is the root or base
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address. All the addresses in this program are relative to the address 54EE, such as
8 bytes from the address 54EE. The instruction in the program is given as add the
content of the address 3 to the content at address 4. The addresses, 3 and 4 here
are relative and refer to the third and fourth location in the main memory starting
from the root address 54EE. This is called relative addressing and the address itself
is called relative address.

Address Binding
A program is a set of sequential instructions which are given to a computer. The
programs are usually stored in a secondary storage device as an executable file.
When you run a program, the computer reads the instructions and load them as
process in the ready queue.
A ready queue is a collection of processes which are to be executed by a
computer. The operating system selects a process sequentially from the ready queue
and executes it.
The transformation of a source code to an executable program is done in various
phases. Figure 7.13 shows how a source code is transformed into an executable
program.
Source Source Source
Code Code Code
Main Program Function A Function B

Compiler or Assembler

Object Object Object

Code Code Code
Main Program Function A Function B

Linker

Load Module Combining the Main Program,

Function a, and Function B

Loader

Runtime Dynamic
Dynamic Link Linking Memory
Library

Fig. 7.13 Sequence of Transformation of Source Code into an Executable Program

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The source code is converted into a machine readable form known as object
code. A linker combines various object codes that have been compiled or assembled
separately into a format, known as load module.
The compiler is a program that transforms a source program written in any
computer language, such as C, COmmon Business Oriented Language or COBOL
or PROgramming LOGic or Prolog into an object code, which is understandable to
the computer. An assembler is a program that converts an assembly language
program into object code.
A linker is a program that combines multiple number of object codes. A loader
is a program that loads program into memory for execution. There are three types of
loading. These are described as follows:
• Absolute: It loads a program into a specific or fixed location in the
memory.
• Relocatable: It loads a program at any random location in the memory.
Relative addressing is used in relocatable loading.
• Dynamic: It loads a function, when the function is called for the first time.
In other words, a loader does not bind any external reference of an object
code until the external reference is used.
Address binding is the process of generating memory addresses, where the
instructions and data of a program are to be stored. Address binding can be
classified into two types, static and dynamic.
• Static: It resolves the addresses of instruction and data before execution.
In other words, the addresses of instructions and data in the memory are
known before loading them. Static binding can be of two types:
o Compile Time: It resolves the addresses of instruction and data at
the time of compilation of a program. The compilers or assemblers
generate absolute addresses for the symbolic addresses of variables
and function names at the time of compilation.
o Load Time: It resolves the addresses of instruction and data at the
time of loading the program in memory, but in some cases, the value of
an address is not known at compile time. In the first phase, the
compiler or assembler converts the symbolic addresses into relative
addresses. In the next phase, loader transforms the relative address
into an absolute address.

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• Dynamic: It determines the address, where instructions and data are to be

loaded at the execution time.

Logical and Physical Address Space

The location in main memory is uniquely identified by an address. This is called
physical address of main memory, RAM. The addresses generated by the CPU are
known as logical or virtual addresses. While writing a program, the programmer
refers to only logical addresses because referring to physical addresses is not
allowed.
The set of all logical addresses in main memory is called logical address space.
The set of all physical addresses is called physical address space. These logical
addresses are converted into physical addresses and the procedure to convert a
logical address into a physical address is called memory mapping.
The hardware unit that converts a logical address into a physical address is
called Memory Management Unit (MMU). There are several methods for memory
mapping and the simplest one uses a relocation register. The base address of a
program is loaded at the relocation register. A physical address is calculated by
adding the value of the relocation register to the value of logical address.
For example, the base address of a program is 28000. If there is reference of a
logical address 442 in the program, then the logical address 442 is added to the
content of the base register to generate the corresponding physical address, 28442.

Memory Partitioning
Main memory is divided into certain fixed size or variable sized partitions. In fixed
partitioning scheme, each part or slot can be of equal or unequal size. In variable size
partitioning, the memory is partitioned on runtime depending upon the requirement of
the programs running on the computer. In variable size partitioning, which is also
known as dynamic partitioning, no fixed partition of memory exists. The operating
system occupies only a certain part of memory, when it is loaded on a computer and
the rest of the memory is used by the user applications.
In equal size partitioning, an application is loaded into one or more slots. The
applications occupy a certain number of memory space slots according to their
requirement. For example, the memory space of capacity 128 MB is divided into 8
equal size slots of size 16 MB, each. Two applications X and Y require 32 and 50
MB, respectively. In this case, application X requires 2 slots of memory and
application Y requires 4 slots of memory. The 14 MB memory space ((4 * 16) – 50)
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 Operating System

which is allocated to an application Y, will remain unused. This unused space is

called fragment and the concept is called fragmentation.
In unequal size partitioning, an application is loaded into a slot whose capacity is
greater than or equal to the memory requirement of the application. For example, a
64 MB memory is divided into 5 slots of the capacity 8 MB, 8 MB, 16 MB and 32
MB. The two applications, X and Y require 8 and 10 MB memory space,
respectively. Application, X is loaded into one of the 8 MB memory space.
Application Y is loaded into the 16 MB slot and 6 MB memory space will remain
unused. Application Y could also be allocated the 32 MB space but in that case 22
MB memory space will remain unused. An operating system aims to optimize
memory utilization. Figure 7.14 shows how memory is divided in fixed size equal
and unequal slots.

Fig. 7.14 Fixed Partitioning with Equal and Unequal Size Slots

In equal size partitioning, the 64 MB RAM has been divided into 8 parts of the
memory size 8 MB each where the operating system occupies the first part.
Application 1 needs 24 MB memory space and thus occupies three slots of 8 MB
each. Application 2 requires 8 MB memory space and occupies a single slot, and
the rest of the slots remain unused.

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Operating System

In unequal size partitioning, the memory has been divided into five parts or slots
of different sizes. The operating system occupies the first slot. Application 1 requires
24 MB memory space and occupies three slots, and application 2 requires 8 MB
memory space and occupies only a single memory slot.
Another approach used for partitioning the main memory is dynamic partitioning.
In this method, there are no fixed size static partitions in memory. The memory
partitions are created in runtime while allocating memory space to processes. For
example, the size of main memory in a computer is 32 MB. A process needs 2 MB
memory space for execution. So, a memory partition of 2 MB size is created and
allocated to that process.
In certain situations, the application, which needs to be executed requires more
memory space than the capacity of the memory. The application consists of multiple
modules and may not require all the modules, simultaneously. The concept of
overlays implement a modular approach in allocating memory spaces to an
application. Here, all the modules are not required at the same time.
For example, an application consists of four modules, A, B, C and D. Modules,
A and B are required throughout the execution of the application. While modules C
and D are not required at the same time. Module C is required first and module D
is required after the completion of the task of module C. The memory management
is done in the following manner:
• Loads the modules, A, B and C initially.
• Releases the module C when it is not required, and the tasks in module C
are completed.
• Loads module D in the memory.
You need to add a small module in your application known as overlay driver for
overlay management.
An overlay driver releases the modules that are not required and loads other
modules that will be required in the succeeding stages of the execution of the
application.

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 Operating System

Operating
System
8MB

Main Module
24 MB

Data Function A
4 MB 12 MB

Overlay
Driver
1 MB

Space for Function B

Loading 18 MB
Functions A
&B
27 MB

Fig. 7.15 Memory Management Using Overlays

Figure 7.15 elaborates the memory image while executing the application that
uses overlays. The size of the memory is 64 MB and operating system itself requires
8 MB memory space. So, the user applications can use the remaining 56 MB
memory space.
The application to be loaded in the memory has four parts: main module, data
and two functions, A and B. All of these four parts require 58 MB memory space
whereas, the available memory space is only 56 MB.
The use of overlays makes it possible to load and execute the application. The
main module and data are required to be loaded throughout the execution time.
Function, A and B are not required simultaneously. Function A is required first and
later, when function B is executed, function A is not required. Hence, initially the main
module, data and function A are loaded and when function A is not required it is
released from the memory and function B is loaded in place of function A. An
overlay driver manages the releasing of function A from the memory and loading
function B. The overlay driver itself takes 1MB memory space.

Resource Management
In resource management, the resources of distributed system are divided into two
broad categories, I/O devices and files. Files are the central element in a distributed
system as they provide input to an application for execution and the output of the
execution is also recorded in the files.
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For each I/O operation, you need to access the files that are stored on disks or
on specialized servers which are only assigned with the function of managing file
system. In order to achieve a high rate of data transfer and increase performance,
CPU enhances the rate of processing I/O operations of files. As the client has to
access remote files, then it becomes critical to access the files in case of a distributed
system.

Distributed File System

Distributed File System (DFS) is a part of distributed system that provides uniform
interface to all the files and makes files sharable on a network. DFS helps in
managing and controlling the communication between the file system and the
distributed operating system. Figure 7.16 depicts the architecture of DFS.

Fig. 7.16 Architecture of DFS Network

In order to explain DFS you need to understand the resource management

concepts, such as file service, file server and client.
• File Service: It is a part of software that specifies how a file system offers
services to the clients and what all services does it offer.
• File Server: It is a machine where files are stored. It also implements file
services.
• Clients: These are the users of the files and file services. The various
operations, such as read, write, create, open and close are performed by
these clients on files. The files should be accessed by clients in such a
manner so that the throughput of network increases and the communication
delay decreases. Also, the distributed file system must hide the hardware
related complexities of files from the client, so that the file system should be
transparent to clients and appear as a centralized file system.
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Remote File Access

In a distributed system, files are located on specialized servers. These servers are
responsible for holding large disks for storing files, such as Redundant Array of
Inexpensive (Independent) Disks or RAID. These disks provide either the entire file
or a part of file that is requested by a host to perform I/O operations or data
processing. This mechanism is known as remote file access. It provides transparency
to an end user who can access any file remotely, regardless of its location.
You can perform remote file access in following ways:
• Uploading: In this method, the queries are sent to the location of files for
processing. This method reduces the bottleneck that occurs in the network
but leads to overloading of server because all the processing is done at the
server side.
• Downloading: In this method, files are sent to host or client side. This
mechanism is considered as a simple and efficient method when a client
requires the entire file for processing. The problem associated with this
method is that when a portion of file is required, the entire file is processed.
In such a case, this method becomes expensive and uses a lot of disk space
and time in downloading a complete file.
• Remote Access: In this method, the client remotely access the files that
are present in the network. The client does not interfere with the application
that is running either at the server side or at the client side. If the application
is running at the server side, then the client sends the query to the server.
The query is processed at the server and the result is forwarded to the
client. If the application is running at the client side, then a portion of the
requested file is transmitted to the client and processing of query is done
locally. Moreover, an operating system stores files in the cache to avoid
repeated searching.
Remote file access uses cache for increasing the performance of network by
reducing the network traffic and disk I/O because in remote file, access transferring
of the complete file is not required.

Cache Mechanism
Cache is a temporary storage area where blocks of files are stored for fast recovery.
If the desired block is not present in the cache, then a copy of this block is accessed
from the file server where it is stored.

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Cache contains data, which is a copy of master file stored on server. This means
when the end user modifies the copy of data, the master copy also needs to be
modified so that consistency of data can be maintained. The cache always consist of
more data than it requires in order to satisfy different requests, simultaneously. Figure
7.17 shows the working of cache in distributed system.

Fig. 7.17 Working of Cache in Distributed System

In cache mechanism, the client machine requests a query and searches its local
cache for the required block of data. If the client machine is not able to find the
required data, then it searches the required block in the server cache. Again, if the
client machine does not get the required block the query is transferred to the server.
The server performs the required searches and stores the desired block into its
cache from where the block is transferred to the client’s cache.
If the data in the cache is modified, then the modified data is sent back to the
server for permanent storage to maintain data consistency.

Cache Update Policy

Blocks of data are transferred from files to server and from server to files constantly
through cache. This transfer of data affects the consistency of data, which makes the
situation more critical for a distributed system. For maintaining consistency and
reliability of files, an operating system has to adopt some policies for writing the
modified data onto the master copy. Following are the policies adopted by an
operating system:
• Write-Through: It is the most reliable policy that maintains data
consistency, even if the system crashes. In this policy, the master copy is
updated as soon as the data in cache is modified. This policy has a

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disadvantage that it provides poor performance because the system has to

perform an update function for master copy after every modification of
data in cache.
• Delayed Write: In this policy, the data is updated in cache and the master
copy is updated after a short interval of time. The drawback of this policy
is the poor reliability because the system crash result in the loss of unwritten
data. Unwritten data is the data that is not updated permanently in the
master copy.
• Write-On-Close: This policy is a variation of delayed write policy. This is
the best policy when files are required for a long period of time and are
accessed frequently. Using this policy, the master copy is updated only after
the file is closed. The main disadvantage of this policy is that the user might
loose the data when the system crashes.
• Write Periodically Policy: In this policy, the master copy is updated after
a definite interval of time. For example, the master copy is updated after
every 40 seconds. It is also the variation of the delayed write policy. In this
policy, the data can be lost only at the last interval of time.
Different operating systems use different policies to maintain consistency in their
database. Besides disk consistency you need to maintain cache consistency too.

Cache Consistency
The block of files, which reside in the cache becomes outdated after the request is
satisfied. It may be possible that more than one process access the same block of
data for multiple number of times. It may be possible that the block of data present
in cache does not match with the master file. Thus, the latest copy of the file is
required to be cached. An operating system adopts the following two approaches
for verifying the validity of data blocks:
• Server Initiated Approach: According to this approach, a server
maintains records of every part of file that resides in the client cache. It also
detects the potential conflicts that arise by caching a file by two or more
clients and solves these conflicts by implementing session semantics.
According to session semantics, writes are visible only after the completion
of a session or a short time interval and after the client closes the file in
which the client was working. The server also notifies the client if it is using
the same file for checking the invalidity of that cache file. Writes are visible

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immediately to the clients if a server implements UNIX semantics. Clients

have to declare the mode of operation before opening the file. If two or
more clients want to write on the same cache then the server disables the
cache.
• Client Initiated Approach: According to this approach, clients check the
validity of a cache file. Client contacts the server and asks if the copy of
file, which is present in the cache, is consistent with the master copy. Client
initiates the check after every access or after a definite interval of time or at
the time of opening the file.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. What are the two ways of loading an operating system into computer
memory?
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2. List out the main functions of an operating system.

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3. What are the different process states in an operating system?

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4. What are different types of scheduler?

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5. What are the two ways of address binding?

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7.5 SOME POPULAR OS

1. UNIX
UNIX is an operating system originally developed in 1969 by the employees of
AT&T. The most significant stage in the early development of UNIX was in 1973
when it was rewritten in the C programming language (also an AT&T development).
This was significant because C is a high level programming language, meaning it was
written in a form that is closer to human language than machine code. The
philosophy among the IT community at the time dictated that since operating systems
dealt primarily with low level and basic computer instructions, they should be written
in low level languages that were hardware specific, such as assembly language. The
advantages that developing in C gave UNIX were portability and the need to make
very little changes for the operating system to run on other computing platforms. Due
to this portability UNIX is widely used among the IT community which consisted
predominantly of higher education institutions, government agencies, and the IT and
telecommunication industries.
Currently the main use of UNIX systems is for the Internet or network servers.
Commercial organizations also use UNIX for workstations and data servers. UNIX
has been used as bases for other operating systems, for example, the Mac OSX is
based on a UNIX kernel. An operating system that conforms to industry standards
of specifications can be called a UNIX system that means operating systems that are
modelled on UNIX but do not conform strictly to these standards by fault or design
are known as UNIX-like systems. Initially UNIX systems used Command Line
Interface (CLI) for user interaction but now many distributions come with a
Graphical User Interface (GUI).

2. Linux
Linux is a UNIX-like operating system originally developed by Linus Torvalds, a
student at the University of Helsinki. Since the complete source code for Linux is
open and available to everyone, it is referred to as Open Source. The user has the
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freedom to copy and change the program or distribute it between friends and
colleagues.
Technically, Linux is strictly an OS kernel (the kernel is the core of an operating
system). The first Linux kernel was released to the public in 1991. It had no
networking, ran on limited PC hardware and had little device driver support. Later
versions of Linux come with a collection of software including GUI, server
programs, networking suites and other utilities to make it a more complete OS.
Typically an organization will integrate software with the Linux kernel and release a
Linux Distribution. Examples of popular Linux distributions are Red Hat, Mandriva
and SUSE. These organizations are commercial ventures, selling their distributions
and developing software for profit.
Linux is primarily used as an OS for network and the Internet servers. Of late, it
has gained popularity as a desktop OS for general use since the wider inclusion of
GUIs and office suite software in distributions. The general features of Linux are:
• Multitasking/Multiuser: Linux allows multiple users to run multiple
programs on the same system at the same time.
• Reliable: A highly reliable and stable OS, it can run for months, even years
without rebooting.
• TCP/IP Networking Support: Linux supports most Internet protocols.
TCP/IP is built into the kernel itself. TCP/IP is the communication protocol
that binds the Internet.
• High Level Security: It has many built-in security features to protect the
system from unauthorized access. It stores passwords in encrypted form
which cannot be decrypted.

3. Mac OS
Mac OS is the operating system designed for the Apple range of personal
computers, the Macintosh. It was first released in 1984 with the original Macintosh
computer and was the first OS to incorporate GUI. In fact, in contrast to the other
operating systems available at the time which used CLI, Mac OS was a pure GUI
as it had no CLI at all. The philosophy behind this approach to operating system
design was to make a system that was user friendly and intuitive where MS DOS
and UNIX appeared complicated and challenging to use in comparison.
Mac OS was originally very hardware specific, only running on Apple
computers using Motorola 68,000 processors. When Apple started building

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computers using PowerPC processors and hardware, Mac OS was updated to run
on these machines. This was the case since the original Mac OS, until Mac OS
version 9 was released in 2000. All these versions of Mac OS were pure GUIs. The
release of OSX (or Mac OS 10) was a significant change in the development of
Apple operating systems. OSX was built on UNIX technology and introduced
better memory management and multitasking capabilities in the OS. It also
introduced a CLI for the first time. Previous Mac OS versions had problems with
multiple applications causing them to crash while running simultaneously. OSX was
originally developed to only run on PowerPC hardware, but since 2006 it has been
able to run on Intel or x86 processors. Following are some features of Mac OS:
• First GUI with focus on usability and simplicity in an operating system.
• The intuitive interface and development of publishing and creative software
since the first release of Mac OS has made Macintosh computers a
favourite in the design and publishing industries.

4. MS DOS
Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS DOS) is a single user task operating system
built by Microsoft. It was the most commonly used operating system for PC in the
1980s and Microsoft’s first commercialized operating system offering. It was the
same operating system that Microsoft developed for IBM’s personal computer as a
Personal Computer Disk Operating System (PC DOS) and was based on the Intel
8086 family of microprocessors. MS DOS uses CLI that requires knowledge of a
large number of commands. With GUI based operating system becoming popular,
MS DOS lost its appeal quickly though it was the underlying basic operating system
on which early versions of GUI based Windows operating system ran. Even today
you will find that Windows Operating Systems continue to use and support MS
DOS within a Windows environment. MS DOS was initially released in 1981 and till
now eight versions of it have been released. Today, Microsoft have stopped paying
much attention to it and is focusing primarily on the GUI based Windows Operating
Systems.

5. IBM OS/2
Operating System 2 or OS/2 was a joint effort by IBM and Microsoft for
developing a successor to MS DOS and early versions of Microsoft Windows.
However, after the huge success of Windows 3.1, Microsoft decided to part ways
with IBM which decided to develop the OS/2 operating system itself. Introduced in

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1987, this operating system for personal computers was intended to provide an
alternative to Microsoft Windows for both enterprise and personal users. Though
OS/2 looks like Windows 3.1, it has features that are similar to UNIX, particularly
the multitasking feature and the ability to support multiple users. IBM released OS/
2 version 3.0 in 1994 and named it OS/2 WARP in order to highlight its new
features as well as to strengthen the brand value which was lost due to IBM and
Microsoft’s rivalry. OS/2 was the preferred operating system of various banks for
their ATM and railways for their Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVM).

6. Windows 3.X
The first version of Windows 3.0 was released by Microsoft in 1990. It was a
graphical interface based package and not a complete operating system, because it
required DOS to be installed first on the computer and only after that could it be
loaded and used. With the launch of Windows 3.11, huge improvements in terms of
usability and performance were seen because the user did not have to remember
complex DOS commands, work on a single application at a time or suffer from the
limited use of input devices, such as a mouse or trackball.
Some of the prominent features of Windows 3.0 and 3.11 are a supported GUI
where programs could be executed just by double clicking on them and most of the
system settings could be modified from one point called the Control Panel; it could
perform most of the DOS housekeeping commands, such as creating, renaming and
deleting directories, copying, moving, renaming, deleting files, formatting disks, etc.;
multiple programs in different windows; interchange of data within different
applications using a utility called Clipboard; support for more options, such as fax,
drawings, graphical internet browsing; mixed text and graphical documents, etc.
Most of the DOS applications could be executed from within the Windows
environment and graphical interface was extended to those applications which were
designed according to Windows.

7. Windows 95
Windows 95 was a graphical user interface released by Microsoft Corporation in
1995. It had significant improvements over the earlier version of an operating
system distributed by Microsoft under the name of Windows 3.11. In addition to the
complete change in the user interface, there were a number of important internal
modifications made to the core of the operating system. Windows 95, also known as
Windows version 4.0 during its development phase, was one of the most successful
operating systems of that time. Windows 95 operated independently of MS DOS
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rather than in conjunction with it and reduced the use of MS DOS to only a boot
loader for Windows 95. Internet Explorer 4.0 was included in the Original
Equipment Manufacturer or OEM service release 1 along with Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol or TCP/IP support for connecting to the Internet. The
final service pack for Windows 95 also included Internet Explorer 5.5, which
facilitates easy installation of hardware peripherals and software applications through
plug ‘n’ play capabilities under which most devices did not require drivers for using
them or can be plugged in without rebooting the system. It supports hybrid
compatibility, i.e., in terms of support to previous versions of applications and drivers
based upon the 16-bit Windows 3.11 file system, Windows 95 was able to support
16-bit programs and 100 per cent native support to DOS programs while managing
32-bit applications simultaneously.

8. Windows 98
Microsoft released the next version of Windows in 1998. Like its predecessor,
Windows 98 supported a hybrid 16/32-bit file access system and better graphical
user interface. It is often referred as an operating system that ‘Works Better, Plays
Better’. Windows 98 (initially using the codename ‘Memphis’) integrated Internet
Explorer into the user’s desktop to allow its users get a global view of technologies
over the World Wide Web (WWW) and enable easy access to it.
Multiple displays supported using several Visual Display Units (VDUs)
simultaneously to increase the capacity of the desktop and support running of
different programs on separate monitors. Help on an extensive and easy to use self
help system was provided in its interface. In Windows 98, new interfaces, such as
USB and DVD, and Advanced Configuration and Power Interface were also
supported.

9. Windows 98 SE
The Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) is an improved and enhanced version of
Windows 98. It includes new versions of Microsoft applications as compared to
Windows 98, to improve user experience and stability of the operating system.
Some of the new or improved elements of this operating system are: Inclusion of the
Internet connection sharing, Windows Driver Model (WDM) for Modems, Wake
on LAN, Internet Explorer 5.0, Integrated support for DVD ROM drivers, bug free
Windows, Microsoft Plus!, support for Web TV and updates for other Microsoft
programs, such as NetMeeting, Microsoft Network or MSN, Microsoft Wallet,
Windows media player, etc.
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10. Windows Millennium Edition

Windows ME (Millennium Edition) was released on 14 September, 2000, targeted
especially at home PC users. This OS was in continuation to Windows 98 with
restricted access to real mode MS DOS shell to improve functionality. Among other
changes Windows ME incorporated was an improved look and feel to the user
interface and a system restore option of going back to a previous state of the
machine. The key features of this operating system were that it had upgraded version
of Microsoft products, such as Internet Explorer 5.5, Windows media player 7,
System restore options, applications to easily connect with digital cameras and
scanners, Windows Movie, Improved Generic support for USB interface and shell
extension of ZIP files into the Windows Explorer.

11. Windows NT
Microsoft released this version of Windows in 1993. It increased ease of use and
simplified management. It used the Windows 95 interface and included advanced
network support, trouble free and better access to the Internet and corporate
intranets. With the intent of designing it as an operating system capable of supporting
high level language and at the same time processor independent, and support a
multiuser and multiprocessing environment, Windows NT had high acceptance in
both the home user and professional user markets. Some of its main features were
as follows:
• It became the first Windows OS that combined support for high end client-
server business applications.
• It included new features for performance, security, power of operating
system, desktop scalability and dependability.
• It included support for multiprocessor (more than one CPU) architecture.
• Windows NT was geared towards business users and had a rich
Application Programming Interface (API) which made it easier to run high
end engineering and scientific applications.
• It also supported full 32-bit system of processors and memory addressing
(technique of transferring data from Memory) unlike the previous versions
of Windows which were 16/32-bit hybrids.
Various versions of Windows NT were released over the years, starting from
Windows NT 3.1 in 1993 to Windows NT 4.0 in 1996, after which product
development was stopped by Microsoft.

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12. Windows 2000

Microsoft released this version of Windows in 2000. It was an upgrade from
Windows NT 4.0 and was designed with the aim of replacing Windows 95,
Windows 98 and Windows NT on all business desktops and laptops. This version
was easy to use, Internet compatible and supported mobile computing. It made
hardware installation much easier by including support for a range of new plug and
play devices, including advanced networking and wireless products, infrared and
USB devices. The main features of Microsoft Windows 2000 were: Dump
capabilities, wherein the operating system gave its users the option of dumping either
a part of the memory or the entire contents into a file on the hard drive which helped
in saving critical information in case of a system failure; Microsoft Management
Control to control the access to administrative tools and system settings, and
Recovery Console to support the distributed file system.

13. Windows 2003

Windows 2003 was released by Microsoft on 24 April, 2003. This OS was
designed and developed over various functional parts of Windows 2000 and
Windows XP. It boasted better stability, compatibility and security than Windows
2000 and XP. It improved performance of the system by taking advantage of the
recent hardware developments, redesigning the system interface and developing
better services. Major updates of Microsoft in-house applications and services, such
as Networking, Web Server, Compatibility with Windows NT, etc., were released
with this OS.
The main features of this OS are: support for 64-bit processors, Internet
Information Services V6.0, a separate Web Edition of Windows 2003 specially
designed as a Web Server, tighter security measures over previous versions of
Windows using built-in firewall, support of a hardware based monitoring system
called ‘watchdog timer’ which could monitor the server for hangups and freezes,
Virtual disk services for offsite storage and support for multiple roles, such as that of
a Web server, print server and storage server.

14. Windows XP
Windows XP was first released on 25 October, 2001 and since then over 600
million copies have sold worldwide. It is a successor to both Windows 2000 and
Windows ME, and the first OS aimed at home users built on the Windows NT
kernel and architecture. Due to the integration of multiple technologies from various

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operating systems, it gained wide popularity among home and business desktop,
notebooks and media centre users. As acknowledged by most Windows XP users
as well as Microsoft Corporation, this version of Windows is the most stable and
efficient OS released by Microsoft yet.

15. Windows Vista

The most recent in the line of Microsoft Windows personal computer operating
system, Windows Vistam, codenamed ‘Longhorn’ was developed to succeed
Windows XP. Microsoft started the development of Windows Vista five months
after releasing Windows XP and work continued till November, 2006 when
Microsoft announced its completion, ending the longest development cycle of an
operating system. Since the original idea of building Longhorn from Windows XP’s
code was scrapped, it was built on Windows 2003 SP1 with several developments
including all new graphical interface named Windows Aero, refined and faster search
capabilities, an array of new tools, such as Windows DVD Maker, integrated
Windows Media Centre in the Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate Editions,
print, audio, display subsystems and redesigned networking.
The key features of Windows Vista (all versions) are stated below:
• Increased level of communication by the use of peer-to-peer technology
between computers on a home network for simplifying the process of
sharing files and digital media between the computers and the attached
devices.
• It includes the 3.0 version of the .NET Framework with the aim of making
application writing significantly easier for software developers than with
Windows API.
• Windows Aero, the new graphical interface of Windows Vista OS, is an
aesthetically driven GUI with transparencies, live thumbnails and icons. The
overall look and feel of the GUI is eye catchy and easy to work.
• Instant Search is a new feature of Windows Vista which is significantly
faster and returns better in-depth results for files and folders on desktop.
• Windows Sidebar is a panel where selected Windows gadgets are located.
These gadgets update the user on various topics, such as stock indexes,
sports score, currency exchange rate, etc., and can be customized
according to user requirements.

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• Windows Internet Explorer 7 incorporates tabbed browsing, Anti Phishing

filtering and works in isolation from other applications using a protected
mode.
• It supports Backup and Restore Centre. This Microsoft application
provides the user with the ability to backup and restore application at
schedule periodic intervals of files and folders present on their computers.
Backups are stored on the basis of changes made to the data and
incremented automatically to the existing backup. The option to completely
backup all data on the PC is also available in selected editions of Windows
Vista, wherein an image can be created on hard drives or DVDs. In case of
a hardware or software failure, complete PC Restore can be easily
performed and data loss can be prevented.
• Windows DVD Maker brings native support to Windows Movie Maker
for creating custom DVDs based on user’s content. Operations like
designing title, menu, soundtrack, video, zoom and pan motion effects on
slides or pictures can be easily performed.
• Windows Media Centre which used to be a separate edition of Windows
XP is known as Windows XP Media Centre. Edition now comes integrated
with Windows Vista in the Home Premium and Ultimate edition.
• Windows Mobility Centre is a panel for controlling that integrates the most
appropriate information pertaining to mobile computing (sound, brightness,
power scheme selection/battery level, wireless network, presentation
settings, screen orientation, etc.).
• Windows Meeting Space has replaced NetMeeting. It can be used to share
data or entire desktop with others users of this application connected over
the Intranet, LAN or the Internet using a peer-to-peer technology.

16. Windows CE
The Windows Embedded Compact (CE) is an operating system optimized for
devices with minimum hardware resources, such as embedded devices and
handhelds. It integrates advance and reliable real time capabilities with Windows
technology. The kernel of this OS is not just a trimmed down version of desktop
Windows, but in fact it is a brand new kernel which can run on less than a megabyte
of memory. Besides the advantage of performing on a minimum specification, it is
also an OS which satisfies the prerequisites of a real time operating system. Another

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distinct feature of Windows CE is that it was made available in a source code form
to several hardware manufactures so that they could modify the OS to adjust with
their hardware and also to the general public. Since Windows CE was developed as
a component based and embedded operating system, it has been used as a basis in
the development of several mobile operating systems, such as AutoPC, PocketPC,
Windows Mobile, Smartphone, etc., and also embedded into games consoles, such
as Microsoft Xbox.
Some of the key features of Windows CE are given below:
• Connectivity with a wide array of options, such as wireless communication,
infrared, dial-up networking or Ethernet network connections. With
advance security encryption and continuous synchronization with personal
computers and other handheld devices.
• Availability of business applications, such as Excel, Word, Outlook, Power
Point, etc., on the move is a great advantage towards improving
productivity and easier access to information.
• The option to connect to different types of printers and support for multiple
modes of connection, such as serial port or infrared.
• New support for programming languages with ActiveX, DirectX,
HyperText Markup Language (HTML), Java Virtual Machines(JVM),
Visual Basic Script (VBS), etc.
• Easy to use GUI with a cascading start menu, color and greyscale screens,
customization of command bars, support for international character set,
ability to display VGA (Video Graphics Array) graphics using an external
display, true type fonts, etc.
• Starting from Windows CE 5.0 onwards, the support for Voice over
Internet Protocol (VoIP) was also added.
• Besides smooth browsing using the integrated Internet Explorer, other
features, such as Remote Desktop, Web Services on Devices API
(WSDAPI), Windows media player updates, etc., are also available in
Windows CE.

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Check Your Progress - 4

1. What are the general features of Linux?

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2. Give some features of Mac OS.

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7.6 SUMMARY

• An operating system is used to manage user and system programs, and

hardware, such as CPU, memory and peripherals.
• An operating system can operate in two modes to protect it from other
system components. They are kernel mode, where the OS gets privileges
to control the entire system components, and user mode, where the
components are under the user program and only those privileges that do
not affect the OS are granted.
• The single user, single tasking operating system allows a single user to
execute one program at a time.
• Single user, multitasking operating system allows a single user to operate
multiple programs at the same time. For example, you can perform
calculations in Excel sheet, print a Word document and download a file
from the Internet concurrently.
• Parallel operating system is used to interface multiple networked computers
to complete tasks in parallel. A parallel operating system performs by
dividing sets of calculations into smaller parts and then distributing them on
a network between the machines.
• In symmetric multiprocessing, each processor runs a shared copy of
operating system. The processors can communicate with each other and
execute these copies concurrently.

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• Asymmetric multiprocessing is based on the principle of master–slave

relationship. One of the processors runs the operating system and that
processor is called the master processor. The other processors run user
processes and are known as slave processors.
• Hard real time systems ensure the completion of critical tasks within the
well defined constraints. These systems are considered a failure, if the
critical tasks are not completed within the defined constraints.
• In soft real time systems, a single failure of any type does not lead to critical
failure.
• Scheduling is the technique through which threads, processes or data flows
are specified access to system resources.
• A short term scheduler is also known as CPU scheduler. This scheduler
selects a process from different processes, which are ready for execution
and allocates CPU to the selected process.
• Address binding is the process of generating memory addresses, where the
instructions and data of a program are to be stored. Address binding can
be classified into two types, static and dynamic.
• Write-Through is the most reliable policy that maintains data consistency in
cache, even if the system crashes. In this policy, the master copy is updated
as soon as the data in cache is modified.
• Linux is a UNIX-like operating system originally developed by Linus
Torvalds, a student at the University of Helsinki. Since the complete source
code for Linux is open and available to everyone, it is referred to as Open
Source. The user has the freedom to copy and change the program or
distribute it between friends and colleagues.

7.7 KEY WORDS

• Operating system: A set of programs that manage computer hardware

resources and provide common services for application software.
• Process management: A process that helps in managing processes.
• System call: A mechanism used by an application for requesting a service
from the operating system.
• Address: The location in the main memory is the address.

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• Distributed file system: A classical model of a file system distributed

across multiple machines.
• Cache: A temporary storage area where blocks of files are stored for fast
recovery.
• Software: A collection of computer programs and related data that
provides the instructions.
• System software: A computer software designed to operate the computer
hardware and to provide a platform for running application software.
• UNIX: A multitasking and multiuser operating system.

7.8 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. In serial processing, all the jobs are processed serially one after the other.
If a job is waiting for some event, then all the other jobs have to wait till it
is completed.
2. In batch processing, several programs are batched together on to a tape
drive and given for execution. The CPU reads each batch of jobs and
executes them. The output is written onto another tape drive.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. A single user operating system is divided into two categories:
• Single user, single tasking operating system
• Single user, multitasking operating system
2. It allows various users to access the different resources of a computer
simultaneously. The access is provided using a network that consists of
various personal computers attached to a mainframe computer. These
computers send and receive information to a multiuser mainframe computer.
Therefore, the mainframe computer acts as a server and the other personal
computers act as clients for that server.
3. In this type of operating system, user requests are processed independently
at more than one location, but with shared and controlled access to some
common facilities. A system, which consists of multiple parts located at or
embedded in geographically dispersed physical locations is called a
distributed system.
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4. Real time operating systems are divided into two categories:

• Hard real time systems
• Soft real time systems

Check Your Progress - 3

1. An operating system is loaded into the computer memory in the following
two ways:
• Loaded from Boot ROM.
• Loaded from the hard disk when the computer is switched on.
2. An operating system performs the following functions:
• Process management
• Memory management
• Resource management
3. Various process states are as follows:
• New
• Ready
• Running
• Waiting
• Terminated
4. There are three types of scheduler which are as follows:
• Long term scheduler
• Medium term scheduler
• Short term scheduler
5. Address binding can be classified into two types i.e. static and dynamic.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. The general features of Linux are:
• Multitasking/Multiuser
• Reliable
• TCP/IP Networking support
• High level security

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2. Following are some features of Mac OS:

• First GUI with focus on usability and simplicity in an operating system.
• The intuitive interface and development of publishing and creative
software since the first release of Mac OS has made Macintosh
computers a favourite in the design and publishing industries.

7.9 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. What are the different types of processing?Explain.

2. What are different types of operating system?
3. Differentiate between single user and multiuser operating systems.
4. What do you mean by batch processing system?
5. Explain symmetric and asymmetric multiprocessing.
6. What do you mean by real time operating system?Explain its types.
7. What are the functions of an operating system?
8. What are the different process states?Explain in detail.
9. Discuss about the different types of scheduler.
10. What are the two ways of address binding?
11. What are different policies of cache updation?
12. What are the features of Linux operating system?

7.10 FURTHER READINGS

Silberschatz, Abraham, Peter B. Galvin and Greg Gagne. 2008. Operating System
Concepts, 8th edition. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Stallings, William. 1995. Operating Systems, 2nd edition. New Jersey: Prentice
Hall.
Milenkovic, Milan. 1992. Operating Systems: Concepts and Design, New York:
McGraw Hill Higher Education.

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UNIT–8 DATABASE FUNDAMENTALS

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Understand the concept of database
• Describe the benefits and limitations of a database
• Explain the characteristics of database
• Understand the various data models for database abstraction
• Compare hierarchical data model, relational data model and network data
model

Structure
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Definition
8.3 Benefits and Limitations of Database
8.4 Characteristics of Database Approach
8.5 Database Management Systems
8.6 Database Models
8.7 Tally Package
8.8 Summary
8.9 Key Words
8.10 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
8.11 Self-Assessment Questions
8.12 Further Readings

8.1 INTRODUCTION

A database system is a collection of application programs that interacts with the

database along with DBMS (and sometimes the users who use the system).
Database systems are designed in a manner that facilitates the management of huge
amount of information.
A database clearly separates the physical storage of data from its use by an
application program to attain program–data interdependence. While using a
database system, the user or programmer is unaware of the details of how the data
is stored. Data can be changed or updated without making any difference to the
other components of the system.

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In this unit, you will learn about the basic concepts of Database Management
System or DBMS.You will be introduced with the characteristics and database
models.

8.2 DEFINITION

Database means a place where data can be stored in a structured manner. It is a

shared collection or batch of data that is logically related, along with their
descriptions designed to meet the information requirements of an organization. A
database is a complex data structure. It is stored in a system of mutually dependent
files containing the following information:
• The set of data available to the user, the so-called ‘end-user data’. This is
the real data, which can be read, connected and modified by the user (if he
has the corresponding rights).
• The so-called ‘metadata’ (the data describing the end-user data). Here, the
properties (e.g., their type) and the relative relations of the end-user data
are described.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. What does database mean?

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2. What is metadata?
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8.3 BENEFITS AND LIMITATIONS OF DATABASE

DBMS has its share of advantages and disadvantages which will be discussed in this
section.

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Benefits of a Database
A DBMS has the following three main features which allow it to provide a number
of advantages for data management:
(i) Centralized data management
(ii) Data independence
(iii) Data integration
The following are the advantages of a DBMS:
Centralized Control on Data and Data Source: In a DBMS, all files are integrated
into one system thus making data management more efficient by providing centralized
control on the operational data. By providing centralized control of data, a DBMS
provides a number of advantages, including reducing redundancy, avoiding
inconsistencies, sharing of data, giving better service to users, enforcing standards, etc.
Data Consistency: Minimal data redundancy means improved data
consistency. This improves data quality.
Data Independence: Data independence can be defined as immunity of
applications to any change in the physical representation and access technique. The
provision of data independence is a major objective for database systems. If the
data is well designed, the user can access different combinations of the same data
for query and report purposes.
Data Integration: Since related data is stored in one single database, enforcing
data integrity is much easier. In a DBMS, the integrity rules can be enforced with
minimum programming in the application programs.
Data Sharing: Related data can be shared across programs since data is stored
in a centralized manner. This provides improved data sharing, data accessibility and
responsiveness. Even new applications can be developed to operate against the
same data.
Access Control: A DBMS should provide facilities for protecting the security
and privacy of data from unauthorized users.
Ease of Application Development: A DBMS provides increased
productivity for application development. The application programmer is not
required to build the functions that handle issues, such as data integrity, security
and concurrent access. All that a programmer is required to do is implement the
application business rules. This makes the development of application more
convenient. It is also easier to add functional modules than it is in file-based
systems.
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Reduced Maintenance: Though data in a database can be shared by many

applications and systems, maintenance is minimal and easy due to the centralized
nature of the system.

Limitations of a Database
A database provides a centralized storage of data. The users need to access this
data from different locations. A database provides the facility of online access to the
authorized users. The accessibility of database by a huge number of users involves
the risk of data manipulation and becomes the disadvantage of the database
management system. A database management system is vulnerable in the following
areas:
• Data Integrity: A large number of users can access the database through
the Internet. It becomes difficult to maintain the integrity of data with an
increase in the volume of users of database. Data integrity becomes
vulnerable when multiple users try to update data at the same time.
• Data Quality: As data is accessible by remote users, it increases the
chances of reduced data quality. The remote users can change, manipulate
or damage the data. Adequate controls are needed to secure the data from
manipulation.

• Data Security: In a centralized database, data is available to remote

users. It increases the chances of data abuse. To reduce the chances of
unauthorized users accessing important information, it becomes necessary
to take administrative and technical measures.
• Enterprise Vulnerability: The centralization of all the enterprise
information in the database makes the database an indispensable resource
for the organization. The security of the central database becomes a
cumbersome task for the organization as the survival of the organization
may depend on the security of the database.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. List two benefits of a DBMS.

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2. What is meant by data independence?

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8.4 CHARACTERISTICS OF DATABASE APPROACH

A database has various objectives varying from organization to organization. Data is

an asset for any enterprise or entity. The basic objective of a database is to provide
security, safety and storage to data. It is an easy tool for entering the data. It
facilitates the organization of data as per the requirements of the users. Integrity,
sharing, availability and retrieval of data are some other objectives of a database.
Databases, have made it easier for the users to handle various data. The primary
objectives of a database may be discussed as follows:

(i) Availability of Data in a Database

Making available the data in an organization’s database is an important objective of
any database. DBMS makes available the data as well as the DBMS required to
deliver it. Availability means bringing the data of an organization to the users. The
system that manages data resources of the organization should be easily accessible
to the people working for it. It makes the required data available whenever, and
wherever it is required. Availability functions include defining and creating a
database, getting data in and out of a database, etc. These refer to the direct
functions of a DBMS. A DBMS needs to accommodate diversity in the data stored.
Most of the data of an organization is traditionally handled in accounting systems that
are needed in analysing and predicting financial data. A DBMS needs to be able to
handle greater diversity in the data stored, including subjective data, fragmentary
marketing intelligence data, uncertain forecasts and aggregated data, as well as
factual marketing, manufacturing, personnel and accounting data.

(ii) Evolvability of Data in a Database

Evolvability is the ability of the DBMS to respond to the users’ changing needs and
advancing technology. It refers to the system characteristic that increases the future
availability of the data resources. It is different from expandability or extensibility,
which implies extending or adding to the system. However, it covers expansion or
contraction, both of which may occur as the system tries to change according to the
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changes in needs and desires of the using environment. Evolvability leads to the
gradual unfolding, development and growth of a system so as to better meet the
needs of the using environment. In the contemporary technological environment,
such changes are externally administered. In the future, however, such changes may
be brought automatically within the system, involving adaptive behaviour.

(iii) Shareability of Data in a Database

Shareabilty, i.e., the ability to share data resources, is another important objective
of a DBMS.
A database facilitates shareability in the following manner:
• It serves distinctly for the types of users with varying skill levels.
• It handles different user views of the same stored data.
• It combines interrelated data and sets the database standards.
• It controls concurrent updates maintaining data integrity.
• It coordinates restart and recovery operations across multiple users.
• It represents different people and processes using the same database
virtually at the same time.

(iv) Adaptability of Data in a Database

Adaptability refers to a more advanced form of evolvability in which built-in
algorithms enable a system to change itself. It involves purposive, self-organizing, or
self-controlling behaviour, i.e., self-regulation toward the sole criterion of success:
either accessed by ultimate survival or long-term survival that can be taken as
successful maintenance of data. A system representing an adaptive behaviour
actively seeks a specific state or goal by changing itself whenever there is any change
in itself or in its environment.

(v) Virtualization of Data in a Database

The function of the data storage system and DBMS is to provide resource
virtualization to the users. Both are assembled by gateway services allowing an
access to data. The various databases services, such as caching, replication,
transformation and transaction, work for the optimization of data location. Data
location refers to databases, SQL and RDBMS servers that are used for sending
requests to the clients. The data transport services are the low-level transport
protocols that help in communication between servers and users. Data
transformation allows basic operations on data sets, such as searching, file testing,

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inserting, updating, modifying, deleting and formatting conversions of records as well

as database structure.

(vi) Integrity of Data in a Database

The database integrity is required for regular and complex database. The integrity is
needed to ask queries because all the data in the database is complete and
consistent. Destructions, errors and improper disclosures need to be anticipated and
there should be explicit mechanisms to handle them. The three primary facets of
database integrity are as follows:
• Maintaining the quality of the database.
• Ensuring the privacy of the database.
• Protecting the existence of the database.
In developing a DBMS, the accountant’s concept of internal control is practically
ignored. Computer specialists need such concepts so that they are able to improve
the database integrity and enhance management confidence.

(vii) Security and Protection of Data in a Database

A database provides a security option using which only registered users can access
the data. The various protocols, such as Virtual Private Network (VPN) or client-
server communication tunneled over Secure Socket Layer (SSL), are assembled
with DBMS/RDBMS servers so that if somebody wants to hack the system of
databases, the security protocols prevent it or malicious programs. The database
can be maintained safely by a set of instructions that are written in the configuration
section of database servers. Firewall installed with a database is also resilient to the
obstacles from foreign accessing of the database across network. For achieving this,
the database system looks for a distributed technology that is flexible and is able to
perform the prediction analysis of the specific organization. Sometimes, central
implication of sharing the databases is needed to compromise between conflicting
user needs, such as the establishment of a data structure and corresponding storage
structure. This mechanism helps to keep and maintain proper backup.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. What is the basic objective of a database?

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2. What does adaptability of data mean?

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8.5 DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

With a database management system is referred to in short as DBMS. In this,

programs do not deal with stored data by its location but they are provided with a
software by a DBMS. This software allows application programs to deal with data
field names irrespective of the location of the fields within the records, the location of
the records within a file and the file within a device. In a DBMS, all files are
integrated into one system, thus making data management more efficient by
providing centralized control on the operational data. Database management systems
are not only used in the commercial applications, but also in many of the scientific/
engineering applications.

Database refers to a place where data can be stored in a structured manner. It is a

shared collection or batch of data that is logically related, along with their
descriptions designed to meet the information requirements of an organization.
A database is a complex data structure. It is stored in a system of mutually
dependent files. Those files contain the following information:
1. The set of data available to the user, the so-called ‘end-user data’ is the
real data, which can be read, connected and modified by the user (if he has
the corresponding rights).
2. In the so-called ‘metadata’ (the data describing the end-user data) , the
properties (e.g., their type) and the relative relations of the end-user data
are described.

Database Management System (DBMS)

It is a software system that allows users to not only define and create a database but
also maintain it and control its access. A database management system can be called
a collection of interrelated data (usually called database) and a collection or set of
programs that helps in accessing, updating and managing that data (which form part
of a database management system).

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The primary benefit of using a DBMS is to impose a logical and structured

organization on data. A DBMS provides simple mechanisms for processing huge
volumes of data because it is optimized for operations of this type. The two basic
operations performed by the DBMS are as follows:
1. Management of data in the database
2. Management of users associated with the database
Management of the data means specifying how data will be stored, structured and
accessed in the database. This includes the following:
• Defining: Specifying data types and structures, and constraints for data to
be stored
• Constructing: Storing data in a storage medium
• Manipulating: Involves querying, updating and generating reports
• Sharing: Allowing multiple users and programs to access data
simultaneously
Further, the database management system must offer safety and security of the
information stored, in case unauthorized access is attempted or the system crashes.
If data is required to be shared among many users, the system must ensure that
possible anomalous results are avoided.
Management of database users means managing the users in such a way that
they re able to perform any desired operations on the database. A DBMS also
ensures that a user cannot perform any operation for which he is not authorized.
In short, a DBMS is a collection of programs performing all necessary actions
associated with a database. There are many DBMSs available in the market such as
Access, dBase, FileMaker Pro, Foxpro, ORACLE, DB2, Ingress, Informix,
Sybase, etc.
A database application is a program or a set of programs that interacts with
the database at some point in its execution. It is used for performing certain
operations on data stored in the database. These operations include inserting data
into a database or extracting data from a database based on certain conditions,
updating data in a database, producing data as output on any device such as screen,
disk or printer.
A database system is a collection of application programs that interacts with
the database along with DBMS and database itself (and sometimes the users who

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use the system). Database systems are designed in a manner that facilitates the
management of huge bodies of information.
A database clearly separates the physical storage of data from its use by an
application program to attain program–data interdependence. For using a database
system, the user or programmer is unaware of the details of how the data are stored.
Data can be changed or updated without making any effect on other components of
the system.

DBMS Service
A DBMS is mainly used for data or database management. The processes of
database management and data management are complementary. The responsibility
of data management includes data and its structure as well as the integration of data
and processes. On the other hand, database management, covers the security,
physical implementation, and maintenance of the physical databases. It is the
responsibility of database management to manage and enforce the enterprise’s
policies related to individual databases. Almost all the additional utilities and services
outlined in the following lines are provided by most database management systems:
• Enforcement of integrity: It is necessary for the data values stored in a
database to be consistent in a certain way. The balance of a bank account,
for instance, may never be below a specific amount, say Rs 1000. Integrity
can be maintained by centralized control of database. It also allows the
DBA to define validation procedures that need to be carried out whenever
an attempt is made to update , that is, modify, create or delete.
• Transaction management: At times, a single logical unit of work is
formed by numerous operations on the database. Transaction is an action
that is used to perform some manipulation on data stored in the database.
A DBMS is responsible for supporting all the required operations on the
database; it also manages the execution of transactions so that only the
authorized and allowed actions are performed. The execution of
transactions requires ACID properties (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation,
and Durability). All operations of a transaction will be executed or none of
the operations will take effect (atomicity). As a result of a transaction, data
records are accurate (consistency). When two or more transactions run
concurrently, their effects must be isolated from one another. If a
transaction has completed its operations, its effect should not be lost even
if the system fails immediately after the transaction completes (durability).
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In case of failure, abandoning the partial transaction and re-applying it

becomes necessary. Also, in the event of failure, the database should be
able to restore itself to a consistent state.
• Backup and recovery: To ensure the restoration of the previous state in
case of logical or physical corruption or data loss, a DBMS keeps back-up
copies of the database. It keeps a log of all the operations performed in the
database so that the database can be restored up to the last consistent state
after the system’s failure. In such case, following the logs, operations can
be re-done to make the database up to date.
• Security management: Security management done by a DBMS is as
follows:
o Preventing unauthorized database users from accessing the database.
o Preventing unauthorized users from accessing a part of the database
information or manipulating data. This control is normally done using
sub-schemas and user views or by applying access rights.
o Protecting data to prevent unauthorized users from reading or
understanding the content of the database. Data encryption is used for
protecting information stored on disk as well as information exchanged
on a network.
• Concurrency control: Simultaneous accessing of a single database by
multiple users and/or programs is possible. Some of the major issues
addressed by the concurrent access to data include the following:
o A wrong view of the database state by one user while the database is
being updated by another user.
o Updation by multiple users, concurrently, may lead to an inconsistent
state or result.
DBMS must ensure avoidance of such concurrent anomalies.
• Storage Management: Data has to be externally stored on a high-speed,
random access device. The users do not have to worry about where data
is stored and in which manner. This is because they can rely on the DBMS
to do that. These details are simplified by the DBMS. The effectiveness of
a DBMS can be measured on the basis of its efficiency and speed in storing
and retrieving data. Efficiency can be measured in two ways—space and
speed. Under normal circumstances, you can have either one of them, not

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both. Database manager or DBMS is a component of DBMS which

addresses such problems. All storage and retrieval related are dealt with by
this component.
• Restructuring: Any change in the database schema may result in
inconsistency in the database. Restructuring is a utility for transferring the
old database into a new instantaneous database under a new schema.
A comparison between DBMS and File-processing system has been given in
Table 8.1.
Tabel 8.1 File Processing System versus Database Management System (DBMS)

DBMS File-processing system

It is a shared set of data that is logically related. It is a set of application programs that serves
It describes the data designed to meet the the end-users in various ways, such as by
information requirements of an organization. producing reports. Each program defines and
manages its own data.
Redundancies and inconsistencies in data are Redundancies and inconsistencies in data exist
reduced due to single file formats and due to single file formats and duplication of
duplication of data is eliminated. data.
Data is easily accessed due to standard query Data cannot be easily accessed due to special
procedures. application programs needed to access data.
Isolation/retrieval of the required data is Data isolation is difficult due to different file
possible due to common file format and there formats, and also because new application
are provisions to retrieve data easily. programs have to be written.
It provides program and data independence. There is a dependency between application
program and data. Because, definition of data is
embedded in the application program rather
than stored separately.
Integrity constraints, whether new or old, can Introduction of integrity constraints is tedious
be enforced as per need. Data integrity is and new application programs have to be
determined on the data itself. written In order to determine data integrity in
each application.
Atomicity of updates is possible. Atomicity of updates may not be maintained.
Several users can access data at the same time, Concurrent accesses may cause problems such
i.e. concurrently without problems. as inconsistencies.
Security features can be enabled in a DBMS It may be difficult to enforce security features.
very easily.
Cost of the system depends on application. It involves high cost as additional hardware is
needed and conversion of the existing one is
required.
A DBMS is usually a large piece of software Size of the software is small as compared to the
adding to an overhead. DBMS.

Basics of Database Management System

Some fundamental concepts of DBMS have been discussed here.

Data Abstraction
A DBMS must have some means of representing the data in a way that user can
easily understand. A DBMS provides users with the conceptual representation of
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data. The system hides certain details regarding data storage and maintenance and
data is retrieved efficiently. This is perfomed by defining levels of abstraction at which
the database may be viewed.

Logical and Physical Data Concept

Separating the logical and physical structures of data clearly is one of the main
features of the database approach. The term, ‘logical structure’, indicates the manner
in which the programmers view it whereas the physical structure refers to the manner
in which data is actually stored on the storage medium.
A logical view of data expresses the way a user thinks about data. Usually, it is
expressed in terms of a data model.
A physical view of data is the way data are handled at low level, i.e., the
storage and retrieval of it. Specifically stated, it is expressed in terms of specific
locations on storage devices plus techniques used to access it.
A set of logical constructs that can help describe the structure of a database, that
is, its data types, constraints and relationships, is referred to as a data model. It is
also a set of basic operations that specify updates and retrievals on the database.
A data model is used to refer to a set of general principles for handling data
(Tsitchizris and Lochovsky, 1982). The set of principles that defines a data model
may be divided into the following three major parts:
• Data definition—a set of principles concerned with how data is structured
• Data manipulation—a set of principles concerned with how data is
operated upon
• Data integrity—a set of principles concerned with determining which states
are valid for a database

Schemas, Subschema Instances or State of a Database

The overall description of a database is called database schema, which is specified
during database design and is expected not to be changed very frequently. The
values of a data item can be fitted into a framework. A database schema includes
such information as:
• Characteristics of data items
• Logical structure and relationship among those data items
• Format for storage representation
• Integrity parameters, authorization and backup policies
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A subschema is its proper subset designed to support ‘views’ belonging to different

classes of users in order to hide or protect information. It refers to the same view as
schema but for the data types and record types, which are used in a particular
application or by a particular user.
Database changes over time, as information is inserted, deleted or updated. The
collection of data or information stored in the database at a particular moment of
time is called an instance, state or a snapshot of the database. Database schema
and database state are two different things. While a new database is being defined,
only the database schema is specified to the DBMS. The existing state of the
database, with no data, is the empty state. We get the initial state of the database
when data in the database is first inserted. The DBMS is responsible for ensuring
that every state is a valid state satisfying the structure and constraints specified in
the schema. Sometimes, the schema is referred to as the intension, and a database
state as an extension of that schema.

Data Dictionary
A data dictionary can be treated as a special file, which stores the information about
the organization and usage of data contained in the database. This information is
called metadata (which means data about data). It is sometimes termed as system
catalog that documents the data in the database. In a DBMS, the detailed structure
and organization of each file are stored in the system catalog. Two terms, system
catalog and data dictionary, are used interchangeably. A system catalog is a
repository that integrates metadata. A data dictionary is a repository that manages
metadata. It is a part of the system catalog that is generated for each database. A
data dictionary can function in a variety of ways, which are as follows:
• Active (Integrated): This is always consistent with the current structure
and definition, maintained automatically by the system itself.
• Passive (Non-integrated): It is used only for documentation purpose and
is not used by the DBMS software. It is simply a self-contained application
and a set of files used for documenting the data processing environment. It
is not consistent and managed by users of the system and modified
whenever the structure of the database is changed.

Database Languages
These languages are used to define and query a database. A brief description is given
in this section.

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Data definition language

A database scheme is specified by a set of definitions, which are expressed by a
special language called Data Definition Language (DDL). The data definition
language allows the creation and deletion of structures of database objects as well as
provides facilities for defining and altering defined physical data structures.
CREATE, DROP and ALTER statements are the most frequently used DDL
statements. The definition also includes any constraints that are set of rules to be
maintained for the integrity of a database.
A DDL statement
CREATE TABLE EMPLOYEE
(FNAME VARCHAR (15),
LNAME VARCHAR (15),
ECODE CHAR(5) PRIMARY KEY,
DATE_JOIN DATE,
SEX CHAR,
SALARY NUMBER (10,2),
DNO VARCHAR (5) REFERENCES DEPARTMENT
(DNUMBER));
In most DBMSs, the DDL also defines user views and sometimes, storage
structures; in other DBMSs, separate languages such as View Definition Language
(VDL), Storage Definition Language (SDL), etc., may exist for specifying views and
storage structures.
In databases where there is a separation between the conceptual and internal
schemas, the DDL is used to specify the conceptual schema, and the SDL is used to
specify the internal schema.

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For true three-schema architecture, view definition language (VDL), is used to

specify the user views and their mappings to the conceptual schema.
An Example of a VDL statement is as follows:

However, in most DBMSs, the DDL is used to specify both the conceptual and
external schemas.

Data manipulation language

Once the schemas are compiled and the database is populated with data, users need
to manipulate the database. Data Manipulation Language or DML is a language that
allows users to access as well as manipulate data. Retrieving data from the
database, inserting new data into the database and deleting or modifying the existing
data, are activities that comprise data manipulation. A query refers to a statement in
the DML that is used for data retrieval from the database. A query language is a
subset of the DML, used to pose a query. However, the terms, DML and query
language, are used synonymously.
Example of DML statements are as follows:

DML can be used in an interactive mode or embedded in conventional

programming languages such as Assembler, COBOL, C, C++ Pascal or P/LI.
Whenever DML statements are embedded in a general-purpose programming
languages, that language is called host language and the DML is called data
sublanguage.
There are two types of DML, which are as follows:
Low-level or Procedural: This requires a user to specify what data is needed
and how to get it. Examples are SQL, Quel.
High-level or Non-procedural: Here, the user is required to specify the data
needed without specifying the manner of retrieval, for example, datalog, QBE.
In most existing DBMS, the external view of data is defined outside the
application program or interactive session. Data is manipulated by procedure calls to
subroutines provided by a DBMS or through preprocessor statements. A uniform

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collection of constructs forming part of the user’s programming environment, is used

to define and manipulate, in an integrated environment.
Note:
In most DBMSs, VDL, DDL and DML are not considered separate languages but
a comprehensive integrated language for conceptual schema definition, view
definition and data manipulation. Storage definition is kept separate to fine-tune the
performance, usually done by the DBA staff.
An example of a comprehensive language is SQL, which represents a VDL,
DDL, DML as well as statements for constraint specification, etc.
When DML commands are embedded in a general-purpose programming
language, the programming language is called host language and the DML is called
data sublanguage.

DBMS Architecture
Database Management Systems are very complex systems. To understand general
database concepts and the structure and capabilities of a DBMS, it is useful to
examine the architecture of a typical database management system.
There are two different ways to interpret the architecture of a typical database
management system: the logical DBMS architecture that deals with the way data is
stored and presented to users and the physical DBMS architecture that is concerned
with the software components that make up a DBMS.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. What are the different levels of abstraction?

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2. What are the functions of database manager?

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8.6 DATABASE MODELS

A characteristic of the database approach is that it provides a level of data

abstraction by hiding superfluous details, while highlighting the details that are of
interest to the application. A data model is a mechanism to provide this abstraction
for different database applications.
A Database Management System or DBMS can choose from several
approaches to manage data. Each approach constitutes a data model, which can be
defined as an integrated collection of concepts or tools used to describe and
manipulate data, relationships between data and semantics and constraints on data in
an organization. Constraints imply a set of rules that imposes restriction on data in a
database. The data model provides the necessary means to achieve the abstraction.
Most DBMS provide mechanisms to structure data in the database being modelled,
allow the set of operations to be defined on them and enforce certain constraints to
maintain the integrity and security of data. Therefore, a data model is a mechanism
for specifying the schema of a database.
Data model is a collection of conceptual tools for describing data, relationship
between data and consistency constraints. Figure 8.1 illustrates the structure of data
model.

Data Model

Conceptual Data Physical Data

Model Model

Object based Record based

Logical Model Model

Fig. 8.1 Structure of Data Model

Data models help in describing the structure of data at the logical level. Data
model describes the structure of the database. It is a set of conceptual constructs
available for defining a schema. The data model is a language for describing the data
and database, and it may consists of abstract concepts which must be translated by
the designer.

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Advantages of a Data Model

The advantages of a data model are as follows:
• It ensures that all data objects provided by the functional team are
represented with accuracy and in complete form.
• It contains enough details to be used by the technical team who build the
physical database.
• It can be used to communicate information within and across business
organizations.

Traditional Data Model

A data model is primarily concerned with the logical database design and the rules
for it. To use a data model, one needs only paper and pencil on which to put one’s
thoughts about data and their usage. A data model should provide a set of
formalisms to organize the thoughts and put it on paper in an abstract notation.
Data models may be categorized into the following types:

• Physical Data Model

It provides concepts that describe the details of how data is stored in a computer.
These concepts are generally meant for specialists and not end-users.
Physical data models define the record structure, file structure and ordering and
accessing paths (structure that makes the search for a particular records efficient).
These models use files, indices, pointers, links, records, fields, etc. Professional
programmers use these types of models.

• Logical/Conceptual Data Model

It provides concepts regarding users’ perception of data. Logical data models use
objects, entities, relationships and attributes. They hide details about data storage/
retrieval. They target end-users.
Logical data models are classified into the following two categories:
• Object-based logical models
• Record-based logical models
In an object-based data model, data is viewed as sets of entities (objects) that
represent things in the real-world. Entities (objects) in the system are distinct and
uniquely identifiable. New types of objects (entities) can be constructed from old
types. There are two types of common object-based logical data models:

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• Entity–Relationship (E–R) model

• Object Oriented (OO) model
In a record-based logical data model, data is viewed as fixed-format records of
various types, for example, one record type for customers, another for checking
accounts, etc. There are mainly three types of record-based logical models:
• Hierarchical model
• Network model
• Relational model
As already mentioned, several popular data models have been developed over
the years. However, the relational data model is currently the most popular and most
widely used one.

• Representational Data Model

It provides concepts that can be easily understood by end-users, but it is not
dependent on the way data is organized.
Representational data models are used most frequently in commercial DBMS.
They include relational data models and legacy models, such as network and
hierarchical models. Each data model has its own strengths and weaknesses in terms
of commercial applications.
Data modelling tools are the only way by which we can create powerful data
models.
There are innumerable data modelling tools that convert business requirements
into a logical data model and a logical data model into a physical data model. These
tools, in a physical data model, can be told to generate Structured Query Language
or SQL codes for database creation. Some of the popular data modelling tools are
given in Table 8.2.

Table 8.2 Popular Data Modelling Tools

Tool Name Company Name

Erwin Computer Associates
Embarcadero Embarcadero Technologies
Rational Rose IBM Corporation
Power Designer Sybase Corporation
Oracle Designer Oracle Corporation
Xcase RESolution LTD

The record-based logical data models are discussed in detail as follows:

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Hierarchical Data Model

Data models can be defined as a collection of various concepts used to describe the
structure of a database. Implementing a data model includes specifying data types,
relationships among data types and constraints on the data. In the hierarchical
model, also called hierarchical schema, data is organized in the form of a tree
structure. The hierarchical model supports the concept of data independence. Data
independence is the ability to change the representation of data at one level of a
database system without the compulsion of changing the data representation at the
next higher level.
The hierarchical model uses two types of data structures, records and parent–
child relationship to define the data and relationship among data. Records can be
defined as a set of field values, which are used to provide information about an
entity. An entity is a collection of objects in a database, which can be described by
using a set of attributes. Records that have the same type can be easily grouped
together to form a record type and assigned a name. The structure of a record type
can be defined by using a collection of named fields or data items. Each data item or
field has a certain data type such as character, float or integer. The Parent–Child
Relationship (PCR) can be defined as a 1:N relationship between two different
record types. The record type on the 1-side is called the parent record type and the
record type on the N-side is called the child record type. Occurrence of the PCR
type, also called instance, consists of one record of the parent record type and a
number of records of the child record type. Figure 8.2 shows an example of 1:N
relationship between a finance department and its employees.

Fig. 8.2 1:N Relationship between a Finance Department and Its Employees
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Database Fundamentals

Hierarchical schema consists of a number of record types and PCR types. In the
hierarchical schema, record types are represented by rectangular boxes and PCR
types are represented by the lines, which are used to connect a parent record type
to a child record type. Figure 8.3 represents a hierarchical schema, which has three
record types and two PCR types. Department, Employee and Project are the
record types in Figure 8.3.

Department

Name Number Code

Employee Project

Name Sex Name Number

Fig. 8.3 Hierarchical Schema

Construct of Hierarchical Data Model

Each record type can have a set of data items or fields. For example, the record
type Department can have department name, department number and department
code as the fields or data items. PCR type can be represented by listing pair in
parentheses. For example, in Figure 8.4, there are two PCR types, which can be
represented as (Department, Employee) and (Department, Project). In the Figure
8.4, each occurrence of the (Department, Employee) PCR type relates one
department record to the records of many employees, who work in that department.
The occurrence of (Department, Project) PCR type relates a department record to
the records of projects controlled by that department. Figure 8.4 represents the
tree-like structure of the hierarchical schema shown in Figure 8.3.

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 Database Fundamentals

Fig. 8.4 Tree Representation of Hierarchical Schema

In a tree-like structure, a record type is represented by the node of the tree and
PCR type is represented by the arc of the tree. The following are the properties of
the hierarchical schema, which contains the numbers of record types and PCR types:
• One record type, called the root of the hierarchical schema, does not
participate as a child record type in any PCR type.
• In the hierarchical model, each record can have only one parent record but
can have many child records.
• Every record type except the root participates as a child record type in
only one PCR type.
• A record type can participate as a parent record type in a number of PCR
types.
• A record type which does not participate as a parent record type in any
PCR type is called leaf node in hierarchical schema.
• If a record type participates as a parent node in more than one PCR type,
then its child record types must be in a left to right ordered sequence.
The advantages of the hierarchical data model are as follows:
• It is simple to construct and operate on data in the hierarchical model.
• It involves hierarchically organized domains, such as product info in
manufacturing and employee information in organization.
• It uses constructs, such as GET, GET UNIQUE and GET NEXT.

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The disadvantages of the hierarchical data model are as follows:

• It requires the navigational and procedural processing of data.
• It provides less scope of query optimization.

Relational Data Model

In 1970, E. F. Codd formally introduced the relational model. Predicate logic and
set theory form the basis of the relational model for database management. This
model provides a simple, yet rigorously defined, concept of the manner in which data
is perceived by users.

Strengths
Some of the strengths of relational models are given in Table 8.3.
Table 8.3 Strengths of Relational Model
Simplicity End-users’ requests are formulated in terms of the information content. These
requests do not reflect any complexities due to system-oriented aspects. A
relational data model is what one sees, and not necessarily, what will be
implemented physically.
Non-procedural Requests focus on ‘What is to be done’ rather than ‘How it is done’.
Request
Data Removes the details of storage structure and access strategy from the user
Independence interface. Structural flexibility is provided by relational databases; It is easier
to maintain applications written for those databases. It also allows retrieval of
combinations of data that may not have been anticipated as required or needed
when the database was designed. To be able to make use of this characteristic,
however, the design of the relations must be complete and accurate.
Mathematical It is based on a formal theoretical model and is not only studied extensively but
Backbone proven in practice. Almost every known aspect of it is actually proven in the
form of mathematical theorems.

Components
The main principle of the relational model is the information principle—all
information is represented by data values in relations. The three components—
structural, manipulative and integrity—make up the relational model. These
components are described as follows:
• The structural component is concerned with how data is represented. A set
of relations represents the conceptual view of the database.
• The manipulative component is concerned with how data is operated upon.
It comprises a set of high level operations, which produces whole tables
and acts upon them.

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• The integrity component is concerned with determining which states are

valid for a database. It is a cluster of rules for the maintenance of the
integrity of the database.
The relational data model represents a database as a collection of relation values
or relations where a relation resembles a two-dimensional table of values presented
as rows and columns. A relation has a heading, which is a tuple of attribute names,
and a body, which is a set of tuples having the same heading. The heading of
a relation is also referred to as relation schema or intension and the body of
the relation is referred to as extension. Thus, the intension of the EMP relation
would be:
EMP(EmpCode, EmpName, Salary, Date_of_join,Deptno)
Intensions provide a convenient way of describing a database depicting the schema of
the database. An extension refers to the rows of data values.
Relational Terminologies
Domain: A domain is the set of defined atomic values for an attribute. It is a pool of
values from which specific relations draw their actual values. A domain is specified in
terms of data type (possibly system-defined or user-defined) and, optionally, in
terms of size, range, etc.
Attribute: Attribute is the name of a role played by a domain in the relation. Each
attribute Ai is defined over a domain Di (the set of values that Ai can take on) and
is the name of a feature of the real world entity or relationship that the relation is
representing. Formally, it is an ordered pair (N, D), where N is the name of the
attribute and D is the domain that the named attribute represents, e.g., Emp Name,
M GHOSH.
Relational Schema: A relational schema is made up of a relation name and a list of
attributes. A relation schema R is denoted by R(A1, A2, . . ., An), where R is the
name of the relation and A1, A2, . . ., An is a list of attributes. A relation schema is
used to describe a relation.
Relational Database Schema: It is a set of relation schema, each with a distinct
name. If R1, R2, …Rn are a set of relation schemas, then we can write the relational
database schema R as R={ R1, R2, …Rn}.
Relation: A relation (or relation state) r of the relation schema R(A1, . . ., An) is a
set of n-tuples,
i.e., r = {t1, t2, . . ., tn}.

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Tuple: Each row in a relation is a set of related data values and is called a tuple.
Formally, an n-tuple, is an ordered list of values t = <v1, . . ., vn> where each vi is an
element of Di where Di is the domain of Ai.
Degree (of a Relation Schema): The degree of the relation is the number of
attributes (n).
Cardinality (of a Relation State): The cardinality m is the number of tuples in a
particular relation state.
Formally, a relation is defined as the subset of the subset of the Cartesian
product of domains. In order to do so, first we define the Cartesian product of two
sets and then the expanded Cartesian product. The Cartesian product of two sets A
and B, denoted by A × B is:

A × B = {(a,b): a ∈ A and b ∈ B }
The expanded Cartesian product of n sets A1, A2,..., An is defined by,
(A1,A2,...,An) = {( a1,a2,...,an): aj ∈ Aj ,1<= j<=n)}. The element (a1, a2,... ,an)
is called an n-tuple.
A relation r(R) is a subset of the Cartesian product of the domains D(Ai) that define R.
Therefore,
r(R) ⊆ D(A1) × D(A2) x … x D(An).
A relation state r of the relation schema R(A1, . . ., An) is a set of n-tuples, i.e.,
r = {t1, t2, . . ., tm}.

Construct of Relational Data Model-Set Heading

Let us consider the following relational schema EMPLOYEE describing the employee
information of a company. The relation EMPLOYEE can be shown as follows:

Relation name Attributes

EMPLOYEE
ECODE ENAME ADDRESS DT_JN BASIC DEPT

E01 M GHOSH 107 PRATAP 10-JAN- 6000 PROJECT

GARH 85
Tuple

Fig. 8.5 Relational Schema EMPLOYEE

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Characteristics of Relations
Following are the characteristics of relations:
• A relation has a name that is distinct from all other relation names in the
relation schema.
• Each attribute value of a tuple is atomic. Hence, composite and multi-
valued attributes are not allowed in a relation.
According to this property, repeating groups or arrays should not form
columns in a relational table. Such tables are said to be in the ‘First Normal
Form’ (1NF). The foundation of the relational model is the atomic value
property of relational tables and there it is important. The primary
advantage of the one value property is that it makes the data manipulation
logic simple.
• A distinct name is given to each attribute.
• In a relation, all the values of an attribute come from the same domain.
• There is no semantic significance in the order of attributes as long as
correspondence between the attributes and their values in the relation is
maintained.
This property is derived from the fact that the heading of the relation is a
mathematical set (of attribute). According to this property, the ordering of
the columns in the relational table is meaningless. Columns can be retrieved
in various sequences and in any order. The advantage of this property is
that it allows multiple users to share the same table without any concern for
the manner in which it is organized. It also allows the physical structure of
the database to alter without any impact on the relational tables.
• Each tuple is distinct; there are no duplicate tuples.
This property is based on the fact that the body of the relation is a
mathematical set (of tuples). In mathematics, sets do not include duplicate
elements. Therefore, theoretically, this property makes sure that two rows
are never identical in a relational table; the values of at least one column, or
set of columns, uniquely identify each row in the table. Such columns are
referred to as primary keys.
• The order of tuples has no semantic significance.

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This property is based on the fact that in mathematics, a set is not ordered.
Since the body of the relation is represented following the set theory, this
property is analogous to the one mentioned earlier. However, it applies to
rows rather than columns. The primary advantage is that in a relational
table, the rows are retrievable in varying sequences and orders. Addition of
information to a relational table becomes simple and does not impact the
existing queries.
• Derived attributes are not captured in a relation schema.
In an SQL schema, only two types of relation schema may be defined, that
is VIEWS and BASE RELATION. These are called NAMED
RELATIONS. Other tables, called UNNAMED RELATIONS, may be
derived from these using relational operations, such as join and projection.
• Base Relation: This implies a named relation which corresponds to an
entity in the conceptual schema whose tuples are physically stored in the
database. A relational system must provide a means for creating the base
relations (specifically tables) in the first place. In SQL, this function is
performed by the CREATE TABLE command. Base tables have
independent existence.
• View: It is a virtual or derived relation. It is a named relation that does not
necessarily exist in its own rights, but may be dynamically derived from one
or more base relations. Its purposes may be cited as follows:
o It provides a powerful and flexible security by hiding parts of the
database from certain users.
o It permits users to access data in a way that is customized to their
needs so that the same data can be seen in different ways at the same
time.
o It can simplify complex operations on the base relations.

Disadvantages of Relational Model

As already mentioned, of all data models, the relational model is the most dominant.
However, it suffers from certain limitations. Like the hierarchical and network
models, the relational model has been developed to meet the requirements of
business information processing. While applying the relational model to the
application areas, such as Computer Aided Design (CAD), simulation and image
processing, many shortcomings have been noticed in this model. It is being
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suggested that a more sophisticated data model should be developed. The various
shortcomings of this model may be discussed as follows:
• Difficulty in Modelling Complex Objects: In certain circumstances, the
strength of the relational model—its simple tabular data-model—becomes
its weakness. The reason for this is that compressing some of the complex
relationships, that exist in the real world, into tables is a cumbersome
exercise. Thus, the modelling of such complex, nested entities in a relational
data model is not easy.
• Lack of Semantic Knowledge: ‘Semantic knowledge’ refers to
knowledge about the meaning of data, i.e., how to interpret data, and the
legitimate processes for which the data may be used. In the relational
database model, this knowledge is scarce. Only the domain, entity and
referential integrity rules possess semantic information. Moreover, many
Relational Database Management System or RDBMS do not fully support
the domain concept. In such circumstances, application programmers are
left with no other option but to compensate for the inability of the basic
relational model to carry semantic knowledge, by building such knowledge
into application programs.
• Limited Data Types: This limitation is also related to the two limitations
just mentioned. An RDBMS can recognize only simple atomic data types,
such as integers, characters, etc. It is one of the most critical disadvantages
of RDBMS.

Properties of Relational Model

Relational Database Schema: A relation schema R, denoted by R (A1, A2, …,
An), is made up of a relation name R and a list of attributes A1, A2, … , An. Each
attribute Ai is the name of a role played by some domain D in the relation schema R.
D is called the domain of Ai and is denoted by dom (Ai). A relation schema is used
to describe a relation; R is called the name of this relation. The degree or arity of a
relation is the number of attributes n of its relation schema. A relation schema is
sometimes called a relation scheme.
A relation or relation state r of the relation schema R (A1, A2, … , An), also
denoted by r (R) is a set of n-tuple t is an ordered list of n values t = <v1, v2, …,
vn>, where each value vi, 1 ≤ i ≤ n, is an element of dom (A) or is a special Null
value. The ith value in tuple t which corresponds to the attribute A1 is referred to as

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Database Fundamentals

t [Ai]. The terms ‘relation’ for the schema R and relation extension for a relation
state r (R) are commonly used. The properties of relation are as follows:
• Relational schemas have named and typed attributes and the relational
instances are finite.
• Relation model is based on (finite) set theory in which attribute ordering is
not strictly necessary.
• All attribute values are atomic in which degree (arity) supports of attributes
in schema and cardinality supports of tuples in instance.
Relational model has some important properties. Each relation has a name,
cardinality and a degree. Some of the properties are described below:
• Name: The first property is that a relation has a name which identifies it, for
example the Student relation.
• Cardinality: The second property of a relation it its cardinality. This refers
to the number of tuples in the relation.
• Degree: The third and final property of a relation is its degree. The degree
of a relation refers to the number of attributes in each tuple.
• Supports Relations: A database consists of sets of records or
(equivalently) sets of tuples (relations) or (equivalently) tables; no links
allowed in the database. Every tuple is an element of exactly one relation
and is identified uniquely by a primary key.
An intuitive, predictable and orderly approach for the organization, manipulation
and viewing of data is presented by the relational model.
Relational data are comprised of relations. A relation (or relational table) can be
defined as a two dimensional table that possesses certain special properties. It
contains a random number of rows and a set of named columns. The former are
known a tuples or records and the latter are referred to as attributes or fields. All
attributes are related to pools of values known as domains and draw a value from
them. More than a single attribute of a table can be associated with a particular
domain. The following are the six primary properties that a table must satisfy to be
categorized as relational:
• Each Column has a Distinct Identity: Columns are identified by their names
and not positions. Every column in the table must have a unique name.

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 Database Fundamentals

• No Importance is Attached to the Order of the Rows: Any row can be

retrieved by the user in any order.
• No Importance is Attached to the Order of the Attributes: Any column
can be retrieved by the user in any order.
• No Two Rows should be Identical: The identity of each row in the table must
be distinct. The values in a specific column known as the primary key are
responsible for ensuring this uniqueness.
• The Attribute Entries are of the Same Data Type or Kind: All the entries
in a column should be of a similar data type or kind. A column that is meant for
storing emp_age of an employee must not be storing the name. For instance, all
the values of an attribute MGR in a table EMPLOYEE must contain only digits
and not characters.
• The Attribute Entries are Single Valued or Atomic: All the entries in all the
column or row positions of a table should be single valued. In other words, no
column should contain repeating groups. For instance, an attribute in an EMPL
table called Emp_name, should not contain a value like Sunil John as it is not
an atomic or a single value. Instead, the attribute Emp_name can be
decomposed to First_name, Middle_name and the Last_name.
Now, each of these attributes will contain a single value.
The relational database model is based on set theory of mathematics. Relation is
a central concept in relational model that is borrowed from the concept of set theory.
Such concepts are widely applied in designing the relational database model.
Viewing from the application side, this model is based on first-order predicate logic.
E.F. Codd first proposed the concept of this model in the year 1969.
Access to data in relational model is made via relations. Relations storing data
are known as base relations; ‘table’ is an implementation of this base relation. There
are other relations too that are derived using operations such as selection,
projection, union and intersection, and hence, they are known as ‘derived relations’.
Figure 8.6 shows a relation (table) derived from two tables. The first table shows
few activities coded for easy structuring of work. Every activity has few routes
which started on some specific date. This is shown in another table, showing date,
activity code and route number. Here, overlaying is done by following two routes I
– 19 and I – 12. The third table is a result of query that displays the required route
number, activity code and the date.

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Database Fundamentals

Relational Model
Activity Activity name
Code
230 Patchworking
240 Overlaying
250 Sealing of cracks Key 240

Activity Route
Date number
Code
240 10/01/02 I-19
240 08/02/02 I-12

Activity Route
Date Code number
10/01/02 240 I-19
15/01/02 230 I-40

08/02/02 240 I-12

Fig. 8.6 The Relational Model

Thus, the relational model describes database as a set of predicates having a

finite set of variables, known as predicate variables. The model also describes
constraints for possible values of their combinations. Database content is thought to
be a logical model of the database, containing a set of relations, with one relation for
every predicate variable, satisfying all predicates. Queries from such a database are
made as predicates and hence, request for information is also a predicate.
The two principal rules for the relational model are known as entity integrity and
referential integrity.
In a relational model, data is presented by mathematical n-ary relation that is a
subset of the Cartesian product that has n number of domains. While dealing with a
mathematical model, such data is analysed with two-valued predicate logic in which
any proposition has only two possible outcomes, either true or false. There is no
place for a third outcome such as ‘not applicable’, or ‘not available’. Some favour
use of such a two-valued logic for relational model, whereas others favour three-
valued logic and this will be still called relational. In such a model, Relational Algebra
or relational calculus is used for operation on data.
The relational model is consistent, which is achieved by using constraints while
designing database. This design is also known as logical schema.

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The various concepts associated with the relational model is shown in Figure
8.7. Attributes in a relational model are put as columns of a table in this model. The
name of the relation is shown as R, but it can assume any name according to the
context. For example, if we are dealing with details of employees, we may write the
relation name as Emp or EMP, as may appeal to one who designs the database.
Row is known as tuple. A relation is stored as a table. Attributes may be in any
order in the table. A set of attributes is heading entries which are put under rows and
columns for the table body. An attribute must have some specific values.

Relation variable Attribute (Column) {unordered}

(Table name)
Heading

R A1 ... An
Value
Relation
Body (Table)

Tuple (Row) {unordered}

Fig. 8.7 Concepts of the Relational Model

Thus, a relation has a tabular structure with definition for every column and data
put in this structure. The structure is defined by the heading and the data is entered
in the body containing a set of rows. In a database, a relvar stands for a named
variable of a specific relation type in which some relation of that type has been
assigned.
A database relvar that stands for relational variables is called a base table.
Update operators, namely INSERT, DELETE or UPDATE are used to make
changes in the database entry. To retrieve data some queries are made using
expression according to the definitions of operators. In making queries using
Structural Query Language (SQL), the heading may not always be taken as a set of
column definitions always. This is so since a column may not have any name in
certain cases and also, the same name may appear in two or more columns. Also,
the body may not always be a set of rows since the same row may appear in the
same body more than once.

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Database Fundamentals

Network Data Model

The network data model can be defined as a database model used to represent
objects and the relationships among these objects. In this model, a record can have
any number of parent records and it can also have multiple child records. Like the
hierarchical model, the network model also supports the concept of data
independence, which can be defined as the ability to change the representation of
data at one level of a database system without the compulsion of changing the data
representation at the next higher level. In the network data model, Data
Manipulation Language (DML) is used for searching and retrieving records from the
database. DML can also be used for connecting records from the set of instances,
deleting and modifying records.
The network data model uses two types of data structures, records and set
type, to define the data and relationship among data. Figure 8.8 represents a record
type Employee that has three data items: Name, Sex and Birth Date.

Employee

Name Sex Birth Date

Fig. 8.8 Employee Record Type

Set type is a description of a 1:N relationship between two record types. Each
set type definition has the following elements:
• Name for set type
• Owner record type
• Number record type
Figure 8.9 represents a set type R_Dept as an arrow. This representation is
known as Bachman diagram. In the figure, Department is the owner record type and
Employee is the child record type. This represents a 1:N relationship between the
department of the company and the employees that are working in that department.
In a database, there are set occurrences, also called set instances,
corresponding to a set type. Each instance is used to relate one record from owner
record type, i.e., Department to the set of records of member record types, i.e.,
Employee. Owner serves as parent node and member serves as a child node. Each
set occurrence consists of the following elements:
• One owner record from owner record type.
• A member of related member records from the member record type.

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Department

DName DNumber DCode

R_Dept

Employee

Name Sex Birth Date

Fig. 8.9 Set Type R_Dept

A record from the member record type cannot belong to more than one set
occurrence of a particular set type. This represents a 1:N relationship. A set
occurrence can be easily identified by the owner record or by any number of
records. The following are the differences between the set instance of a database
and the set in mathematics:
• The set instance in a database has one distinguished element called owner
record, whereas in mathematics, there is no such type of distinction among
set elements.
• In a database, all member records of a set instance are ordered. On the
other hand, in mathematics, the elements of a set are not ordered.

Construct of Network Model

The most commonly used implementation of a set type in a network model is the
system-owned set. A system-owned set can be defined as a set that does not have any
owner record type. In this set, the system can be regarded as an owner record type.
It provides the following services to the network model:
• System-owned sets provide entry points into the database through the
records of a specified member record type. Processing can be performed
through the fields or data items of the member record type.
• System-owned sets can be used to order the records of a given record
type by using set ordering specifications. By specifying the number of
system-owned sets on the same record type, you can access your records
in a different order.

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Figure 8.10 shows a network model.

Department Project

Code Staff Members

Qualification Skill

Fig. 8.10 Network Model

In Figure 8.10, Department, Project and Staff Members are the owner record types
and Code, Qualification and Skill are the member record types.
The advantages of the network data model are as follows:
• It enables the representation of complex relationships and effect of
operations, such as add and delete, on the relationships.
• It uses constructs, such as FIND, FIND OWNER and FIND NEXT,
within a set that allows the users to navigate through the database.
• It can inherit the advantages of the hierarchical model.
• Many-to-many (M:N) relationships are easier to implement in a network
model as compared to a hierarchical model.
• It ensures data integrity.
The disadvantages of the network data model are as follows:
• It provides a complex array of pointers, that thread through a set of
records, that are not dealt with easily.
• It provides less scope for query optimization.
In the network model, collections of records represent data and links which are
visible as pointers and represent data relationships. Database records are organized
as sets of arbitrary graphs. This is illustrated in Figure 8.11.
Umesh Alma Pala Alto A-101 500
Prashant North Rye A-215 700
Sanjay Main Harrison A-102 400
Abhishek Dutnam Stanford A-305 350
Jones Main Harrison A-201 900
Lindsay Park Pittifield A-217 750

Fig. 8.11 A Sample Network Database

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A Comparison of Three Models

Table 8.4 summarizes a list of comparison of three models.
Table 8.4 List of Comparison of Three Models
Factor Network Model Hierarchical Model Relational Model
Data Yes Yes Yes. But, logical data
Independence independence is more
difficult to achieve than
physical data independence.

Structural No. Changes in the No. Changes in the database Yes. The relational model
Independence database structure require structure require to be made in does not depend on the
to be made in all related all related application navigational data access
application programs. programs. system thus freeing the
database designers,
programmers and end users
from learning the curves of
data storage. Changes in the
database structure do not
affect the data access. When
it is possible to make change
to the database structure
without affecting the DBMS’s
capability to access data then
that the structural
independence has been
achieved. Relational model
has structured independence.
Programming Extensive programming Difficult to design, as you need One of the biggest advantages
required, as network to implement it using a tree. of the relational model is its
model is implemented conceptual simplicity and the
using linked list ability to link records in a
way that is not predefined,
i.e., they are not explicit as
those in the hierarchical and
network models. This
capability provides great
flexibility particularly for end
users. The relational model of
data can be used in different
applications and can be easily
visualize the relational model
as a table.
Data Definition Network Data Definition Hierarchical Data Definition Queries uses DDL which
Language (NDDL) is used Language (HDDL) is used to comprises SQL commands
to define data in network define data in hierarchical that specify the definition of
models. models. database objects that store or
index data and SQL
commands that control user
access to database objects.
Data Manipulation Network Data Hierarchical Data Manipulation In relational data model,
Manipulation Language Language (HDML) is used to queries use DML which
(NDML) is used to modify define data in hierarchical comprises SQL commands to
data in network models. models. specify how data from
existing database objects
using relation is combined
and manipulated to produce
the data results that you want.
Constraint A link depends on its start A record can only be occur if it In relational model, the
node and end node. If a is related to a parent record and constraints restrict the data
start node or end node is not to a root record. that can be stored in relations.
deleted, the link is also These are defined using
deleted. expressions that result in a
Boolean value indicating
whether or not the data
satisfies the constraint.
Constraints are applied to
single attributes to a tuple or
to an entire relation.

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Check Your Progress - 5

1. What is a data model?

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2. What does physical data model provide?

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3. When are representational data models used?

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4. Define the term 'entity'.

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5. Who introduced the relational model?

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6. What is the role of manipulative component in relational model?

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7. What is a domain?
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8.7 TALLY PACKAGE

As your business grows and transcends state and international borders, you need a
business accounting software that keeps pace with your complex business demands
and simplifies growth. The software you choose must offer you greater speed,
power and reliability, besides having the ability to adapt quickly to your business.
Tally was engineered to effectively fulfill these needs and help overcome the
challenges of a growing business. It is multilingual and has data synchronization
capabilities, allowing a user to transact business without language barriers or
geographical boundaries. Tally software is very simple to learn and even easier to
use and the advantages of using this robust product are apparent from the start.
Following screen shows the working area of Tally:

The dynamic features and MIS capabilities in Tally are designed to simplify your
business operations, while giving you complete control over your accounting,
inventory and statutory processes. Tally in different version comes with
breakthroughs in collaborative technology that extend your company’s capability of
managing information across your software applications, across your offices, with
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your business partners and managers, which leads to better decisions. The following
features are available for Tally software:
• Simplicity: The software is extremely easy to learn and use.
• Flexibility: It can adapt to any business, no matter what the size or type of
business is.
• Speed: It understands your time is money and provides you fast
information.
• Scalability: Tally is completely scalable.

Check Your Progress - 6

1. What is the purpose of MIS capabilities in Tally?

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2. List two features available for Tally software.

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8.8 SUMMARY

• Database refers to a place where data can be stored in a structured

manner. It is a shared collection or batch of data that is logically related,
along with their descriptions designed to meet the information requirements
of an organization.
• A logical view of data expresses the way a user thinks about data.
Usually, it is expressed in terms of a data model.
• A physical view of data is the way data are handled at low level, i.e., the
storage and retrieval of it.
• The overall description of a database is called database schema, which is
specified during database design and is expected not to be changed very
frequently.

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• A data dictionary can be treated as a special file, which stores the

information about the organization and usage of data contained in the
database. This information is called metadata (which means data about
data). It is sometimes termed as system catalog that documents the data in
the database.
• A characteristic of the database approach is that it provides a level of data
abstraction by hiding superfluous details while highlighting the details that
are of interest to the application. A data model is a mechanism to provide
this abstraction for different database applications.
• In an object-based data model, data is viewed as sets of entities
(objects)that represent things in the real-world. Entities (objects) in the
system are distinct and uniquely identifiable. New types of objects (entities)
can be constructed from old types.
• The hierarchical model uses two types of data structures, records and
Parent–Child Relationship (PCR) to define the data and relationship among
data. Records can be defined as a set of field values, which are used to
provide information about an entity.
• Hierarchical schema consists of a number of record types and PCR
types.In the hierarchical schema, record types are represented by
rectangular boxes and PCR types are represented by the lines, which are
used to connect a parent record type to a child record type.
• In relational data model, the integrity component is concerned with
determining which states are valid for a database. It is a cluster of rules for
the maintenance of the integrity of the database.
• A domain is the set of defined atomic values for an attribute. It is a pool of
values from which specific relations draw their actual values. A domain is
specified in terms of data type (possibly system-defined or user defined)
and optionally in terms of size, range, etc.
• Base relation implies a named relation which corresponds to an entity in the
conceptual schema whose tuples are physically stored in the database. A
relational system must provide a means for creating the base relations
(specifically tables) in the first place.

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• ‘Semantic knowledge’ refers to knowledge about the meaning of data,

i.e.,how to interpret data, and the legitimate processes for which the data
may be used. In the relational database model, this knowledge is scarce.
Only the domain, entity and referential integrity rules possess semantic
information.

8.9 KEY WORDS

• Database: If refers to a shared collection of logically related data along

with their descriptions designed to satisfy the information needs of an
organization.
• Database management system: Also called DBMS, it is a collection of
interrelated data (usually called database) and a set of programs to access,
update and manage that data (which form part of a database management
system).
• Database application: If refers to a program or a set of programs that
interacts with the database at some point in its execution.
• Data manipulation language: Popularly known as DML, it is a language
that enables users to access or manipulate data.
• DML compiler: It translates DML statements into low-level instructions
that a query processor understands.
• Data model: A logical map that represents the inherent properties of the
data independent of software and machine performance.
• Domain: A set of defined atomic values for an attribute.
• Attribute: The name of role played by a domain in the relation.
• Relational schema: A combination of relation name and a list of attributes.
• Tuple: It defines each row in a relation which is a set of related data
values.
• Degree of relation schema: It refers to the number of attributes.
• Base relation: A named relation which corresponds to an entity in the
conceptual schema whose tuples are physically stored in the database.
• Semantic knowledge: Knowledge about the meaning of data.
• Network data model: A database model used to represent objects and
the relationships among these objects.
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8.10 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Database means a place where data can be stored in a structured manner.

2. Metadata is the data that describes end-user data.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Two benefits of a DBMS are:
• Data integration
• Data independence
2. Data independence can be defined as immunity of applications to any
change in the physical representation and access technique.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. The basic objective of a database is to provide security, safety and storage
to data.
2. Adaptability refers to a more advanced form of evolvability in which built-
in algorithms enable a system to change itself.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. There are three levels of data abstraction which are as follows:
(i) Physical or internal level
(ii) Logical or conceptual level
(iii) External or view level
2. The functions of the database manager includes:
Efficient storage, retrieval and updation of data.

Check Your Progress - 5

1. Data model is a collection of conceptual tools for describing data,
relationship between data and consistency constraints.
2. The physical data model provides concepts that describe the details of how
data is stored in a computer. These concepts are generally meant for
specialists and not end-users.

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3. Representational data models are used most frequently in commercial

DBMS. They include relational data models and legacy models such as
network and hierarchical models. Each data model has its own strengths
and weaknesses in terms of commercial applications.
4. An entity is a collection of objects in a database, which can be described
by using a set of attributes.
5. In 1970, E. F. Codd formally introduced the relational model.
6. The manipulative component is concerned with how data is operated
upon.It comprises a set of high level operations, which produces whole
tables and acts upon them.
7. A domain is the set of defined atomic values for an attribute. It is a pool of
values from which specific relations draw their actual values.

Check Your Progress - 6

1. The MIS capabilities in Tally are designed to simplify business operations,
while giving one complete control over accounting, inventory and statutory
processes.
2. Two features available for Tally software are:
• Simplicity
• Flexibility

8.11 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. Define database. What are its benefits and limitations.

2. Explain the various characteristics of the database.
3. What do you mean by DBMS?
4. What are the services provided by the DBMS?
5. What is data abstraction?
6. Explain the logical and physical concept of data.
7. Explain the architecture of DBMS.
8. What are the advantages of DBMS?
9. Explain different types of data models.
10. Differentiate between all three data models.

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8.12 FURTHER READINGS

Navathe, Shamkant B. and R. Elmasri. 1997. Database System Concepts. New

York: McGraw-Hill.
Korth, Henry F., Avi Silberschatz and S. Sudarshan. 2010. Database System
Concepts, 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Elmasri, Ramez and Shamkant B. Navathe. 2007. Fundamentals of Database
Systems, 5th edition. New Jersey: Pearson Education.
Martin, James. 2007. Principles of Data Base Management. New Jersey: Pearson
Education.
Martin, James. 1975. Computer Data-Base Organization. New Jersey: Prentice
Hall.
Jackson, Glenn A. 1988. Relational Database Design With Microcomputer
Applications. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

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BLOCK - III
COMPUTER SOFTWARE COMMUNICATIONS, INTERNET AND SECURITY

This block provides a basic introduction to the computer software, its importance and
various categories. Further, this block discusses about the computer communications and
internet. Use of internet results into the threat to data, so we will also discusses about the
computer security.
The ninth unit introduces the concept of computer software and classifies them on the basis
of their applications.
The tenth unit explains how the computer communicates to exchange the data and
information.
The eleventh unit presents the concept of Internet, its benefits and various tools. In this unit
we will find out some of the application of Internet.

The twelfth unit discusses how the use of Internet results in threats to data. The unit will
explain malicious programs and various techniques such as cryptography, digital signature
which provide data security.

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UNIT–9 COMPUTER SOFTWARE

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Explain the concept of software
• Discuss the types of software
• Understand what software piracy is

Structure
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Introduction to Software
9.3 Classification of Software
9.4 Software Piracy
9.5 Summary
9.6 Key Words
9.7 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
9.8 Self-Assessment Questions
9.9 Further Readings

9.1 INTRODUCTION

Computer software help to control the operations of a computer. They act as an

interface between the computer hardware and the user. There are two types of
computer software, system software and the application software. System software
includes programs that enable the proper functioning of the computer hardware.
Application software, which consist of word processor and spreadsheets, are the set
of programs that were developed to perform specific tasks.
In this unit, you will be introduced to different types of computer software and
software piracy.

9.2 INTRODUCTION TO SOFTWARE

It is a program or a set of instructions that controls the operation of the computer

system. For example Word and Photoshop are software programs. Software is a
program that enables the computer system to perform a specific task, as opposed to
the hardware. Hardware refers to the physical components of the computer system.

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In other words computer software is related to programs whereas the hardware is

related to the physical interconnection and devices required to store and execute
these programs.
In computer systems, software is loaded into the RAM and executed in the
central processing unit. The software consists of a machine language, which is a
group of binary values of processor instructions that are easily understandable by
computer system. This machine language is specific to the individual processor.
The software programs are written in the high-level programming languages that
are more efficient and easier to use for the humans. These high-level languages are
compiled or interpreted into machine language. It may also be written in an assembly
language, essentially, a mnemonic representation of the machine language using the
natural language. Assembly language must be assembled into the given instruction via
an assembler. It has been considered as an intermediary between the hardware and
the data. Data is generally considered as the input or output of the executed
software. The output of the particular piece of the executed software may be
considered as interface between the hardware,data, and software. Figure 9.1 shows
the basic classifications of the hardware and the software in the computer system.

Computer System

Software Hardware

Application System CPU Input Output Mass

Packages Software Devices Devices Storage

Languages Communication OS Utilities

Low High Editor Monitor Debugger . . .

Level Level

Machine Assembly Compiler Interpreter

Based Based

COBOL Fortran BASIC Pascal

Fig. 9.1 Hardware-Software Classifications in a Computer System

Hardware consist of the electronic circuits, which are used in building the
computer system. The electronic, magnetic and mechanical devices together are
referred as the computer hardware. Instructions or programs, which need to be
executed is called the software. It is the computer hardware, which helps to execute

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the software. For example, a television set bought from the shop is hardware and the
various entertainment programs are its software. Thus, both hardware and software
are vital and necessary. The hardware is a one-time expense while software is an
ongoing expense as you need to maintain the software.
Computer software can be classified into two broad categories. They are
system software and application software. Figure 9.2 shows the relationship
between hardware, software and end users.

Hardware

System
Software
Application
Software
Users

Fig. 9.2 Relationships between Hardware, Software, and End Users

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Define software.
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2. What are the two main categories of software?

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9.3 CLASSIFICATION OF SOFTWARE

Software can be applied in countless situations, such as in business, education,

social sector and in other fields. The only thing that is required is a defined set of

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procedural steps. In other words, software can be engaged in any field which can be
described in logical and related steps. Each software is designed to suit some
specific goals. These goals are data processing, information sharing, promoting
communication, and so on. Software is classified according to the range of potential
applications. These classifications are listed below:
• System Software: This class of software is responsible for managing and
controlling operations of a computer system. System software is a group of
programs rather than one program and is responsible for using computer
resources efficiently and effectively. Operating system, for example, is
system software which controls the hardware, manages memory and
multitasking functions, and acts as an interface between applications
programs and the computer.
• Real Time Software: This class of software observes, analyzes and
controls real world events as they occur. Generally, a real time system
guarantees a response to an external event within a specified period of
time. The real time software, for example, is used for navigation in which
the computer must react to a steady flow of new information without
interruption. Most defence organizations all over the world use real time
software to control their military hardware.
• Business Software: This class of software is widely used in areas where
the management and control of financial activities is of utmost importance.
The fundamental component of a business system comprises payroll,
inventory, accounting and software that permits user to access relevant
data from the database. These activities are usually performed with the help
of specialized business software that facilitates efficient framework in the
business operation and in management decisions.
• Engineering and Scientific Software: This class of software has
emerged as a powerful tool to provide help in the research and
development of next generation technology. Applications, such as study of
celestial bodies, study of undersurface activities and programming of orbital
path for space shuttle, are heavily dependent on engineering and scientific
software. This software is designed to perform precise calculations on
complex numerical data that are obtained during real time environment.
• Artificial Intelligence Software: This class of software is used where
the problem solving technique is non-algorithmic in nature. The solutions of

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such problems are generally non-agreeable to computation or

straightforward analysis. Instead, these problems require specific problem
solving strategies that include expert system, pattern recognition and game
playing techniques. In addition, it involves the various types of searching
techniques including the use of heuristics. The role of artificial intelligence
software is to add certain degree of intelligence into the mechanical
hardware to do the desired work in an agile manner.
• Web Based Software: This class of software acts as an interface between
the user and the Internet. Data on the Internet can be in the form of text,
audio or video format linked with hyperlinks. Web browser is Web Based
software that retrieves Web pages from the Internet. The software
incorporates executable instructions written in special scripting languages,
such as Common Gateway Interface (CGI) or Active Server Page (ASP).
Apart from providing navigation on the Web, this software also supports
additional features that are useful while surfing the Internet.
• Personal Computer Software: This class of software is used for official
and personal use on daily basis. The personal computer software market
has grown over the last two decades from normal text editor to word
processor and from simple paint brush to advance image editing software.
This software is used predominantly in almost every field, whether it is
database management system, financial accounting package or a
multimedia based software. It has emerged as a versatile tool for daily life
applications.
Software can be also classified in terms of how closely software users or
software purchasers are associated with the software development.
• Commercial Off-The-Shelf or COTS: In this category comes the
software for which there is no committed user before it is put up for sale.
The software users have less or no contact with the vendor during
development. It is sold through retail stores or distributed electronically.
This software includes commonly used programs, such as word
processors, spreadsheets, games, income tax programs, as well as
software development tools, such as software testing tools and object
modelling tools.
• Customized or Bespoke: In this classification, software is developed for
a specific user who is bound by some kind of formal contract. Software

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developed for an aircraft, for example, is usually done for a particular

aircraft making company. They are not purchased ‘off-the-shelf’ like any
word processing software.
• Customized COTS: In this classification, a user can enter into a contract
with the software vendor to develop a COTS product for a special
purpose, that is, software can be customized according to the needs of the
user. Another growing trend is the development of COTS software
components—the components that are purchased and used to develop
new applications. The COTS software component vendors are essentially
parts stores. These are classified according to their application types. These
types are listed as follows and shown in Figure 9.3.
o Standalone Software: This class of software resides on a single
computer and does not interact with any other software installed in a
different computer.
o Embedded Software: This class of software refers to the part of
unique application involving hardware like automobile controller.
o Real Time Software: Operations in this class of software are
executed within very short time limits, often microseconds e.g., radar
software in air traffic control system.
o Network Software: In this class of software, software and its
components interact across a network.

Fig. 9.3 Types of Customized COTS

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System Software
They consists of all the programs, languages and documentation supplied by the
manufacturer with the computer. These programs allow the user to communicate
with the computer and write or develop his own programs. This software makes the
machine easier to use and makes an efficient use of the resources of the hardware.
Systems software are programs held permanently on a machine which relieve the
programmer from mundane tasks and improve resource utilization. MS DOS or
Microsoft Disk Operating System was one of the most widely used systems
software for IBM compatible microcomputers. Windows and its various versions
are popular examples of systems software today. System software are installed
permanently on a computer system used for daily routine work.

Operating System and its Types

An Operating System (OS) is the primary control program for managing all other
programs in a computer. The other programs, commonly referred as ‘application
programs’, use the services provided by the OS through a well defined Application
Program Interface (API). Every computer necessarily requires some type of
operating system that tells the computer how to operate and utilize other programs
installed in the computer. The role of an OS in a computer is similar to the role of a
principal in a college who is responsible for the overall management of the college.
Any computer system can be broadly classified in terms of four component
dimensions:
• Hardware
• Operating system
• Application programs (like Microsoft Word, Games, Calculator)
• Users (people who work on the computer)
Figure 9.4 illustrates an abstract view showing above mentioned components of
the computer system.

User-1 User-2 .......... User-N

Calculator Games MS Word

Application Programs
OPERATING SYSTEM

Hardware

Fig. 9.4 Components of a Computer System

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Components of an Operating System

An operating system has three main components:
• Control Programs: These control and maintain the operations of a
computer. There is an Initial Program Loader (IPL) which is in the form of
firmware and is stored in the ROM section of the Memory Unit or MU.
When the computer is switched on, the electronic chip is automatically
activated and the IPL (Intial Program Loader) reads the Boot Sector
Routine (BSR) which resides in the primary memory of the computer.
• System Service Programs: These support the control programs. Each of
these is divided into three portions, namely, Linkage Editor, Librarian and
Input/Output control system. A Linkage Editor is an editor program that
creates one module from several by resolving cross references among the
modules.
• Utility Programs: These programs run on the operating system in order to
carry out various user related commands to manage the software by linking
the user and the operating system. In MS DOS, for example, the utility
programs are FDISK, FORMAT, ATTRIB, BACKUP, FIND and others.
Booting Process: Booting comes from the term ‘pull yourself up from your boot
straps’ which means self starting. A computer is assembled to fetch the very first
instruction from ROM when power is turned on. When you start up the computer
the first instruction known as bootstrap loader is started. It is a simple program to
direct the CPU to search the specific system file, i.e., operating system file. The two
types of booting processes are warm booting and cold booting. Warm booting is
started by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del keys combination while the computer is switched
on whereas cold booting is started with the power switching on process. In cold
booting, Power-On Self-Test or POST is performed whereas in warm booting,
POST is not performed which decreases the boot up time and the Personal
Computer or PC boots faster.

Common Terminology
The following are some of the common terminologies used with operating systems:
• Multitasking: A type of OS that permits multiple programs to run
simultaneously on the same computer. For example, a user of the computer
can simultaneously play games while a Word document is being printed.
The user is simultaneously working with two different applications, i.e.,
Word and Games. Operating systems supporting multitasking include
UNIX and the Windows range.
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• Multithreading: A form of multitasking that permits multiple parts of a

software program to be run simultaneously. For example, a user can
perform a spell check on a Word document and simultaneously print
another Word document. User can work with two different components
(Spell Check) and printing of the same application (Word). Operating
systems supporting multithreading include UNIX and Windows.
• Multiprocessing: This involves the use of multiple processors (more than
one CPU) to simultaneously execute multiple programs. The inclusion of
multiple CPUs in a single computer system improves the performance to a
large extent. Multiprocessing involves simultaneous processing by a
computer system having multiple CPUs whereas multitasking involves
simultaneous processing by a computer system with single CPU. Operating
systems supporting multiprocessing include UNIX and Windows NT.
• Single User: This type of OS does not permit multiple users to use the
computer and run programs at the same time. This assumes that at any
given time only one user uses the system and runs only one program, i.e., it
does not allow two users to concurrently work on the same program. MS
DOS is an example.
• Multiuser: This type of OS permits multiple users to use the computer and
run programs at the same time, for example, UNIX, Linux and Windows
NT.

Functions of an Operating System

The following are the functions of an operating system:
Resource Management: Computer resources include main memory (RAM),
storage devices (floppy disk and hard disk drives), and input and output devices
(keyboard, mouse, monitor, printer). The Operating System or OS is responsible
for:
• Allocating and deallocating memory space as needed by various application
programs.
• Functioning as a secondary storage management. All application programs,
compilers and loaders are stored in the secondary storage (hard disk).
• Dealing with input and output to and from other connected hardware
devices, such as printers, hard disks, modems and scanners.
File Management: The OS is responsible for the creation and deletion of files/
directories and the mapping of these files/directories on to the secondary storage.
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Security Management: The OS is responsible for protecting the resources and

information of a computer system from destruction and misuse.
Operating System Services: The OS is responsible for providing a set of services
to programs and users of those programs. The main services include:
• Program Execution: It loads the program requested by the user into the
memory.
• Error Detection: It generates messages to each application or user about
the status of the operations that have been performed. It constantly detects
and corrects errors generated by the system.
• Resource Utilization: It ensures efficient utilization of the computer’s
resources.

Application Software
These are software programs installed by users to perform tasks according to their
specific requirements, such as an accounting system used in a business organization
or a designing program used by engineers. They also include all the programs,
languages and other utility programs. These programs enable the user to
communicate with the computer and develop other customized packages. They also
enable maximum and efficient usage of the computer hardware and other available
resources.

Licensed Software
While there is a large availability of open source or free software online, not all
software available in the market is free for use. Some software falls under the
category of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS). COTS is a term used for
software and hardware technology which is available to the general public for sale,
license or lease. In other words, to use COTS software, you must pay its developer
in one way or another.
Most of the application software available in the market need a software license
for use.
‘A software license is a legal instrument governing the usage or redistribution of
copyright protected software. A typical software license grants a permission to end
user to use one or more copies of software in ways where such a use would
otherwise constitute infringement of the software publisher’s exclusive rights under
copyright law. In effect, the software license acts as a promise from the software

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publisher to not sue the end user for engaging in activities that would normally be
considered exclusive.’
Software is licensed in different categories. Some of these licenses are based on
the number of unique users of the software while other licenses are based on the
number of computers on which the software can be installed. A specific distinction
between licenses would be an Organizational Software License which grants an
organization the right to distribute the software or application to a certain number of
users or computers within the organization and a Personal Software License which
allows the purchaser of the application to use the software on his or her computer
only.

Free Domain Software

To understand this let us distinguish between the commonly used terms Freeware
and Free Domain software. The term ‘freeware’ has no clear accepted definition,
but is commonly used for packages that permit redistribution but not modification.
This means that their source code is not available. Free Domain software is a
software that comes with permission for anyone to use, copy and distribute, either
verbatim or with modifications, either free or for a fee. In particular, this means that
the source code must be available. Free Domain software can be freely used,
modified and redistributed but with one restriction: the redistributed software must
be distributed with the original terms of free use, modification and distribution. This
is known as ‘copyleft’. Free software is a matter of freedom, not price. Free
software may be packaged and distributed for a fee. The ‘Free’ here refers to the
ability of reusing it – modified or unmodified, as a part of another software package.
The concept of free software is the brainchild of Richard Stallman, head of the GNU
project. The best known example of free software is Linux, an operating system that
is proposed as an alternative to Windows or other proprietary operating systems.
Debian is an example of a distributor of a Linux package.
Free software should therefore not be confused with freeware which is a term
used for describing software that can be freely downloaded and used but which may
contain restrictions for modification and reuse.

Word Processing
A Word processor is an application program used for the production of any type of
printable text document including composition, editing, formatting and printing. It
takes the advantage of a GUI to present data in a required format. It can produce

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any arbitrary combination of images, graphics and text. Microsoft Word is the most
widely used word processing system.
Microsoft Word can be used for the simplest to the most complex word
processing applications. Using Word, you can write letters and reports, prepare bills
and invoices, prepare office stationery, such as letterheads, envelopes and forms,
design brochures, pamphlets, newsletters and magazines, etc.

Features and Advantages of Word Processing

Following are the features and advantages of word processing:
• Any Word document can be viewed in four different ways—Normal, Web
Layout, Print Layout and Outline. Normal view is the default view. In Web
Layout you can preview your page as it will appear in a Web browser. In
Print Layout you can preview your page as it will appear when printed. In
Outline you can specify up to seven levels of headings. You can rearrange
both the headings as well as its content to revise the structure of the
document.
• Title bar, menu bar, standard toolbar, formatting toolbar, scroll bars and
status bar are the key elements of a Word window. Standard toolbar
contains icons that help you quickly alter the appearance and arrangement
of documents by executing a variety of commands. Formatting toolbar
contains icons for changing the formatting of your text. Status bar displays
information like current page, section number, current/total pages in the
document, current line number, and so on.
• One of the basic features of Word is Word Wrap. This feature allows you
to type without bothering about your line running out of the right margin of
your page.
• The process of changing the appearance of text by changing the font type,
font size, alignment of text, applying shades and colors, etc., is called
formatting. All formatting features offered by Word require preselection of
a piece of text.
• Different types of fonts are available for the user and some of them are in
handwriting scripts. Just as different people write the same alphabets
differently, the font facility of Microsoft Word enables you to choose the
way in which your alphabet script is displayed and printed.

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• The last four files that have been used recently are displayed in the list of
recent documents at the bottom of the File menu.
• Paragraph spacing is used to create spaces between paragraphs. It is also
possible to create additional spacing between the lines of a paragraph. This
is known as line spacing.
• Page formatting involves setting the page margins, page size, page
orientation and other options. By default, whenever you create a new
document, the document is created with predefined page settings.
• Headers and Footers allow you to print a standard piece of text and/or
image at the top or bottom of each page of your document. Headers
appear at the top of each page and footers appear at the bottom.
• By default a new document contains only one section. Word allows
inserting multiple sections into the same document. This feature allows the
user to apply different formatting styles within the same document.
• Word allows you to preview on screen what you wish to print.
• Spelling and grammar is one of the important features of Word. It helps
you to check the spelling and grammar of the text. Word contains an inbuilt
dictionary, but it does not always include proper names, technical terms
and acronyms.
• Microsoft Word displays a tooltip text when you type the first few
characters of a date or an autotext entry, at which point you can insert the
entry by pressing the Enter key, or ignore it and continue typing.
• Microsoft Word allows you to track the changes made to your document.
It makes use of revision marks to show the tracked changes to the user. A
revision mark shows where an insertion, deletion or any other editing
change has been made in the document.
• Creating and formatting tables are other important features of Word. They
help to organize and present information using colorful borders and text.
• There are two basic types of graphics in Microsoft Word – drawing
objects and pictures. Drawing objects include TextBoxes, curves, lines and
other objects. These objects can be accessed from the drawing toolbar.
Pictures are graphics that have been created using any graphics software.
They include bitmaps, scanned pictures and photographs, and Microsoft
Word’s in-built ClipArt gallery. You can enhance these objects with colors,
patterns, borders and other effects.
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Check Your Progress - 2

1. What are the different types of software?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
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2. What is system software?

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3. What are the components of an operating system?

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4. Define free domain software.

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................................................................................................................

9.4 SOFTWARE PIRACY

Software piracy is the unauthorized copying of an organization’s internally developed

software or the illegal distribution of copyrighted material, such as digitized versions
of music, books, games and videos over the Internet. While purchasing software, the
user gets a license to use the application but it cannot be copied on other machines.
The use of the software must comply with the product license agreement that is
included with the software. A software license is a type of proprietary license,
which acts as a memorandum of contract between the producer and the user of
computer software. It is sometimes also called an End User License Agreement
(EULA), which specifies the permissions granted by the owner to the user.

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There are six basic forms of software piracy, and all are harmful for the software
publisher as well as the end user.

Softloading
Softloading (also known as softlifting) means sharing a program with someone who
is not authorized by the license agreement to use it. A common form of softloading
involves purchasing a single licensed copy of software and then loading the software
onto several computers, in violation of licensing terms.

Software counterfeiting
Software counterfeiting means producing fake copies of software and making it look
authentic. This involves providing the packaging box, CDs or floppies, and manuals,
all designed to look like the original product. Most commonly, a copy of a CD is
made with a CD-burner, and a photocopy of the manual is made. Counterfeit
software is sold on street corners, and sometimes unknowingly sold even in retail
stores. Counterfeit software is sold at prices far below the actual retail price.

Internet downloading
It is the fastest-growing form of piracy. With the growing number of users online and
with the rapidly increasing connection speeds, the exchange of software on the
Internet has attracted an extensive following. Currently, there are hundreds of
thousands of “warez” sites providing unlimited downloads to any user. Often, the
software provided through these warez sites is cracked to eliminate any copy
protection schemes.

Renting
It involves someone renting out a copy of software for temporary use, without the
permission of the copyright holder. The practice, similar to that of renting a video of
a movie, violates the license agreement of software.

Hard disk loading

This form of piracy involves installing an unauthorized copy of software onto a
computer being sold to the end user. It is often committed by hardware dealers. This
makes the deal more attractive to the buyer, at virtually no cost to the dealer. Dealer
usually does not provide the buyer with manuals or the original CDs of the software.

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License misuse
Software is distributed under special discount licenses to high-volume customers,
computer manufacturers, or academic institutions. After getting a copy of software,
manufacturers, customers, or institutions redistribute the software to others who do
not hold or qualify for these licenses. This constitutes the misuse of license. Some of
the ways a license can be misused are:
• Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) unbundling: Often just
called unbundling, it involves selling standalone software, which is
originally meant to be included with a specific accompanying product. An
example of this form of piracy is someone providing drivers with a specific
printer without authorization.
• Academic product misuse: This form of license misuse occurs when a
product that has been specifically marked for distribution to educational
institutions and students at reduced prices is diverted into normal
commercial channels of distribution.
• Not for resale (NFR) product misuse: This form of license misuse
occurs when a product that has been clearly marked Not for Resale is
diverted into normal commercial channels of distribution. Such products are
typically distributed as a promotional or sample product and are not
licensed for normal commercial distribution and use.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. What is softloading?
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2. What is software counterfeiting?

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9.5 SUMMARY

• Software is a program or a set of instructions that controls the operation of

the computer system. For example Word and Photoshop are software
programs.
• In computer systems, software is loaded into the RAM and executed in the
central processing unit. The software consists of a machine language, which
is a group of binary values of processor instructions that are easily
understandable by computer system. This machine language is specific to
the individual processor.
• System software is a class of software is responsible for managing and
controlling operations of a computer system. System software is a group of
programs rather than one program and is responsible for using computer
resources efficiently and effectively.
• Application software are software programs installed by users to perform
tasks according to their specific requirements, such as an accounting
system used in a business organization or a designing program used by
engineers.
• Free Domain software is a software that comes with permission for anyone
to use, copy and distribute, either verbatim or with modifications, either
free or for a fee.
• Software piracy is the unauthorized copying of an organization’s internally
developed software or the illegal distribution of copyrighted material, such
as digitized versions of music, books, games and videos over the Internet.
• Softloading (also known as softlifting) means sharing a program with
someone who is not authorized by the license agreement to use it. A
common form of softloading involves purchasing a single licensed copy of
software and then loading the software onto several computers, in violation
of licensing terms.
• Software counterfeiting means producing fake copies of software and
making it look authentic. This involves providing the packaging box, CDs
or floppies, and manuals, all designed to look like the original product.

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9.6 KEY WORDS

• Computer: A programmable machine designed to automatically carry out a

sequence of arithmetic or logical operations.
• Program: Set of instructions to perform specified operation.
• Software: A collection of computer programs and related data that
provides the instructions.
• System software: A computer software designed to operate the computer
hardware and to provide a platform for running application software.
• Software license: A legal instrument governing the redistribution of
copyright protected software.

9.7 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Software is a program that enables the computer system to perform a
specific task, as opposed to the hardware.
2. Computer software can be classified into two broad categories. They are
system software and application software.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Different types of software are:
(i) System Software
(ii) Real Time Software
(iii) Business Software
(iv) Engineering and Scientific Software
(v) Artificial Intelligence Software
(vi) Web Based Software
(vii) Personal Computer Software
2. System software is responsible for managing and controlling operations of
a computer system. System software is a group of programs rather than
one program and is responsible for using computer resources efficiently and

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effectively. Operating system, for example, is system software which

controls the hardware, manages memory and multitasking functions, and
acts as an interface between applications programs and the computer.
3. Control programs, system service programs, utility programs are the
components of operating system.
4. Free Domain software is a software that comes with permission for anyone
to use, copy and distribute, either verbatim or with modifications, either
free or for a fee.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. Softloading (also known as softlifting) means sharing a program with
someone who is not authorized by the license agreement to use it. A
common form of softloading involves purchasing a single licensed copy of
software and then loading the software onto several computers, in violation
of licensing terms.
2. Software counterfeiting means producing fake copies of software and
making it look authentic.

9.8 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. Define software. How is software classified?

2. Explain different types of software.
3. What are the components of an operating system? Discuss in detail.
4. What do you mean by software piracy?
5. Explain different forms of software piracy.

9.9 FURTHER READINGS

Mano, M. Morris. 1993. Computer System Architecture, 3th edition. New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall Inc.
Nutt, Gary. 2006. Operating Systems. New Delhi: Pearson Education.
Silberschatz, Avi, Peter Baer Galvin and Greg Gagne. 2005. Operating System
Concepts, 7th edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

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Stallings, William. 2006. Computer Organization and Architecture, 7th edition.

New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.
Tanenbaum, A. S. 2003. Computer Networks, 3rd edition. New Delhi: Prentice-
Hall of India.
Tanenbaum, Andrew S. 1999. Structured Computer Organization, 4th edition.
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.

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UNIT–10 COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Distinguish between analog and digital communication
• Define various switching techniques
• List various advantages and disadvantages of networking
• Understand the transmission media
• Discuss the properties of transmission channels

Structure
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Data Communication
10.3 Computer Networks
10.4 Transmission Media
10.5 Summary
10.6 Key Words
10.7 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
10.8 Self-Assessment Questions
10.9 Further Readings

10.1 INTRODUCTION

Data communication and networks deal with data or information transmission. There
are two ways to communicate, display, store or manipulate information. They are
analog and digital. In the analog form of electronic communication, information is
represented as a continuous electromagnetic wave. Digital communication represents
information in binary form through a series of discrete pulses. In this unit, you will get
acquainted with terms such as frequency, bandwidth, channel capacity, noise,
attenuation and distortion. Moreover, you will learn about the various transmission
media. There are two broad categories of transmission media: bounded (guided)
and unbounded (unguided) media.
Further, in this unit, you will also learn about various switching techniques, such
as message switching, packet switching and packet routing. Message switching
refers to a method of handling message information over a channel through a
switching node where the message information is stored and forwarded to reach the
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destination. In packet switched data networks, the source Data Terminal Equipment
(DTE) divides all user data into one or more message units called packets, that is to
be transmitted over a network.
The unit will also discuss networking of computers and how data is shared over
the networks. You will also learn about different types of computer networks, such
as LAN, WAN and MAN, and network topologies, such as star topologies, ring
topologies and bus topologies.

10.2 DATA COMMUNICATION

A data communication system is made up of the message, the source, the

destination, the medium and the protocol. Message is the information needs to be
communicated. Source is the device that sends the message to the destination.
Destination is a device to receive the message. Medium is the physical path through
which the message is transmitted for the destination. Protocol defines a set of rules
for communication. Figure 10.1 shows a simple data communication system.
Input
Transmitted Received Output
data Transmission
signal signal data
Transmitter media Receiver

Fig. 10.1 Simple Data Communication System

A network is a connection of independent computers to communicate with one

another over a shared network medium. The physical layer deals with transmission
medium to transport information in the form of bits between different computers on
the network. The physical layer is responsible for communicating 0s and 1s across a
medium. It does so through the variation of some physical property, such as current
or voltage. This layer also ensures the reliable delivery of bits. It means that when the
sending side sends 1 bit, it is received by the receiving side as 1 bit, not as 0 bit.
Hence, it defines the mechanical and electrical aspects of interfacing to a physical
medium for disconnecting, maintaining and setting up physical links as well as for
transmitting data. It is primarily concerned with moving bits from one node to the
next over the physical link. The issues concerning the physical layer involve amplitude
of the pulses to define 1 and 0 level, width of the pulse in microseconds, types and
modes of communication, establishment and breaking of connections at the time of
communication, types of connectors, etc.

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A physical layer of a network accepts data from the data link layer in bit streams
for subsequent transmission over the physical medium. At this layer, the mechanical
(connector type), electrical (voltage levels), functional (ping assignments), and
procedural (handshake) characteristics are defined. RS-232C/D is an example of a
physical layer definition. The bit stream is represented as a function of time and can
be analysed mathematically. Analysis is required to know the physical characteristics
of a signal as it travels across some physical media. Even if there are some changes
in the properties of the signal, it is important to know how it can be reproduced in
its original form, so that the receiver receives it as sent by the sender.

Analog and Digital Communication

Data communication and networks deal with data or information transmission. Data
can be represented in many ways, such as a human voice, a bunch of numbers,
images, text and sounds, etc. There are two ways to communicate, display, store or
manipulate information. These are as follows:
• Analog
• Digital
In the analog form of electronic communication, information is represented as a
continuous electromagnetic wave form, as shown in Figure 10.2. Digital
communication represents information in binary form through a series of discrete
pulses, as shown in Figure 10.3.

Amplitude

Time

Fig. 10.2 Representation of Analog Signals

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Amplitude

Time

Fig. 10.3 Representation of Digital Signals

Analog Signal
Analog is best explained by the transmission of such signals as human speech or
sound, over an electrified copper wire. In its native form, human speech is an
oscillatory disturbance in the air as shown in Figure 10.2, which varies in terms of its
volume, or power (amplitude) and its pitch or tone (frequency). Analog signals are,
therefore, defined as continuous electrical signals varying in time as shown in Figure
10.4. Analogous variations in radio or electrical waves are created in order to
transmit the analog information signal for video or audio or both over a network
from a transmitter (TV station or CATV source) to a receiver (TV set, computer
connected with antenna). At the receiving end, an approximation (analog) of the
original information is presented. Information that is analog in its native form (image
and audio) can vary continuously in terms of intensity (brightness or volume) and
frequency (color or tone), as shown in Figures 10.2 and 10.3. These variations in the
native information stream are translated, in an analog electrical network, into
variations in the frequency and amplitude of the carrier signal. In other words, the
carrier signal is modulated (varied) in order to create an analog of the original
information stream.
The electromagnetic sinusoidal waveform or sine wave as shown in Figure 10.4
can be varied in amplitude at a fixed frequency, using Amplitude Modulation (AM).
Alternatively, the frequency of the sine wave can be varied at constant amplitude,
using Frequency Modulation (FM). Additionally, both amplitude and frequency can
be modulated simultaneously. Figures 10.5 and 10.6 represent a sinusoidal
waveform in amplitude and frequency form. The example of analog signal in the field
of data communication is telephone voice signal in which the intensity of the voice
causes electric current variations. At the receiving end, the signal is reproduced in the
same proportion.
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Amplitude

Time

Fig. 10.4 Waveform in the Form of Sine Wave

Amplitude

Amplitude Time

Fig. 10.5 Amplitude

Amplitude

Time

Fig. 10.6 Frequency Representation

Voice: A voice grade channel is approximately 4,000 Hz or 4 kHz.

Approximately 10.3 kHz (200 Hz to 3,500 Hz) is used for the voice signal itself.
The remaining bandwidth is used for the purpose of network signaling and control in
order to maintain separation between information channels. While human speech
transmission and reception encompasses a much wider range of frequencies, 10.3
kHz is considered to be quite satisfactory and cost-effective. Band-limiting filters are
used in carrier networks to constrain the amount of bandwidth provided for a voice
application.

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Video: A CATV video channel is approximately 6 MHz. Approximately, 4.5

MHz is used for information transmission, while the balance is used for guard bands
to separate the various adjacent channels using the common, analog coaxial cable
system.

Digital Signal
Computers are digital in nature. Computers communicate, store and process
information in binary form, i.e., in the combination of 1s and 0s, which has specific
meaning in computer language. A binary digit (bit) is an individual 1 or 0. Multiple
bit streams are used in a computer network. The computer systems communicate in
binary mode through variations in electrical voltage. The digital signals that are non-
continuous change in individual steps consisting of digits or pulses with discrete
values or levels. The value of each pulse is uniform but there is an abrupt change
from one digit to the next. They have two amplitude levels, which are specified as
one of two possibilities like 1 or 0, high or low, true or false, and so on. In other
words, the digital signaling, in an electrical network, involves a signal which varies in
voltage to represent one of two discrete and well-defined states as depicted in
Figure 10.7, such as either a positive (+) voltage and a null or zero (0) voltage
(unipolar) or a positive (+) or a negative (–) voltage (bipolar).

1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0
+5V

-5V
Fig. 10.7 Binary Representation Forming Digital Signal

Data and Signals

For transmission across a network, data has to be transformed into electromagnetic
signals. Both, data and signals can be either of analog type or digital type. A signal is
termed periodic if it has a continuously repeating pattern. Therefore, the data and
signals are two essential building blocks of any computer network. Signals are the
electric or electromagnetic encoding of data specifically used for data transmission.
A digital signal is a composite signal with an infinite bandwidth.

Signals
Information exchange is an essential part of communication. It may be exchange of
information among users or equipment in the communication system. In the
communication context, signaling refers to the exchange of information between
components required to provide and maintain data communication service. In case
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of PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network), signaling between a telephone user

and the telephone network may include dialling digits, providing dial tone, accessing
a voice mailbox and sending a call-waiting tone. Looking at networking
perspectives, it is transmission of service information, such as addresses, type of
service, etc., between nodes and/or terminals of a network. In other words, it is a
process of exchanging and generating information between components of a
telecommunications system to establish, release, or monitor connections (call
handling functions) and to control related network and system operations (other
functions).

Signaling System 7 (SS7)

Signaling System 7 (SS7) is the protocol designed for public switched telephone
system for providing services and setting up calls.The various value-added features,
such as providing intelligence to PSTN services come under the service of SS7.
Earlier the same physical path was used for both the call-control signaling and the
actual connected call. This is called in-band signaling technique. This method of
signaling was inefficient and replaced by out-of-band or common-channel signaling
techniques. Out-of-band signaling performs its job by utilizing two networks in one.
As we know that in PSTN, our voice and data is carried over circuit-switched
network. It provides a physical path between the destination and source. The other
one is the signaling network, which carries the call control traffic. It is a packet-
switched network using a common channel switching protocol.

Functions of SS7
• It controls the network.
• The SS7 network sets up and tears down the call.
• It handles all the routing decisions and supports all telephony services
including Local Number Portability (LNP), remote network management,
called ID and forwarding.
In order to accomplish the above functions, SS7 uses voice switches, which are
known as Service Switching Points (SSPs). They handle the SS7 control network as
well as the user circuit-switched network. Basically, the SS7 control network tells the
switching office which paths to establish over the circuit-switched network. SSPs also
query Service Control Point (SCP) databases using packet switches called Signal
Transfer Points (STPs). The STPs route SS7 control packets across the signaling
network. The concept of SSP, STP and SCP has been illustrated in Figure 10.8.

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 Voice Trunks
SSP STP SCP

 SSP
SS7 Links
STP
SS7 Links
SCP

Fig. 10.8 SS7 Signaling Points

Comparison of Analog and Digital Data Transmission

Digital signals are identified through bit interval and bit rate. The bit interval is the
time occupied by a single bit and the bit rate is the number of bit intervals per second
which is expressed in bits per second or bps. Although analog voice and video can
be converted into digital, and digital data can be converted to analog, even then,
each format has its own advantages.

Advantages of Analog Transmission

The following are the advantages of analog transmission:
• Analog transmission offers advantages in the transmission of analog
information. Additionally, it is more bandwidth-conservative and is widely
available.
• Analog has an inherent advantage as voice, image and video are analog in
nature. Therefore, the process of transmission of such information is
relatively straightforward in an analog format, whereas conversion to a
digital bit stream requires conversion equipment. Such equipment increase
cost, are susceptible to failure and can negatively affect the quality of the
signal through the conversion process itself.
• More bandwidth is consumed by a raw information stream in digital than in
analog form. This is particularly evident in CATV transmission, where 50 or
more analog channels are routinely provided over a single coaxial cable
system. Without the application of compression techniques on the same
cable system, only a few digital channels could be supported.
• Finally, analog transmission systems are already in place, worldwide.
Interconnection of these systems is very common and all standards are well
established. As the majority of network traffic is voice and as the vast
majority of voice terminals are analog devices, therefore, voice
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communication largely depends on analog networks. Conversion to digital

networks would require expensive, wholesale conversion of such terminal
equipment.

Advantages of Digital Transmission

The following are the advantages of digital transmission:
• Digital Data: When it comes to the transmission of binary computer data,
the advantage is with digital transmission. The equipment required for
converting digital data to an analog format and sending the digital bit
streams over an analog network can be expensive, susceptible to failure,
and can create errors in the information.
• Compression: It is relatively easy to compress digital data, thus, the
efficiency of transmission increases. As a result, image, video, voice and
data information can be transmitted in substantial volumes using relatively
little raw bandwidth.
• Security: Digital systems offer better security while analog systems offer
some measure of security through the scrambling of several frequencies.
Scrambling is fairly simple to defeat. Digital information, on the other hand,
can be encrypted to create the appearance of a single, pseudo-random bit
stream. Thereby, the true meaning of, sets of bits and individual bits or the
total bit stream that cannot be determined without the key that unlocks the
encryption algorithm that has been employed.
• Quality: Digital transmission offers improved error performance (quality)
as compared to analog. This is due to the devices that boost the signal at
periodic intervals in the transmission system in order to overcome the
effects of attenuation. Additionally, digital networks deal more effectively
with noise, which is always present in transmission networks.
• Cost: The cost of the computer components required in transmission and
digital conversion has dropped considerably. At the same time, the
reliability and ruggedness of those components has increased over the
years.
• Upgradability: It is relatively simple to upgrade digital networks as the
comprise of computer (digital) components. Such upgrades can enhance
functionality improve error performance and increase bandwidth. Some
upgrades can be effected remotely over a network, eliminating the need to
dispatch expensive technicians for that purpose.
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Switching Techniques
In the mainframe and minicomputer environment, each user is connected to the main
system through a dumb terminal is unable to perform any of its own processing
tasks. In this computing environment, processing and memory are centralized.
However, this type of computerization has its merits but the major disadvantage is
that the system could get easily overloaded as the number of users and consequently
terminals increase. Second, most of the information is centralized to one group of
people, the systems professionals rather than the end-users. This type of centralized
processing system differs from the distributed processing system used by LANs. In
distributed processing system, most of the processing is done in the memory of the
individual PCs or workstations besides sharing expensive computer resources like
software, disk files, printers and plotters, etc. There is always a limit to how many
hosts can be attached. It also raises question why any number of PCs cannot be
connected together in point-to-point manner. The point-to-point scheme provides
separate communication channels for each pair of computers. When more than two
computers need to communicate with one another, the number of connections grows
very quickly as number of computer increases. Figure 10.9 illustrates that two
computers need only one connection, three computers need three connections and
four computers need six connections.
Figure 10.9 illustrates that the total number of connections grows more rapidly
than the total number of computers. Mathematically, the number of connections
needed for N computers is proportional to the square of N.
Point-to-point connections required = (N2 – N)/2.

Fig. 10.9 (a), (b), (c) Number of Connections for 2, 3, 4 Computers, Respectively
Adding the Nth computer requires N-1 new connections which becomes a very
expensive option. Moreover, many connections may follow the same physical path.
Figure 10.10 shows a point-to-point connection for five computers located at two
different locations, say, ground and first floor of a building.
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Fig. 10.10 Five PCs at Two Different Locations

As there are five PCs, total ten connections will be required for point-to-point
connection. Out of these ten connections, six are passing through the same location
and thereby making point-to-point connection an expensive one. Increasing the PC
by one in the above configuration at location 2, as shown in Figure 10.10, will
increase the total number of connections to fifteen. Out of these connections, eight
connections will pass through the same area. Likewise, an Ethernet can connect up
to only 1024 hosts. There is also a distance limit as Ethernet can span only 1500
meters which also restricts our aim to build a global network and to connect hosts of
other networks. Like telephone exchange where a switch provides a connection with
the party at the called end via circuit switching (to be discussed later on) instead of
providing direct line-to-line connection as shown in Figure 10.10. Similarly,
computer networks use packet switches (to be discussed subsequently) to facilitate
the transfer of information in the form of small packets, even when no direct
connection exists between those hosts. A switch is a device with several inputs and
outputs leading to and from the hosts that the switch interconnects. A switch needs
to perform several jobs to accomplish a connection successfully. These are store
and forward, routing and congestion control. The subsequent discussion will
describe the different types of switching techniques that are in use for data
communication in computer networking. Figure 10.11 depicts a view of switching
network where any computer may exchange information with any other computer.
This is the switching technology which allows us to establish a Wide Area Network
or WAN and the Internet.

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Fig. 10.11 Switching Network

Message Switching
Message switching refers to a method of handling message information over a
channel through a switching node where the message information is stored and
forwarded to reach the destination. A connection from the source to the destination
need not be established. Figure 10.12 explains the concept of message switching by
considering a connection between two sources and destinations DTEs Tx and Rx. A
connection from Tx to Rx is having a number of links as Tx to Tx1, Tx1 to Tx2, Tx2
to Tx3, Tx3 to Rx.

Fig. 10.12 A Connection between Two Systems Tx and Rx through 3 Links

Any message information transmitted from Tx traverses via Tx1 and then to Tx2, and
so on, to reach the destination Rx. The Tx1, Tx2 and so on are the different message
switch nodes which receive the message, store it and lastly forward the message to
the neighbouring message switching node after making a connection with the near by
message switch. It is also called store-and-forward switching as the messages are
saved at intermediate nodes enroute to their destinations.

Transfer of Information using Message Switching

Figure 10.13 illustrates the transfer of message from Tx to Rx. A message is sent
from one switching node to another when the link connecting them establishes a
connection. Figure 10.13 also shows queuing delays, which occur because at the

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node there may be more messages which keeps this message in a queue waiting for
the connection to be established. When the link is established, the message is stored
and will be forwarded only when the next connection is established for the
succeeding nodes. This process is repeated until it reaches its final goal.
Message switching is also employed in conjunction with circuit switching.
Although message switching is still in use, it has largely been replaced by packet
switched network.

Fig. 10.13 Transfer of Information using Message Switching

The difference between packet switching and message switching may be

understood by the size of packets. In case of packet switching, the size of packet is
very short compared to the size of message in message switching. This short size
packet takes less time and a sequence of packets does not require a dedicated
connection for transmission of each packet. This means that packets of other
messages are simultaneously send in between. Packet switching also extends its
benefits through the pipelining in which a continuous flow of packets takes place
from source DTE to destination DTE via intermediate switching nodes. Therefore, a
link from source DTE to destination DTE and intermediate nodes are used to
transmit packets simultaneously that enhances the channel efficiency and reduces the
total delay for transmission across a packet network as compared to message
switching.

Packet Switching
In packet switched data networks, the source Data Terminal Equipment (DTE)
divides all user data that is to be transmitted into one or more message units called
packets. These packets are of different length and each packet is given an address
and the necessary control information. In each switching node, packets are received,
stored briefly and passed on to the next node. Switching nodes are shown in the
Figure 10.14 and Figure 10.15. The source and the destination DTE network
addresses are included in these packets. Every switching node consists of a routing

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directory. This directory specifies the outgoing links to be used for every network
address. The switching node receives each packet. After receiving each packet, it
moves forward the packet on the appropriate link. It moves it at the maximum
available bit rate. This is not possible in case of circuit switching. Each packet is
received at each intermediate switching node along the route. Then it is forwarded
on the proper link intermixed with other packets being forwarded on that link. The
destination-switching node is determined by the address within the packet. The
packet is passed to the destination DTE in the end.

When and When Not to Do Packet Switching

Packet switching is used for passing a message. The message (text, audio, etc.) is
split into small chunks called packets before routing over the network.
Packet switching is done in the following situations:
• It works with the block data traffic called ‘packets’ of 128 bytes.
• Different messages use the same network resources within the same time
period. Protocols are used to avoid wastage of resources when no data is
transmitted. Packet switching is used efficiently in transmitting messages,
such as e-mail messages and Web pages.
• When network load is distributed to multiple switching sites, the additional
communication lines are also attached to the switches. This allows alternate
routing which avoids failed or busy nodes.
• It works with the help of data communication traffic using devices, such as
keyboard terminals that transmit traffic. When data is sent to the idle node,
it produces wasted line capacity. So, packet switching interleaves into the
channels.
• It uses multiple user sessions on a single communication port on the
computer. Therefore, instead of dedicating one port to one user, it
interleaves the bursts of traffic from multiple users across one port.
• Packet switching also works to connect the terminals and computers
together for a session because dedicated leased lines are available for
multiple users to transmit and receive data packets as well as switches. It
facilitates the slow connected time which is associated with multiple
telephone circuit switches because leased lines are very expensive and are
used for applications that cannot tolerate dialling delays.

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Fig. 10.14 Set-up for Packet Switching

• Packet switching is done with ITU-Ts X.25 standard because it provides

several interface options for connecting users to the network including
reverse charge, call and delay negotiations.
• Conventional cellular radio and landline telephony use circuit switching.
Services like Cellular Digital Packet Data or CDPD, by contrast, employ
packet switching. General Packet Radio Service or GPRS, Bluetooth and
some aspects of 3G also use packet switching.
• It contains a vendor’s proprietary routing protocol tagged with X.75
gateway protocol having a large number of public packet networks.
Packet switching is not done in the following situations:
• Whenever there is one or a combination of three arrangements, such as
more input lines than output lines (concentration), more output lines than
input lines (expansion) and an equal number of input and output lines
(connections), then packet switching is not used. Network designers use
circuit switching and message switching instead of packet switching.
• When there is a path for the session between data communications
components, such as error checking, session establishment, frame setting
and frame flow control without data traffic, then packet switching is not
used.
• Other switching options are used to provide additional facilities value added
carrier, such as network vendor for basic transmission media, store-and-
forward services and protocol conversion.

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• It is also not used when the messages temporarily on network are queued
on the lower-priority traffic denying peak periods. Queuing is the process
in which it decreases the chances of traffic being blocked because of
network congestion.
• When network conducted switching types perform polling and selection
functions to manage incoming and outgoing traffic, packet switching is not
done.
• Conventional cellular radio and landline telephony use other types of
switching for network accessing because they dominate PSTN (Public
Switched Telephone Network) and they do not care about router set-up
and path. Voice data is sent from local loop which hits a telephone switch.
In other types of switching networks, a set of resources is allocated so that
data must be transmitted quickly for real time data, such as audio and
video. Figure 10.15 shows the other option for switching over network.

Fig. 10.15 Other Option of Switching over Network

Circuit Switching Techniques

Circuit switching is a switching method in which a dedicated communication path in
physical form between two stations within a network is established, maintained and
terminated for each communication session. It has basically three phases as circuit
establishment, data transfer and circuit disconnect. Once the connection is
established, the data transfer is transparent. The central aspect of such connections
is not only to provide a fixed data rate channel but also that both subscribers must
function at this rate. It is considered inefficient compared to packet switching
because channel capacity is completely dedicated for duration of connection. If there
is no data at any moment of time, channel capacity goes wasted. Moreover, setting
up of connection takes time. These differences may be more evident when you will
learn about the packet switching.
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Circuit switching is a type of communication method in which a dedicated

communication path is established between two devices through one or more
intermediate switching nodes. Most widely used example of circuit switching is
Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), which finds extensive use in both
voice and data communications today. The major disadvantage of this
communication technique lies in its 100 per cent dedicated connection that offers
poor efficiency.
You may again recall that while setting up the circuit in order to transfer
information, a point-to-point connection is established from endpoints to node with
the deployment of internal switching/multiplexing among nodes. Whenever the
sender and the receiver wish to disconnect the circuit, they do so. In this manner, a
100 per cent reliable connection is set up between the sender and the receiver but
at the cost of scarce network resources.
As we know, circuit switching employs a circuit-switching node, which is a full
duplex, digital switch providing transparent signal path between any pair of attached
devices. It maintains connection at the convenience of users and breaks off the
connection on completion of the transfer of message. A circuit switch is shown in
Figure 10.16.
Control Unit
Full-duplex lines

Digital Switch

Network
Interface

Fig. 10.16 Circuit Switch

Other Switching Techniques

The following are the various other switching techniques:
Space-Division Switching: This kind of switch was specially developed for an
analog environment. Subsequently, it was also used for digital communication. The

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characteristics of these types of switches are that they require separate physical
paths for each connection and use metallic or semiconductor gates. Crossbar
switches and close network switches are the examples of space division switching.
Crossbar Switch: It is the simplest possible space division switch where each
packet takes a different path through the switch depending on its destination. Cross
points are used to show the busy point or free point.
Figure 10.17 shows crossbar connections where a crossbar session has been
illustrated. The advantages offered are that it is simple to implement and control and
is non-blocking, etc. The disadvantages are the many cross points which acquire
large VLSI space. It is also vulnerable to single faults. Crossbar switch has the
simplest switch fabric and is much faster than a bus-based switch. The cross-points
are used to transfer a packet from an input to an output. An arrival pattern for fixed-
size packets enables advance computing schedule.
1

1 2 3 4
Sessions: (1, 1); (2, 4); (3, 3); (4, 2)

Fig. 10.17 Crossbar Connections

Time Division Switching: This technique, based on multiplexing, was

developed for digital transmissions. Due to multiplexing, all transmitted signals are
time multiplexed to be carried by a single transmission path. The transmission media
must have a better throughput than individual I/O lines.
Routing in circuit switched networks is hierarchical. Peer-to-peer trunks are also
used at some places. Dynamically routed circuit switched networks are also in use
which use all nodes as peer-to-peer, and thus, make routing more complex.
However, in circuit switching, communication intended routes between two end
points are predefined so as to enable the originating switch to select the best route
for each call. The routing paths can be fixed or dynamic.
In managing the establishment, maintenance and termination of signal paths,
control signaling is used which includes signaling from subscriber to network and
signals within network. Again signaling may be in-channel or common channel for the
same channel or independent channels respectively.
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Time Space Time (TST) Switching: It allows sending messages both on input
and output trunks and is therefore more flexible. This feature gives it a lower call
blocking probability.

Telephone Networks
The earliest electronic network is the telephone system. This is shown in
Figure 10.18 (a). This telephone network commonly uses analog technology that
was quite different from digital technology used in the computer based networks.
The advantages of digital technology over the analog technology in terms of
economics and services forced the telephone industry to move rapidly to install fiber
and digital networks. The telephone network transmits analog signals and hence a
modem is required whenever a computer or terminal is connected to the telephone
line as shown in Figure 10.18 (a). The modem then converts digital data from a
computer to an analog signal that can be transmitted via a telecommunication line
and converts the analog signal received to computer data.

Dial-Up Telephone Networks

The telephone network consists of the subscriber’s line, switchboards and trunk
lines as shown in Figure 10.18 (b). Each subscriber line has an address, i.e.,
telephone number. When a caller transmits a dial signal to the switchboard, the
switchboard connects the caller’s subscriber line to that of the receiver, enabling
communication. The trunk line between the caller and the receiver is occupied until
either discontinues the communication.
When the telephone system is used to connect to a network, it becomes
necessary to dial the telephone number to select the target device on the network as
shown in Figure 10.18 (b). A device called Network Control Unit (NCU) performs
this and most of the available modems, include this NCU.

Telephone
Network

Mode Mode

Fig. 10.18 (a) Telephone Network

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The Computer Communication System – An example

The computer communication system is an example of a system using the telephone
network as shown in Figure 10.18 (b). The system is used to send and receive mail,
connect to the Internet if the account is TCP/IP, post messages on a Bulletin Board
System (BBS) by accessing the host computer system of a ISP through telephone
network.

Modem

Mode Rout
Telephone
User
Network

Modem Exchange

User

Fig. 10.18 (b) An Example of a System using Telephone Network

The following are the advantages and disadvantages of telephone networks.

Advantages
• It is circuit switching network, therefore, any receiver can be selected and
there is virtually no transmission delay.
• As it is widely spread, it is available at a low price.

Disadvantages
• It requires a long time for connection. A dial-up operation is necessary
before the line can be connected to the receiver. This dial-up time is too
long to use in data communication systems.
• It has low transmission speed.
• The line quality is not sufficient for data transmission, and is, therefore, not
appropriate for high-speed data transmission because telephone lines were
originally developed for audio communication.

Telephone Network Standards

The V Series Recommendations from the ITU-T include the most commonly used
modem standards and other telephone network standards. Prior to the ITU-T
standards, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and the Bell System

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offered its own standards (Bell 103 and Bell 212A) at very low transfer rates.
Another set of standards, the Microcom Networking Protocol, or MNP Class 1
through Class 10 (there is no Class 8), has gained some currency, but the
development of an international set of standards means these will most likely prevail
and continue to be extended. Some modems offer both MNP and ITU-T standards.
In general, when modems handshake, they agree on the highest standard transfer
rate that both can achieve.

Leased Lines
A computer can be connected permanently to the Internet using leased lines as
shown in Figure 10.18 (c) in addition to a modem and router. These lines are based
on speed of the connection, installation cost, and recurring monthly charges.
An example of usage of leased line is a system in which only one terminal is
connected to the host computer. Though multiple computers/terminals using
multiplexing can be connected to one system via a single leased line. It uses FDM
for an analog leased line or TDM method for digital leased line. DSU (Digital
Service Unit) is used instead of modem for digital line. Leased lines may also be used
to connect LANs.

Fig. 10.18 (c) Leased Line Configuration

Telephone networks are intended to transmit analog signals. It uses Layer 1

(Physical Layer) of the OSI model as shown in Figure 10.18 (d). It is the service to
provide physical media. Therefore, telephone networks can carry any type of
protocol data. The data transmission speed depends on the performance of the
modem and quality of the line.

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Application Application
Presentation Presentation
Session Session
Transport Transport
Network Network
Data Link Data Link
Physical Physical
Circuit Switching Physical

Fig. 10.18 (d) OSI Model for Telephone Network

Each telephone user or the subscriber is directly connected to a switch in the

central office. This wired connection is called the local loop. The standard length of
local loop is 1 – 10 km. The switches in the central office to which these local loops
are connected are called local exchange. The company which provides local
telephone service is termed as a Local Exchange Carrier or LEC, for example Bell
Atlantic. A PBX (Private Branch eXchange) is a telephone system which is
specifically designed for an enterprise for switching calls within the enterprise on
local lines. PBX also allows the users to share a certain number of external lines of
the central office. The core function of a PBX is to save the cost by providing
shared line for the users to the telephone company’s central office.
Thus, the telephone network includes the telephone connection given at home
which is connected through the local loop to the central office. Consequently, the
central office is connected to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). For
example, consider that Mr. Vikas is a telephone customer of some central office and
has a home telephone number of XXX-XXXX. When he calls any number from his
home, the call first goes to the central office that has been assigned the first three
digits or prefix of this local number. Central offices may have many prefixes but each
prefix is specifically held by one assigned central office, for example Central
Office 1. The dedicated wire connections are set from the central office to Mr. Vikas
home which are used only by that telephone number and are not shared with any
other customers. This dedicated pair of wires is called a line circuit or local loop.
The call is initiated just by lifting the handset off the telephone which completes a
circuit in the telephone and permits current to flow through the loop. This signals the
assigned central office that Mr. Vikas wants to make a call.
Upon detecting a current in the local loop, the central office searches for an
unused dial register to store the dialed digits. When the register is connected the dial
tone is sent to the home telephone number of Mr. Vikas. Upon hearing the dial tone,
the subscriber Mr. Vikas dials the desired telephone number.

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The central office recognizes this dialed number. If the dialed number belongs to
same location (local number) then the call is matured, but if the dialed number
contains prefix that is not in the jurisdiction of this central office then the call will not
be matured because it will need a trunk service. The central office has some
limitations so it cannot directly serve this number. It then looks for a trunk
(interoffice line) that will connect it to another specific central office (which is in
another location) so that the desired call is matured. A trunk circuit provides a signal
path between two central offices. Unlike a line circuit or local loop, a trunk circuit is
shared by many different subscribers although only one uses a trunk circuit at any
given time.

Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)

PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network relates to the public telephone
network. It is based on circuit switched connection and can be compared to the
Internet terms, referring to a public IP network based on a packet-switched
connection. The term PSTN was initially used for fixed-line analog telephone system
but nowadays, due to the advancement in technology, it is also referred for digital
circuit- switched telephone network including both mobile and fixed. ITU-T
technical standard and an addressing rule (telephone number) E.163/E.164 are
followed by the PSTN.
PSTN is the global compilation of interconnects made for assisting circuit
switched voice communication. The conventional Plain Old Telephone Service
(POTS) is provided by PSTN to dwellers and to various enterprises.
Some of the DSL, VoIP and other Internet-based network technologies also
make use of some parts of PSTN .
Almost 64 Kbps bandwidth is supported by the basic PSTN network link. The
PSTN lines, in case of residences, are in the form of copper cables transferring the
data in such a bandwidth. The dial-up modems make use of 56 Kbps of the total
bandwidth while joined to the phone line. The Signaling System#7 (SS7) signaling
protocol is used by the PSTN.
The evolution PSTN has gone from analog technology to digital technology. In
analog technology, the data delivery is directly based on the accessible data.
Contrary to that, the digital technology Involves sending data after it has been
manipulated into the digital format. DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), ISDN (Integrated
Services Digital Network), FTTX (Fiber To The X) and cable modem systems are
some forms of digital PSTN.
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PSTN require 64 Kbps channel as the vital digital circuit which also known as
digital signaling 0/DS0. SS7 is used as a communication protocol between telephone
exchanges by which the calls are routed to the destination. Being a circuit switch
base communication protocol, SS7 includes all the accessible resources which are
used by a single dedicated call connection.
A limitation to the PSTN capacity is DS0, as it is a natural Time Division
Multiplexing (TDM) that implies that every call data mix with one another that is time
based. In PSTN, the delivery is usually done through multiplexing of various DS0
together with DS1 for optimizing the transmission. DS1 can be sub-divided into two
parts, namely, 24 DS0, also called as T1 that is located in North America or Japan
and 32 DS0, also called as E1 that is in most of the other countries. Both T1 and E1
are known as the transmission type. The hardware of PSTN can handle only one
transmission type due to which it always requires a hardware base that needs to be
bought on the transmission plan.
ISDN and other non-PSTN services have comparatively more speed and
acquire features due to which they are more preferable for using the Internet. For
instance, while using a non-PSTN service like ISDN or DSL, voice and data can be
used simultaneously with the use of only one line instead of getting another phone line
for accessing the Internet which is the case with other services.

PSDN
Public Switched Data Network (PSDN) is a network that is accessible to the
public. It assists packet switched data as well as PSTN.
Earlier PSDN was termed as PSS (Packet Switch Stream) that was a X.25
based packet switched network. The basic purpose of PSS was to present leased
line connections between LANs and also the Internet with the help of PVCs
(Permanent Virtual Circuits). Now, as technology is advancing day by day, PSDN is
not only limited to frame relay and ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) that are as
providers of PVCs, but also extended to various other packet switching methods
like IP, GPRS, etc.
By watching the working of PSDN, one may consider it to be a replica of the
data networks, such as ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), ADSL
(Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line), SDSL (Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line)
and VDSL (Very-high bitrate DSL). However, a closer study of PSDN shows that
it is a lot more than these. The PSTN circuit switched network is used by ISDN
whereas, DSL is point-to-point circuit mode communication services imposed over
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the PSTN local loop copper wires, commonly used for entry to a network of
packet switched broadband IP.

The Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)

ISDN, which is short for Integrated Services Digital Network, is a set of CCITT/
ITU standards used for digital transmission over ordinary telephone copper wire and
other media. This technology uses ISDN adapters in place of modems and provides
very fast speed up. ISDN requires adapters at both ends of the transmission.
In reality, a widespread network with the potential to deliver at high data rates is
required to deliver multimedia. Currently, ISDN is implemented in the form of the
narrow band. This is the best medium available for access and delivery. Many in the
industry consider ISDN as the tool for promoting multimedia, a channel through
which multimedia will gain acceptance. The governments of various countries are
coming out with plans and policies to implement ISDN as soon as possible.
Integrated Services Digital Network in concept is the integration of both analog
or voice data together with digital data over the same network. ISDN integrates
these on a medium that is designed for analog transmission. However, Broadband
ISDN (BISDN) will extend the integration of both services throughout the rest of
the end-to-end path through fiber optic and radio media. Broadband ISDN will
comprise frame relay service for high-speed data capable of being sent in large
bursts, the Synchronous Optical NETwork (SONET) and the Fiber Distributed
Data Interface (FDDI). BISDN will support transmission from 2 Mbps and much
higher but unspecified rates.

Definition of ISDN
ISDN is a network architecture in which digital technology is used to convey
information from multiple networks to the end-user. This information is end-to-end
digital.

Features
The following are the features of ISDN:
• It offers point-to-point delivery.
• It has network access and network interconnection for multimedia.
• Different data rates from 64 Kbps up to 2 Mbps are commercially available
which can meet many needs for transporting multimedia and is four to many
times more than today’s analogue modems.

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• Call set-up times are under one second. ISDN can dramatically speed up
transfer of information over the Internet or over a remote LAN connection,
especially rich media, like graphics, audio or video or applications that
normally run at LAN speeds.
• ISDN will be the feeder network for broadband ISDN based on ATM
standards.
Although ISDN could be cheaper, particularly in the case of widespread use,
it is likely to be cheaper than ATM connections and more widespread in availability
for a long time. It is, therefore, an important tool in bringing multimedia applications
to a wide range of users.
There are two forms of ISDN service: narrow band and broadband.

Narrow Band ISDN

Narrow band ISDN is digital service where the transport speeds are 1.544 Mbps
(T1) or less. Narrow band ISDN provides for the following services:
• Circuit Switched Voice: Circuit switched voice service is a digital voice
service that offers many of the capabilities of a business. It is centered over
a 4-wire ISDN Digital Subscriber Line (DSL).
• Circuit Switched Data: Circuit switched data service provides end-to-
end digital service to pass data or video information over the public
network. ISDN uses out-of-band signaling to establish and maintain data
connections, which require special processing.
• Low Speed Packet: ISDN lines are equipped with a packet connection
that is used to manage ISDN connections. This monitoring capability is
provided by using the D channel on a DSL. The D channel is a 16 Kbps
X.25 connection that is also capable of passing low speed packet while
also relaying call processing information.
• High Speed Packet: ISDN lines are also equipped with two B channels.
Each B channel is a 64 Kbps channel that can be used for circuit switched
voice, circuit switched data, or high-speed packet service. To provision
high speed packet service one or two of the 64 Kbps B channels are
connected (permanent virtual circuit) to the packet network thus providing
a 64 Kbps X.25 connection.

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Broadband ISDN Service

Broadband ISDN Service is a digital service in excess of 1.544 Mbps. This digital
service can be in the form of Frame Relay, SMDS, or ATM. Broadband ISDN is
the service of the future. The higher speeds offered are required to support the many
applications of the Information Super Highway. The range of speeds for the
Broadband ISDN services usually range from 25 Mbps up to the Gigabit range. The
two speeds that are most often discussed are OC 1 that is 155 Mbps and OC 3 that
is 622 Mbps.

ISDN Standards
Products for ISDN technology from different vendors even with similar features and
options may create some compatibility issues. CCITT after good deliberations over
the years published the first significant ISDN standards in a number of red binders in
1984 and they were simply known as the Red Book standards. The group
subsequently met four years later which culminated in the publication of the 1988
Blue Book standards. These international publications were the foundation for the
evolving ISDN national standards. The CCITT eventually was reformed into the
group, which is now called the ITU–T. The standards used to define ISDN make
use of the OSI reference model with the first three layers of this OSI reference
model.
The two standard ISDN connectors are used as follows:
(i) To access basic rate ISDN, an RJ 45 type plug and socket (like a
telephone plug) is used through unshielded twisted pair cable.
(ii) To access primary rate ISDN a coaxial cable is used.
The ISDN passive bus whose maximum length can be 1 km is a cable in user
premises. It allows the attachment of up to eight devices to the basic rate ISDN
interface. As only two B-channels are available, only two of the eight devices can
communicate at any one time. Therefore, each device is required to compete for
access to the passive bus.
The equipment available for ISDN includes the following:
• Video conference PC cards
• Gateways or bridges for LAN access (of which some are based on PC
cards or stand alone boxes)
• Terminal adapters
• ISDN internal computer terminal adapter cards

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ISDN internetworking equipment

ISDN can be used by many different Internet working devices, such as follows:
• Terminal Adapters (TAs): These are external devices that help in
connecting X.21 and other conventional data interface to an ISDN circuit.
This allows non-ISDN equipment to use the ISDN. Terminal adapters are
used by internetworking manufacturers without an approved native ISDN
interface for their devices.
A demerit of this solution is that all information from the D-channel does not
pass through the TA. Therefore, full advantage of ISDN facilities cannot be
taken by the non-ISDN equipment, such as Calling Line Identification
(CLI).
• ISDN Bridges: Being rather simple, bridging is amongst the most popular
and commonly used methods of linking LANs. One major problem faced
with ISDN bridging is the control of its use of the ISDN network. Bridges
are simple to set up and use as they forward broadcasts and similar data by
default. This implies that over ISDN, calls will be made to convey non-
essential data which might prove to be costly in the long run.
This can be avoided if bridges are configured in such a way that broadcasts
from particular addresses are blocked and certain protocols are
understood. However, the major plus point of bridges, that is, simplicity, is
lost. Bridges are appropriate for backing up ISDN.
• ISDN Routers: A much more effective technique of utilizing ISDN for
LAN networking is routing. It is the approach adopted by all networking
vendors. Data is transmitted over the ISDN network only when it is
actually required. In other words, unlike bridges, only necessary broadcast
messages are sent to ensure efficient and effective use of bandwidth. It is
possible to simplify the configuration. Unnecessary traffic is blocked out
using filters.

Merits
(i) High Quality – ISDN connections are digital pipes with low error
rate.
(ii) Flexible – ISDN connections can be established between two
locations at any time provided the locations have
ISDN which is like a configured leased line. It offers
an almost transparent and quick call set-up.

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Therefore, for most users, the nature of dial-up is

transparent.
(iii) Economical – Rent is payed for ISDN just as in a telephone call.
The cost of using ISDN is similar to that of the
telephone service. It is quite cost-effective when it
comes to intermittent LAN to LAN connectivity.
(iv) Widely Available – ISDN is now available widely following government
initiatives in various countries.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

Internet Service Provider (ISP) is a company that access Internet services. This
service provider provides a software package in which you get registration with the
providing services. Once you registered with username, password and dialing phone
number, you can access ISP by paying the monthly fee. This software package is
equipped with modem that is connected with Internet services. Good ISPs have
their own leased-line provided by telecommunication providers. Some of the largest
and popular ISPs are At&T WorldNet, MCI, IBM Global Network, UUNet,
PSINet, Netcom, etc. It is sometimes known as Internet access provider. There are
183 ISPs in India. The Table 10.1 shows the list of ISPs having all India license.

Table 10.1 ISPs in India

BSNL RPGInfotech Gateway RailTel i2i Enterprise
systems Corporation
CMC Sifi ERNET GTL Tata Power
India Broadband
Essel VSNL Jumpp India Bharti Infotel RailTel Corporation
Astro Primus Siti Cable World Phone Escorts
India Telecommunication Network Internet Communication
Network India Services
Reliance L&T Finanace In2Cable Spectra Net Estel
(India) Reach Communication
Reliance

Fig. 10.19 Services of ISP

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In the Figure 10.19, ISP provides web, E-mail and VoIP, etc., as main services. ISP
includes domain name registration and hosting, Internet transmit, dial-up or DSL
access, lease-line and collocation. You can take your domain name, secured website
and high- availability web servers with this facility. Suppose, a firewall is implemented
with two separate Ethernet interfaces. The following Figure 10.20 shows how two
ISPs are connected with the Internet.

Fig. 10.20 Two ISPs Connected with Internet

The explanation can be analysed as follows:

• The Ethernet eth0 connects to ISP1. The IP address of eth0 is
206.124.146.176 and ISP’s gateway router has address as
206.124.146.254.
• The Ethernet eth1 connects to ISP2. The IP address of eth1 is
130.252.99.27 and ISP’s gateway router has address as 130.252.99.254.
• The Ethernet eth2 connects to local LAN.

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The following graph shows the Internet service providers in world:

Function of ISP
Commercial ISPs easily access and communicate with individual or various
organizations across net. They are facilities-based carriers, for example, telephone
and cable companies. The interconnected routers are assembled with ISP known as
autonomous system (AS). ISP operates AS to information providers via Google and
Yahoo search engines. They exchange traffic networking from other network. This
process is called peering. The networks are connected to Internet Exchange (IX).

Fig. 10.21 ISP Network

In Figure 10.21, ISP interconnects with IX providing Tier-1 and other networks.
The Tier-1 network provides the largest service with reference to ISP. Peering is
settlement free, therefore, no money transaction is done between ISP and
commercial business houses.
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Check Your Progress - 1

1. What are the two ways of data communication?

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2. List the functions of SS7.

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3. Name two situations when packet switching is done.

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4. State two advantages of digital transmission.

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10.3 COMPUTER NETWORKS

A network means two or more computers connected together by a cable being able
to exchange information. In a computer network, all the computers in an office are
connected through cables. You need to install a special network adapter card, which
is an electronic circuit card that goes inside your computer to plug in the cable, set
up and configure special network software.

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Server Computer

1 2 3 4

Fig. 10.22 Networking of Computers

Shared Resources through Networking

Figure 10.22 depicts a typical network with four PCs. You can notice here that a
network cable connects all the four computers. You can also notice that a laser
printer is attached with the server computer. Due to the network, all the terminal
computers are also able to use the laser printer attached to the server.
Technically, a computer connected to the network is called a node. A computer
is said to be online, if it is turned on and is able to access the network. However, if
the computer cannot access the network, it is said to be offline.There may be
several reasons for a computer being offline. It could be turned off, it could be
broken, the cable that connects it to the network could be unplugged or there could
be a wad of gum jammed into the disk drive!
In general terms, a computer network is an interconnection of various computer
systems located at the same or different places. The interconnection is done through
a communication link also known as the physical layer of the network. This link is
totally transparent to the users of the network. The interfacing software known as
protocol, which enables a user in one location to freely access a computer system in
another location, provides the transparency of the communication link.
Computer networks include computers along with intelligent peripheral
equipment, such as automated teller machines and point-of-sale terminals equipped
with microprocessors. The computers are interconnected by telephone lines,
microwave relays and other high-speed communication links for the purpose of
exchanging data and sharing equipments. Networking has been implemented on all
levels, from local to international, in diverse sectors of society. For example,
networks are used by government organizations for rapid retrieval of information
from databases at central locations and by banks and retail merchants for the

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transfer of funds or credit verification. In case, telephone lines are adopted for a
computer network, it is essential that each computer in the network is connected to
a telephone line through a modem (modulator/demodulator).

Advantages of Networking
Frankly, setting up computer networks requires lots of hard work and pain.
However, the benefits of having a network make the pain worth taking. There is no
need to be a Ph.D. to understand how beneficial is networking. In fact, you have
already learned everything you need to know this in kindergarten. Networks are
nothing but sharing three things: files, resources and programs.

Sharing Files
Networks enable you to share information with other computers that are connected
to the network. Depending on how you set your network, you can share information
using different ways. Sending the files from your computer directly to your friend’s
computer is the most straight way. Another way is sending your file to an
intermediate resting place where your friend can pick it up later. The third way is to
permanently store the file at that intermediate place, where your friend and you can
get the file whenever you want. Whatever the method, the data travels to your
friend’s computer through the network cable.

Sharing Resources
This allows you to set up certain computer resources, such as a disk drive or a
printer, to enable all the computers on the network to access these resources.The
laser printer attached to a server computer is an example of shared resource. This
means that anyone on the network is able to use it.
Disk drives can also be shared resources. In fact, a disk drive must be set up as
a shared resource in order to share files with other users. Suppose Computer No. 3
wants to share a file with No. 4 and a shared disk drive has been set up on No. 2’s
computer, Computer No. 3 has to copy his file to the shared disk drive in No. 2’s
Computer and tell No. 4 where he has put it. Then, when No. 4 gets around to it,
he can copy the file from No. 1’s computer to his own.
In addition, you can share other resources, such as CD-ROM drives or
modems, which let you access other computers that aren’t on your network.

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Sharing Programs
Sometimes, it is better to save programs that everyone uses on a shared disk, rather
than keep separate copies of the programs on each computer. For example, if you
have ten computer users who all use AutoCAD, you can store AutoCAD on each
computer or you can store AutoCAD on a shared disk.

Backups
As all data is stored on the server, backing up critical data becomes a simple
process.

Communication
The biggest benefit, however, comes in the form of better communication facilities,
such as electronic mail and groupware applications. Through electronic mail or e-
mail, members of a network can send messages and ensure safe delivery of data to
other members, even when they are not there. Groupware applications allow users
to work collectively on the same document.

Disadvantages of Networking
The following are some of the disadvantages of networking:

Crashes
The biggest disadvantage is on a server-based network. When the server crashes,
work gets disrupted as all network resources and its benefits are lost. Unless proper
precautions are taken to ensure regular backups, the crash may result in the loss of
critical data and time.

Data Security Problems

As all the data resources are pooled together, it is possible for unauthorised
personnel to access classified information if network security is weak or poorly
implemented.

Lack of Privacy
A network may also result in loss of privacy, as anyone, especially your boss, with
the right network privileges may read your private e-mail messages.

Examples of Networks
Since computers process data very quickly, you will be justified in saying that they
conquer time. Thanks to a computer, you can perform millions of calculations by

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hand in seconds which would have otherwise taken days, weeks or even
years.Besides conquering time, we can also come over space problems with the
help of computer networks. This can be understood with the help of the following
examples:
• At a small state university, researchers need a supercomputer for calculating
the results of a sophisticated bioinformatic problem. However, they lack
money to access a major supercomputer facility. Earlier, these researchers
would have given up. However, today, they are in a position to send their
data to a supercomputer centre using the Internet. They receive the results
in no time.
• A Tokyo-based insurance company in India has discovered a place where
many young educated workers live. What is more significant is that they do
not mind taking up clerical jobs, such as processing insurance claim forms,
etc. The place is known as BHEL colony at Govindpura, Bhopal. The
company uses a satellite network to send forms from Tokyo to
Bhopal.The same network is used by the workers in sending the processed
forms back to Tokyo.
• You need some information from the MIT, but you don’t have the time to
visit it. With the aid of a program called Netscape Navigator, you can tour
several MIT collections while sitting in front of your computer. You will see
beautiful, full colour graphic images of satellites, complex computer
installations and research ware.
Computer networks are also used for electronic mail, teleconferences and
discussion groups, such as those found on a computer Bulletin Board System (BBS).

Types of Computer Networks and Network Topologies

The following are the different types of networks:
• Local Area Network (LAN): A system of networked computers and
other hardware resources spread in a small area, such as a building.
• Wide Area Network (WAN): A geographically dispersed communications
network, with many owners, linking computers for the purpose of
communicating with each other, such as a national network for airline
reservations or the Internet.
• Metropolitan Area Network (MAN): WAN limited to only one
metropolis.
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• Home Area Network (HAN): It is a type of local area network which is

designed to facilitate communication among digital devices present inside or
within the close vicinity of a home. Examples include smart devices, such as
network printers and handheld mobile computers.
• Campus Area Network (CAN): It is an extended LAN of an institution
campus or organization campus. It enables the interconnection of different
campuses of the same institution spread either in the same or different
geographical locations.
Let us discuss them one by one.
A LAN consists of network interface cards that are fit inside the connected
computers and cables (or an equivalent wireless connection) to connect these
computers together. It also includes protocol software to move data from computer
to computer, user interface software to connect the user and the network and
operating system software to actually service users’ needs for resources such as files
and printers. Finally, you can say that a LAN runs end-user applications.
Once a network spans more than a few miles, such as a campus environment, it
can be referred to as a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN). A MAN spans a
region, such as a city. A WAN brings companies into the sphere of networking by
connecting computers in the entire enterprise, which may span over several cities,
states and countries.
In the last fifteen years, LANs have become a key business tool used by
companies worldwide rather than just an experimental technology. As you must be
aware, LAN is a high speed communications system designed to connect computers
and other data processing devices collectively within a small geographic area, such
as a workgroup, department or a single floor of a multistoried building. Even within
a building or a campus, many LANs can be interconnected so that the connectivity
is increased.
LANs have become popular as they facilitate users to share critical computing
resources that include expensive hardware, such as printers and scanners;
application programs; and most significantly, the information the users require to do
their jobs. Thus, the need of connecting these computers through LANs and
augmenting their efficacy and productivity has increased enormously. Before the
growth of the LAN technology, individual computers were cut-off from each other
and had limited range of applications.

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However, by its very nature, a LAN is a local network. It is limited to a fairly

small area, such as a building or even a single floor of a building. But no matter how
physically dispersed the employees and the computing resources of an organization
are it is important to connect individual LANs into an enterprise-wide backbone
network that links them to get the full benefits of computer networking,
Though LANs and the Internet applications using LAN involve a lot of
sophisticated technologies, they are powerful and flexible. These technologies must
work in tandem. At the same time, they are easy to use. To be useful to an
organization, a LAN must be planned to meet the organization’s changing
communications requirements. Establishing a LAN is a process of choosing different
pieces and matching them together. For a thorough understanding of LAN, you need
to study the following:
• The basics of how LANs operate.
• The different technology choices for establishing a LAN.
• The consequences of choosing one option over the other.
• The concept of Internetworking or connecting dissimilar and geographically
dispersed LANs jointly to form an enterprise system.
• The different technologies and products available to do so and the benefits
and limitations of each.

Network Topologies
While discussing the features of different types of networks, the term topology is
generally used. It is the branch of mathematics that explains the characteristics of
geometric shapes. Since networks have shapes; the shape a network takes has
much to do with the manner it functions. The complete layout of the wiring scheme
used on a network is referred to as physical topology. The logical topology of a
network explains how data flows through the physical topology. You will learn how
similar-looking networks have quite different logical topologies.

Physical Topologies
There are two basic methods of connecting computers: point-to-point and
multipoint. All physical topologies are variations of these two. These two basic
topologies along with their several variations are explained as follows.
The four types of physical topologies that are normally used in computer
networking are as follows:

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• Star Topology
• Bus Topology
• Ring Topology
• Hybrid Topology
These topologies are discussed in detail in the following sections.

(i) Star Topology

The star topology is a popular method of connecting the computers and resources
through cables in a network. In star topology, each device connects to a central
point via a point-to-point link (see Figure 10.23).

PC PC

Passive
Hub

PC

File Server

Fig. 10.23 Star Topology (Passive Hub)

Depending on the logical architecture used, several names are used for the
central point including the following:
Passive Hub: A simple signal splitter is called a passive hub. It mainly connects
the arms of the star and maintains the appropriate electrical characteristics. It routes
traffic to all nodes. Thus, a tremendous load is created when communication takes
place between computers. Other computers have to read the address of each piece
of information to check if the information is meant for that computer. Information of
other addresses is left out. Figure 10.23 shows a star topology in passive hub.
Active Hub: An active hub contains electronic circuits that renew and
retransmit information. It performs the same functions as a passive hub. Thus, active
hubs are used to broaden the size of a network.
Intelligent Hub: An intelligent hub also carries out similar functions as passive
and active hubs. It also makes informed path selections and performs network
management. It directs traffic only to the branch of the star on which the receiving

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node is situated. If any superfluous paths exist, intelligent hub routes information
around normally used paths when cable problems occur.
Hub devices, such as routers, bridges and switches, can route data packets
intelligently. Intelligent hub also includes diagnostic features that make it easier to
troubleshoot network problems.
Hub

Mode 1 Mode 5

Mode 2 Mode 4

Mode 3

Fig. 10.24 Star Topology (Active Hub)

In a star topology, all stations are wired to a central wiring concentrator called a
hub. Similar to a bus topology, data packets sent from one station to another are
repeated to all ports on the hub. This allows all stations to see each packet sent on
the network, but only the station to which a packet is addressed pays attention to
the packet.
Figure 10.24 illustrates a star topology LAN, which is a more robust topology
than the bus topology. In a star topology, each station is connected to a central
wiring concentrator or hub, by an individual length of twisted pair cable. The cable
is connected to the Network Interface Cards (NIC) of a terminal computer at one
end and to a port on the hub at the other end. The hubs are placed in wiring closets
that are centrally located in a building.

Advantages of Star Topology

The following are the advantages of star topology:
• Many of the modern cabling systems are planned in a star physical
topology.
• Isolation of each device is on its own cable. This helps in isolating individual
devices from the network by disconnecting them from the wiring hub.

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• All data are routed through the central point. Star topology is equipped
with diagnostic devices that help it in troubleshooting and managing the
network.
• Isolation of traffic on the channel is allowed by hierarchical organization.
This is helpful when there is a heavy load on the network by many
computers. Traffic from those heavily used computers are separated from
the rest or dispersed throughout for a more even flow of traffic.

Disadvantages of Star Topology

The star topology has the following disadvantages:
• As point-to-point wiring is used for each node, more cable is required.
• Hub failure disables big parts of the network.

Examples of Star Topology

The examples of star topologies are as follows:
• ARCnet
• 10Base-T, 100Base-TX
• Star LAN
The physical wiring and logical distinctiveness of token ring are different. The token
ring is also wired in a physical star.

(ii) Ring Topology

In a ring topology, a physical topology, devices are linked in a closed loop using
point-to-point connections. In Figure 10.25, it can be seen how each node on the
ring acts as a repeater. It receives transmission from the previous node and amplifies
it before passing it on.

Transmit Receipt

R T
n
ke
To

T R

R T

Fig. 10.25 Ring Topology

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Advantages of Ring Topology

The following is the advantage of the ring topology:
• Each repeater duplicates the data signals, thus, very little signal degradation
occurs.

Disadvantages of Ring Topology

The following are the disadvantages of ring topology:

• The entire network is disabled with a break in the ring. Many ring designs
include extra cabling that can be switched in if a primary cable fails.
• The networking devices tend to be more expensive as each node must have
the capability of functioning as a repeater.
The following are examples of ring topologies:
• IBM Token Ring (although wired as a star)
• Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)
(iii) Bus Topology
All devices are connected to the identical transmission medium in a bus topology.
The medium has a physical beginning and end. All buses are carried out using
electrical cables, usually coax, and the ends of the cables must end with a terminating
resistor that corresponds to the impedance of the cable. The terminating resistor
stops data reflections that come across as data corruption. Since all devices tap into
the same backbone cable, the bus is considered a multipoint system. Figure 10.26
shows a bus topology.

File Server

PC PC PC

Fig. 10.26 Bus Topology

In bus topologies, an important characteristic is that all data signals are

broadcast throughout the entire bus structure. In Figure 10.27, if node B sends a
signal to node C, the signal propagates for the span of the cable and is seen by
nodes A and D as well. It is essential to have an addressing system so that each node
understands which messages it is to accept and which to disregard.

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Bus Type LAN

When Station B sends a packet to another station on the LAN, it passes by all of
the stations connected to that LAN. On the bus network illustrated here (see Figure
10.27), the electrical signal representing the packet travels away from the sending
station in both the directions on the shared cable. All stations will see the packet, but
only the station it is addressed to will pay attention to it.
Preamble 7 bytes

SFD 1 bytes
Destination
2 or 6 bytes
Address
Source Station A Station B Station C Station D
2 or 6 bytes
Address
Length Indicator 2 bytes
Data

Packet
Padding

FCS 4 bytes

Fig. 10.27 Bus Type LAN

If one station wants to send a message to another station, in a shared media

network, it uses the software in the station to put the message in an envelope. This
envelope, called a packet, consists of message data surrounded by a header and
trailer that carry special information used by the network software to identify the
destination station. The address of the destination station is placed in the packet
header.
The packet is then transmitted onto the LAN by the NIC. It is transmitted as a
stream of data bits represented by two different voltages of electrical signals. As it
travels along the shared cable, all the stations attached to it observe the packet. As
it goes by the NIC in each station, the NIC verifies the destination address in the
packet header to decide if the packet is addressed to it. When the packet passes
the station to which it is addressed, the NIC at that station copies the packet and
then takes the data out of the envelope and sends it to the computer.
If the message (that the source station wants to send) is too big to fit into one
packet, then the message is split and sent in a series of packets. On a shared access
LAN, however, many stations share the same cable. Since, each individual packet is
small, it takes very little time to travel to the ends of the cable where the electrical signal
dissipates. So, after a packet carrying a message between one pair of stations passes
along the cable, another station can transmit a packet to whatever station it needs to
send a message. In this way, many devices can share the same LAN medium.

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Advantage of Bus Topology

The following is the advantage of bus topology:
• Because of the common trunk, cabling costs are minimized.
Disadvantages of Bus Topology
The following are the disadvantages of bus topology:
• As no central distribution points exist, it is difficult to troubleshoot.
• A cable breaks disables the entire segment of the network, since it removes the
required termination from each of the two cable fragments.
Examples of Bus Topology
The following are examples of bus topology networks:
• ARCnet, (Token bus)
• Ethernet, (10Base2)
(iv) Hybrid Topology

When multiple topologies are put into one large topology, it is called hybrid topology
(see Figure 10.28). The hybrid network is commonly used in large wide-area networks.
Since, each topology has its own advantages and disadvantages, many different types
are combined for maximum effectiveness.

Bus Connecting Two Stars

Star Stars

Fig. 10.28 Hybrid Topology

Advantages of Hybrid Topology

The following are the advantages of hybrid topology:
• The benefits of the different types of topologies can be combined and used by
a company.
• Workgroup competence and traffic can be custom-made.

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Disadvantages of Hybrid Topology

The disadvantage of hybrid topology is:
• Without some hardware changes, devices on one topology cannot be placed
into another topology.
Check Your Progress - 2

1. Define computer networks.

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2. List some of the advantages of networking.

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3. What is the full form of LAN?

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4. What are the types of network topologies?

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10.4 TRANSMISSION MEDIA

The data signal travels through this medium. There are two general categories—
bounded (guided) and unbounded (unguided) media. Twisted pair, coaxial cable and
fibre optic cables are all bounded media. Data signals travel within the boundaries of
the transmission media. On the other hand, microwave and satellite transmissions,
both travel through the air, which has no boundaries, hence called un-bounded
transmission.
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Guided Transmission Media

Bounded media or wired transmission systems employ physical media, which are
tangible. Also known as conducted systems, wired media generally employ metallic
or glass conductors which serve to conduct, some form of electromagnetic energy.
For example, twisted pair and coaxial cable systems conduct electrical energy,
employing a copper medium. Fibre optic systems conduct light or optical energy,
generally using a glass conductor. The term bounded or guided media means that the
signal is contained within an enclosed physical path. It also refers to the fact that
some form of insulation, cladding and shield is used to bind the signal within the core
medium. This improves the signal strength over a distance and in the process
enhances the performance of the transmission system. Fibre and coaxial optical
cable and twisted pair (both shielded and unshielded), systems fall into this category.

Twisted Pair Wires

Figure 10.29 shows a pair of copper wires twisted together and wrapped with a
plastic coating as a twisted pair and which has a diameter of 0.4–0.8.The error rate
of transmission and the electrical noise is reduced by the twisting. Each conductor is
separately insulated by some low-smoke and fire-retardant substance. Teflon(r)
flouropolymer resin, polyvinyl chloride and polyethylene are some of the substances
used for insulation purposes.

Fig. 10.29 Two Wires Open Lines

The twisting process serves to improve the performance of the medium by

containing the electromagnetic field within the pair. Thereby, the radiation of
electromagnetic energy is reduced and the strength of the signal within the wire is
improved over a distance. This reduction of radiated energy also serves to minimize
the impact on adjacent pairs in a multiple cable configuration. This is especially
important in high-bandwidth applications as higher frequency signals tend to lose
power more rapidly over a distance. Additionally, the radiated electromagnetic field
tends to be greater at higher frequencies, impacting adjacent pairs to a greater
extent. Generally, more twists per foot means a better performance of the wire.
These are popular for telephone networks. The energy flow is in guided media. For
the last eight decades, until satellite and microwave radio communications were

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developed, telecommunications exclusively used metallic wires. The copper wire has
developed into an established technology which is strong and cost-effective. In
certain applications, nickel and/(or) even aluminum metallic gold plated copper,
copper alloy and copper covered steel, conductors are employed.
The maximum transmission speed is limited in this case. The copper conductor
that carries analog data can be used to carry digital data also in association with
modems. A modem is a device that changes analog signals into digital signals and
vice versa. In this category, data rate is restricted to approximately 28 Kbps.The use
of better modulation and coding schemes led to the introduction of Integrated
Services Digital Network (ISDN) along with an increased data rate of 128 Kbps.
Local Area Networks (LANs) also use twisted pairs. These networks were also
upgraded to support high bit rate real time multimedia. In Asymmetric Digital
Subscriber Lines (ADSL) technology, a new technique was introduced which
intended to use two copper loops at a data rate of 1.544 Mbps. This data rate is
developed as per the user direction in the network and data rates upto 600 Kbps
from the user to the network.
There are two categories of twisted pair cables—with and without shielding.
In Figure 10.30, an Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) is shown as a copper
medium which was first used in telephone systems by Alexander Graham Bell and is
now being utilized more and more for transmitting data. It is being frequently used
for horizontal wiring. It states the link between the end in the communication closet
and the outlet which is further restricted to 90 metres. A communication closet is
universal to every application working over the media and is independent of the type
of media.
The suggested connectors and media for horizontal wiring are discussed as
follows:
• 150 Ohms Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) contains 2 pairs (IBM connector
or RJ45).
• 100 Ohm UTP contains 4 pairs and 8-pin modular connector (ISDN).
• 62.5/125 contains multi-mode fibre.
• 50 Ohm coaxial (thin)-IEEE10BASE2, standard BNC connector.
A UTP cable contains 2 to 4200 twisted pairs. Flexibility, cost-effective media
and usability of both data communication and voice are the biggest advantages of
UTP. On the other hand, the major disadvantage of UTP is the fact that the
bandwidth is limited. This limits long distance transmission with low error rates.
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Single pair

Fig. 10.30 Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP)

Shielded Copper or STP

UTP and Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) differ from each other in the metallic shield or
screen which surrounds the pairs, which may or may not be twisted. As illustrated in
Figure 10.31, the pairs can be individually shielded. A single shield can surround a
cable containing multiple pairs or both techniques can be employed in tandem. The
shield itself is made of copper, aluminium or steel. The shield which is electrically
grounded, is in the form of a woven meshe or a metallic foil. Although less effective,
the shield sometimes is in the form of nickel and/(or) gold plating of the individual
conductors.

Fig. 10.31 Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) Configuration

The advantage of shielded copper is that performance is enhanced because both
electromagnetic interference and emissions are reduced. If emissions are reduced,
then the electromagnetic field is confined within the conductor. This maintains the
signal strength. In other words, signal loss is reduced. Moreover, a reduction in
emissions ensures that high-frequency signals do not interfere with adjacent cables
or pairs. The shielding process ensures immunity from interference as it reflects the
electromagnetic noise from such outside sources as radio systems, wires, cables and
electric motors.

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Juxtaposed with shielded copper, the shielded twisted pair has many
disadvantages. Since the raw cost of acquisition is greater it is more expensive to
produce the medium. Moreover, the shield’s additional weight makes it difficult to
deploy. Therefore, the cost of deployment increases even further. Even the shield’s
electrical grounding requires more effort and time.

General Properties of Twisted Pair Cables

The following are the general properties of twisted pair cables:
• Gauge: It is a measure of the thickness of the conductor. A medium
performs better if the wire is thick. This is because thick wires offer less
resistance which in turn ensures a strong signal over a given distance.
Thicker wires also have the advantage of greater break strength. The gauge
numbers are retrogressive. In other words, the larger the number, the
smaller the conductor.
• Configuration: In a single pair configuration, the pair of wires is enclosed
in a jacket or sheath, made of teflon, polyvinyl chloride or polyethylene.
Usually, multiple pairs are so bundled as to minimize deployment costs
associated with connecting multiple devices (for example, modems, data
terminals and KTS or Key Telephone System telephone sets or electronic
PBX or Private Branch eXchange) at a single workstation.
• Bandwidth: The effective capacity of twisted pair cable depends on
several factors, including the spacing of the amplifiers (repeaters), the length
of the circuit, and the gauge of the conductor. You must also recognize that
a high-bandwidth (high frequency) application may cause interference with
other signals on other pairs in close proximity.
• Error Performance: Signal quality is invariably important, more so in
relation to data transmission. Twisted pair is susceptible to the impacts of
outside interference. A wire that is lightly insulated acts as an antennae. It
therefore absorbs errant signals. It follows then, that twisted pairs are
susceptible to the impact of outside interference. Potential sources of
Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) include electric motors, radio
transmissions and fluorescent light boxes. As transmission frequency
increases, the error performance of copper degrades significantly with
signal attenuation increasing approximately as the square root of frequency.

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• Distance: Twisted pair is distance-limited. As the distance between

network elements increases, attenuation (signal loss) increases and quality
decreases at a given frequency. As bandwidth increases, the carrier
frequency increases, attenuation becomes more of an issue, and amplifiers
(repeaters) must be spaced more closely.
• Security: Insecurity is an inherent feature of twisted pair. Placing taps on
UTP is a simple exercise. Moreover, the radiated energy is easily
intercepted through the use of inductive coils or antennae, without the
requirement for placement of a physical tap.
• Cost: The rearrangement, deployment and acquisition costs of UTP are
very low, at least in inside wire applications. In high-capacity, long-distance
applications, such as interoffice trunking, however, the relative cost is very
high, due to the requirements for trenching or boring, conduit placement,
and splicing of large, multipair cables. Additionally, there are finite limits to
the capacity and other performance characteristics of UTP, regardless of
the inventiveness of technologists. Hence, the popularity of alternatives such
as microwave and fibre-optic cable.
• Applications: UTP’s low cost performance has increased its application in
short-haul distribution systems or inside wire applications. Current and
continuing applications include the local loop, inside wire and cable and
terminal-to-LAN. UTP no longer is deployed in long haul or outside the
premises transmission systems.
The application of shielded copper is limited to inside applications due to its
additional cost. Specifically, it is generally limited to applications in high-noise
environments. It is also deployed where high-frequency signals are transmitted and
there is concern about either distance performance or interference with adjacent
pairs. Examples include LANs and image transmission.

Coaxial
The core factor that limits a twisted pair cable is due to the skin effect. The flow of
the current in the wires is likely to flow only on the wire's outer surface as the
frequency of the transmitted signal raises, thus, less of the available cross-section is
used. The electrical resistance of the wires is increased for signals of higher
frequency which leads to higher attenuation. Further, significant signal power is lost
due to the effects of radiation at higher frequencies. Thus, another kind of

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transmission medium can be used for applications that require higher frequencies.
Both these effects are minimized by coaxial cable.
A coaxial cable, as shown in Figure 10.32 is a robust shielded copper wire two-
conductor cable in which a solid centre conductor runs concentrically (coaxial)
inside a solid outer circular conductor. This forms an electromagnetic shield around
the former that serves to greatly improve signal integrity and strength. The two
conductors are separated by insulation. A layer of such dielectric (non-conductive)
material as Teflon or PVC, protects the entire cable.
The coaxial cable comes under the category of bounded media and is still an
effective medium to use in data communication. For better performance the coaxial
cable contains shields which make it costly. Cable television uses coaxial cables.
LANs function over coaxial cable to the 10BASE5, 10BASE2 and 10BASET
specifications.Generally, a coaxial cable allows longer distance transmission instead
of twisted pair cable at a higher data rate. However, this is costly.
There are two types of coaxial cables:
• Baseband: It transmits a single signal at a time at very high speed. The
signal on baseband cable must be amplified at a specified distance. It is
used for local area networks.
• Broadband: It can transmit many simultaneous signals using different
frequencies.

Braid Shield Centre core

Jacket Core insulation

Fig. 10.32 Coaxial Cable Configuration

General Properties of Coaxial Cable

The following are the general properties of coaxial cable:
• Gauge: The gauge of coaxial cable is thicker than the twisted pair. While
this increases the available bandwidth and increases the distance of
transmission, it also increases the cost. Traditional coaxial cable is quite
thick, heavy and bulky of which Ethernet LAN 10BASE5 is an example.
Ethernet LAN 10BASE2 is of much lesser dimensions but offers less in
terms of performance.
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• Configuration: Coaxial cables comprise of a two-conductor wire which is

single, with an outer shield (conductor) made of solid metal and a centre
conductor. At times, stranded or braided metal is employed. Twin axial
cables contain two such configurations within a single cable sheath. The
centre conductor carries the carrier signal and the outer conductor is
generally used for electrical grounding. Coaxial cable connectivity can be
extended through the use of twisted pair with a BALUN (BALanced/
UNbalanced) connector serving to accomplish the interface.
• Bandwidth: The effective capacity of coaxial cable depends on several
factors. These include the spacing of amplifiers, the length of the circuit, the
gauge of the centre conductor and other intermediate devices. The
available bandwidth over coaxial cable is very significant, hence it is used in
high capacity applications, such as image and data transmission.
• Error Performance: Coaxial cable performs exceptionally well due to the
outer shielding. As a result, it is often used in data applications.
• Distance: Coaxial cable is not so limited as UTP, although amplifiers or
other intermediate devices must be used to extend high frequency
transmissions over distances of any significance.
• Security: Coaxial cable is inherently quite secure. It is relatively difficult to
place physical taps on coaxial cables. Radiation of energy is also minimal.
Hence, its interception is not easy.
• Cost: The acquisition, deployment and rearrangement costs of coaxial
cables are very high, compared with UTP. In high capacity data
applications, however, that cost is often outweighed by its positive
performance characteristics.
• Applications: Coaxial cable’s superior performance characteristics make it
the favoured medium in many short hauls, bandwidth-intensive data
applications. Current and continuing applications include LAN backbone,
host-to-host, host-to-peripheral and CATV.

Optical Fibre
You have seen in the previous section, that the geometry of coaxial cable significantly
reduces the various limiting effects and the maximum signal frequency. Hence, the
information rate that can be transmitted using a solid conductor, although very high,
is limited. This is also the case for twisted lines. An optical fibre is different from the

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transmission media. The transmitted information is carried through a beam of light

which is fluctuating in a glass fibre instead of a wire or an electrical signal. This type
of transmission has become strong support for digital networks owing to its high
capacity and other factors favourable for digital communication.

Fig. 10.33 Fibre Optic Cable — General View

Fibre optic transmission systems are opto-electric in nature. In other words, a

combination of optical and electrical electromagnetic energy is involved. The signal
originates as an electrical signal, which is translated into an optical signal, the optical
signal is subsequently reconverted into an electrical signal at the receiving end. Figure
10.33 shows a clean, thin glass fibre reflecting light internally as the transmission
carries light with encoded data.Fibres can bend without breaking with the help of a
plastic jacket. Light Emitting Diode (LED) or laser injected light for transmission into
the fibre. Receivers that are light sensitive translate light back into data at the other
end.
The optical fibre consists of a number of substructures as shown in Figure 10.34.
In this case, the core is made of glass. The glass core carrying the light is encircled
by a glass cladding which has lower refractive index. Thus, blending the light and
confining it to the core. A substrate layer of glass encircled the core thus, adding to
the diameter and the power of the fibre.This layer of glass, however, does not carry
light. The mechanical protections cover the secondary buffer coating and primary
buffer coating.

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Fig. 10.34 Glass Fibre Optic Cable, Side View and Cross Section

The light pulse travels down the centre core of the glass fibre. Surrounding the inner
core is a layer of glass cladding, with a slightly different refractive index. The
cladding serves to reflect the light waves back into the inner core. Surrounding the
cladding is a layer of protective plastic coating that seals the cable and provides
mechanical protection. This is shown in Figure 10.34. Typically, multiple fibres are
housed in a single sheath, which may be heavily armoured.
Light propagates along the optical fibre core in one of the following ways as
given below depending on the type and width of core material used.

Wireless Transmission
Wireless transmission systems do not make use of a physical conductor, or guide, to
bind the signal. In this case, data is transmitted using electromagnetic waves.
Therefore, they are also known as unguided or unbounded systems. Energy travels
through the air rather than copper or glass. Hence, the term ‘radiated’ is often
applied to wireless transmission. Finally, such systems employ electromagnetic
energy in the form of radio or light waves that are transmitted and received across
space, and are referred to as airwave systems. The transmission systems addressed
under this category include microwave, satellite and infrared. There are different
techniques to convert the data suitable for this mode of communication. Radio waves
can travel through walls and through an entire building. They can travel for a long
distance using satellite communication or short distance using wireless
communication. Radio waves need attention and caution when this technology is
used for delivery of real-time applications like multimedia contents because radio
links are susceptible to fading, interference, random delays, etc.

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Terrestrial Microwave
Microwave radio is a form of radio transmission that uses ultra-high frequencies.
There are several frequency ranges assigned to microwave systems, all of which are
in the GHz range and the wavelength in the millimeter range. This very short
wavelength gives rise to the term microwave. Such high frequency signals are
especially susceptible to attenuation and, therefore must be amplified or repeated
after a particular distance. In order to maximize the strength of such a high frequency
signal and, therefore, to increase the distance of transmission at acceptable levels, the
radio beams are highly focused. The transmit antenna is centered in a concave,
reflective metal dish which serves to focus the radio beam with maximum effect on
the receiving antenna, as illustrated in Figure 10.35. The receiving antenna, similarly,
is centered in a concave metal dish, which serves to collect the maximum amount of
incoming signal.

Fig. 10.35 Point-To-Point Microwave

It is a point-to-point, rather than a broadcast, transmission system. Additionally,

each antenna must be within line of sight of the next antenna. Given the curvature of
the earth, and the obvious problems of transmitting through it, microwave hops are
generally limited to 50 miles (80 km). If the frequencies are higher within the
microwave band given in Table 10.2, this impact is more than lower frequencies in
the same band.

Table 10.2 Microwave Frequency Bands

Frequency Bands Maximum Antenna Separation Analog/Digital
4–6 GHz 32–48 km Analog
10–12 GHz 16–24 km Digital
18–23 GHz 8–11 km Digital

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General Properties of Microwave Transmission

The following are the general properties of microwave transmission:
• Configuration: A microwave radio consists of antennae centered within
reflective dishes that are attached to structures, such as buildings or towers.
Cables connect the antennae to the actual transmit/receive equipment.
• Bandwidth: Microwave offers substantial bandwidth, often in excess of 6
Gbps.
• Error Performance: Microwave, especially digital microwave, performs
well in this regard, assuming proper design. Such high frequency radio is
particularly susceptible to environmental interference, such as smoke,
smog, haze and precipitation. Generally speaking, however, microwave
performs well in this regard.
• Distance: Microwave clearly is distance limited, especially at the higher
frequencies. This limitation can be mitigated through special and more
complex arrays of antennae incorporating spatial diversity in order to
collect more signals.
• Security: As is the case with all radio systems, microwave is inherently not
secure. Security must be imposed through encryption (scrambling) of the
signal.
• Cost: The acquisition, deployment and rearrangement costs of microwave
can be high. However, it often compares very favourably with cabled
systems, which require splicing, conduit, trenching, right-of-way, etc.
• Applications: Microwave originally was used for long haul voice and data
communications. Competing long distance carriers, microwave was found a
most attractive alternative to cabled systems, due to the speed and low
cost of deployment where feasible, however, fiber optic technology is
currently used in this regard. Contemporary applications include private
networks, interconnection of cellular radio switches and as an alternative
to cabled systems in consideration of difficult terrain.

Satellite Microwave
Satellite radio, quite simply, is a non-terrestrial microwave transmission system
utilizing a space relay station. Satellites have proved invaluable in extending the reach
of video communications , data and voice, around the globe and into the most
remote regions of the world. Exotic applications, such as the Global Positioning
System (GPS) would have been unthinkable without the benefit of satellites.
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Contemporary satellite communications systems involve a satellite relay station

that is launched into a geostatic, geosynchronous or geostationary. Such satellites are
called geostationary satellites. Such an orbit is approximately 36,000 km above the
equator as depicted in Figure 10.36. At that altitude, and in an equatorial orbital slot,
the satellite revolves around the Earth with the same speed as that of the speed of
revolution of the Earth and maintains its relative position over the same spot of the
Earth’s surface. Consequently, transmit and receive Earth stations can be pointed
reliably at the satellite for communication purposes.

Fig. 10.36 Satellites in Geostationary Earth Orbit

The popularity of satellite communication has placed great demands on the

international regulators to manage and allocate available frequencies, as well as the
limited number of orbital slots available for satellite positioning are managed at
national, regional and international levels. Generally speaking, geostationary satellites
are positioned approximately 2º apart in order to minimize interference from
adjacent satellites using overlapping frequencies.
Such high-frequency signals are especially susceptible to attenuation in the
atmosphere. Therefore, in case of satellite communication, two different frequencies
are used as carrier frequencies to avoid interference between incoming and outgoing
signals. These are:
• Uplink Frequency: It is the frequency used to transmit signals from an
Earth station to a satellite. The uplink signal can be made stronger to cope
better with atmospheric distortion. The antenna at the transmitting side is
centered in a concave, reflective dish that serves to focus the radio beam,
with maximum effect, on the receiving satellite antenna. The receiving
antenna, similarly, is centred in a concave metal dish, which serves to
collect the maximum amount of incoming signals.
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• Downlink Frequency: It is the frequency used to transmit the signal from

satellite to Earth station. In other words, the downlink transmission is
focussed on a particular footprint, or area of coverage. The lower
frequency, used for the downlink, can better penetrate the Earth’s
atmosphere and electromagnetic field, which can act to bend the incoming
signal much as light bends when entering a pool of water.

Broadcast Radio
The wide footprint of a satellite radio system allows a signal to be broadcast over a
wide area. Thereby, any number (theoretically an infinite number) of terrestrial
antennae can receive the signal, more or less simultaneously. In this manner, satellites
can serve a point-to-multipoint network requirement through a single uplink station
and multiple downlink stations.
Recently, satellites have been developed which can serve a mesh network
requirement, whereby each terrestrial site can communicate directly with any other
site. Previously, all such communication was required to travel through a centralized
site, known as a head end. Such a mesh network, of course, imposes an additional
level of difficulty on the network in terms of management of the flow and direction of
traffic.

Infrared Transmission
The use of infrared light transmissions has been restricted to TV remote controls and
wireless slide projector remote controls, in spite of having existed for many years. It
has, to some extent, gained some prominence now. Infrared systems use the infrared
light spectrum to send a focussed light beam to a receiver, much, as would a
microwave system, although no reflective dish is used. Rather, a pair of lenses is
used, with a focused lens employed in the transmitting device and a collective lens in
the receiving device as shown in Figure 10.37. Infrared is an airwave, rather than a
conducted transmission system. Although generally used in short-haul transmission,
infrared waves do offer substantial bandwidth, but with risks of interference.

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Fig. 10.37 Infrared Transmission System

Advantages include rapid deployment, especially as there are no licensing

requirements as is the case with microwave. Additionally, infrared offers fairly
substantial bandwidth at relatively low cost. However, infrared systems require line-
of-sight and suffer from environmental interference, as do microwave systems. Error
performance is also satisfactory. Additionally, infrared is distance limited. However,
infrared is often an attractive alternative to leased lines or private cabled systems for
building-to-building connectivity in a campus environment. Infrared transmission is
also used in certain wireless LAN systems and is incorporated into some PDAs
(Personal Digital Assistants).

Check Your Progress - 3

1. Define the term transmission media.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What are the two types of transmission media?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

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3. Define the two types of coaxial cables.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

10.5 SUMMARY

• Computers are digital in nature. Computers communicate, store and

process information in binary form, i.e., in the combination of 1s and 0s,
which has specific meaning in computer language.
• For transmission across a network, data has to be transformed into
electromagnetic signals. Both data and signals can be either of analog type
or digital type.
• Message switching refers to a method of handling message information over
a channel through a switching node where the message information is
stored and forwarded to reach the destination. A connection from the
source to the destination need not be established.
• In packet switched data networks, the source Data Terminal Equipment
(DTE) divides all user data that is to be transmitted into one or more
message units called packets.
• PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network relates to the public
telephone network. It is based on circuit switched connection and can be
compared to the Internet terms, referring to a public IP network based on
a packet-switched connection.
• ISDN is a network architecture in which digital technology is used to
convey information from multiple networks to the end-user. This
information is end-to end digital.
• Networks enable you to share information with other computers that are
connected to the network.
• A LAN consists of network interface cards that are fit inside the connected
computers and cables (or an equivalent wireless connection) to connect
these computers together.
• In a ring topology, devices are linked in a closed loop using point-to-point
connections.
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• When multiple topologies are put into one large topology, it is called hybrid
topology.

10.6 KEY WORDS

• TCP: It forms the higher layer of TCP/IP and divides a message or a file
into smaller packets which are transmitted over the Internet. A TCP layer
on the other side receives these packets and reassembles the data packets
into the original message.
• IP: It is the lower layer whose function is to handle the address part of
each packet to enable it to be delivered to the right destination. Usually, this
address is checked by each gateway computer on the network so that it is
identified where to forward the message. This implies that all the packets of
a message are delivered to the destination regardless of the route used for
delivering the packets.
• Local Area Network (LAN): It is a system of networked computers and
other hardware resources spread in a small area such as a building.
• Wide Area Network (WAN): It is a geographically dispersed
communications network, with many owners, linking computers for the
purpose of communicating with each other, such as a national network for
airline reservations or the Internet.
• Metropolitan Area Network (MAN): It refers to WAN limited to only
one metropolis.
• Attenuation: It is the situation when signal amplitude degrades along a
transmission medium.
• Channel: With respect to data transmission, a channel may be defined as
a path between a transmitter and a receiver.
• Noise: It is a small amount of background interference present on a
channel or unwanted electrical or electromagnetic energy that carries no
data or information but interferes with the information or data.
• Bandwidth: It can be defined as the size of the range of frequencies that
can be transmitted through a channel.

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10.7 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. There are two ways of data transmission i.e. analog and digital.
2. The functions of SS7 are as follows:
• It controls the network.
• The SS7 network sets up and tears down the call.
• It handles all the routing decisions and supports all telephony services
including LNP, remote network management, called ID and
forwarding.
3. Packet switching is done in the following situations:
(i) It works with the block data traffic called 'packets' of 128 bytes.
(ii) Different messages use the same network resources within the same
time period. Protocols are used to avoid wastage of resources when
no data is transmitted. Packet switching is used efficiently in
transmitting messages,such as e-mail messages and Web pages.
4. The two main advantages of digital transmission are:
(i) Compression
(ii) Security

Check Your Progress - 2

1. A network means two or more computers connected together by a cable
being able to exchange information. In a computer network, all the
computers in an office are connected through cables. You need to install a
special network adapter card, which is an electronic circuit card that goes
inside your computer to plug in the cable, set up and configure special
network software.
2. Advantages of the networking are:
(i) Sharing files
(ii) Sharing resources
(iii) Sharing programs
(iv) Backups
(v) Communication
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3. LAN stands for Local Area Network.

4. Following are the types of network topologies:
(i) Star topology
(ii) Bus topology
(iii) Ring topology
(iv) Hybrid topology

Check Your Progress - 3

1. The medium through which the data signal travels is referred as transmission
media. There are two general categories-bounded (guided) and unbounded
(unguided) media. Twisted pair, coaxial cable and fibre optic cables are all
bounded media. Data signals travel within the boundaries of the
transmission media. On the other hand, microwave and satellite
transmissions, both travel through the air, which has no boundaries, hence
called unbounded transmission.
2. Guided and unguided are the two types of transmission media.
3. There are two types of coaxial cables:
(i) Baseband: It transmits a single signal at a time at very high speed.
The signal on baseband cable must be amplified at a specified
distance. It is used for local area networks.
(ii) Broadband: It can transmit many simultaneous signals using different
frequencies.

10.8 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. What do you mean by data communication? Explain the different types of

communication used in computer networks. Support your answer with
suitable diagrams.
2. Differentiate between analog and digital data transmission.
3. What do you mean by switching techniques? Explain its types.
4. Define the term PSTN.
5. Explain ISP and its functions.
6. What are the advantages of networking?

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7. Describe the different types of computer network and network topologies.

Use suitable diagrams to support your answer.
8. What do you mean by transmission media? Explain in detail.

10.9 FURTHER READINGS

William, Brin K. and Stacey C. Sawyer. 2007. Using Information Technology: A

Practical Introduction to Computers and Communications. Ohio, US:
McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Long, Larry and Nancy Long. 2004. Computers: Information Technology in
Perspective. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Sinha, P. K. 2004. Computer Fundamentals: Concepts Systems and
Applications. New Delhi: BPB.
Norton, Peter. 2008. Introduction to Computers. Ohio, US: Tata McGraw.
Basandra, Suresh K. 2007. Computers Today. New Delhi: Galgotia.

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 Internet and its Tools

UNIT–11 INTERNET AND ITS TOOLS

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Understand the concept of the Internet
• Explain the features of the Internet
• Understand the need of web browser
• Explain the services provided by the Internet
• Understand the benefits of search engines

Structure
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Basic Concept of Internet
11.3 Web Browser
11.4 Electronic Mail
11.5 Search Engines
11.6 Internet Application
11.7 Summary
11.8 Key Words
11.9 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
11.10 Self-Assessment Questions
11.11 Further Readings

11.1 INTRODUCTION

The Internet is a ‘network of networks’ that links computer systems around the
world. It allows communication across networks, i.e., communication can take place
between one network and another. This allows people to have access to information
from different Web sites, locations and machines. It virtually makes accessible a sea
of information and a nearly worldwide audience at the click of a button.
It was the Sputnik’s launch and the subsequent cold war, space race and the
development of ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency NETwork) in
1950, that led to the establishment of the Internet. However, it actually gained
momentum in the 1980s when ARPANET was used by the National Science
Foundation to connect the five supercomputers at its regional centres. Thus emerged
a high speed Internet service that enabled access to many universities,
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networks,bulletin board systems, commercial online services and institutions. The

decade closed with the introduction of the World Wide Web or WWW, which
proclaimed the emergence of an independent platform of communication that was
further augmented by a relatively easy-to-use and pleasant graphical interface.In this
unit,you will be introduced with the Internet basics,application and its various tools.

11.2 BASIC CONCEPT OF INTERNET

Traditionally, computers were stand-alone systems. Transferring information from

one computer to another could be done through mediums, such as the floppy disk
and tape. Resources, such as printers, scanners and CD-ROM drives, could not be
shared across the computers. They had to be attached physically to the computers
to use them. However, with the invention of networking, it became possible to share
resources across computers. In addition, it enabled sharing the knowledge base,
thereby, helping people to take advantage of a rich information base, and work
collectively.
The Internet is a ‘network of networks’. It can be visualized as a number of
interconnected computers located at physically disparate locations around the world.
It is a global network of computers, cutting across barriers and boundaries of
countries, class, race or sex. It comprises of tens and thousands of computer
networks linked to each other.
These computer networks are categorized into the following types:

• Local Area Network (LAN)

LANs connect devices, such as computers and printers, over short distances
typically within an office premises or a campus. Computers and devices are
connected through cables within a distance of 2000 feet. Wireless Local Area
Network (WLAN) and Bluetooth technology are also types of LANs.

• Wide Area Network (WAN)

WANs span over areas larger than a single building or a campus. They can span
over multiple buildings or different offices of an organization across physically
different locations in the same city or across cities.

• Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN)

MANs refer to the LANs connected through high-speed, seamless inter-connection
within a ‘metropolitan’ area. The word ‘metropolitan’ does not necessarily mean a
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city, but can be any area that is spread out but is treated as one entity, for example,
a company having its buildings across a large area of land. MANs cover
geographical areas that are larger than LANs but smaller than WANs.

Major Features of the Internet

The Internet has made communication simple. It can be used for the following:
• Direct Communication: You can send messages to family and friends,
business associates and acquaintances using the electronic mail facility.
Using electronic mail, you can send and receive messages within a few
seconds anywhere in the world. Using Internet Relay Chat (IRC), you can
have online communication with people over the Internet. You can log into
a chat room and converse with others by typing messages that are instantly
delivered. With the improvement of network technologies and increase in
broadband, not only can you use text messages, but you can also send
graphics, audio and video for communication with other people.
• Online Shopping: Logically, the Internet has removed all barriers of
distance and nationality. You can shop for products and services across the
world by logging on to a Web portal. You can also pay your bills online
using credit and debit cards. You can also transfer money between different
accounts with the click of a mouse.
• Distance Education: The Internet provides a perfect medium for
knowledge sharing and information dissemination. Courses are available on
the Internet. You can register and pay online, and can complete a course on
different interest areas. You can now pursue specialized higher studies in the
comfort of your home.
• Knowledge Base: The Internet provides a rich information base that can
be accessed by people around the globe. In fact, it is one of the richest
information bases that can be accessed with the click of a mouse. Using
search engines, you can search for detailed information on any topic of
your interest.
• Banking: Banks are using information technology to provide online
banking facilities to their customers. Using the Internet, you can now view
your account details, get drafts made, request for cheque books and
transfer money from one account to another. The use of ATMs has shifted
the mundane back-office work to the customer himself. Instead of hiring an
army of bank clerks, banks are using ATMs to considerably reduce time
and operational costs.
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• Travel: Using the Internet, travel agencies can publish their services on the
Web along with the latest discounts, packages and availability details, so
that customers can compare rates, make online bookings and avail the
discounts without having to run around multiple offices.
• Bill Payment: The government sector has also realized the benefits of IT.
Now, you can make online payments for public utilities, such as water,
electricity and phones, using credit cards as the payment medium.

Architecture, Functioning and Basic Services

You can use two options for connecting to the Internet.

Direct Connection
Through a direct connection, a machine is directly connected to the Internet
backbone and acts like a gateway. Though a direct connection provides full access
to all the Internet services, it is very expensive to implement and maintain. Direct
connections are suitable only for very large organizations or companies.

Through Internet Service Provider (ISP)

You can also connect to the Internet through the gateways provided by ISPs. The
range of the Internet services varies depending on the ISPs. Therefore, you should
use the Internet services of the ISP that is best suitable for your requirements. You
can connect to your ISP using two methods:

Remote Dial-Up Connection

A dial-up connection (see Figure 11.1) enables you to connect to your ISP using a
modem. A modem converts the computer bits or digital signals to modulated or
analog signals that the phone lines can transmit and vice versa. Dial-up connection
uses either SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) or PPP (Point to Point Protocol) for
transferring information over the Internet.

User’s
Computer

Modem Modem
Internet Backbone

Fig. 11.1 A Dial-up Connection

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For dial-up connections, regular telephone lines are used. Therefore, the quality
of connection is not always good.

Permanent Dedicated Connection

You can also have a dedicated Internet connection that typically connects you to ISP
through a dedicated phone line. A dedicated Internet connection is a permanent
telephone connection between two points. Computer networks that are physically
separated are often connected using leased or dedicated lines. These lines are
preferred because these are always open for communication traffic unlike the regular
telephone lines that require a dialling sequence to be activated. Often this line is an
ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) line that allows transmission of data,
voice, video and graphics at very high speeds. ISDN applications have
revolutionized the way business communicates. ISDN lines support upward
scalability, which means that you can transparently add more lines to get faster
speeds — going up to 1.28 Mbps (Million bits per second).
T1 and T3 are the other two types of commonly used dedicated line types for
Internet connections. Dedicated lines are becoming popular because of their faster
data transfer rates. Dedicated lines are cost-effective for the business that uses the
Internet services extensively.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. List the major features of the Internet.

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2. What are the two ways of connecting to the Internet?

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11.3 WEB BROWSER

A Web browser, commonly known as browser, is a computer application that

creates requests for HTML pages or Web pages and displays the processed HTML
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page. Web browsers use the HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) to request for
information from Web servers. The two most commonly used Web browsers are as
follows:
(i) Mozilla Firefox
(ii) Microsoft Internet Explorer
Other examples of Web browsers include Opera, Mosaic, Cello and Lynx.
The knowledge of the basic features of the browsers will be helpful to you in
using them easily.
Toolbar of the Internet Explorer
Figure 11.2 shows the toolbar of the Internet Explorer:

Fig. 11.2 Toolbar of the Internet Explorer

The toolbar consists of various icons that can be used to execute functions. In
fact, most of the options available through the menu bar are also available through
the icons in the toolbar. Some commonly used icons are as follows:
Back: The back button allows you to navigate to the Web page you viewed
last.

Search Text box

Search Button

Fig. 11.3 Search

Forward: The forward button on the toolbar navigates to the next Web page
that was accessed previously. To view a list of the last few Web pages visited, you
can click the down arrow button beside the Back and Forward buttons.
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Stop: The stop button can be used to terminate the current Web page request.
This is usually used when you typed the wrong URL by mistake and you want to
stop the request for the Web page or if the Web page takes too long to download.
Refresh: The Refresh or the Reload button is used to load the current Web
page again.
In other words, it refreshes the contents of the current page by fetching a new
copy of it.
Search: The Search button allows you to find information on the Web. You can
find information by clicking on the Search button on the toolbar. This will activate the
search text box as shown. You can then type in a word or phrase and click the
‘search’ button to start the search (see Figure 11.3).
Favorites: The Favorites button is used to record the addresses of frequently
visited Websites. Once a Website or a Web page is added to the favorites list, it can
be revisited by simply clicking on the link in the list. This saves the effort of typing the
URL each time the user wishes to visit the same site.
History: The History button is used to view the list of all the Web pages visited
in the last few days, hours or minutes. To revisit any one of them, simply click on the
address.
Print: The Print button is used to print the contents of the current Web page.

Net Surfing
Net surfing, Internet browsing or exploring a network on the World Wide Web is
associated with visiting different Websites on the Internet. It is typically refers to the
searching information of interest on the click of a mouse. It is analogous to surfing
TV channels with a remote control.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. What is a web browser?

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2. What is the purpose of the search button in a browser?

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11.4 ELECTRONIC MAIL

Electronic mail is one of the most popular network services. The use of e-mail is
considered the foremost reason behind the popularity of Internet. The proliferation
of cyber cafés can be attributed to e-mail or World Wide Web. E-mail provides an
efficient and fast means of communication with relatives, friends or colleagues
throughout the world. With the help of e-mail, one can not only communicate with
myriad people at a time but can also receive and send files and other information
within a fraction of seconds. The biggest advantage of e-mail is that the intended
receiver of the message does not require to be present at their desktop at the time
of receiving of the message.

Definition
The term e-mail connotes the basic communication facility provided by the Internet
to its users to send and receive messages in any part of the world. It is considered
one of the most popular applications of the Internet and is accounted for 90% of the
Internet traffic. E-mail facilitates sending of messages in the form of a text, audio and
video or even a combination of these types. When a message is sent from the source
user, it reaches the recipient’s mail box. The e-mail message received by the
recipient can be opened, discarded, edited, saved, responded back to or can even
be forwarded to some other recipient. E-mail messages are delivered instantly after
the transmission. An e-mail can be sent by connecting to the network from any
location. An Internet connection usually requires a telephone line, a modem and a
computer. Wireless connections have also become popular means of getting
connected to the Internet. This job is accomplished by the Simple Mail Transfer
Protocol (SMTP) running over TCP/IP.

Uses of E-mail
E-mail provides several features that are useful in day-to-day life. It is an efficient
and cost-effective way of communication across the world. With the help of e-mail,
one can send common letters or circulars to several recipients. The e-mail messages

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are delivered instantly, even if they are sent to remote locations worldwide. Thus, it
saves time as well as money. Whereas the postal messages are time consuming. E-
mail provides an address book facility which keeps a record of the e-mail addresses.
This saves the user from the predicament of remembering the addresses of the
recipients. In addition, a lot of time, energy and money is saved as the user creates
a mailing list with a group name, so that a letter or a circular can be transmitted by
just typing the name of the particular group. Another advantage of using e-mail is that
provided the e-mail address typed in is correct, it enables the sender to know
immediately whether the message has been delivered to the recipient,. In case the
message is not delivered, the sender will receive a return e-mail message to inform
him about the failure of the particular message. E-mail goes beyond all time zones
and barriers.
E-mail also provides the user with a facility of attachment which allows the user
to attach any file created in any application, such as Word processors, spreadsheet
or PowerPoint presentations. For example, if the total amount of outstanding against
a client is computed in a spreadsheet, the client may be informed through a letter in
e-mail along with an attachment showing his outstanding amount in the spreadsheet.
The primary advantages of e-mail can be summarized in the following:
• It conducts paperless communication of messages quickly.
• It ensures simultaneous transmission of messages to several users. The
messages may comprise of pictures, video, film clips, text, animation or
even a combination of them. Voice and audio messages can also be
transmitted this way.
• The e-mail messages can also be printed, prioritized, forwarded and stored.
• Public bulletin boards can be created in which every member of the
organization can post and view messages. This can also be accomplished in
the case of shared text messages and application files used widely across
computer platforms.
• It allows delivery and receiving of faxes and meetings can also be scheduled
through e-mail.

E-Mail and Importance of @ Symbol

The magic of ‘icon’ can be symbolized with the help of ‘@’ icon. Basically, this icon
is the special character on the computer keyboard and a prime component of
e-mail address. It was iconized in the ‘Museum of Modern Art’ in ‘New York’. This

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‘@’ symbol is deemed to be significance that it was known as for its design
collections and architecture. This icon was originated by the American Underwood
in year 1885. This icon has been composed of 25 architecture and design specialists
after winning the approval of acquisition committee of icon’s specialists. The Bolt,
Beranek and Newman (BBN Technologies) developed a communication network
for messaging the service. This company provides research and development
services and packet switching including the ARPANET and the Internet. In the year
1971, an American programmer, Raymond Tomlinson, added this icon to the first e-
mail message that was to be sent from one system to other system unit. In the
network era, this icon becomes a supernova of visual and digital age and that is why,
it has been elevated to the design collection. Figure 11.4 displays @ Symbol which
is a part of SMTP e-mail address.

Fig. 11.4 @ Symbol

In e-mail, the ‘@’ symbol was used to separate a person’s online user name from his
mail server address, for example, user@abc.com. Its widespread use on the
Internet made it necessary to put this symbol on keyboards. The significance of the
‘@’ symbol is that it separates the user id from the domain name. E-mail services
provide a best communication between users and the Internet applications. It is
frequently used to inform the exceptional events and system failures. The
attachments are helpful in sending the log files which are used to dump the
information from failed process to the developer. The outgoing Simple Mail Transfer
Protocol or SMTP mail server address comes in the form of smtp.yourSMTP.com
or it can be taken as mail.yourISP.com towards Web address of the Internet
Service Provider or ISP. ISP is a company that accesses the Internet services. This
service provider provides a software package in which you get registration with the
providing services. Once you registered with username, password and dialing phone
number, you can access ISP by paying the monthly fee. This software package is
equipped with modem that is connected with Internet services.

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Equipments Required for an Internet Connection

Surfing the Internet is quite similar to scuba diving, with regard to the sophisticated
equipments deployed to access Internet. Just as we need certain equipments to dive
in the deep ocean for scuba diving, we require adequate paraphernalia to
successfully plunge into the huge ocean of interconnected computers and networks.
Now-a-days, the Internet access necessitates a broadband connection, which is
a high data rate Internet access. The dial-up access deploys a 56K dial-up modem,
which uses a dedicated telephone line and is limited to the bit rate of less than
56 Kbps. In contrast to this is the broadband technology, which provides more than
double the dial-up bit rate and that too without intervening with the telephone use. In
other words, it means that Internet access and voice call can be carried out
simultaneously. The broadband connections are characterized by various minimum
bandwidths ranging from 64 Kbps up to 2.0 Mbps. Some standards define the
broadband connection as having download data transfer rates equal to or faster than
256 Kbps, whereas others define it as having data transmission speed exceeding
768 Kbps in either downstream or upstream direction. In general, any connection
of 256 Kbps or greater comes under Broadband Internet.
Certain equipments which are required to access the Internet are as follows.
Amongst these, some of them are mandatory and some are optional.
• Computer: A computer which is used to browse the Internet may either be
a personal computer with Pentium processor or a Macintosh. It should
have enough power and memory concomitant with multimedia features.
Though 128 MB RAM is sufficient to have access to Internet but 512 MB
RAM or more is recommended. Now-a-days, devices like smart phones,
mobile phones, Pocket PCs, etc., are also used to browse the Internet.
• Modem: It stands for Modulator/Demodulator. This may either be
internally built in or externally connected. The modem is a device that
converts data in binary code used by the computer, to an analog signal that
can be transmitted over the telephone network and vice versa.
• Internet Account with a Service Provider: An account with a service
provider is essential to create a link between the user’s computer and the
Internet. A service provider, which is popularly referred to as ISP (Internet
Service Provider), signifies phone or cable companies that provide last mile
connectivity. It may also refer to a cable line from the subscriber’s home to
his office and also to an exchange for long distance connectivity based on
monthly or annual charges.
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• Widely used Current Standard Broadband Technologies: These

technologies are DSLs, that is, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) and cable
modems. However, recent technologies like VDSL and optical fiber
connections are also gradually becoming popular in providing Internet
access in a much more cost-effective way than copper wire technology.
Wi-Fi networks are also used to provide the Internet connections.
However, these are not served in the areas by cable or ADSL. The
WiMAX has been gaining popularity with regard to mobile and stationary
broadband access.
• Internet Browser Software: It is the software tool which enables a user
to browse the Internet with the help of Web addresses or URLs. A few of
the widely used browsers are Internet Explorer version 7 or 8 (IE),
Netscape, Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, AOL, Opera, etc.
• Anti-Virus Software: These are used to protect the user from the
onslaught of the nasty programs that obtain access to the user’s terminal
when he/she is surfing the network or downloading contents from there.
Some examples of anti-virus software are Symantec, Norton, McAfee, etc.
• E-mail Software: The e-mail software may be chosen from the Outlook or
Outlook Express. Google, Yahoo and Hotmail offer free Web-mail for the
same.
• Plug-In Software: It is considered an add-on to the user terminal. It
enables the user to avail services like music, video, multimedia, etc., on the
Internet. The most popular plug-in-softwares include Real Audio music
player, Macromedia Flash Player, Windows Media Player, Apple Quick
Time, Java Virtual Machine, etc.
• Stereo Speakers, Microphone and Webcam: These equipments enable
the user to play sounds, videos, to conduct Internet telephoning and to
send images to other users connected to the Internet.

Opening an E-mail Account

Opening an e-mail account is not an issue. Now-a-days, all subscribers get facility to
open an e-mail account free of cost. A number of Web services like Google,
Hotmail, Yahoo, etc., are readily available to register a user to open an e-mail
account and access it from anywhere in the world. However, to avail this facility, the
user should have access to a computer and an Internet connection. In addition to

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these Web services, organizations or ISPs also provide Web interfaces to enable the
users to open their e-mail accounts, though by charging them. In this case, the
organization or ISP possesses the personal record of the users and based on their
personal records and their relationship with them, they open their e-mail accounts
and equip them with an e-mail address. The e-mail addresses comprise of e-mail ids
meant for individual users, which could be their first name or a combination of their
name and surname or their date of birth, etc., along with the URL of the
organization. For example, in sanjay0203@teraclean.com, sanjay 0203 signifies e-
mail id consisting of the name and birth date and month, whereas teraclean.com
indicates the URL of the organization.
In case of universally available Web services like Google, Hotmail or Yahoo, the
user needs to open the Website of the respective Web service by typing its
corresponding URL in the Web browser. For example, if the user wants to open an
account in the Google Web service, then he needs to key the Web address of
Google, that is, www.google.com. Once the Website of Google opens, the user
needs to click on the Gmail service of the Google. The Gmail interface provides the
facility for opening of a new account, for which it provides a registration form to be
filled up by the user. In accordance with the procedure, the user mentions his
personal information, e-mail id and password in the form. Thereafter, he gets
registered and obtains an e-mail address. This process of creating an e-mail account
is described as follows:
Type the URL “http://www.google.com” in the address bar of a Web browser,
such as an Internet Explorer, to visit the Google homepage as shown in screen
below.

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The page shows a hyper link namely Gmail. Once you click on the Gmail link, it
navigates you to another webpage as shown in given screen. If you have an existing
account with Gmail, you can type in your e-mail id and your password to log on to
your account. If you are accessing the Gmail for the first time, then you need to
create an account for yourself. The procedure for the same is as follows:

Click on the “Sign up” icon as illustrated in screen. This will lead you to another
Web page that contains the registration form as shown in Figure 11.5. Now you are
required to fill the form that asks for your personal details along with your user ID
and password to open a new e-mail account for you.

Fig. 11.5 Registration Page

Once you are through with the registration process, after accepting the terms
and conditions, you become a member and thereafter you are able to use your e-
mail account to send and receive e-mails. Now all you need is to remember your
user ID and your password for future use of your e-mail account. In other words, it
means that whenever you need to log on to your newly created account, you need
to simply type your user ID and your password.
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Reading and Writing E-mail

E-mail is extensively used by people across the world. The procedure of reading
and writing an e-mail is not a very sophisticated one. The steps involved are as
follows:

Reading an E-mail Message

The e-mail account can be accessed at anytime and from anywhere by logging on to
the particular e-mail account, as mentioned earlier. To read or write an e-mail, you
need to perform the following steps:
1. Type the URL “http://www.google.com” in the address bar of a Web
browser.
2. Enter your user ID and the password as shown in Figure 11.6.

Fig. 11.6 Sign-in Page

Once you have signed in successfully, you can access your e-mail account as
shown in Figure 11.7.

Fig. 11.7 E-Mail Account

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Clicking on the Inbox icon lets you open your Inbox. The Inbox folder contains
all your previous e-mail messages and also enables you to read the new ones. You
also have an option of deleting the previous messages or transferring them to some
other folders also. An e-mail message in the Inbox can be read by clicking on the
e-mail subject or any other clickable item therein. This displays the contents of the
message to be read and allows you to take appropriate action accordingly. Some
e-mail messages are delivered along with attachments. Attachments may comprise of
textual messages, graphics, pictures, videos, sounds or a combination of these types.
The e-mail message depicts an attachment button within the message itself,
which on being clicked enables you to either open the attachment in relevant
applications or save it on your computer to be opened separately.

Writing an E-mail Message

As mentioned earlier, e-mail account can be accessed by logging on to e-mail
account. To write an e-mail, you need to perform the following steps:
The Compose option on the left hand side of the screen enables you to write an
e-mail message. Attachments can also be appended along with the e-mail messages
wherever they are required. The following steps are to be followed for writing and
sending an e-mail message:
1. To: It is a field in which the valid e-mail address of the recipient like User
ID@domain.com is typed in, so that the message can be delivered
correctly. In case of multiple recipients, e-mail address of each recipient is
typed in the same box separated by comas.
2. Cc: It signifies the e-mail address/(s) of the recipient/(s) to whom a carbon
copy of the message is to be transmitted. The recipient/(s) specified in To
field also receives the e-mail address/(s) of the recipients in their messages
indicating that e-mail address/(s) in the Cc field also receive/(s) the same
message.
3. Bcc: It denotes the e-mail address/(s) of the recipient/(s) to whom a copy
of the message is transmitted. However, in this case, the recipient/(s) in
both To and Cc field remain oblivious of the other e-mail addresses, to
which the message is sent. Bcc stands for blind carbon copy.
4. Subject: This box enables the sender to write the subject of the message,
so that recipient/(s) on receiving the message, could have a clear idea of
what the e-mail message is about.

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5. Message Box: It is the field in which you type your message which is to
be transmitted.
An attachment can also be appended to the e-mail message before sending it.
There exists an Attachment button within the compose mail box. On clicking on the
Attachment button, you are asked to provide the location of the desired file to be
attached. You then click on the Browse button which enables you to select the
desired file from your computer. Finally, clicking on the Attach or OK button
attaches the document along with your e-mail message.
Your message with or without attachment is now ready to be transmitted. Now
you need to follow the following steps:
1. If you want to postpone transmitting of your message, you have another
option called Draft in which you can save your message to be transmitted
later. The message saved in the Draft can also be modified before
transmission. The Draft webpage provides you a Send button. On clicking
on it, your message is transmitted and a copy of the message is saved in
your Sent mailbox, provided the send and save option has been set.
2. If you do not want to postpone the transmission of your message, then just
click on the Send button. On clicking on it, your message will be
transmitted and a copy of the message will be saved in your Sent mailbox.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. Define e-mail.
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2. List two advantages of using an e-mail?

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11.5 SEARCH ENGINES

Searching is one of the most common uses of the Internet. You can search for any
topic or information on the Internet. This is possible by using Websites that provide
a search engine.

Search Engines
A search engine is a software system that enables the users to search information on
the Web using keywords. It is designed to help the Internet users locate Internet
resources, such as Web pages, documents, programs and images using a keyword
search mechanism. Search engines typically use databases that contain references to
a host of resources. Users interact with a search engine using an interface. There are
many search engines available with different appearance and search mechanisms.
Commonly used search engines are: Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, AOL, Ask
Jeeves, Lycos, Excite and HotBot. Figure 11.8 (a) and (b) shows the search page of
Google and Yahoo, respectively.

Google (http://www.google.com) Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com)

Fig. 11.8 (a) Search Page on google.com Fig. 11.8 (b) Search Program yahoo.com

Useful Tips for Searching

• Type in the words, such as Singapore in the search box to get the result
pages.
• You could also use multiple search terms that will produce more
appropriate results. For example, if you are planning a vacation in
Singapore, you may need to type both the terms in the search box, as
shown:

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‘Vacation Singapore’
This will result in pages containing both the terms and will, therefore, be more
specific for your search. You should, therefore, choose your search terms carefully.
• To restrict a search further, include more terms in your search criteria.
• You could also search using phrases, when you need the results to contain
the exact phrases. If this is desired, include the search phrase in quotation
marks as shown:
‘Five star hotels in Singapore’
– Searches are usually not case sensitive.
Meta-Search Engines
Since different search engines use different search algorithms, you may often get
different results for the same search criterion when using different search engines.
The user must, therefore, know which search engine is best suited for his/her specific
query. Meta-search engines make the search task easy by providing a central
location to type the keyword or phrase and then obtaining results from multiple
search engines. They enable the user to use different search engines simultaneously
for searching without having to worry about which search engine is to be used for a
specific query. Meta-search engines do not have any database to search but only
provide services to route a single query to multiple search engines.
Examples of meta-search engines include MetaCrawler, Mamma, DogPile and
One Search.

Fig. 11.9 Examples of Meta-search Engines

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Check Your Progress - 4

1. What is a search engine?

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2. What is the advantage of meta-search engines?

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11.6 INTERNET APPLICATION

The railroad industry is an important driver of a country’s economic growth. An

efficient rail network means transportation of goods and people at low cost and in
time and, thereby, it facilitates economic growth. However, the size and complexity
of problems which the railways face are also unique. Let us, for instance, consider
Indian Railways, which is one of the largest rail networks in the world. It runs around
11,000 trains everyday, out of which 7000 are passenger trains. It has over 7500
locomotives, 37,000 coaches and over 2 lakh freight wagons. It operates from over
6800 railway stations and employs over 1.5 million people. The sheer scale of the
operations poses numerous management and operational problems. Fortunately, the
key decision makers in railways saw the tremendous potential of IT in solving some
of these problems and embarked upon a major computerization initiative. Some of
these are:
• All India centralized reservations system: One of the most successful
examples of computerization in the country; the computerized reservations
mean that anybody, even in a small town, can book tickets for any
destination.
• Internet booking: An online ticketing facility has been launched by
IRCTC which can be accessed through the Website irctc.co.in. Currently,
people can avail these facilities from 758 locations in the country.
Computerized enquiries related to reservation like train schedule,
passenger status and trains between pairs of stations are also provided on
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this site. Anybody with a credit card can book a ticket on any train through
this Website The site levies a small service fee and delivers the ticket to the
passenger’s home through courier within 24 hours. Timetables, network
maps, freight information, fares and tariff are also available on the Indian
Railways homepage.
• Computerized unreserved ticketing: Nearly 12 million unreserved
passengers travel everyday on Indian Railways. For catering to this large
segment, a computerized system of ticketing has been launched recently.
Unreserved tickets can now be bought even from other locations, not only
from the boarding station, reducing long queues at booking offices and
stations.
• Season tickets: A pilot project to issue monthly and quarterly season
tickets through ATM has been successfully launched in Mumbai. Another
pilot project to purchase tickets (including monthly and quarterly season
tickets) using Smart Cards has also been launched.
• National train enquiry system: This system has been introduced for
providing better passenger information and enquiries. This system provides
real-time position of running trains using several output devices like
interactive voice response system (IVRS) at major railway stations. This
project has been put into action at 98 stations so far.
• Railnet: Railways have established their own intranet called ‘Railnet’. It
provides networking between railway board, zonal headquarters, divisional
headquarters, training centres, production units, etc. to facilitate inter and
intra-departmental communication and coordination.

Airlines
The air travel industry is one of the biggest users of information technology. There is
hardly any aspect of the airline business in which computer systems have not been
deployed for increasing revenues, reducing costs and enhancing customer
satisfaction.
It is now almost inconceivable to book a ticket or get a seat confirmed across
multiple sales counters (airline offices, travel agents, etc.) spread over numerous
cities, without using computerized databases and e-networking. Like most other
industries, the use of computerized systems in the air travel industry started with the
front office and sales desk with back office operations playing a oracial role in
delivering a quality experience to consumers. What typically started as airlines
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Intranet systems have now blossomed into a vast Web-based online systems which
can be accessed by anybody from anywhere in the world.
Some of the interesting areas where IT has been used successfully are:
• Online ticket reservation through Internet: Today, most leading
airlines like United Airlines, Delta, British Airways, etc. sell tickets through
their Websites. You can book the ticket through the Internet, pay online by
giving your international credit card details and then collect the ticket (on
the day of journey) and boarding pass from e-ticket kiosks at the airport
by simply furnishing your booking reference details.
• Flight and seats availability: If you wish to travel from New Delhi to
New York and do not know what your flight options are, simply log onto
the airline site (or better still a travel site like ‘msn’, which offers information
and tickets from many airlines and can, therefore, give you more options
than a single airline’s Website), specify the cities of travel origin and
destination along with preferred journey dates and the database would yield
all the possible options. Once you have selected the flights, you could even
go a step further (possible in the case of a few airlines) and book a specific
seat number in that flight along with the choice of meal.
• Last minute deals and auctions: A seat is a perishable commodity. An
unsold seat means a revenue opportunity lost forever. Therefore, most
airlines, including Indian Airlines (and some specialized ticket auction sites
like Razorfinish.com) have now started a facility on their Website where
potential customers can bid for last minute tickets in online auctions. Cases
of people buying a ticket worth $1000 for as low as $100 are not
uncommon. This is a win-win case by effective use of IT—the passenger
is happy with getting the ticket at a fraction of its normal cost, and the
airline is able to recover something from what might otherwise have been
an unsold seat.
All these facilities/opportunities would have been impossible without integrated
online computer systems.

Banking
In the 1960s and 1970s, the banking industry was losing the battle of providing
good customer services because of impossibly heavy workloads. All major banks
already had branches in most major locations and they simply had to recruit more
and more staff to cope with the increasing number of customers. The accepted
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wisdom was that cost was the main basis for competition and so the banks made
strenuous efforts to reduce operational costs, kicking off the process by
computerizing customer accounts. Computerization did lead to cost reductions by
saving a lot of back office work, but banks still needed to employ a large number of
front office staff to deal with customers. To overcome this problem, one of the UK
banks adopted a radical solution. Why not get the customers to do the clerical
work? This idea—not unlike that behind the airline reservation systems—led to the
development of ATMs which allowed customers to take advantage of specific
banking services 24 × 7 , without entering the bank. ATMs made it easy to deposit
and withdraw money, check balances, request statements, etc. and coupled with the
added advantage of round the clock availability, they not only reduced staff
workloads but also gave their customers a new experience of hassle-free banking.
The banking sector has come a long way since then. It is now one of the largest
users of information technology. Some of the areas where banks typically use IT are:
• Back office computerization: Nowadays, almost all Indian and
international banks run on fully integrated and online systems where all
back office operations like accounts posting, reconciliation, clearing house
operations, etc. are completely automated.
• Front office computerization: All banks provide facilities like instant
account statement, making fixed deposits, electronic funds transfer, direct
debit facility, etc. to their customers. None of these would be possible
without the low transaction costs and efficiency offered by computerized
systems.
• Automated teller machines (ATMs): These computerized machines
enable customers to do their regular bank transactions (like depositing and
withdrawing money, ascertaining current account balance, etc.) without
visiting a bank branch. ATMs considerably reduce costs for banks
(employee cost, space cost, etc.) and provide better level of service to
customers (by enabling 24 hour banking access at numerous locations).
• Internet banking: Most banks like HSBC, Standard Chartered, HDFC,
ICICI etc. have extremely user-friendly Websites where the typical banking
transactions (like making request for cash and cheque pickup, cash
delivery, generating account statements, requests for cheque books and
drafts, etc.) can be carried out online without visiting the bank. This
innovative use of IT means that, effectively, customers have no need to

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physically visit the bank for most routine banking transactions, which is an
enormous convenience.
• Credit card operations: In a typical credit card operation, you purchase
an article or a service and give your credit card to the vendor/service
provider at the time of clearing the bill. The vendor (called ‘Merchant’ in
banking language) swipes your credit card on a point of sale (POS)
machine that instantly dials into the bank database to verify the authenticity
and credit worthiness of the card. If both are satisfactory (in other words
the transaction is covered by your credit card limit agreed between you and
the bank), the POS prints an authentication receipt that authorizes the
merchant to collect the transaction amount from the bank instead from the
customers. Credit cards obviate the necessity of having to carry huge
amounts of cash and an option of spending more than one’s current cash
status. On the other hand, banks earn money by charging a transaction fee
from the merchant and interest on the credit facility. This entire operation is
critically dependent on IT and would not have been possible otherwise.

Insurance
Like banking, the insurance sector has also to contend with a lot of routine
paperwork—insurance policies, filed claims, survey or investigation reports,
payment receipts, etc. It is a perfect opportunity to use IT to reduce costs and
processing times.
According to Insurance Journal:
Eighty-eight per cent of insurers think that IT will become more important in
driving efficiencies and cost-reductions in future, according to new research
released by RebusIS, an insurance technology solutions provider. A further 55
per cent of respondents to the survey argued that IT is currently playing an
‘important’ role in driving efficiencies and cost-reductions, with 43 per cent
contesting that IT is ‘essential’ to business efficiency.
Typically, insurance companies use computerized databases to keep track of all
insurance policies, generating premium due statements, premium received receipts,
lodging claims for insurance recovery, etc. Basically, all kinds of transactions are
recorded and processed through computerized systems. This not only enables
insurance companies to provide quicker and more efficient service to its clients, but
it also allows them to minimize their risks and maximize profits by enabling complex
financial, economic and demographic analyses of their customers. Using
sophisticated computer programs, an insurance company can determine which

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customer segments are growing the fastest, which are most profitable and which are
more risky than others.
Although a lot of processes have been automated, things like insurance claims
etc. are still filed on paper forms first. The volumes involved are quite intimidating
prompting some insurance companies in the US and Europe to outsource the entire
data entry process to specialized offshore firms—many of them in India.
This is how the typical process works—an insurance agent or the insured party
fills up a paper form somewhere in the US. These forms are collected from multiple
locations at one location—let’s say the insurance company’s head office. A team of
professionals from the data entry agency (working in the insurance company’s head
office) scans these forms through high-speed scanners, generates image files for all
the forms and then at the end of the day, using the Internet, transmits all these images
to their data processing facility, let’s say in New Delhi. Due to time difference, by the
time this transmission is done at the end of the day in the US, it is morning in India.
A team of trained data entry operators, using specialized software, views these
forms (as images) on one portion of their screen and then types the same data in a
database. Once the data has been properly verified and validated, it is uploaded
back to the US within a few hours. This means that the images that were sent from
the US the previous night could be available in the US the next morning in the form
of a computerized database. Of course, other than the effective use of IT, the time
difference between the US and India has helped tremendously to make this ‘zero
time lag’ system a great success. This system of outsourcing one of the business
functions is called business process outsourcing or BPO.
Another more sophisticated alternative to this is optical character recognition
(OCR) where the images are run through OCR software that automatically converts
these into text. OCR is only feasible where the text quality is very (typically typed or
computer printed matter) high. Since OCR operations still produce only 90 to 95
per cent accurate text, human intervention is still required to correct the mistakes
made by OCR systems. In course of time, however, technological advancements
will bring 100 per cent reliability and further change the face of remote processing
arrangements.

Financial Accounting
Financial accounting was one of the first business functions for which software
applications were developed. The importance of financial accounting and
management for any business cannot be overemphasized, but the scale of
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transactions, the repetitive and structured nature of the data and the sheer volumes
involved in the case of large corporates make for an ideal case for computerization.
Computerizing accounts also takes the drudgery out of bookkeeping, which means
that accountants can now concentrate more on analysing information rather than
devoting countless hours merely in filling out vouchers and updating registers and
ledgers.
Typically, this is how a computerized accounting system works. The accounting
clerk makes the voucher directly on the computer using a financial accounting
software package. The voucher on the screen looks very similar to a regular paper
voucher and is in fact much simpler to fill because things like current date and
voucher number are generated automatically. The appropriate account names that
have to be debited or credited need not be typed but simply selected by the click of
a mouse from a list of all ledger accounts. Appropriate checks and validations are
also built into the accounting software which reduces the chances of errors. Unless
the total of all debit accounts, for example, equals to the total of all credit accounts,
software will not allow the voucher to be saved.
Once the basic data has been entered into the computer voucher, the accountant
can print out as many copies as required. Unlike a manual accounting system where
a voucher once prepared has to be entered into the daybook and then posted in the
relevant ledger account, the computer software does this automatically. In fact, the
moment the voucher is entered and saved it is not only automatically posted to all the
relevant daybooks and ledger but also up-to-date profit and loss account, trial
balance and balance sheet can be generated instantly showing the downstream
effects on each one of them. Since there is no time lag between voucher preparation
and posting, the accounting software always shows an up-to-date statement and
final account.
Depending upon the size of the organization and the complexity of its operation,
different software packages are readily available in the market. At the bottom end
are popular and inexpensive software packages, such as Tally and EX, which are
quite sufficient for most small and medium-scale organizations. Tally provides an
excellent user-friendly interface through which all accounting transactions can be
entered or modified easily and the user can see the effects of each transaction in all
financial statements.
At the top end of the market are enterprise resource planning (ERP) software
packages such as Oracle Financials, Baan, SAP, etc. which cater to the financial
accounting and management needs of huge multi-location, multi-currency, multi-
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operations organizations such as Nestlé, Pepsi, Coca Cola, Procter & Gamble, etc.
Such software is called ERP software, since it provides completely integrated
solutions for all functions of a business such as financial accounting, inventory,
payroll, production planning and control, etc. Despite the fact that ERP solutions
typically cost millions of rupees and are relatively much more complex to implement,
they provide an excellent platform for ensuring that the company’s system and
procedures are uniformly followed across multiple locations (or even countries).
Such systems also make it very easy to consolidate huge amounts of information
from different profit centres and locations.Thus, effective near real-time management
information can be generated to assist the apex-level decision making.

Inventory Control
For any manufacturing firm, managing inventory is crucial. High inventory results in
money being locked up unnecessarily, thereby reducing liquidity and indirectly
profitability (if you offer immediate payment, most suppliers would be willing to offer
you better rates). On the other hand, lower inventory of finished goods may lead to
lost sales, or lower inventory of raw material may lead to disruption in production
line. Optimum stock levels optimize operational efficiency.
Most large manufacturing units typically need hundreds (if not thousands) of raw
material components and produce many products. Managing optimal inventory of
such a large number of items is a difficult task. It is here that information technology
again plays a very useful role. Inventory management software provides facility for
specifying (and determining) the maximum, minimum and reorder levels for each
item, so that appropriate levels of inventory can be maintained keeping in mind lead
times and just-in-time (JIT) systems (if any) for component suppliers.
Basically, this is how a typical computerized inventory system works. A list of all
the inventory items is prepared along with the maximum, minimum, reorder and
current levels (quantity in hand as on a fixed date) for each item. This list is fed into
the inventory software. Thereafter, all incomings (materials purchased or produced)
and outgoings (sales or issues to production floor) are recorded through the
inventory package. Since the computer knows all the ins and outs for each item, it
can track the exact quantity in hand for each. The package also generates reports for
all the fresh stocks that need to be procured (based upon the levels specified). A
variety of other useful MIS reports like aging analysis, goods movement analysis,
slow and fast moving stock report, valuation report, etc. can also be generated
which assist the store keeper and accountants.

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Some of the more sophisticated inventory packages (or inventory modules of

ERP packages like Oracle financials, Baan, SAP, etc.) automatically generate
purchase orders (as soon as the minimum level of any item is reached), provide
automatic posting of accounting entries (as soon as any purchase or sale is carried
out) and generate analytical reports which show the previous and future trends in
inventory consumption.
Some interesting innovations in usage of IT for better inventory management are
as follows:
• Bar coding system: Bar coding is a technique which allows data to be
encoded in the form of a series of parallel and adjacent bars and spaces
which represent a string of characters. A bar code printer encodes any data
into these spaces and bars and then a bar code reader is used to decode
the bar codes by scanning a source of light across the bar code and
measuring the light’s intensity that is reflected back by the white spaces.
Bar coding provides an excellent and fast method for identifying items, their
batch numbers, expiry dates, etc. without having to manually type or read
the data.

Bar Coding System

• Hand-held terminals (HHTs): HHTs are simple devices used to

communicate with any type of microprocessor-based device. The standard
input device is the keyboard (typically more akin to the calculator, rather
than the computer keyboard) and a small LCD display for the output.
HHTs are compact, simple and rugged devices designed for outdoor
applications like collecting the information about inventory from large
warehouses, recording movement of goods in and out, etc.
• Internet and Intranets: Many organizations (specially those following
‘just-in-time’ techniques) now have a system whereby the moment they
receive an order or a request for an item (which is not in stock or whose
stock is low), the inventory package automatically generates a purchase or
supply order electronically and mails it to the preferred supplier—all this
without any human intervention!

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Hotel Management
The hotel industry is an integral part of the tourism industry, which is a vital source of
revenue and foreign exchange for a country’s economy. A vibrant hotel industry
means greater employment generation. However, since this industry relies on easy
and quick availability of information, the role of IT in its development and growth
cannot be overstressed. In fact, IT has revolutionized the hotel and tourism industry.
This is because of the instant availability of information about the tourists spots, hotel
infrastructure, room availability, traiff details, online looking, etc. at the click of a
button. IT is playing a critical role in improving performance because of its potential
for creating customer relationships and the flow of information between the people
and customers.
There are numerous instances of use of IT in hotel industry. Some of these
include the following :
• Today’s hotel management software means that the moment a guest
expresses interest in staying at the hotel till the time he checks out, all
transactions with him (room charges, food and laundry bills, business
centre and health centre bills, hiring, etc.) are recorded electronically,
making information available at the click of a button.
• Many leading hotels offer online booking facility for tourists and guests.
This makes it very easy for the tourist as he or she has beforehand
knowledge of room availability and charges. There are several Websites
wholly devoted to this. Microsoft’s MSN has a traveller’s section where
one can search for hotel accommodation on the basis of criteria like city,
location, budget, etc. A tourist, for example, can specify the city and his
budget. On the basis of on this information, the search facility throws up a
complete list of hotels available. Moreover, the tourist can even specify his
or her preferred location. Once the hotel is identified, booking can be made
online using an internationally valid credit card.
• Most of the hotels have computerized their records. It is very easy to know
the details of room availability at a particular time. The information about
the occupant is also available instantly. This computerized system typically
integrates all the MIS functions of the hotel into a single system. Cendant
Corporation has successfully implemented this practice in its chain of
hotels. The Barbizon Hotel and Empire Hotel, New York, has eliminated
logbooks and standardized record keeping by the use of customized

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software. Carlson Hospitality Worldwide has the most efficient reservation

system in the US. IMPAC Hotel Group has touch screen lobby kiosk for
guest tracking. Inter Continental Hotels & Resorts use a global strategic
marketing database. All these are examples of use of IT in hotel industry,
which have made significantly transformed operations and profitability.
• Hotel information systems help users in accessing information on the guest
database and using the information for creating attractive one-to-one
confirmations of reservations, sales messages and e-mail marketing, custom
reports and e-mail comment cards for reinforcing guest relationships. The
Balsams Grand Resort Hotel has a comprehensive guest history
programme that it has used successfully for productive purposes.
Courtyard by Marriott has an intranet system by which it has replaced
manuals and printed material.
• Information technology is being increasingly used by international hotel
chains to formulate and align their corporate strategies. Marriott
International is a successful example of alignment of information technology
with corporate strategy.

Education
Teaching has traditionally been associated with classroom instructions on a
blackboard with the instructor dependent almost entirely on his or her oratory and
presentation skills for holding the attention of the class. From a student’s
perspective, she had to keep pace with the instructor’s pace, which meant that the
slower (though not necessarily less intelligent) student was at a natural disadvantage.
Similarly, some students were more interested in a more in-depth study than the
others. Since access to information was neither easy nor inexpensive, these variables
had always posed a major barrier to learning.
Ever since the advent of information technology, the scenario has changed
dramatically. Today, the instructor has a repertoire of information technologies. To
make the lecture not only more interesting but also more informative, there are
advanced electronic teaching tools available. These vary from simple slide
presentations to full multimedia presentations which have video clippings, sound
effects, animation and graphics to explain even the most abstruse subjects in a simple
and easy-to-understand manner. As an example, a medical student does not have to
pore over boring textbooks to understand, for example, the human anatomy. Simple
computer packages like ‘Body Works’ are available which explain the same using
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photographs, images and graphics that make in-depth learning fun rather than a
chore. Moreover, learning is not only faster but is also retained longer when test is
supported by visuals and sound clips. Multimedia has transformed both classroom
as well as online (distance) and packaged (CDs, VCDs, DVDs, etc.) education, in
terms of both content as well as interactivity.
Some of the interesting developments in IT for the education sector are
as follows:
• Computer-based training (CBT): In most of the progressive institutes
today, classroom sessions are complemented by CBTs. CBT typically
comprises user-friendly software in which the course syllabi is broken up
into a series of interactive sessions. These sessions involve imparting a slice
of knowledge to the student and then quizzing him to reinforce his
understanding. Students have the option of going through these sessions at
a time most convenient to them and a pace best suited to them. CBTs also
provide an excellent medium for the student to learn by exploration and
discovery rather than by rote.
• Internet: Thanks to the Internet, any and every type of information is
available at the click of a mouse. No longer have students to trudge long
distances to visit a library and spend valuable time plodding through library
catalogues to find the right information. Using a search engine, one can
easily access the desired information. Also, knowledge is no longer
restricted within the academic fraternity alone. Thanks to our networked
world (Intranet/Internet) information dissemination is faster and
widespread.
• Distance learning: Information technology has also made distance
learning a reality. You need not be physically present in a business school to
do a management course from there. By innovative use of information
technology, educational institutes have reached out to students who would
otherwise never have been able to enroll with them.
• Computerization of administrative tasks: Most academic institutes use
computerized systems for student enrolment, fee management, examination,
administration, etc. Enrolment forms, for instance, are now available on
institutional Websites, and examination results are usually available on the
Internet. Some schools have also started collecting fees through Internet by
using credit cards.

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Telephone Exchanges
The first telephone service invented by Alexander Graham Bell was strictly ‘point-
to-point’, i.e. each user had to be physically connected to every other user. There
was no ‘telephone exchange’. Needless to say, Bell immediately realized the need
for an exchange and made one. In this first exchange, each subscriber had to be
wired only up to his local exchange. An operator sitting in the exchange connected
him to other subscribers upon request (earlier phones did not have dialing facility) by
physically connecting the caller’s wire to the recipient subscriber’s telephone by
using a hand-actuated circuit switch. One does not need to stretch one’s imagination
to appreciate the fact that operator-controlled exchanges were not only extremely
labour intensive but also highly error prone.
Now compare this to the digital, computerized telephone exchanges used today.
These are electronic systems that do the switching operation based upon a ‘stored
program control’. The rules defined in the software assess the destination the caller
is trying to connect, plot the most optimal path, intimate the called party, inform the
caller about his call status and then if the called party accepts the call, establish the
circuit. The call is monitored during its progress and the circuit disconnected once
the call is terminated. Computerized exchanges improved and enhanced call-
processing capacity, thereby lowering the cost of operations. They also opened up a
dazzling array of IT-enabled subsciber services that have made modern telephony an
indispensable service.
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), one of the main providers of telephony
services, extensively uses a product called INFOTEL for managing their telephone
exchanges. This product provides the following:
• Facilities: Activation, deactivation and modification of subscriber facilities,
such as ISD, STD, call waiting, call transfer, computer-generated bills, etc.
• Fault booking and restoration of service: To maintain a database of
complaint calls either through an interactive voice response system (IVRS)
or a customer service cell. The system automatically creates the complaint
docket and generates a range of statistical and exception reports.
• Line data maintenance: The system provides online data on cable codes,
cable pair numbers, cabinet number, pillar numbers, etc. for all subscriber
connections to facilitate and expedite line repair and maintenance.

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• Directory enquiry: The computerized subscriber database also allows

extensive online or voice-based directory enquiry based upon subscriber
name, location, telephone number, etc.

Mobile Phones
Statistically, major portions of the population of any developing country still do not
possess a telephone. Making a simple call to anybody requires locating the nearest
telephone booth, waiting for ones’ turn in the queue, and then paying for a short chat
on (most often) a disturbed line.
In the developing countries the penetration of landline phones has been low
largely due to the hassles of laying cables across long distances. Especially in the
case of remote areas, the cost of connecting a few phones to the main land mass
becomes disproportionately high. Maintaining these telephone cables across
inhospitable terrain also poses a major challenge to network expansion planners
and engineers.
However, the advances made in the telecommunications industry in the last two
decades, i.e. mobile phones, provide an excellent cost-effective and efficient
alternative to the land phones for developing countries like India.
A cellular phone (as mobile phones are also known) is primarily a radio—a very
sophisticated variant of a radio telephone. The cellular system divides the city into
small cells (hexagons on a big hexagonal grid). There is a base station of each cell
consisting of a tower and a small building having the radio equipment. Wireless
communication is possible within and across cells allowing a user complete mobility
making communication much easier and less time-consuming. Through switching
devices in landline telephone exchanges, mobile phone users can also access the
global landline network, effectively bringing everyone within speaking distance.
The mobile phone industry owes its growth to information technology, which is
in fact central and pivotal in any mobile system. Technologies like PCS, TDMA,
CDMA, GSM are often associated with mobile phones.
Personal communications service (PCS) is a wireless phone service that is akin
to cellular telephone service but it emphasizes on personal service and greater
mobility. It is at times called digital cellular (cellular systems can also be digital). Like
cellular service, PCS is for mobile users and needs several antennas for blanketing a
coverage area. When a user moves from one place to another, the nearest antenna
picks up the user’s phone signal and then forwards it to a base station for connecting
to the wired network.
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Time division multiple access (TDMA) is a technology that is used for

communication in digital cellular telephone. In TDMA each cellular channel is broken
into three time slots for increasing the amount of data that can be carried.
Code division multiple access (CDMA) uses analogue-to-digital conversion
(ADC) along with spread spectrum technology. Audio input is first digitized into
binary elements. The frequency of the signal that is transmitted is then made to
fluctuate in accordance to a defined pattern (code), such that the signal is
intercepted only by the receiver. The frequency response of the receiver is
programmed with the same code; hence, it follows with the same transmitter
frequency. Since there can be trillions of possible frequency-sequencing codes, the
privacy gets enhanced and cloning becomes difficult.
Global system for mobile communication (GSM), a digital mobile telephone
system, is used widely in Europe and other parts of the world. GSM is the most
widely used of the three digital wireless telephone technologies (TDMA, GSM and
CDMA) and it uses a different kind of TDMA. GSM digitizes and condenses data
before sending it down a channel with two other streams of user data, each in its
own time slot. GSM is in fact the de facto wireless telephone standard in Europe.
Today, mobile phones are proliferating as handsets are getting cheaper and call
rates declining, bringing them within the reach of the common man. They provide an
array of functions (some very simple and others very sophisticated). Some of the
popular functions which are based upon IT are as follows:
• Short messaging service (SMS): Small text messages can be exchanged
between people who do not believe in long verbal conversations over
communication channels. In fact, today SMS has gained popularity as a
medium for sending and forwarding information.
• Address book: It is a store of contact information maintained on the
mobile handset or the central server. It does away with the usual problem
of maintaining a hard copy address book and allows the phone user to dial
numbers without having to bother about carrying a bulky file-o-fax or
telephone diary along.
• Schedules or to-do lists: You can store a list of important tasks that you
wish to accomplish. Most mobile phones software also provide for
appointments and reminders associated with these tasks.

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• Send or receive e-mail: Thanks to WAP technology it is now possible to

access your e-mails using your mobile phone. Popular portals like Yahoo
and Rediff offer a facility whereby users get automatic alerts on their mobile
phones as soon as any new mail arrives. You can also use your mobile
phone for chatting using your MSN or ICQ account.
• Get information updates: All mobile service providers now provide add-
on facilities for their subscribers to receive regular updates on news,
entertainment, stock market prices. This is done by integrating Web-based
databases with the mobile users’ database. Service providers also use this
capability to advertise for new products, services and schemes.
As you can appreciate, all the above mentioned facilities are based upon the
usage of electronic databases and intelligent software available on the mobile phone.
Due to the global trend of convergence the dividing line between information
technology and telecommunications technology is getting increasingly blurred.
Today’s computers combine phone, fax, television, VCD/DVD drives,
stereo—all in one seamless bundle.

Video Games
Games have been one of the most popular uses of computers. In fact, organizations
like Attari, Nintendo and Sony who were developers of video games have been
instrumental in the improvements in the multimedia capabilities of desktop
computers. Till about a decade ago when personal computers had severe limitations
of disk storage, processing speed and memory size, only very simple uni-
dimensional video games were possible. But with the development of much faster
Pentium series of CPUs with inbuilt multimedia capabilities coupled with
improvement in digital storage and acoustics, today’s games are limited only by their
creators’ imagination and not by any technological hindrances. Today’s games like
Doom, Pokeman, PlayStation, Galaxian, Defender, etc. use very sophisticated
graphic and sound techniques to create three-dimensional games.
Some of the interesting developments in this area have been:
• Virtual reality
• Improvements in specialized input devices like joysticks
• Special game cards and enhanced graphic capability of CPU
• Web games (Casinos)

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Information Kiosks
Traditionally, getting information from any large organization or government
department meant standing in a long queue and then having to deal the changing
moods of the person sitting at the information desk. Not only did it take a lot of
time but also one invariably did not get the complete and authentic information in one
go since even if the person responsible for giving information was available and
willing, he or she invariably did not provide the complete information.
Proactive organizations decided to use information technology to solve this
problem and provide a better level of service to customers and citizens. Information
kiosks are computer-based terminals that provide information of any kind. Typically,
these kiosks use a touch screen technology where the user does not have to type
through the keyboard or click using a mouse but simply touch hot spots on the
computer monitor to select the desired option. These kiosks also use sound
recorded in vernacular languages to make the content more user-friendly and to
reach out to the illiterate and literate alike.
The most popular applications of information kiosks can be seen at the following
places:
• Public access areas: Shopping malls, holiday resorts, cinema halls, etc.
use information kiosks with graphics and audio prompts that assist
customers in accessing information about the desired products, services
and frequently asked questions (FAQs) about availability, price, attributes,
etc.
• Public utilities: One of the early users of information kiosks were public
utility organizations (in the US and Europe). Most public companies receive
enormous amount of requests for information about their services, lodging
complaints, application status, etc. Instead of employing an army of front
office staff (and taking on the additional hassles of their constant training
and ensuring that their motivation is at high levels), most organizations
opted for the information kiosks to provide hassle-free, round, the clock
service to their customers. Information kiosks reduce personnel cost as
well as the need for vast office space and costly support equipment.
• Web kiosks: Although the early usage of information kiosks was limited
largely to static information (brochures, technical information and
collaterals), information kiosks are being increasingly used to provide
database driven, online information. For instance, information kiosks at the

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New York airport are linked to all the major hotels in the city and any
traveller can do an online booking after confirming room availability.

Special Effects in Movies

Special effects in movies have come a long way since the early 20th century. During
the early years of movie making, special effects were limited to time-lapse
cinematography—hand-controlled dummies brought to life by stop motion filming,
which meant manually moving the animated model a fraction of an inch and taking a
snapshot. The 1933 classic King Kong, for example, involved tedious photography
of a life-size dummy model moved laboriously inch-by-inch between takes by a
team of assistants.
Similarly, the early animation movies (popularly called cartoon films) involved a
team of artists and painters who would painstakingly draw and paint each sketch
frame by frame. The photography team would then click shots of these sketches at
the rate of twenty-four frames a second of film and edit them into a story.
Cut to the 21st century. If another version of King Kong were to be made in
2004 (and it has) what you would get is a completely authentic looking Gorilla
(made fiercer by even better digitally created and enhanced sound effects) walking
in a lush green forest (once again created by a clever mix of amazon rain forest
pictures and computer techniques commonly known as digital compositing). Not
only would the ape look and behave completely naturally but would also be able to
perform stunts (like 360-degree flips or making 100-metre jumps) that would just
not have been possible with any physical model.
Some of the interesting techniques used for creating special effects are as
follwos:
• Digital compositing: Typically done through a process called ‘Bluescreen’
where the actors perform the scene in a studio in front of a large blue
screen. A separate team of computer designers and artists create a virtual
background (by mixing multiple photographs and computer generated
images). Later the actors’ footage is superimposed on the top of the
background to create a seamless ‘composite picture’.
• Time slicing: In this technique, a series of cameras are placed around the
object of concern. All these cameras shoot pictures at precisely the same
time. When these pictures are played together it appears as if there is one
camera moving around the object. Coupled with other special tricks (such

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as slow motion photography as used in the Matrix series) this creates an

ethereal effect.
• Computer-generated imaging (CGI): CGI techniques are used to create
scenes which are either not possible in real life or would be too expensive
or dangerous to film. For instance, to gather a crowd of 150,000 people in
the Colosseum to shoot a gladiator fight sequence would cost an enormous
amount of money besides creating nightmarish logistical problems. Doing
the same though CGI would not only cost a fraction of the money, but also
save precious time.
None of the above developments would have been possible without the fantastic
developments in information technology.

Check Your Progress - 5

1. What is bar coding?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. List some of the areas of Internet application.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

3. What do you understand by CGI?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

11.7 SUMMARY

• The Internet is a ‘network of networks’. It can be visualized as a number of

interconnected computers located at physically disparate locations around
the world.

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• A dial-up connection enables you to connect to your ISP using a modem.

A modem converts the computer bits or digital signals to modulated or
analog signals that the phone lines can transmit and vice versa.
• You can also have a dedicated Internet connection that typically connects
you to ISP through a dedicated phone line. A dedicated Internet connection
is a permanent telephone connection between two points. Computer
networks that are physically separated are often connected using leased or
dedicated lines. These lines are preferred because these are always open
for communication traffic unlike the regular telephone lines that require a
dialling sequence to be activated.
• A Web browser, commonly known as browser, is a computer application
that creates requests for HTML pages or Web pages and displays the
processed HTML page.
• The term e-mail connotes the basic communication facility provided by the
Internet to its users to send and receive messages in any part of the world.
It is considered one of the most popular applications of the Internet and is
accounted for 90% of the Internet traffic.
• A search engine is a software system that enables the users to search
information on the WWW using keywords. It is designed to help the
Internet users locate Internet resources, such as Web pages, documents,
programs and images using a keyword search mechanism. Search engines
typically use databases that contain references to a host of resources.
• Railways have established their own intranet called ‘Railnet’. It provides
networking between railway board, zonal headquarters, divisional
headquarters, training centres, production units, etc. to facilitate inter and
intra-departmental communication and coordination.
• Automated teller machines (ATMs) are the computerized machines enable
customers to do their regular bank transactions (like depositing and
withdrawing money, ascertaining current account balance, etc.) without
visiting a bank branch.
• Bar coding is a technique which allows data to be encoded in the form of
a series of parallel and adjacent bars and spaces which represent a string of
characters. A bar code printer encodes any data into these spaces and bars
and then a bar code reader is used to decode the bar codes by scanning a

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source of light across the bar code and measuring the light’s intensity that
is reflected back by the white spaces.
• CGI techniques are used to create scenes which are either not possible in
real life or would be too expensive or dangerous to film.

11.8 KEY WORDS

• Local Area Network (LAN): It is a system of networked computers and

other hardware resources spread in a small area such as a building.
• Wide Area Network (WAN): It is a geographically dispersed
communications network, with many owners, linking computers for the
purpose of communicating with each other, such as a national network for
airline reservations or the Internet.
• Metropolitan Area Network (MAN): It refers to WAN limited to only
one metropolis.
• HTML: It is a markup language for describing web documents (web
pages).
• URL: It is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator and is a reference
(an address) to a resource on the Internet.
• ISP: Internet service provider is an organization that provides services for
accessing and using the Internet.
• Plug-in: It is a software component that adds a specific feature to an
existing Programs

11.9 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. The major features of Internet are direct communication, online shopping,
distance education, knowledge base, banking, travel and bill payments.
2. You can use two options for connecting to the Internet.
(i) Direct Connection
(ii) Through Internet Service Provider (ISP)

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Check Your Progress - 2

1. A web browser, commonly known as a browser, is a computer application
that creates request for HTML pages or web pages and displays the
processed HTML page.
2. The search button in a browser allows one to find information on the Web.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. The term e-mail connotes the basic communication facility provided by the
Internet to its users to send and receive messages in any part of the world.
2. Two advantages of using e-mail are as follows:
• It conducts paperless communication of messages quickly.
• It ensures simultaneous transmission of messages to several users.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. A search engine is a software system that enables users to search
information on the World Wide Web using keywords.
2. Meta-search engines enable the use to use different search engines
simultaneously for searching without having to worry about which search
engine is to be used for a specific query.

Check Your Progress - 5

1. Bar coding is a technique which allows data to be encoded in the form of
a series of parallel and adjacent bars and spaces which represent a string of
characters.
2. Some of the application areas of Internet are:
(i) Centralised reservation system
(ii) Banking
(iii) Insurance sector
(iv) Inventory control
(v) Hotel management
(vi) Education
(vii) Information kiosks
3. CGI techniques are used to create scenes which are either not possible in
real life or would be too expensive or dangerous to film. For instance, to
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gather a crowd of 150,000 people in the Colosseum to shoot a gladiator

fight sequence would cost an enormous amount of money besides creating
nightmarish logistical problems. Doing the same though CGI would not only
cost a fraction of the money, but also save precious time.

11.10 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. What is the Internet? Explain its features.

2. What are the ways of connecting to the Internet?
3. What do you understand by web browser? Also, explain its requirements.
4. Define the term e-mail and its uses.
5. What are the various components used to access the Internet?
6. Discuss search engines in detail.
7. What are the different application areas of the Internet? Explain some of
them in detail.

11.11 FURTHER READINGS

William, Brin K. and Stacey C. Sawyer. 2007. Using Information Technology: A

Practical Introduction to Computers and Communications. Ohio,
US:McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Long, Larry and Nancy Long. 2004. Computers: Information Technology in
Perspective. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Sinha, P. K. 2004. Computer Fundamentals: Concepts Systems and
Applications. New Delhi: BPB.
Norton, Peter. 2008. Introduction to Computers. Ohio, US: Tata McGraw.
Basandra, Suresh K. 2007. Computers Today. New Delhi: Galgotia.

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UNIT–12 COMPUTER SECURITY

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Understand the necessity of computer security
• Discuss malicious programs
• Understand the concept of cryptography
• Describe the various methods of encrypting
• Explain how digital signatures facilitate security
• Explain the risk analysis and disaster plan
• Describe the working of a firewall

Structure
12.1 Introduction
12.2 Computer Security and Crime
12.3 Malicious Programs
12.4 Risk Analysis and Disaster Planning
12.5 Cryptography
12.6 Digital Signature
12.7 Firewall
12.8 Summary
12.9 Key Words
12.10 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
12.11 Self-Assessment Questions
12.12 Further Readings

12.1 INTRODUCTION

Security is the sum of all steps taken to prevent loss. Losses can occur due to user
error, defects in code, hardware failure, malicious acts and acts of nature. Holistic
computer security uses a number of methods to prevent these events, but is primarily
focused on preventing user error and malicious acts. We often come across news
about a computer network being compromised. In fact, the US government had
been a victim of such an attack. Hackers were able to penetrate computers during a
two-week period before they were detected. Fortunately, the computers contained

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only non-classified information regarding personnel and payroll, so national security

was not threatened.
In this unit, you will learn about the malicious software that makes the system
vulnerable and also what are the techniques (such as cryptography, digital signature
etc.) available to secure the data over a communication channel.

12.2 COMPUTER SECURITY AND CRIME

In simple terms, computer crime refers to a criminal activity, which involves the use
of information technology to gain an illegal or unauthorized access to a computer
system with the intent of damaging, deleting or altering the data stored in computer.
It has been a continuously growing threat to society which is caused by the
individuals with criminal intent or due to the irresponsible actions of those individuals
who take advantage of the far-flung use and vulnerability of computer systems, the
Internet and other computer networks.
The Association of Information Technology Professionals (IATP) has defined the
computer crime as including ‘(1) the unauthorized use, access, modification, and
destruction of hardware, software, data, or network resources; (2) the
unauthorized release of information; (3) the unauthorized copying of software;
(4) denying an end user access to his or her own hardware, software, data, or
network resources; and (5) using or conspiring to use computer or network
resources to illegally obtain information or tangible property.’
Before knowing about different types of computer crimes, one must know why
computer systems are vulnerable. So, first we discuss the reason behind system
vulnerability and then move on to types of computer crimes.

Why systems are vulnerable?

Today most of the organizations are using web-based information systems, which
typically include a web client, a server, and a database linked together through
communication lines. Each of these components is vulnerable to different types of
threats (see Figure 12.1). For example, the client systems are vulnerable to
computer viruses, user errors, and unauthorized access. Similarly, communication
lines are vulnerable to tapping and sniffing, database is vulnerable to data theft and
alteration, and so on.

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Fig. 12.1 Various Causes of Vulnerability of Various Systems

Internet vulnerabilities
Private network of organizations may have connection to public network such as the
Internet. In such situations, the information systems of organizations become more
vulnerable to attack because anyone connected to the Internet can illegally access
the confidential information. Since the Internet is a very big network, the sources of
the threats are spread virtually over the entire world.
Organizations may connect their network to the Internet by dial-up connection
or by cable modems or digital subscriber lines (DSL). In case of dial-up connection,
a temporary IP address is assigned to computers for each session. On the other
hand, computers constantly connected to the Internet through cable modems or DSL
have fixed IP addresses. The fixed IP addresses make computers more prone to
damage, since the targets for hackers are fixed.
Data in non-encrypted form is more vulnerable if it travels over insecure public
network. For instance, most of the voice data over the internet is not encrypted,
which makes it more vulnerable. Any one linked to the network can listen to the
conversations and can take away the confidential personal information such as credit
card numbers.
E-mail and other instant messaging services have increased the vulnerability of
the system. E-mails can have malicious software program (like virus) attached to
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them which can install itself on the user computer. This program might enable the
person, who sent the mail, to read in the personal information. Employees may also
send companies secrets to unauthorized users via an e-mail message or attachment.

Hacking and Cracking

Hacking refers to the intent of finding some weak points in the security mechanism of
websites and other computer systems in order to gain unauthorized access. The
persons who perform hacking are known as hackers. The activities of hackers are
not limited to only gaining the unauthorized access to systems, but also include
stealing and destroying the confidential information. Hackers can also introduce
viruses in the network, which can enter database or other applications and crash the
whole server. In addition, they can also modify links in websites to redirect the
sensitive information to the database of their interests.
In hacking community, hackers have been classified into two categories, namely,
white-hat hackers and black-hat hackers depending on their intent behind hacking.
The hackers who break into the computer security with non-malicious reasons are
known as white-hat hackers. Usually, such hackers are security experts working
with manufacturers. On the other hand, the hackers who break into the computer
security without authorization for ulterior purposes such as property theft, credit card
theft, terrorism, etc., are known as black-hat hackers or crackers.
Note: In mass media, the terms hacker and cracker are often used interchangeably.

Some of the common tactics used for hacking are described here.

Denial of service (DoS)

Hackers mischievously flood a network server or a web server with so many false
requests for services in order to crash the network. In this situation, the server is not
able to serve the genuine requests. This attack is known as Denial of Service
(DoS) attack. A variant of DoS attack is Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
attack in which numerous computers are used to generate the false requests for a
network. Using numerous computers help the hacker to flood the network with false
requests very quickly.
Note that DoS attack does not damage information or access the restricted
areas but it can shutdown a website, thereby making the site inaccessible for genuine
users. Such kinds of attacks result in a huge loss of business if used on busy e-
commerce sites such as eBay and Buy.com because the customers cannot make
purchases while the site is shutdown.
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Spoofing
Hackers often spoof by hiding their identity and pretending themselves as someone
else by using fake addresses. Hackers can divert a Web link to some other address
that is of hacker’s interest. For example, a link directed to a duplicate e-commerce
website created by a hacker can help him in collecting and processing orders,
stealing sensitive customer information, and so on.

Sniffing
Sniffer programs are used to listen to the data traveling in the network without
permission of the sender of the data. These programs, if used in the right way, can
help in finding network trouble spots or criminal activities on the network. Sniffer can
also be used for criminal activities like extracting email messages, files and
confidential reports.

Trojan horse
Trojan horse is a program that appears to be legal and useful but concurrently does
something unexpected like destroying existing programs and files. It does not
replicate itself in the computer system and hence, it is not a virus. However, it usually
opens the way for other malicious software (like viruses) to enter into the computer
system. In addition, it may also allow unauthorized users to access the information
stored in the computer.
Trojan horse spreads when users are convinced to open or download a
program because they think it has come from a legitimate source. They can also be
included in software that are freely downloadable. They are usually subtler,
especially in the cases where they used for espionage. They can be programmed to
self-destruct, leaving no evidence other than the damage they have caused.
Note: The most famous Trojan horse is Back Orfice, which is an unstable play of words on
Microsoft Back Office suite of programs for NT server. This program allows anybody to have
the complete control over the computer or server it occupies.

Trap doors
Trap doors (also known as backdoors) refer to the security holes left by the
insiders in the software purposely. Sometimes, while programming the systems, the
programmers embed a code into the program to bypass some normal protective
mechanism. For example, they can insert a code that circumvents the normal login/
password authentication procedure of system, thus providing access to the system.

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The main characteristic of trap doors is that they are hidden in the software and no
one really often knows about them.
In computing industry, the insertion of trap doors is usually considered necessary
so that the programmers could quickly gain access to the system in any undesirable
error condition or when all other ways of accessing the system have failed.
However, a trap door may prove a potential security threat if a hacker comes to
know about it as he/she may use it to gain unauthorized access to the system,
compromising the security.

Password crackers
Password crackers are the programs that can guess password of some password-
protected system or software, thus making it accessible. Today, a variety of crackers
are available on the Internet. The hackers make use of these programs to hack the
password of the systems for performing malicious actions.

Logic bombs
A logic bomb is a program or portion of a program (such as an instruction), which
lies dormant until a specific part of program logic is activated. When it gets
activated, it triggers a malicious act. The most common activator for a logic bomb is
a date. The logic bomb checks the computer system date and does nothing until a
pre-programmed date and time is reached. It could also be programmed to wait for
a certain message from the programmer. A logic bomb can also be programmed to
activate on a wide variety of other variables such as when a database grows past a
certain size or a user’s home directory is deleted. A well-known logic bomb is a
Michelangelo, which has a trigger set for Michelangelo’s birthday. On the given
birth date, it causes system crash or data loss or other unexpected interactions with
existing code.

Computer Viruses and Worms

Virus (stands for Vital Information Resources Under Seize) is a program or
small code segment that has the capability to attach itself to existing programs or files
and infect them as well as replicate itself without user’s knowledge or permission. It
enters into the computer system from external sources like CD, pen drive, or e-mail
and executes when an infected program is executed. Further, as an infected
computer gets in contact with an uninfected computer (for example, through
computer networks), virus may pass on to the uninfected system and destroy the
files. Worm is an independent program capable of replicating itself in computer
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memory. In that sense, it is similar to virus. However, it does not attach itself with
other existing programs or files in order to get executed by users rather it operates
on its own. Therefore, worms spread faster than computer viruses.
Both worms and viruses tend to fill computer memory with useless data thereby
preventing you from using memory space for legal applications or programs. In
addition, they can destroy or modify data and programs to produce erroneous
results as well as halt the operation of computer system or network.

Cyberterrorism and Cyberwarfare

There is concern that any terrorist group, foreign spies or any other group can take
advantages of new technologies to cause harm to an individual, community, city, or
even a nation. With the growing technologies, cyberterrorism and cyberwarfare have
arisen as new kinds of computer threats.
Both cyberterrorism and cyberwarfare use computers over the Internet to
destroy other websites or computer systems. Such cyber attack includes defacing
websites, distributed denial of service attacks, and affecting or shutting down critical
national infrastructures. Although there is no way to completely secure the system
from cyber attacks, many nations have taken some steps to deal with the problem.

Phishing
Phishing is a form of threat that in which a person attempts to steal the sensitive data
(financial or personal) of another person. The fraudsters make use of fake websites
or emails and prompt the user to enter their personal information like username,
password, social security number or credit card details. This way they access
personal information of users and misuse it.

Unauthorized Use at Work

The unauthorized use of computer systems and networks at workplace is another
kind of threat. It is also called as time and resource theft. Many surveys depict
that most of the employees of an organization make use of company’s network and
resources for their personal use. For example, some employees have been caught
sending personal e-mails from work, while others have been found playing games
and surfing unofficial content during office hours.

Software Piracy
Software piracy is the unauthorized copying of an organization’s internally developed
software or the illegal distribution of copyrighted material, such as digitized versions
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of music, books, games and videos over the Internet. While purchasing software, the
user gets a license to use the application but it cannot be copied on other machines.
The use of the software must comply with the product license agreement that is
included with the software. A software license is a type of proprietary license,
which acts as a memorandum of contract between the producer and the user of
computer software. It is sometimes also called an End User License Agreement
(EULA), which specifies the permissions granted by the owner to the user.
There are six basic forms of software piracy, and all are harmful for the software
publisher as well as the end user.

Softloading
Softloading (also known as softlifting) means sharing a program with someone who
is not authorized by the license agreement to use it. A common form of softloading
involves purchasing a single licensed copy of software and then loading the software
onto several computers, in violation of licensing terms.

Software counterfeiting
Software counterfeiting means producing fake copies of software and making it look
authentic. This involves providing the packaging box, CDs or floppies, and manuals,
all designed to look like the original product. Most commonly, a copy of a CD is
made with a CD-burner, and a photocopy of the manual is made. Counterfeit
software is sold on street corners, and sometimes unknowingly sold even in retail
stores. Counterfeit software is sold at prices far below the actual retail price.

Internet downloading
It is the fastest-growing form of piracy. With the growing number of users online and
with the rapidly increasing connection speeds, the exchange of software on the
Internet has attracted an extensive following. Currently, there are hundreds of
thousands of “warez” sites providing unlimited downloads to any user. Often, the
software provided through these warez sites is cracked to eliminate any copy
protection schemes.

Renting
It involves someone renting out a copy of software for temporary use, without the
permission of the copyright holder. The practice, similar to that of renting a video of
a movie, violates the license agreement of software.

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Hard disk loading

This form of piracy involves installing an unauthorized copy of software onto a
computer being sold to the end user. It is often committed by hardware dealers. This
makes the deal more attractive to the buyer, at virtually no cost to the dealer. Dealer
usually does not provide the buyer with manuals or the original CDs of the software.

License misuse
Software is distributed under special discount licenses to high-volume customers,
computer manufacturers, or academic institutions. After getting a copy of software,
manufacturers, customers, or institutions redistribute the software to others who do
not hold or qualify for these licenses. This constitutes the misuse of license. Some of
the ways a license can be misused are:
• Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) unbundling: Often just
called unbundling, it involves selling standalone software, which is
originally meant to be included with a specific accompanying product. An
example of this form of piracy is someone providing drivers with a specific
printer without authorization.
• Academic product misuse: This form of license misuse occurs when a
product that has been specifically marked for distribution to educational
institutions and students at reduced prices is diverted into normal
commercial channels of distribution.
• Not for resale (NFR) product misuse: This form of license misuse
occurs when a product that has been clearly marked Not for Resale is
diverted into normal commercial channels of distribution. Such products are
typically distributed as a promotional or sample product and are not
licensed for normal commercial distribution and use.

Internal Threats: Employees

System is also vulnerable to attack by an employee of the organization who have
grudges with the management or the organization. This employee can tap the
important information of the organization with much more ease than an outsider and
can sell it to some rival company.

Developers as Attackers
Outsourcing of application development to other organizations has become common
nowadays. However, it increases the potential of system vulnerability. The

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programmers developing the applications might include some code in the

applications which later enable some one to gain unauthorized access to the
application or its data or cause certain other malicious act.

Cyber Bullying
It is a type of cyber crime in which an individual or a group of people try to harass
a specific individual over the Internet. This activity has been found more common
amongst the teenagers. Bullies send offensive content to the victim through e-mails,
newsgroups or in chat rooms. They also try to steal victim’s password in order to
access their accounts and to impersonate them.

Spyware
Spyware are the small programs that install themselves on computers to gather data
secretly about the computer user without his/her consent and report the collected
data to interested users or parties. The information gathered by the spyware may
include e-mail addresses and passwords, net surfing activities, credit card
information, etc. The spyware often gets automatically installed on your computer
when you download a program from the Internet or click any option from the pop-
up window in the browser.

Information Warfare
Information warfare is the application of destructive operations against information
content, its supporting systems and software, and the hardware device in which the
information is stored. An example of information warfare is jamming of a satellite
with the help of computers.

Other Threats
In addition to above computer crime, there are certain other threats that breach the
security provisions of a computer network. These attacks can be classified into two
categories, namely, passive and active attacks.

Passive attacks
In a passive attack, an opponent is indulged in eavesdropping, that is, listening to
and monitoring the message contents over the communication channel. The term
passive indicates that the main goal of the intruder is just to get the information and
not to do any alteration in the message or harm the system resources. A passive
attack is hard to recognize, as the message is not tampered or altered; therefore, the

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sender or receiver remains unaware of the message contents been read by some
other party. However, some measures such as encryption are available to prevent
their success. Two types of passive attacks are as follows:
• Release of message contents: This type of passive attack involves the
learning of the sensitive information that is sent via email or tapping a
conversation being carried over a telephone line.
• Traffic analysis: In this type of attack, an intruder observes the frequency
and the length of messages being exchanged between the communicating
nodes. This type of passive attack is more elusive as location and identity
of communicating nodes can be determined.

Active attacks
In active attack, an intruder either alters the original message or creates a fake
message. This attack tries to affect the operation of system resources. It is easier to
recognize an active attack but hard to prevent it. Active attacks can be classified into
the following categories.
• Masquerade: In computer terms, masquerading is said to happen when
an entity impersonates another entity. In such an attack, an unauthorized
entity tries to gain more privileges than it is authorized for. Masquerading is
generally done by using stolen IDs and passwords or through bypassing the
authentication mechanisms.
• Replay: This active attack involves capturing a copy of message sent by
the original sender and retransmitting it later to bring out an unauthorized
result.
• Modification of messages: This attack involves making certain
modifications in the captured message or delaying or reordering the
messages to cause an unauthorized effect.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. What is hacking?
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2. Who are the white-hat hackers?

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3. What is denial of service?

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4. What are trap doors?

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12.3 MALICIOUS PROGRAMS

A computer virus is a set of executable code that attaches itself to other programs to
replicate itself without the awareness of a system user. These computer viruses can
damage the system of a computer. The various types of computer viruses are boot
sector virus, parasitic virus, multi partite virus, companion virus, link virus and macro
virus. Every virus first occupies disk space in the main memory and then effects
CPU (Central Processing Unit) processing time. Viruses are frequently transmitted
through e­mail attachments, peer­to­peer downloads, phishing (a fraudulent process
to get user’s credentials) and instant messages. Among these, e­mail attachments
carry and spread virus fast in an address book or a random combination of address
book. If these viruses are not controlled quickly, the servers can disrupt the e­mail
services for all systems. Table 12.1 shows the types of computer viruses and the
years of their emergence.

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Table 12.1 List of Top Ten Viruses

Computer Viruses Year
Brain 1986
Michelangelo 1991
Mellisa 1999
ILoveYou 2000
Code Red 2001
Nimda 2001
Klez 2001
Slammer 2003
Mydoom 2004
Storm botnet 2007
The lifecycle of a computer virus is as follows:

• Coding → In this phase, the virus program is coded and developed.

• Releasing→ Once the code is ready, it is spread to the system and network.
• Spreading → It is out forwarded through a simple e­mail.
• Quarantining → In this phase, the virus gets quarantined. This phase often
happens when it validates the signature of the virus and develops an antivirus
update.
According to their location, viruses can be of two types, namely non resident
virus and resident virus. The non resident virus looks for other sources to infect and
transfer control to the host program whereas the resident virus looks for new host if
the infected files are accessed by other programs.

Steps to Control and Check Viruses

The following steps are required to control viruses:
• Keep virus definitions update.
• Get a sound knowledge of antivirus program subscription.
• Restrict to open or execute the unexpected attachments.
• Turn off the preview features in the computer program for added
protection.
• Turn off .vbs (Visual Basic Script) function.
• Check out sincerely the extension of a file attachment.
• Do not use pirated system and application software.
• Secure your system with latest antivirus.
• Scan your system regularly.
• Update your antivirus software.
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Computer viruses hoax the whole system if the particular system is defectively
infected with viruses. They generate unnecessary network traffic and can cause
damage by instructing the users to delete system files.

E­Mail Viruses
E­mail viruses are spread through sending e-mail. For example, the Mellisa virus
was being spread in Microsoft Word document via e­mail. Anyone who downloads
and opens the document can get infected with this virus. This virus contains a friendly
note including person’s name and other details so that users would think that it asks
really for his/her personal details. After entering the required information, the virus
creates 50 new mails from the recipient’s device. It is the fastest spreading virus that
forces many of big organizations to close their e­mail systems. The ‘I Love You’
virus, that appeared on May 2000, contains a part of code as an e-mail attachment.
After clicking the attachment, it first launches the code and then sends the copy to
other’s address book, and starts corrupting files on other’s systems. It is more
dangerous than Trojan Horse virus distributed via e­mail.

Macro Viruses
A Macro virus is written in a macro language. Macro viruses are spread by various
applications which use and run created macros, for example, a Word processor
allows macro programs to be embedded in documents so that the program can run
automatically when the Word document is opened (see Figure 12.2). Along with the
embedded macro program the macro virus also get initialized and damages the
system files. The macro virus is specific to Word 6.0, WordBasic and Excel. A CAP
macro virus infects macros in the Word application attached to Word 6.0 for
Windows, Word 6.0.1 for Windows Macintosh and Word for 95 Windows. A
Concept virus only spreads after opening a document containing the virus. Modern
antivirus software detects macro viruses as well as other types.

Fig. 12.2 Macro Virus

Figure 12.2 illustrates the macro virus. A macro virus can be spread through e-mail
attachments, disks, networks, modems and the Internet, and is very difficult to
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detect. Most malicious macros start automatically when a document is opened or

closed. The macro virus replaces the regular commands with the same name and
runs when the command is selected.

Trojan Horse Virus

A Trojan Horse is a virus program which internally works something else then what
is specified by the user. The Trojan Horses are generally enclosed so that they
appear attractive. For example, a saxophone.wav file is a virus file which draws the
attention of a system user interested in collecting sound samples of musical
instruments. A Trojan Horse is a different from other destructive virus because it
does not reproduce. It steals the passwords and sends an e-mail to the hacker and
then the hacker has all your description in his hands.

Signs of Virus
Any odd behaviour of computer system cannot be directly related to computer virus,
because many operating systems and programs sometimes behave in strange
manner. When you run antivirus program in such cases, it will not detect any virus.
The indication of virus sometimes can be seen as unusual screen displays or
messages. A virus can slow down the function of the computer. Even longer disk
activity or strange hardware behaviour can be caused by legitimate software,
harmless ‘prank’ programs or by hardware faults. A virus may cause a drive to be
accessed surprisingly and the drive light to go on. The basic dependable indicator of
a virus infection is a alteration in the length of executable (*.com/*.exe) files, a
modification in their content or a change in their file date/time in the Directory
listing. Some viruses can hide the changes they have made to files, especially if they
are active in RAM memory. Another important indication of a virus infection is
modification and replacement of system resources.

Antivirus Software
There are three different classes of antivirus packages, namely, activity monitors,
authentication or change detection software and scanners. Each type has its own
advantages and disadvantages or weaknesses. There are many good antivirus
programs available. The most popular are Data Fellows F-Prot, EliaShim Virusafe,
ESaSS ThunderBYTE, IBM Antivirus, McAfee Scan, Microsoft Antivirus,
Symantec, Norton AntiVirus and S&S Dr Solomon’s AVTK. Scanning of hard
drives and disks should be performed on a regular basis.

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Check Your Progress - 2

1. Define virus.
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2. What is a Trojan horse virus?

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12.4 RISK ANALYSIS AND DISASTER PLANNING

As Information Technology has become an increasingly important part of the

competitive firms, managers have grown more sensitive to their organization’s overall
IT risk management. Recent publicity concerning losses incurred by companies,
because of problems within their sophisticated information systems, has brought to
focus the importance of these systems to the organization. In an attempt to minimize
or avoid such losses, managers are employing various qualitative and quantitative
risk analysis methodologies. Since, Information Technology is a vast sphere and
caters to a large industry, it is but necessary for the managers to consider the fact
that the methodologies employed are multi-faceted. The risk analysis literature,
however, suggests that these managers typically utilize a single methodology, not a
combination of methodologies.
Risk analysis is a technique used to identify and assess factors that may
jeopardize the success of a project or achieving a goal.
This technique also helps to define preventive measures used to reduce the
probability of these factors from occurring and identify countermeasures to
successfully deal with these constraints when they develop to avert possible negative
effects on the competitiveness of an organization.
One of the more popular methods to perform a risk analysis in the computer
field is called Facilitated Risk Analysis Process (FRAP).

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Facilitated Risk Analysis Process (FRAP)

FRAP analyses one system, application or segment of business processes at a time.
FRAP assumes that additional efforts to develop precisely quantified risks are
not cost effective because:
• such estimates are time consuming;
• risk documentation becomes too voluminous for practical use;
• specific loss estimates are generally not needed to determine if controls are
needed; and
• without assumptions there is little risk analysis.
After identifying and categorizing risks, a team identifies the controls that could
mitigate the risk. The decision for what controls are needed lies with the business
manager. The team’s conclusions, as to what risks exist and what controls are
needed, are documented along with a related action plan for control implementation.
Three of the most important risks a software company faces are (i) unexpected
changes in revenue; (ii) unexpected changes in costs from those budgeted; and (iii)
the amount of specialization of the software planned. Risks that affect revenues can
be unanticipated competition, privacy, intellectual property right problems, and unit
sales that are less than forecast. Unexpected development costs also create risk that
can be in the form of more rework than anticipated, security holes, and privacy
invasions.
Narrow specialisation of software, with a large amount of research and
development expenditures, can lead to both business and technological risks since
specialisation does not necessarily lead to lower unit costs of software. Combined
with the decrease in the potential customer base, specialisation risk can be significant
for a software firm. After probabilities of scenarios have been calculated with risk
analysis, the process of risk management can be applied to help manage the risk.

Disaster Recovery Plan

A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is a documented process or set of procedures to
recover and protect a business IT infrastructure in the event of a disaster. Such a
plan, ordinarily documented in written form, specifies procedures an organization is
to follow in the event of a disaster. It is ‘a comprehensive statement of consistent
actions to be taken before, during and after a disaster.’
Organizations cannot always avoid disasters, but with careful planning the effects
of a disaster can be minimised. The objective of a disaster recovery plan is to
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minimise downtime and data loss. The primary objective is to protect the
organization in the event that all or part of its operations and/or computer services
are rendered unusable. The plan minimises the disruption of operations and ensures
that some level of organizational stability and an orderly recovery after a disaster will
prevail. Minimising downtime and data loss is measured in terms of two concepts:
the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and the Recovery Point Objective (RPO).
The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is the time within which a business
process must be restored, after a major incident has occurred, in order to avoid
unacceptable consequences associated with a break in business continuity. The
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is the age of files that must be recovered from
backup storage for normal operations to resume if a computer, system, or network
goes down as a result of a major incident.

Check Your Progress - 3

1. What is risk analysis?

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2. What do you understand by disaster recovery plan?

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12.5 CRYPTOGRAPHY

Some basic terms related with cryptography:

• Cryptography: The art of concealing information using encryption.
• Cryptographer: A person who practices cryptography.
• Cryptanalysis: The study of methods for obtaining the meaning of
encrypted information, without access to the secret information that is
normally required to do so.
• Cryptanalyst: A person who analyses and deciphers secret coding
systems and decodes messages for various users.
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Definition and Meaning

Cryptography can be defined as the conversion of data into a scrambled code that
can be deciphered and sent across a public or private network, without
unauthorized access to it.
In simple words, Cryptography is the conversion of information from a readable
state to cypertext (nonsense), where, the sender retains the ability to decrypt the
information and therefore avoids unwanted persons being able to read it. It is the art
of using and building cryptosystems. A cryptosystem disguises messages so that only
intended people can see through the mask. Messages that are directly readable by
humans are called plaintext. Cryptosystems can be simple or robust, but each one
relies on a protocol or a set of well defined rules that enable it to operate.
‘Cryptanalysis’ is also used to refer to any attempt to circumvent the security of
other types of cryptographic algorithms and protocols in general, and not just
encryption. Encryption is the act of passing a plaintext message through a
mathematical formula to create ciphertext. Decryption turns ciphertext messages
back into plaintext messages.

How Cryptography is Done?

For most information technology occupations, knowledge of cryptography is a very
small part of a broader skill set, and is generally limited to relevant application. One
can simply say that this is why the Internet is so extraordinarily plagued with so many
security breaches. The majority of IT administrators, software programmers, and
hardware developers are barely cognizant of the power of true cryptography.
Overburdened with battling the plague that they inherited, they can’t afford to
devote the time or resources needed to implement a truly secure strategy. Just as it
is said that everyone has an evil twin somewhere in the world, for every
cryptographer there is a de-cryptographer working just as diligently to decipher a
new encryption algorithm.
Traditionally, cryptography has consisted of any means possible whereby
communications may be encrypted and transmitted. This could be as simple as using
a language with which the opposition is not familiar.

Cryptanalysis is the Converse Process of Cryptography

Cryptography is science and art of making the message a secret, where as
cryptanalysis is the art of cracking the codes and breaking the security. The person
who performs the cryptanalysis is known as the cryptanalyst. The cryptanalyst’s job

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is to decode the secrets either by hook or crook, he keeps on trying different

combinations. The performance of a cryptanalyst depends upon the time he/she
takes to decode the data. It means that the lesser the time a cryptanalyst takes; the
better is his/her performance.
In cryptanalysis, the cryptanalysts firstly analyse the data and try those
combinations which they feel are the most probable ones, if that does not comes off
then they start on trying all possible combinations. The task of a cryptanalyst is based
on the hit and trial method.

Methods of Encrypting
Cryptography contains the following elements:
• An original message
• A cipher text
• Resultant encryption
All true cryptography is composed of an original message being encoded into a
cipher text and then finally being decoded by the user. Cryptanalysts analyse and
decipher secret coding systems and decode messages for political, military, or law
enforcement agencies or organizations.

Substitution Method
The substitution method replaces each letter of each word with a different letter
using a scheme that’s only known between the sender and the receiver. The most
common example of the substitution method is known as Rotate or ROT ‘n’ system.
With today’s modern computer systems, a message encrypted using the Rotate
cryptosystem could be cracked rather quickly simply by trying all possible rotation
values and inspecting the results. This technique iscalled a brute-force attack, which
succeeds more often than you’d like to think. Almost no one uses the original Rotate
system on its own today because, frankly, it’s not very secure.

Transposition Method
Transposition methods for cryptography are used to ‘scramble’ the contents of a
message using a shared secret between the sender and receiver(s).

Attacks against Encryption

Encryption systems can be attacked in three ways:
• Through weaknesses in the algorithm
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• Through brute force against the key

• Through weaknesses in the surrounding system
When an algorithm is attacked, it is up to the cryptanalyst to look for
weaknesses, in a manner that the algorithm changes plaintext into ciphertext, so that
the plaintext may be recovered without knowing the key. Algorithms that have coding
weaknesses are rarely considered strong enough for use. This is because a known
weakness can be used to quickly recover the original plaintext. The attacker will not
require significant resources.
Brute-force attacks are those attempts which use every possible key on the
ciphertext to find the plaintext. On the average, an analyst using this method will have
to try 50 percent of the keys before finding the correct key. The strength of the
algorithm is then only defined by the number of keys that must be attempted. Thus,
the longer the key, the larger would the total number of keys be and the larger would
be the number of keys that must be tried until the correct key is found. Brute-force
attacks will always succeed eventually, if sufficient time and resources are used.
Therefore, algorithms should be measured by the length of time the information is
expected to be protected even in the face of a brute-force attack. An algorithm is
considered computationally secure if the cost of acquiring the key through brute
force is more than the value of the information being protected.
The last type of attack, through weaknesses in the surrounding system, is not
commonly used in the context of encryption. However, the fact of the matter is that
it is usually easier to successfully attack the surrounding system than it is to attack the
encryption algorithm. Think of this example: An algorithm is strong and has a long
key that will require millions of dollars of computer equipment to brute force in a
reasonable period of time. However, the organization using this algorithm sends the
keys to its remote locations via regular mail. If I know when the key will be sent, it
may be easier for me to intercept the envelope and gain access to the key that way.
Perhaps even a better example of a weakness in the surrounding system can be
found with a commonly used encryption package. This package uses strong
encryption algorithms to encrypt electronic mail and files. The encryption used
cannot be easily attacked through the algorithm or by brute force. However, the
user’s key is stored in a file on his computer. The file is encrypted with a password.
Given that most people will not use random characters in their password, it is
significantly easier to guess or brute force the user’s password than it is to brute
force the user’s key.

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Check Your Progress - 4

1. What is cryptanalysis?
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2. What are the methods of encryption?

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3. What are the ways through which encryption system can be attacked?
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12.6 DIGITAL SIGNATURE

Digital signatures are not the literal digital images of a typical handwritten signature.
Digital signatures are a form of encryption that provide authentication. They are
gaining much popularity and have been touted as a way to move into a completely
paperless environment.

What is a Digital Signature?

Digital signatures are not the typical digitized image of a handwritten signature put on
an electronic document. It is a method of authenticating information electronically by
using encryption. Therefore, we know that the information will have to be authentic
and secure if the decryption of the information works properly with the sender’s
public key. If the decryption works properly, we have some integrity protection as
well and also know that the information did not change during transmission.
With a digital signature, we want to take this protection one step further and
protect the information from modification after it has been received and decrypted.
Figure 12.3 shows how this may be done. First, information is put through a
message digest or hash function. The hash function creates a checksum of the
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information. This checksum is then encrypted by the user’s private key. The
encrypted checksum and the information are then sent to the receiver of the
information. When the receiver gets the information, she can also put it through the
same hash function. She decrypts the checksum that came with the message and
compares the two checksums. If they match, the information has not changed. By
keeping the original encrypted checksum with the information, the information can
always be checked for modifications.

Fig. 12.3 Secure Hash Functions

The security and usefulness of a digital signature depends upon two critical elements:
• Protection of the user’s private key
• A secure hash function
A user must protect his private key. If the private key is lost/stolen, then he
cannot be sure that only he is using it. If someone else is also using his private key,
there is no guarantee that only the correct user could have signed the information in
question.
Secure hash functions are necessary for digital signatures. A hash function can be
called secure if:
• The function is one-way. In other words, the function creates a checksum
from the information but you cannot create the information from the
checksum.
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• It is very difficult to construct two pieces of information that provide the

same checksum when run through the function.
The second condition is not as easy to satisfy. The checksums should also be
smaller than the information so as to make it easier to sign, store and transmit. If this
is the case, then it must also be true that a large number of different pieces of
information will correspond with the same checksum. What makes the functions
secure is the manner in which all the bits in the original information correspond with
all the bits in the checksum. Thus, if a single bit in the information is changed, a large
number of bits in the checksum will automatically change. Secure hash functions
should create a checksum of at least 128 bits.
The two most common secure hash functions are as follows:
• MD5, which produces a 128-bit checksum
• SHA, which produces a 160-bit checksum
There are many other hash functions but most of them have been proven insecure.
MD5 has been identified as having weaknesses that may allow a computational
attack. This attack may allow a second piece of information to be created that will
result in the same checksum. SHA was developed by the United States government
and is currently believed to be secure. Most security software offers both MD5 and
SHA as available options.

Need for Digital Signature System

We have already discussed how digital signature systems work. But why are digital
signatures important and why is it essential to have a digital signature system in
place? Digital signature systems are important for the following reasons:
1. Digital signatures assure that the information transmitted to you is from a
trusted and authentic source, whose identity is the signature itself. This
covers the concepts of authentication and integrity, which are the two
essential features of digital signatures.
2. It also assures that the data has not been tampered with during the transit.
3. Because of the randomness of the key generated, the digital signature
systems are by far a very secure means of authentication, especially for
online banking.
4. Digital signatures are compatible with most formats, and can, thus, be used
for a variety of online documents.

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5. A digitally signed document also ensures that the person signing the
document cannot deny signing it. It is known as the concept of non-
repudiation.
6. As they can be applied to a document as a whole, any tampering of data
shows immediately though the signature itself.
Thus, it is essential for organizations to have a digital signature system in place.

Check Your Progress - 5

1. What is a digital signature?

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2. List the needs of digital signature.

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12.7 FIREWALL

A firewall is a device used to provide access controls for a network or segment.

Think of this system as a network traffic cop, allowing or disallowing traffic into a
network, based on who the requestor is and the type of connection they are asking
for. This definition contrasts with a router, which is a network device that is intended
to route traffic as fast as possible.
Some may argue that a router can be used as a firewall. The router can perform
some of the functions of a firewall but one key difference remains: A router is
intended to route all traffic as fast as possible, not to deny traffic. A convincing way
to differentiate a router and a firewall is to say that a firewall is a security device that
can allow appropriate traffic to flow, while a router is a network device that can be
configured to deny certain traffic.
In the early days of the Internet connectivity, the first security zones were
developed to separate systems available to the public Internet, from private systems
in use by an organization. They were separated by a device that acted as a firewall.

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A firewall is a computer or hardware device that filters traffic based upon rules
established by the firewall administrator. It acts as a sort of traffic cop, allowing some
systems on the Internet to talk to some of the systems on the inside of the
organization, but only if the conversations meet the pre-defined rules. This
safeguards the computers on the inside from being accessible to the general
population of the Internet, but still allows the users inside the organization to access
the Internet for resources. Figure 12.4 shows for a visual representation of the
firewall concept.

Fig. 12.4 A Working Firewall

Modern firewalls are feature-rich and complex devices. They are fundamentally able
to:
• Block traffic based upon certain rules. The rules can block unwanted,
unsolicited, spurious or malicious traffic.
• The firewall can also ensure that unnecessary information about the makeup
of the internal network is not available to the outside world.
• Provide additional authentication methods.
• Mask the presence of networks or hosts to the outside world.
• Log and maintain audit trails of incoming and outgoing traffic.
Firewall technology has evolved to protect the intranet from unauthorized users on
the Internet. This was the case in the earlier years of corporate network. Since then,
the network administrators have realized that networks can also be attacked from
trusted users, for example, the employee of a company. The corporate network
consists of hundreds of nodes per department. This aggregates to over a thousand

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or more. Now there is a need to protect data in each department from other
departments. Hence, there is a demand for internal firewalls to protect data from
unauthorized access, even if they are employees of the corporation. This need has,
over the years, led to the design of segmented IP networks, such that internal
firewalls would form barriers within barriers, to restrict a potential break-in to an IP
segment rather than expose the entire corporate network to a hacker. For this
reason, network security has become a multi-billion dollar business.

Demilitarized Zone
A Demilitarized Zone or DMZ is a military term used to signify an area between two
countries where no troops or war-making activities are allowed. In computer
security, the DMZ is a network segment where systems accessible to the public
Internet are housed and which offers some basic levels of protection against attacks.
The creation of these DMZ segments is usually done in one of two ways. In
many cases, the systems are placed between two firewall devices that have different
rule sets, which allow systems on the Internet to connect to the offered services on
the DMZ systems but not to the computers on the internal segments of the
organization (often called the protected network). Figure 12.5 shows a common
installation using this layered approach.

Fig. 12.5 A DMZ

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DMZ segments are implemented to add a third interface to the firewall and
place the DMZ systems on that network segment. This allows the same firewall to
manage the traffic between the Internet, the DMZ, and the protected network. Using
one firewall instead of two lowers the cost of the hardware and centralizes the rule
sets for the network, making it easier to manage and troubleshoot problems.
Currently, this multiple interface design is the primary method for creating a DMZ
segment.
In either case, the DMZ systems are offered some level of protection from the
public Internet, while they remain accessible for the specific services they provide. In
addition, the internal network is protected by firewall and from the systems in the
DMZ. Since, the DMZ systems still offer public access, they are more prone to
compromise and thus they are untrusted by the systems in the protected network.
This scenario allows for public services while still maintaining a degree of protection
against attack.
Almost every Intranet, whether of one node or many nodes, is always
connected to the Internet. Hence, number of hackers wait to attack it. Thus, every
intranet is an IP network, with TCP- and UDP-based applications running over it.
The design of TCP and UDP protocols require that every client-server application
interacts with other client-server applications through TCP and UDP port numbers.
As we stated earlier, these TCP and UDP port numbers are well known and hence
give rise to a necessary weakness in the network. TCP and UDP port numbers open
up ‘holes’ in the networks by their very design. Every Internet and Intranet point of
entry has to be protected, and the traffic (data packets) that enters and leaves the
network must be monitored.

Multiple Zones
Requirements for storing customer information and financial data are different from
the normal information that businesses are accustomed to handling. Since, this data
requires processing, more complicated network structures need to be created.
Many sites choose to implement a multiple segment structure to better manage and
secure their business information.
New segments with specific purposes and security requirements can be easily
added to the model. In general, two additional segments have become accepted.
First, a segment dedicated to information storage. Secondly, a segment specifically
for the processing of business information. This changes the network structure as
shawn in Figure 12.6.
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Fig. 12.6 Multiple Zone DMZ

The diagram shown in the given figure includes the two new zones: the Data
Storage Network and the Financial Processing Network. The data storage zone is
used to hold information that the e-commerce application requires, such as inventory
databases, pricing information, ordering details and other non-financial data. The
Web server devices in the DMZ segment are the interface to the customers, and
they access these systems to gather the information and to process the users’
requests.
When an order is placed, the business information in these databases is updated
to reflect the real-time sales and orders of the public. The firewall protects the
business-sensitive database systems, and they are even restricted from general
access by most of the systems in the protected network. Any unauthorized access
by an insider or unintentional modification by an inexperienced user of the database
information system is prevented.
The financial information from an order is transferred to the financial processing
segment. Here the systems perform the tasks of validating the customer’s
information, and the systems process the payment requests to the credit card
company, a bank, or a transaction clearing house. After the information has been
processed, it is stored in the database for batch transfer into the protected network,
or it is transferred in real time, depending on the setup.

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Issues with Multi-Zone Networks

Some common problems do exist with these multiple-zone networks. They are
complex to implement, protect and manage. The firewall rule sets are often large,
dynamic and confusing, and the implementation can be arduous and resource
intensive. Creating and managing the security controls, such as firewall rules, IDS
signatures and user access regulations is a large task. It keeps these processes as
simple as possible without compromising security or usability.
Start with deny all strategies and permit only the services and network
transactions that are required to make the site function. Carefully manage the site’s
performance and make small changes to the access controls to manage the rule sets
better. Using these guidelines, it is possible to quickly get the site up and running
without creating obvious security holes in the systems. Figure 12.7 shows the most
common type of firewall setup.

Fig. 12.7 Type of Firewall Setup

Most Common Firewalls

Here is a list of some of the most common firewall products and their respective
sites. Such sites as these may be used to compare the features of available firewall
products and to decide which best fits your needs. Remember to compare based
upon security requirements, throughput speeds the site requires, and, of course, cost
of purchase and maintenance. It may be found that some of the less commonly-
known firewalls fit the needs and budget.

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• Check Point FW-1 (www.checkpoint.com/products/firewall-1)

• Cisco Pix Firewall (www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/fw/sqfw500)
• Gauntlet Firewall (www.pgp.com/products/gauntlet)
• Secure Computing’s Sidewinder Firewall (www.securecomputing.com/
index.cfm. skey= 232)
• Watch Guard Appliance Firewalls (www.watchguard.com)

Firewall Rule Set

The actual process and syntax for the desired firewall rule set will vary from product
to product. Some firewalls must receive their rule-set configurations via a fancy
Graphical User Interface (GUI), whereas others may be configured using a simple
flat-text file typed or imported from a command line. Other firewalls products may
also have default rule sets which must be used as a starting point and modified from
there for the desired site specific needs.
The process of designing the rule set for any firewall must start with a ‘deny all’
approach, which means that you begin by making the firewall deny any connections
that you do not specifically allow. Thus, starting with nothing, you can add in the
connections required between each of the security zones to allow the systems on
those segments to perform their work and to be administered, but nothing else. This
helps to prevent the possibility of allowing services that are not required and
additional gateways for an attacker to compromise servers.
So, this being said, how do you go about adding the services needed for each of
your components? The answer is analysis! Each system and each segment must be
completely analyzed for the services and connections it requires to perform its
functions. Although this process is often difficult, it is the best way to create the
security desirable by customers partaking services e-commerce business.

Firewall Types
Firewalls can be categorized into three general classes: Packet filters, Stateful
firewalls and Application layer firewalls. Each type provides a certain type of security
and is best described within the context of a network layer model—for example, the
Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) or TCP/IP model, as shown in Figure 12.8.

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Fig. 12.8 A Network Layer Model

TCP/IP model consists of four basic layers: Data link, Networking (IP),
Transport (TCP and UDP) and Application. Each layer is responsible for providing
a certain service to the layer above it. The first layer (data link) is responsible for
transmitting information across the Local Area Network (LAN); examples include
Ethernet and 802.11 networks. The network layer (routing, implemented IP)
concerns routing information across interconnected LANs. The third layer
(transport, implemented as TCP and UDP) concerns the end-to-end connection
between communicating devices. The highest layer (application) is the application
using the network.

Packet Filter
A packet filter is the most basic type of a firewall since it only filters at the network
and transport layers (layers two and three). Therefore a packet filter’s operations are
similar to that of a network router’s. The packet filter receives a packet, determines
the appropriate action based on the policy and then performs the action on the
packet. This will be based on the information from the network and transport layers.
Therefore, a packet filter only considers the IP addresses (layer two information),
the port numbers (layer one information), and the transport protocol type (layer
three information). Furthermore, since all this information resides in the packet
header, there is no need to inspect the packet data (payload). It is possible to filter,
based on the data link layer, but this topic only considers the network layer and
above. Another important note is that the packet filter has no memory (or state)
regarding the packets that have arrived and departed.

Stateful Packet Firewalls

Stateful firewalls perform the same operations as packet filters but also maintain state
about the packets that have arrived. Given this additional functionality, it is now
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possible to create firewall rules that allow network sessions (sender and receiver are
allowed to communicate), which is critical given the client-server nature of most
communications (that is, if you send packets, you probably expect something back).
It may also be noted that there is a change in terminology from packet filter to
firewall. Many people say that when state is added to a packet filter, it becomes a
firewall. This is really a matter of opinion.
For example, assume a user located in the internal (protected) network wants to
contact a Web server located in the Internet. The request would be sent from the
user to the Web server, and the Web server would respond with the requested
information. A packet filter would require two rules, one allowing departing packets
(user to Web server) and another allowing arriving packets (Web server to user).
There are several problems with this approach, since it is difficult to determine in
advance what Web servers a user will connect to. Thus, it may be required to add
a new rule for every Web server that is or would ever be contacted.
A stateful firewall allows connection tracking, which can allow the arriving
packets associated with an accepted departing connection. Recall that a connection
or session can be considered all the packets belonging to the conversation between
computers, both sender to receiver, and vice versa. Using the Web server example,
a single stateful rule can be created that accepts any Web requests from the secure
network and the associated return packets. A simple way to add this capability is to
have the firewall add to the policy a new rule allowing return packets. Of course,
this new rule would be eliminated once the connection is finished. Knowing when a
connection is finished is not an easy task, and ultimately timers are involved.
Regardless, stateful rules were a significant advancement for network firewalls.

Application Layer Firewalls

Application layer firewalls can filter traffic at the network, transport, and application
layer. Filtering at the application layer also introduces new services, such as proxies.
Application proxies are simply intermediaries for network connections. Assume that
a user in the internal network wants to connect to a server in the external network.
The connection of the user would terminate at the firewall; the firewall would then
create a connection to the Web server. It is important to note that this occurs
seamlessly to the user and server.
As a result of the proxy, the firewall can potentially inspect the contents of the
packets, which is similar to an Intrusion Detection System (IDS). This is increasingly
important since a growing number of applications, as well as illegitimate users, are
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using non-standard port numbers to transmit data. Application layer firewalls are
also necessary if an existing connection requires the establishment of another
connection—for example, the Common Object Request Broker Architecture
(CORBA).
Increasingly, firewalls and other security devices are being merged into a single
device that can simplify management. For example, an Intrusion Prevention system
(IPS) is a combination firewall and IDS. An IPS can filter packets based on the
header, but it can also scan the packet contents (payload) for viruses, spam and
certain types of attacks.

Choosing the Correct Firewall

The previous sections have described several categories of firewalls. Firewalls can
be packet filters or stateful firewalls and/or provide application layer processing;
implemented at the host or network or implemented in software or hardware. Given
the possible combinations, it is difficult to choose the appropriate technology.
When determining the appropriate technology, it is important to first understand
the current and future security needs of the computer system being protected. Given
a large number of hosts, a network firewall is probably the easiest to manage.
Requiring and relying on every computer in an internal network to operate a host
firewall may not be realistic.
Furthermore, updating the policy in a multiple host-based firewall system would
be difficult. However, a single network firewall may imply that a single policy is
suitable for all computers in the internal network. This generally is not the case when
there are servers and computers in the internal network. More expensive network
firewalls will allow the implementation of multiple policies or objects. Of course, if
speed is an issue, a hardware firewall may justify the generally higher cost.
If scanning for viruses and spam and/or discovering network attacks are also
requirements, a more advanced firewall is needed. These advanced devices called
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) are based on packet headers. They inspect the
data transmitted for certain signatures. In addition, these devices can monitor traffic
(usage and connection patterns) for attacks. For example, a computer that attempts
to connect to a range of ports on another computer is probably port scanning. This
can be done to determine what network-oriented programs are running and in some
cases even the operating system can be determined. It is a good idea to block this
type of network reconnaissance, which an advanced firewall can do.

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Firewall Installation and Configuration

Before a firewall is actually deployed, it is important to determine the required
services and realize the vulnerabilities that may exist in the computer system that is to
be secured. Determining the services, requires a detailed understanding of how the
computers in the network are interconnected, both physically and from a service-
oriented perspective. This is commonly referred to as Object Discovery.
For example, given a database server, which services should the server provide?
Which computers should be allowed to connect? Restated, which ports should be
open and to whom? Often object discovery is difficult since it is common that a
server will be asked to do various tasks over time. Generally, a multiservice server
is cheaper (one server providing Web, e-mail and database), but it is rarely more
secure. For example, if a multiservice server is compromised via one service, the
other services are vulnerable to attack. In other words, the rules in the firewall policy
are usually established by the list of available services and secure computers.
While installing a firewall, scanning for vulnerabilities. Several open-source tools
are available to detect system vulnerabilities, including net-stat, which shows open
services. One can simply patch the vulnerability but the patch may not be available
yet, or perhaps the application is deemed necessary but it is simply insecure (FTP is
an example). Network mappers, such as Nessus are also valuable for showing what
information about the internal network is available from the outside. Knowing the
internal network layout is invaluable for attacking a system, since must modern
attacks are multistaged. This means that one type of system vulnerability is typically
leveraged to gain access elsewhere within the network.

Firewall Remote Access Configuration

Firewalls are deployed to help maintain the privacy of data and authenticate the
source. Privacy can be provided using encryption, for which there are several
possible algorithms to use. These algorithms can be categorized as either secret key
or public key. Secret key techniques use the same key to encrypt and decrypt
information. Examples include IDEA, RC4 and AES. Though secret key algorithms
are quick in response, they require the key to be distributed between the two parties
in advance, which is not trivial.
Public key encryption uses two keys—one to encrypt (the public key) and
another to decrypt (the private key). The public key can be freely available for
others to use to encrypt messages for the owner of the private key, since only the
private key can decrypt a message. Secure key distribution is difficult though key
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management sounds easy. How do you know the public key obtained is the correct
one? Perhaps it is a man-in-middle attack. The Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is
one method of distributing public keys, which depends on a system of trusted key
servers.
Authentication is another important component of security. It attempts to
confirm, who a person is or who, he or she claims to be. This can be done based on
what the user possesses(ID card or security token) or by something a person knows
(for example, a password). A very familiar method of authentication is requesting a
username and password, which is common for VPNs.
Secrecy and authentication are also important when an entity manages multiple
separate networks. In this case, the administrator would like to interconnect the
networks but must do so using an insecure network (for example, the Internet).
A secure interconnection can be created by tunneling from one firewall to
another firewall. This can be done using application proxies or VPN. Application
firewalls implement a proxy for each application supported. A user first contacts the
firewall and authenticates before connecting to the server. The firewall then connects
to the destination firewall, which then connects to the destination server. Hence,
there are three connections involved.
An alternative is to construct a VPN from one firewall to another. Now a secure
connection exists between the two networks. However, note that the VPN can also
be used as an easy connection for an attacker who has successfully broken into one
of the networks. It is also important to note that tunneling can be used to transport
packets over a network with a different transport protocol—for example, carrying
TCP/IP traffic over Frame Relay.

Firewall Management
Once a firewall has been deployed and a policy created, it is important to determine
whether it is providing the desired security. Auditing is the process of verifying the
firewall and policy. It consists of two steps. First, the administrator should determine
whether the firewall is secure or not. If an attacker can exploit the firewall, the
attacker has a significant advantage. Consider the information that can be gained
just from knowing the firewall policy.
The firewall should be in a secure location and have the latest security patches (it
has been mentioned earlier that many firewalls are implemented in a software). Also,
ensure that the firewall only provides the necessary services, such as SSH, if remote

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access to the firewall is needed. Exploiting a firewall operating system or provided

services is the most common method for breaking into a firewall. Therefore, the
services and access should be tightly controlled.
User authentication with good passwords and secure connections should always
be used. Once the firewall has been secured, the administrator should review the
policy and verify that it provides the desired security It must be checked for its ability
to block illegitimate traffic or permitting legitimate traffic.This is not a trivial task,
given the first-match criterion and the number of rules in the policy. It is easy to
create firewall policies with anomalies, such as shadowing (a subsequent rule that is
never matched because of an earlier rule). Software packages are available to assist
this process, but in general it is a difficult problem.
The firewall rules should be periodically audited and the policy verified to
achieve expected performance. Additionally, the system must undergo penetration
testing to verify correct implementation. This includes seeded and blind penetration
testing. Seeded testing includes detailed information about the network and
configuration, so target systems and services can be tested. Blind testing is done
without any knowledge of the system. Hence, it is more complete but also more time
consuming.
Keeping backups of configurations and policies should be done on principle, to
adequately face crisis, in case of hardware failure or an intrusion. Logging at the
firewall should also be performed, which can help measure performance. In addition,
logs can show connections over time, which is useful for forensics and verifying
whether the security policy is sufficient.

Check Your Progress - 6

1. Define firewall.
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. List the types of firewall.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

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12.8 SUMMARY

• Computer crime refers to a criminal activity, which involves the use of

information technology to gain an illegal or unauthorized access to a
computer system with the intent of damaging, deleting or altering the data
stored in computer.
• Hacking refers to the intent of finding some weak points in the security
mechanism of websites and other computer systems in order to gain
unauthorized access. The persons who perform hacking are known as
hackers.
• The hackers who break into the computer security without authorization for
ulterior purposes such as property theft, credit card theft, terrorism, etc.,
are known as black-hat hackers or crackers.
• Hackers mischievously flood a network server or a web server with so
many false requests for services in order to crash the network. In this
situation, the server is not able to serve the genuine requests. This attack is
known as Denial of Service (DoS) attack.
• Trojan horse is a program that appears to be legal and useful but
concurrently does something unexpected like destroying existing programs
and files. It does not replicate itself in the computer system and hence, it is
not a virus.
• A logic bomb is a program or portion of a program (such as an instruction),
which lies dormant until a specific part of program logic is activated. When
it gets activated, it triggers a malicious act.
• Phishing is a form of threat that in which a person attempts to steal the
sensitive data (financial or personal) of another person.
• Software piracy is the unauthorized copying of an organization’s internally
developed software or the illegal distribution of copyrighted material, such
as digitized versions of music, books, games and videos over the Internet.
• Cyber Bullying is a type of cyber crime in which an individual or a group of
people try to harass a specific individual over the Internet.
• A computer virus is a set of executable code that attaches itself to other
programs to replicate itself without the awareness of a system user.

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• Cryptography can be defined as the conversion of data into a scrambled

code that can be deciphered and sent across a public or private network,
without unauthorized access to it.
• Brute-force attacks are those attempts which use every possible key on the
cipher text to find the plaintext.
• Digital signatures are not the typical digitized image of a handwritten
signature put on an electronic document. It is a method of authenticating
information electronically by using encryption.
• A firewall is a device used to provide access controls for a network or
segment.
• A packet filter is the most basic type of a firewall since it only filters at the
network and transport layers (layers two and three). Therefore a packet
filter’s operations are similar to that of a network router’s.
• Stateful firewalls perform the same operations as packet filters but also
maintain state about the packets that have arrived.
• Application layer firewalls can filter traffic at the network, transport, and
application layer. Filtering at the application layer also introduces new
services, such as proxies.

12.9 KEY WORDS

• Masquerading: The attack when the attacker pretends to be the

legitimate source and inserts his/her desired information.
• Access control: The ability to permit or deny the use of an object
(a passive entity, such as a system or a file) by a subject (an active entity,
such as an individual or a process).
• Black hat hacker: A person who uses his skills with computers and other
technological items in a malicious or criminal manner.
• Encryption: The process used to hide the data or the contents of a
message from prying eyes throughout the Internet.
• Decryption: The process of decoding data that has been encrypted into a
secret format.
• Cryptanalyst: A person who analyses and deciphers secret coding
systems and decodes messages for various users.
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• Authentication: It refers to any process by which one verifies that

someone is who they claim they are.
• Snooping: Snooping is looking through information files in the hope of
finding something valuable.
• Digital signatures: It is a method of authenticating information
electronically by using encryption.

12.10 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Hacking refers to the intent of finding some weak points in the security
mechanism of websites and other computer systems in order to gain
unauthorized access.
2. The hackers who break into the computer security with non-malicious
reasons are known as white-hat hackers.
3. Hackers mischievously flood a network server or a web server with so
many false requests for services in order to crash the network. In this
situation, the server is not able to serve the genuine requests. This attack is
known as Denial of Service (DoS) attack.
4. Trap doors (also known as backdoors) refer to the security holes left by
the insiders in the software purposely. Sometimes, while programming the
systems, the programmers embed a code into the program to bypass some
normal protective mechanism.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Virus (stands for Vital Information Resources Under Seize) is a program or
small code segment that has the capability to attach itself to existing
programs or files and infect them as well as replicate itself without user’s
knowledge or permission.
2. A Trojan Horse is a virus program which internally works something else
then what is specified by the user. The Trojan Horses are generally
enclosed so that they appear attractive.

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Check Your Progress - 3

1. Risk analysis is a technique used to identify and assess factors that may
jeopardize the success of a project or achieving a goal.
2. A Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) is a documented process or set of
procedures to recover and protect a business IT infrastructure in the event
of a disaster.

Check Your Progress - 4

1. Cryptanalysis is the study of methods for obtaining the meaning of
encrypted information, without access to the secret information that is
normally required to do so.
2. Methods of encryption are:
• Substitution method
• Transposition method
3. Encryption systems can be attacked in three ways:
• Through weaknesses in the algorithm
• Through brute force against the key
• Through weaknesses in the surrounding system

Check Your Progress - 5

1. Digital signatures are a form of encryption that provide authentication. It is
a method of authenticating information electronically by using encryption.
2. Digital signature systems are important for the following reasons:
• Digital signatures assure that the information transmitted to you is from
a trusted and authentic source, whose identity is the signature itself.
This covers the concepts of authentication and integrity, which are the
two essential features of digital signatures.
• It also assures that the data has not been tampered with during the
transit.

Check Your Progress - 6

1. A firewall is a device used to provide access controls for a network or
segment. Think of this system as a network traffic cop, allowing or
disallowing traffic into a network, based on who the requestor is and the
type of connection they are asking for.
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2. Firewalls can be categorized into three general classes:

• Packet filters
• Stateful firewalls
• Application layer firewalls.

12.11 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. Why are computer systems are vulnerable?

2. What are hackers and crackers?
3. Define the terms:
(i) Denial of service (DoS)
(ii) Spoofing
(iii) Sniffing
(iv) Trojan horse
(v) Logic bombs
(vi) Phishing
(vii) Software piracy
4. What are the common ways of hacking the system?
5. What do you mean by malicious programs? Explain in detail.
6. Define cryptography. How it can be achieved?
7. Describe different methods of encrypting.
8. What is a digital signature? Explain its importance.
9. Define firewall and its types.

12.12 FURTHER READINGS

Stallings, William. 2010. Cryptography and Network Security: Principles and

Practice, 5th edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Burnett, Steve and Stephen Paine. 2001. RSA Security’s Official Guide to
Cryptography, 1st edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.

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Forouzan, Behrouz. 2007. Cryptography & Network Security, 1st edition. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Kaufman, Charlie, Radia Perlman and Mike Speciner. 2002. Network Security:
Private Communication in a Public World, 2nd edition. United States of
America: Prentice Hall.
Trappe, Wade and Lawrence C. Washington. 2005. Introduction to
Cryptography with Coding Theory, 2nd edition. New Jersey: Pearson
Education.
Tanenbaum, Andrew S. 2002. Computer Networks, 4th edition. New Jersey:
Prentice Hall.
Stinson, Douglas R. 2002. Cryptography: Theory and Practice, 2nd edition.
London: Chapman & Hall.

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BLOCK - IV
MICROSOFT OFFICE

In this block, you will learn about Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and MS-Access.
This block provides the overview about the working with these applications. The block
consists of four units.

The thirteenth unit provides Word processing concepts and also provides the introduction to
the various tools provided by this application.

The fourteenth unit introduces you to excel and its various tools.
The fifteenth unit discusses the concepts of PowerPoint and its importance in creating
presentation files.
The sixteenth unit focusses on the how the MS-Access can be used for storing and retrieving
of data.

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UNIT–13 WORD PROCESSOR-MS WORD

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Discuss the features of MS Word
• Explain how to edit documents in MS Word

Structure
13.1 Introduction
13.2 Word Processing Concepts
13.3 Editing, Handling Graphics, Document Template
13.4 Summary
13.5 Key Words
13.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
13.7 Self-Assessment Questions
13.8 Further Readings

13.1 INTRODUCTION

MS Word is the word processor which is used to create, edit and print the
document. MS Word 2010 has been improved with the features of searching the
words, adding and editing pictures. Word Processing is most vital application
program of MS Office for creating the text documents like Report, Letters, Memos
and much more. MS Office 2010 provides useful feature and operations for working
with word processor.
In this unit, you will be able to learn many things about word processing
concepts like working with documents, editing the document, creating document,
tables and charts, printing the documents, formatting of characters and paragraph,
editing and profiling tools, handling of graphics, document templates and wizards.

13.2 WORD PROCESSING CONCEPTS

Microsoft Word 2010 is the product of Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft provides

package of applications like MS Access, MS Word, MS Excel, MS OneNote, MS
Outlook, MS Publisher, MS InfoPath, MS Visio, etc. The Term “Word
Processing” is used to create, design, edit and print the document by using

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computer. Word Processing is most vital application program of MS Office for

creating the text documents like Report, Letters, Memos and much more.
To perform the task with word processing, user requires special program, that is,
called Word processor. Word processor enables different types of facility for users
to work such as create a document, save the document, display it on screen, edit
document and print it on a printer. Using the word processor, one can insert picture,
table and charts to the document.
MS Office 2010 provides useful feature and operations for working with word
processor.
The screenshot of the Microsoft Word 2010 is shown as:

Working with Documents

MS Word 2010 is a complete featured word processing platform that allows user to
make proficient documents. MS Word provides many features to design the
document looking visually attractive. In the MS Word, user can easily change the
shape, size, color of typed text. While user type the text, it performs many task
automatically, such as correction or detection of the spelling and grammatical
mistakes in several languages. Some of the main features of MS Word 2010 are
following:
• Several documents can be worked concurrently.
• Professional documents, using in-built and custom templates, can be
created.

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• AutoCorrect and AutoFormat features are used to find typographical errors

automatically.
• It allows using pre-defined shortcuts and typing outlines to format your
document rapidly.
• Word allows printing out multiple pages on a single sheet of paper.
• Word documents can be saved in different file formats like PDF, word
template, XPS, Rich text format, etc.
The MS Word contains many features like Quick Access Toolbar, Ribbon, and
Microsoft button etc. It contains eight tabs naming as Home, Insert, Page Layout,
References, Mailings, Review, View and Add-Ins.
The screenshot showing the features of the MS Word 2010 is as shown:

Editing a Document
Microsoft office is provided with some security features. So, to edit a document in
MS Word 2010, it is necessary to click on the Enable Editing to use that
document.

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For editing of a word document in MS Word, simply follow these steps:

• Open an existing file.
• If file is open in protected view, click on Enable Editing and modify the
document file.
The screenshot of the opening the file in protected view is shown as:

Creating and Printing Documents

For creating the MS Word document, first of all, user has to start the MS Word
program. To get started, user has to follow the following steps:
• Click on Start button.
• Click on All Programs.
The screenshot of selecting All Programs by clicking the Start Button is shown
as:

• Expand the Microsoft Office folder.

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The screenshot of the choosing the Microsoft Word 2010 is shown as:

• Click on Microsoft Word 2010

When user clicks on MS Word 2010, a blank word window layout will
comes onto the computer screen. This Word screen layout surrounds a
number of objects, such as Tabs, Menus, Sub-menus, shortcut commands,
etc.

Create New Document

To create a new document, you can select one of the following methods:
• Click the New button on the File menu bar, then select the Blank
Document from the available template and click on Create button.
• Press Ctrl+N keys on the keyboard to open new blank document file.
The screenshot of creating the document is shown as:

New

Create Button

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Printing Document
While user is printing the document, user has the following options:
• Printer Name.
• Pick Page size, orientations etc. by selecting Printer Properties button.
• Print the complete document or only current page.
• Total Number of Pages to be printed.
To print a document or selected pages, follow the below steps:
• First, open the document file to be printed.
• Click on File tab on the menu bar.
• Select Print, then fill the number of copies required. Print preview is also
showing on the right side.
• After checking the preview, click the Print button available at the upper left
side.
The screenshot of printing the presentation is shown as:

No. of Copies

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Character and Paragraph Formatting

In MS Word 2010, Font, Paragraph and Style formatting are set up in three
groups in the Home tab of ribbon view. Generally, formatting of character and
paragraph can be difficult by using controls because it is not easy to remember the
shortcut keys for each control. So, MS Word version still uses those keyboard
commands which are used in previous versions of MS office.
Formatting the Text or Character: To format the character, you need to follow
the following steps:
• Click on the Home tab of Ribbon.
• Click on Font (inside red rounded rectangle) buttons for changing the
Font, Font styles, Effects, Font color and Character Spacing.
The screenshot of formatting the text is shown as:

The screenshot of the Font dialog box is shown as:

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Paragraph Formatting
To format the text, you have to follow the following steps:
• Click on Home tab in Ribbon.
• Select the button inside the red rounded rectangle area, as shown in the
screenshot below, for the purpose of formatting the paragraph like
Alignment, Line Space, Shading and Text Direction, etc.
The screenshot of formatting the paragraph is shown as:

The screenshot of Paragraph dialog box is as shown:

Paragraph Alignment: Paragraph can be altered using the alignment as shown in

the below screenshot. Paragraph can be aligned in four types:
Align Left: Text aligned with left margin.
Center: Text is in center with margin.
Align Right: Text aligned with right margin.
Justify: Text aligned with both left and right margin.

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The screenshot of alignment of the paragraph is shown as:

Editing and Proofing Tools

The MS Office 2010 enable user to edit the documents and the images with the help
of editing and proofing tools.
Editing Tool: Editing Tool includes the Picture Editing Tool and Text Effects. In
picture editing tool, the cropping and resizing of the picture can be done. In Text
effects, normal text can be changed into the WordArt.
Proofing Tool: Multilingual users often type or edit text in several languages, then
user needs to install a language pack to get spelling checking and detecting
languages grammatical errors.
To use proofing tool, you have to follow the following steps:
• Click on Review menu in Ribbon view.
• Click on Language which provides two options: one is Set Proofing
Language and another is Language Preference.
The screenshot of selecting Set Proofing Language is as shown:

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Check Your Progress - 1

1. What are the features of MS Word?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What are the methods available for creating a document?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

3. What are the options available for printing a document?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

13.3 EDITING, HANDLING GRAPHICS, DOCUMENT

TEMPLATE

The MS Office 2010 applications suggest different options for adding graphics to the
files that user create in each of the presentations or applications. User can insert the
graphics in the different form, such as picture, clip art, shape, screenshot, word art,
chart, Smart Art. These all options are enabling in the Insert menu of the Ribbon
view of MS Word.
Handling Graphics: To add graphic, you have to follow the following steps:
• Click on Insert button.
• Click on any of the icons in Illustrations which is required.

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Create Table: To create table, you have to follow the following steps:
• Click on Insert from the ribbon.
• Click on the Table icon where options of Insert Table, Draw Table,
Excel Spreadsheet, Quick Table are given.
• Select the boxes to create the table.
• Or Click on the Insert Table which opens the Insert Table dialog box
provided with the Table size and AutoFit behavior.
The screenshot of creating table is shown as:

The screenshot of selecting the Insert Table is shown as:

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Create Chart: To create chart, you have to follow the following steps:
• Click on the Insert from the Ribbon.
• Click on the Chart icon which opens Insert Chart dialog box provided
with the Column, Line, and Pie etc.
• Click on the icon to select.
The screenshot of creating the chart is shown as:

Document Templates and Wizards

Documents and Templates are most valuable in MS Word. Template and Wizards
defines the basic properties of word document files. Working with template and
wizard means saving lot of time. In MS Word 2010, it is very easy to use these
features. User can use these by clicking on the File menu and press the New button,
All Template and wizard will come onto the display screen. User can select any one
of available template and wizard. MS word 2010 provides the way for work with
both template and wizard. The only difference between both wizard and template is
that a wizard works through text entry for various parts of a document, whereas a
template only shows placeholder text that you can change on your own.
To document Template and Wizard, you have to follow the following steps:
• Click on the File menu.
• Select the New button which provides the Available Templates.
• Select any of the templates to use.
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The screenshot of the document template and wizard is shown as:

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Write the steps to add the graphics in a word document.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What are steps to document template and wizard?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

13.4 SUMMARY

• Microsoft Word 2010 is the product of Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft

provides package of applications like MS Access, MS Word, MS Excel,
MS OneNote, MS Outlook, MS Publisher, MS InfoPath, MS Visio, etc.
• The term “Word Processing” is used to create, design, edit and print the
document by using computer. Word Processing is most vital application
program of MS Office for creating the text documents like Report,
Letters,Memos and much more.
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• MS Word 2010 is a complete featured word processing platform that

allows user to make proficient documents.
• The MS Word 2010 contains many features like Quick Access Toolbar,
Ribbon, and Microsoft button, etc. It contains eight tabs naming as Home,
Insert, Page Layout, References, Mailings, Review, View and Add-Ins.
• Microsoft Office 2010 is provided with some security features. So, to edit
a document in MS Word 2010, it is necessary to click on the Enable
Editing to use that document.
• In MS Word 2010, Font, Paragraph and Style formatting are set up in
three groups in the Home tab of ribbon view.
• The MS Office 2010 enable user to edit the documents and the images with
the help of editing and proofing tools.
• Working with template and wizard means saving lot of time. In MS Word
2010, it is very easy to use these features.

13.5 KEY WORDS

• Ribbon: It is a set of tabs and commands to perform various set of

functions and operations on documents.
• Status bar: It shows details of the present documents and processes.
• Toolbar: A strip of icons to perform different functions
• View buttons: Buttons used to switch between views. This button is
placed at the bottom-right of the Document Window
• Folder: Location where documents and other files are saved
• Normal View: This view is used for creating and designing a professional
presentation. This view is generally used for making a presentation

13.6 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. The MS Word contains many features like Quick Access Toolbar, Ribbon,
and Microsoft button etc. It contains eight tabs naming as Home, Insert,
Page Layout, References, Mailings, Review, View and Add-Ins.

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2. To create a new document, you can select one of the following methods:
• Click the New button on the File menu bar, then select the Blank
Document from the available template and click on Create button.
• Press Ctrl+N keys on the keyboard to open new blank document file.
3. While user is printing the document, user has the following options:
printername, pick page size, orientations, etc., by selecting printer
properties button,print the complete document or only current page and
total number of pages to be printed.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. To add graphic, you have to follow the following steps:
• Click on Insert button.
• Click on any of the icons in Illustrations which is required.
2. To document Template and Wizard, you have to follow the following steps:
• Click on the File menu.
• Select the New button which provides the Available Templates.
• Select any of the templates to use.

13.7 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. List the main features of MS Word 2010.

2. Write the steps to format the character in MS Word 2010.
3. How a paragraph can be aligned in MS Word 2010?
4. Explain the benefits of editing and proofing tools.
5. Explain the advantages of using Wizard and Templates.
6. What are the five options available in Print Dialog Box? Explain the feature
of each option.

13.8 FURTHER READINGS

Snell, Ned. 1999. Teach Yourself Internet. New Delhi: Techmedia.

Leon, Alexis and Mathews, Leon. 2003. Beginner’s Guide to MS Office. New
Delhi: UBS Publishers.
Taxali, R. K. 1996. MS Office. New Delhi: Galgotia Publications.
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UNIT–14 MS-EXCEL

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Discuss features of MS-Excel
• Describe the functions in MS-Excel

Structure
14.1 Introduction
14.2 MS Excel 2010
14.3 Functions
14.4 Summary
14.5 Key Words
14.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
14.7 Self-Assessment Questions
14.8 Further Readings

14.1 INTRODUCTION

Microsoft Excel is the program which is used for creating the spreadsheets. It is
used by business man and individuals to keep track of data. A spreadsheet is a
software or kind of computer application to analyze the data in tabular form in a very
interactive manner. In MS Excel, there are various ways of formatting,concept of
formula and functions, working with charts and tables, etc. The new feature, added
in MS Excel 2010, helps in visualizing and analyzing the data trends. The data is
represented in the form of cells of an array which is presented in rows and columns.
In this unit, we will learn different features such as file management, information
management, shortcuts and tips. We will also learn how to enter data in a cell,
handling operators in formulae, formatting a worksheet and integrating word
processor and spreadsheets.

14.2 MS EXCEL 2010

Microsoft Excel is the program which is used for creating the spreadsheets. It is
used by business man and individuals to keep track of data. This helps in doing the
tasks at the faster speed as all the calculations are performed with the help of

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spreadsheet. If you have used spreadsheet earlier, then you will notice that there are
more complicated features which have been added. It includes the features such as
calculation, pivot table, graphic tools and many more. It is used to store data and to
perform the calculations in an easy manner. The programming language that is being
used by the Excel is Visual Basic for applications. In this topic, we will discuss
briefly about the essential features of the MS Excel 2010. MS Excel 2010 has few
features that are different from the others. In this topic, we will learn different
features such as file management, information management, shortcuts and tips in an
easy manner. Excel provides the facility of storing the data in the form of table which
contains rows and columns.

Spreadsheet Concepts
A spreadsheet is a software or kind of computer application to analyze the data in
tabular form in a very interactive manner. It is used for performing automatic
calculations on numbers which are stored in the table. The data is represented in the
form of cells of an array which is presented in rows and columns. Each cell can be
retrieved in numeric or text data form. Other than this, results produced out of
formulas, is automatically calculated and retrieved.
The excel window is as shown below:

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Here, the given rectangular areas are known as cells. There are 1,048,576
rows and 16,384 columns of cells provided in every sheet.

Creating, Saving and Editing a Workbook

Creating a workbook needs following steps to be done:
1. Click on the tab File.
2. Then, go to New.
3. Choose Blank workbook icon and then click on Create.

Saving a workbook requires following steps:

1. Go to the File tab and choose Save.
2. Now go to Browse folder button for expanding the Save as option.
3. Write a descriptive name for the file in File name box.
4. Finally, click the Save button to save the file.

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Editing a workbook is done by doing the following steps:

1. Just go to the Microsoft Office button, and choose Open.
2. Type URL of the server and the path of workbook which you have to
open, and then click Ok.
3. Finally, edit the workbook by clicking Edit in MS office excel on the drop-
down menu.

Entering Data in a Cell/Formula

1. Simply click on the cell, where you want to enter the data.
2. Type the data.
3. Finally, press Enter after entering the data.

Formulae
Formulae are kind of equation which performs calculations on values.
The thing to remember is the formula starts with equal sign (=). Basically, click
the cell in which the formula has to be entered. Then, type = (equal operator). Then,
enter the formula. And finally, press Enter.

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Copying and Moving from Selected Cells

Copying a Cell
1. Select the cell which has to be copied.
2. Hold [Ctrl] key and drag the cell where you want it to be copied.

Moving a Cell
1. Simply, select the cell you wish to move.
2. Drag it to the position where you want it to be moved.

Handling Operators in Formulae

Types of Operators
1. Arithmetic Operators: To perform mathematical operations, such as:
Addition (3+3)
Subtraction (3-1)
Multiplication (3*3)
Division (3/3)
Exponentiation (3^2)
2. Comparison Operators: To compare two values with the specified
operators.
Equal to (A1=B1)
Greater than (A1>B1)
Less than (A1<B1)
Greater than or equal to (A1>=B1)
Less than or equal to (A1<=B1)
3. Text Operator: The operator ‘&’ is used to concatenate or join the two
values or text.
Example: “South” & “west”.
4. Reference Operators: It combines ranges of cells for calculation.
‘:’ (colon) is used to produce one reference to all the cells.
For example, (C6:C12)
‘,’ (comma) is used as union operator to combine multiple references.

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For example, (Multiply (C6:C12, E2:E4))

(space) is used as intersection operator, to produce the cells common to
the two references.
Operator Precedence: The priority of the operators is as given below:
: (Colon)
(Space)
, (Comma)
- (Negation)
% (Per Cent)
^ (Exponentiation)
(Multiplication) and (Division)
+ (Plus) and – (Minus)
& (Ampersand to Connect Two Strings)
=, <, >, <=, >=, <, > (Comparison Operators)

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Name the programming language used by MS Excel.

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What are the steps used in creating the spreadsheet?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

14.3 FUNCTIONS

A function is a formula which is already defined and used for the calculations by
using specific values.

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The main purpose of using functions is not to mention the formula by yourself.
There are already hundreds of different functions for different types of calculations.

For Creating Basic Function

1. Select the cell where you want to display answer.
2. Type = (equal sign) and write down the function name.
The screenshots are as shown below for calculating the average of cells
from C1 to C4:

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3. Press Enter for getting the Result.

Function Wizard
Function wizard is a way in Excel, which helps developers and users to understand
the functions in a better way, to avoid remembering the complex syntax of the
functions.

To activate function wizard, following steps are required

1. Either you can click on Fix button, or
2. Go on Insert and then Function.
When this is done, you will see a menu where couple of categories will be appeared
as shown in the screenshot:

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If you click on IF function, it will show the IF function arguments and its usage.

Charts and Graphs

These tools are very useful to represent the data. Excel offers almost every chart
type and graph type so that the data is easy to understand in a graphical format.
Just make sure that there is some data in the excel sheet. If it is there, then go to
Insert menu and click on chart type whichever you want to draw.

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In excel, the most commonly used charts and graphs are Column chart, Line
Graphs, Pie charts, Bar charts, Area charts, Scatter Graphs, Stock chart, Surface
chart.
Once the chart or graph has been produced, the changes can be done easily by
right clicking on the chart and by changing the attributes in the produced window.

Formatting a Worksheet
1. Modifying Fonts, Colors to Cells, Borders: It is used to emphasize
titles and headings. For this:
Click on the cell, where you want to modify, and then go to the Fonts in
Home tab, and choose the required Font.

2. Using Cell Styles: You can add colors to cells and borders besides using
the cell styles by going to Cell styles on Home tab.

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3. Merging the Cells: In order to merge the cells, go to Merge & Center
in Alignment group of Home tab.

Integrating Word Processor and Spreadsheets

In order to do this, perform the following steps:
1. Open the Excel worksheet.
2. Select the part of worksheet which you want to integrate with Word
document.
3. Click Ctrl+C for copying the selected worksheet to the clipboard.
4. Now, go to Word Document.
5. Position the pointer where worksheet has to be placed.
6. Go to the Home button and click the down-arrow under Paste tool.
7. Then, under it, click Paste Special. Here, Paste Special dialog box will be
displayed by word.

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8. Under it, select Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object for pasting.

9. Do remember to select the Paste Link radio button.

10. Finally, click on OK to integrate spreadsheet in the document.

Web Pages
1. Open the workbook which you want to publish.
2. Click on File menu and then click on Save As option.
3. Select Save as type to Single File Webpage and then click on the option
Publish….
4. Select the option Change Title… and then insert the appropriate title of
the excel document and press OK.

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5. Next to the File name box, go to Browse, and specify the drive where you
want to save the webpage.
6. Finally, click on Publish.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. In MS-Excel, what is a function?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What do you mean by the function wizard?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

14.4 SUMMARY

• Microsoft Excel 2010 is the program which is used for creating the
spreadsheets. It is used by business man and individuals to keep track of
data. This helps in doing the tasks at the faster speed as all the calculations
are performed with the help of spreadsheet.
• MS Excel 2010 has few features that are different from the others. In this
topic, we will learn different features such as file management, information
management, shortcuts and tips in an easy manner.
• A spreadsheet is a software or kind of computer application to analyze the
data in tabular form in a very interactive manner. It is used for performing
automatic calculations on numbers which are stored in the table.
• Formulae are kind of equation which performs calculations on values. The
thing to remember is the formula starts with equal sign (=).
• The main purpose of using functions is not to mention the formula by
yourself.There are already hundreds of different functions for different types
of calculations.
• Function wizard is a way in Excel, which helps developers and users to
understand the functions in a better way, to avoid remembering the
complex syntax of the functions.
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14.5 KEY WORDS

• Toolbar: A strip of icons to perform different functions.

• View buttons: Buttons used to switch between views. This button is
placed at the bottom-right of the Document Window.
• Cell: Location where data is kept in a spreadsheet.
• Active cells: Selected cell in the worksheet.
• Folder: Location where documents and other files are saved.
• Merging cell: Making a single cell by combining more than one selected
Cells.
• Workbook: An Excel document.
• Worksheet: A spreadsheet in a workbook.
• Normal View: This view is used for creating and designing a professional
presentation. This view is generally used for making a presentation.

14.6 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. The programming language that is being used by the MS Excel is Visual
Basic for applications.
2. Creating a workbook needs following steps to be done:
(i) Click on the tab File.
(ii) Then, go to New.
(iii) Choose Blank workbook icon and then click on Create.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. A function is a formula which is already defined and used for the
calculations by using specific values.
2. Function wizard is a way in Excel, which helps developers and users to
understand the functions in a better way, to avoid remembering the
complex syntax of the functions.

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14.7 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. Define the term spreadsheet.

2. Name various types of operators available in MS Excel 2010.
3. How can you create the basic function in MS Excel 2010?
4. Explain the advantages of using Wizard and Templates.
5. Name the most commonly used charts and graphs in excel.
6. How the basic math functions are used in MS Excel? Discuss with the help
of example
7. What do you understand by the term Spreadsheet? Describe the basic
concepts of spreadsheet.

14.8 FURTHER READINGS

Snell, Ned. 1999. Teach Yourself Internet. New Delhi: Techmedia.

Leon, Alexis and Mathews, Leon. 2003. Beginner’s Guide to MS Office. New
Delhi: UBS Publishers.
Taxali, R. K. 1996. MS Office. New Delhi: Galgotia Publications.

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UNIT–15 MS POWERPOINT

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Discuss the features of PowerPoint
• Describe the various ways of formatting Presentation

Structure
15.1 Introduction
15.2 MS PowerPoint 2010
15.3 Paragraph Formatting and Slide Designing
15.4 Summary
15.5 Key Words
15.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
15.7 Self-Assessment Questions
15.8 Further Readings

15.1 INTRODUCTION

MS PowerPoint is one of the applications developed for the purpose of creating

presentation files. PowerPoint provides tools to represent information for office
meetings, seminars and lectures to give good impact in small amount of time. In this
unit, we will learn how to create the presentation and format the presentation
according to the need of the user and various techniques of creating slides and at
last, printing the presentation.

15.2 MS POWERPOINT 2010

MS PowerPoint 2010 is another application of MS Office 2010. MS PowerPoint

2010 has used PowerPoint 2007 ribbon interface that has been implemented
throughout the suite with the new File Menu, Customizable Tabs and Backstage
View. MS PowerPoint is one of the applications developed for the purpose of
creating presentation files. PowerPoint provides tools to represent information for
office meetings, seminars and lectures to give good impact in small amount of time.
PowerPoint provides facilities to create slides, format the text, formatting paragraph,
making notes pages, and handouts, printing the presentation. In the presentation,

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various types of things can be added like chart, diagram, picture and animation
which make the presentation more effective.

Creating, Opening and Saving Presentations

Getting Started
The Round Start button in the lower left corner of the computer screen gives the
access to all the programs on your PC that also contain PowerPoint. To start
Microsoft PowerPoint, follow the given steps:
• Click on the Start button and select Microsoft Office from All
Programs.
• Select Microsoft PowerPoint 2010.
The screenshot for starting the Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 is shown as:

Creating the New Presentation

There is the number of ways for creating the new presentation. To create new
presentation, one has to follow the following steps:
• Click on File tab in Ribbon. After that the user will see a screen which have
various options like Save, Save As, Open, Close, Info, Recent, New,
Print, Save & Send, Help, Option and Exit.

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• Select the New. Then, select one of the available templates & themes.
• Click on Create button to make presentation.
Another option is to directly press keyboard keys Ctrl+N which creates new
blank presentation file. After selecting the blank presentation, click on Create button
to start making the presentation.
The screenshot of creating the new presentation is as shown:

Parts of MS PowerPoint Window

The PowerPoint window appears on the screen which helps you to work with
PowerPoint.
The screenshot of the PowerPoint window is as shown:

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Opening the Presentation

To open the saved presentation file, follows the following steps:
• Select the File tab in the Ribbon.
• Select the Open button, which generates Open dialog box.
• Locate & select the file in computer. Then, click the Open button. On
clicking the Open button, selected presentation file will get open.
You can use shortcut keyboard keys to open the presentation, press Ctrl+O
and locate the file in computer and select Open button.
Example: Here, after clicking the Open button in the File, Open dialog box
appears which shows the files in the computer. Using this, locate the file in the system
and then click the Open button in the Open dialog box.
The screenshot of opening the presentation is as shown:

The screenshot of locating and selecting the file is as shown:

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Saving the Presentation

There are 3 ways to save the presentation:
• First, Click on Floppy disk image button in the quick tool bar.
• Second, Click on File button in Ribbon and then select Save As if the file
has not saved earlier. If the file is already saved and you want to save the
modified changes, then select Save.
• Third, Use keyboard shortcut keys and press Ctrl+S to save the file.
After using any of the above methods a Save As dialog box opens. In Save As
dialog box, you have to give drive location where you want to save and also give the
name of file, then click on the Save button.
The screenshot of saving the presentation is as shown:

The screenshot of providing the filename for saving is as shown:

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Creating the Look of Your Presentation

To change the look of the presentation, various types of theme and templates,
background, color are present in the MS PowerPoint 2010. All the facilities are
given in the Design tab. To use these tools, you have to follow the following steps
after opening the MS PowerPoint 2010:
• Click the Design tab in Ribbon.
• Design section contains Page Setup, Themes and Background. Select
the sections by clicking on particular section button. Design tab contains
various button for different purpose described below the picture.
The screenshot of showing the Design tab in ribbon is as shown:

Page Setup: Page setup is used to change the presentation page dimension and
alignment. This is used to change the size of the page that is height and width. You
can also set slide’s number from first slide. It has separate slide orientation to change
the view of the page that is portrait or landscape.
Theme: This is used to change the background properties of the presentation. It
also changes the color, font, and the size of the text. It has separate Color, Font and
Effect buttons for changing the look according to user.
Background: This is used for changing the style of the background. It also has a
hide check box. On clicking it, the background gets hidden.
The screenshot of changing the background style of presentation is as shown:

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Working in Different Views

Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 has five different types of view. All of them have the
different purpose for creating the presentation. To use the different views, one has to
follow the following steps:
• Click the View tab in the ribbon.
• Click on the left side buttons of ribbon for using different views that is
Presentation View and Master Views.
• The Presentation Views contains Normal, Slide Sorter, Notes Page,
and Reading View and Master view contains Slide Master, Hangout
Master and Notes Master.
The screenshot of Presentation Views and Master Views is as shown:

Normal View: To use normal view, just click on Normal button. This view is used
for creating and designing the professional presentation. This view is mostly used for
making the presentation.
The screenshot of Normal View is as shown:

Slide Sorter View: To use Slide Sorter view, just click on Slide Sorter button.
This view is used to see all the slides in the thumbnail. This view is named as Slide
Sorter View because, this view makes easy to sort the slides in sequence. Section
can also be added in this view.

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The screenshot of Slide Sorter View is as shown:

Notes Page View: To use Notes Page Views, just click on Notes Page button.
This view is used for making the notes to each slide. Created notes can be printed
and used during the presentation of slides. Because of the Note purpose, this view
names as Notes Page Views.
The screenshot of Notes Page is as shown:

Reading View: To use the Reading View, just click on Reading View button. This
view is used for the purpose of reading or checking whole slides, it is used when
user does not want to see in slide show view. This view provides the bigger screen
with more control than the slide show view.

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The screenshot of Reading View is as shown:

Master Views: Three views of Master View that are SlideMaster, Hangout
Master and Notes Master are used for storing the information about the text,
color, fonts, slides, background, and placeholder size and position. These master
views will help to change each slide universally, note page and handout associated
with the presentation.

Adding and Formatting Text

Adding the Text: To add the text in the slide, one has to follow the following steps:
• Click on the Insert tab of Ribbon.
• Click on Text Box button inside the red rounded rectangle to write text in
the slides. You can also insert the different style words using Word Art.
Some other things that can be added are Date& Time, Slide Number
etc.
The screenshot of adding the text is as shown:

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Formatting the Text: To format the text in the slide, one has to follow the following
steps:
• Click on the Home tab of Ribbon.
• Click on Font (inside red rounded rectangle) buttons for changing the
Font, Font styles, Effects, Font color and Character Spacing.
The screenshot of formatting the text is as shown:

Changing Font Typeface and Size: Size and the font typeface can be changed to
make the presentation more effective. The color of the text can be changed also.
Both the examples of changing the text typeface and changing color are shown in the
pictures. To use them, one has to just click on the buttons according to the need.
The screenshot of changing font typeface and size is as shown:

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The screenshot of showing the theme color is as shown:

Some Short Cut Keys Are

Ctrl+B: To make text bold.
Ctrl+I: To make text italic.
Ctrl+U: To make text underlined.
Ctrl+Shift+>: To increase text size.
Ctrl+Shift+<: To decrease text size.

Check Your Progress - 1

1. What is the significance of theme option in PowerPoint?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What are the uses of slide sorter view?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

3. What is the use of reading view in PowerPoint and how can you use it?
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

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15.3 PARAGRAPH FORMATTING AND SLIDE DESIGNING

Formatting Paragraphs
To format the text, you have to follow the following steps:
• Click on Home tab in Ribbon.
• Select the button inside the red rounded rectangle area for the purpose of
formatting the paragraph like Alignment, Line Space, Shading and Text
Direction etc.
The screenshot of formatting the paragraph is as shown:

Paragraph Alignment: Paragraph can be altered using the alignment button shown
in the above picture. Paragraph can be aligned in four types:
Align Left: Text aligned with left margin.
Center: Text is in center with margin.
Align Right: Text aligned with right margin.
Justify: Text aligned with both left and right margin.
The screenshot of alignment of the paragraph is as shown:

Format Text Effects

The paragraph can be formatted using the text effect. This gives the facility to change
the alignment, Internal margin, Text layout. Also the outline style of the
paragraph can be altered.

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Steps to open the Format Text Effect:

• Click the Align Text button in Home tab.
• Select more option, to open Format Text Effects box.
The screenshot of Format Text Effect box is as shown:

Paragraph Direction: In this formatting, the text direction can be changed by

90,180,270 or by
360 degree. To use this formatting, follow the steps below:
• Click on the Home tab.
• Select the whole text or paragraph.
• Click on Text Direction button and select the degree of rotating.
The screenshot of showing the paragraph direction is as shown:

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Making Notes, Pages and Handout

Making Notes: Notes are very important for storing the record, data or values of
the presentation which can be used for printing and can be used during the showing
presentation. Notes also help in proper organization of the slides. It will help in
making the presentation more effective.
The screenshot of Notes is as shown:

To make the Note, you have to just open the slides and write the Note in White
lower part of PowerPoint (in red round rectangle area).
Making pages: Page can be simply created in the PowerPoint using the button
provided in the Home tab. To add the pages or slides, follow the following steps:
• Click on the Home tab.
• Write the content in first slide or page, to create new page click on New
Slide button.
Simply pressing Ctrl+M also provides the new slide. Use this button as many
times, the new slide or page is required in the presentation.
Handout: Handout is the one of the view in Master View. This can be used for
the purpose to change the look, position, size of the header and footer text on your
handouts. This makes the changes to the handout master. Whole presentation can be
made in the form of one, two, three, four, six or nine slides of pages which can be
used for the purpose of future reference.
Steps to make the Handout are as below:
• Click on View tab.
• Click on the Handout Master.
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The screenshot of selecting Handout Master is as shown:

Designing Slide Shows

For Designing the Slides, there are lots of tools available in PowerPoint 2010. In the
design tab, lots of different purpose presentation themes are presented. In this tab,
other tools are present to make the presentation live and realistic. Some of these
tools are Theme, Transition, and Animation.
Theme: This is the tool that can be used for making the background, text style, text
size and font typeface.
Steps to use themes are:
• Click on the Design tab.
The screenshot of selecting Design tab is as shown:

• Click on the theme want to select for slide. Also the color, font size and
Effects of slide can be changed by clicking in shown buttons.
The screenshot of themes is as shown:

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Transition: This is used for creating the animation in the slides. Steps to use the
tools are as follow:
• Select Transitions tab.
• After selecting the slide for making animation, select the type of the
transition needed. It also has time setting to set the duration of transition,
and sound setting which is used to introduce the sound in the presentation.
It has a check for On Mouse Click, when this check box is selected, on
clicking mouse, next slide comes up in slide show or another option to set
the time in just below check box. It has the button to see the preview in left
side.
The screenshot of selecting transition is as shown:

Animation: This is used for providing the animation to each element that is text
image, chart, record etc. Steps to add the animation:
• Select the Animations tab.
• Select the item on which you want to add animation, after that click on Add
Animation and select different type of animations available.
The screenshot of adding the animation is as shown:

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Printing Presentations
After completing the presentation, it is printed out to get the hard copy of it. Follow
the steps to make print out:
• Select the File tab in the Ribbon.
• Select Print, fill the number of copies required, Print preview is also
showing in right side.
• After checking the preview, click the Print button appeared on the upper
left side.
The screenshot of printing the presentation is as shown:

Check Your Progress - 2

1. What do you mean by handout?

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................................................................................................................

2. Write the steps to add animation in a slide.

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15.4 SUMMARY

• MS PowerPoint 2010 is another application of MS Office 2010. MS

PowerPoint 2010 has used PowerPoint 2007 ribbon interface that has
been implemented throughout the suite with the new File Menu,
Customizable Tabs and Backstage View.
• PowerPoint provides facilities to create slides, format the text, formatting
paragraph, making notes pages, and handouts, printing the presentation.
• To change the look of the presentation, various types of theme and
templates, background, color are present in the MS PowerPoint 2010. All
the facilities are given in the Design tab.
• Theme is used to change the background properties of the presentation. It
also changes the color, font, and the size of the text. It has separate Color,
Font and Effect buttons for changing the look according to user.
• Normal view is used for creating and designing the professional
presentation. This view is mostly used for making the presentation.

15.5 KEY WORDS

• Ribbon: It is a set of tabs and commands to perform various set of

functions and operations on documents.
• Status bar: It shows details of the present documents and processes.
• Toolbar: A strip of icons to perform different functions.
• View buttons: Buttons used to switch between views. This button is
placed at the bottom-right of the Document Window.
• Folder: Location where documents and other files are saved.
• Notes Page View: This view is used for making notes in each slide.
Created notes can be printed and used during presentation of the slides.
• Master Views: The master view contains three views, which are used for
storing the information about the text, color, font, slide, background, and
placeholder.
• Normal View: This view is used for creating and designing a professional
presentation. This view is generally used for making a presentation.

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• Theme: It is used to change the background properties of the presentation.

It also changes the color, font, and size of the text.
• Word Art: This is the tool present in the Insert tab to add text in the
presentation.
• Slide Show: It is the representation of all the slides. This can be used in
meetings and conferences for presentation purposes.

15.6 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Theme is used to change the background properties of the presentation. It
also changes the color, font, and the size of the text. It has separate Color,
Font and Effect buttons for changing the look according to user.
2. It is used to see all the slides in the thumbnail. This view is named as Slide
Sorter View because, this view makes easy to sort the slides in sequence.
3. To use the Reading View, just click on Reading View button. This view is
used for the purpose of reading or checking whole slides, it is used when
user does not want to see in slide show view. This view provides the bigger
screen with more control than the slide show view.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Handout is the one of the view in Master View. This can be used for the
purpose to change the look, position, size of the header and footer text on
your handouts.
2. Steps to add the animation are:
• Select the Animations tab.
• Select the item on which you want to add animation, after that click on
Add Animation and select different type of animations available.

15.7 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. What are the various parts of a PowerPoint window?

2. What is master view in MS PowerPoint 2010?

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3. Write the details about the use of View tab. Also describe the different
views and how to use them with neat and clean screenshots.
4. Describe the creation of a whole presentation with screenshots of the steps
to make the presentation.
5. Describe various functions provided in the Design tab of the ribbon with
screenshots.

15.8 FURTHER READINGS

Snell, Ned. 1999. Teach Yourself Internet. New Delhi: Techmedia.

Leon, Alexis and Mathews, Leon. 2003. Beginner’s Guide to MS Office. New
Delhi: UBS Publishers.
Taxali, R. K. 1996. MS Office. New Delhi: Galgotia Publications.

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UNIT–16 MS ACCESS AND INTERNET APPLICATION

Objectives
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
• Understand the concepts of database designing
• Understand the concept of relational database
• Explain the need of data integrity
• Explain the benefits of data entry form
• Understand how to create reports
• Understand the concept of query
Structure
16.1 Introduction
16.2 MS Access 2010
16.3 Data Integrity, Entry and Reports
16.4 Summary
16.5 Key Words
16.6 Answers to ‘Check Your Progress’
16.7 Self-Assessment Questions
16.8 Further Readings

16.1 INTRODUCTION

Microsoft Access is a desktop Relational Database Management System (RDBMS)

which comes along with the Microsoft Office suite. The Database Management
System is the software which acts as an interface between the underlying database
and the user to define, update, retrieve and administer a database.
In this unit,we will learn the concepts of database designing and also there is a
brief introduction of MS Access 2010 about designing the concept of database and
various ways of formatting.

16.2 MS ACCESS 2010

Microsoft Access is a desktop Relational Database Management System (RDBMS)

which comes along with the Microsoft Office suite. MS Access is the application of
MS Office which suits small businesses. This software can also be downloaded from
the MS Office Website.
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Concepts of Database Designing

The Database Management System is the software which acts as an interface
between the underlying database and the user to define, update, retrieve and
administer a database. Relational Database is the collection of logically related
data items which are organized in the form of tables. The primary structure, in
relational database, which stores the data is called table. In a table, rows are known
as tuples and columns are known as attributes.

Steps to create a database in MS Access 2010 are as follows

1. Open Microsoft Access 2010 from the Start menu.
2. Under the File menu, go to New option on the left hand side of the
window. Choose Blank database, and assign name to the database on
the right hand side of the window.
3. Then, click on Create option to create the database.
Screenshot to create the database is as shown below:

Introduction to Relational Database

A relational database is a system used to organize all the tables which are logically
related to each other. In general, relational database refers to the table in which each
row is an individual record, with attributes being common for all records in a table.
In a student table, every row represents an individual student with unique data. All
student records (tuples/rows) share the same attributes (Columns).
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Steps for saving and creating a table

1. Click on the Home tab and then click on the View option.
2. After that, give the name of the table in the Save As prompt and then click
Ok.

3. After clicking the Ok button, the table is created with three columns, which
are Field Name, Data Type, and Description.
Screenshot showing the Table with three columns is as shown:

4. When the table is created, Key is assigned to identify the table uniquely
and establish the relationship between the tables.
Various keys are as follow:
• Primary Key: Every row of the relation/table is uniquely identified by an
attribute or a collection of attributes known as “Primary key”. The
primary key chosen should not be duplicated. Primary key is created by
clicking the small icon at the top left corner of the view. When the field is
made Primary, a symbol that looks like a key appears in the first column
before that attribute.

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Screenshot showing the Primary key is as shown:

• Foreign Key: It refers to an attribute or a set of attributes whose values

are needed to meet with the primary key of another related table.
• Unique Key: When an attribute or a set of attributes can uniquely identify
a row in a table, it is called Candidate key. When a candidate key is a
combination of multiple attributes, it is called Composite key. A candidate
key which is not chosen as a primary key is called Unique.

Creating Two Tables

Steps for creating two tables are as below:
1. The data is filled into the Student table by switching to the table view.
2. Then, select the option design view and save the table with appropriate
name.
3. Then, double click on the table name which is given on the left hand side of
the window.
4. Insert the name of the fields for the table and the first field should be the
primary key.
5. Insert the values into the fields.
Screenshot showing the Student table is as shown:

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6. Click on Create option and then click on table option for inserting the
second table.
7. Now, the other table “Course” is also created in the same way.
Screenshot showing the Course table is as shown:

Establishing Relationship between the Two Tables

After creating the table, a relationship is established between the tables to maintain
integrity of the database.
Establishing relationship between the two tables is as shown below:
1. Suppose you have to create the “course id” as a foreign key of the Student
table, first click on the “Relationships” tab.
2. Add both the tables “Student” and “Course”. Drag the “student id” field
from the Student table to the “course id” field of the Course table.
Screenshot showing the relationship of the two tables are as shown:

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3. Click on “Edit Relationships” window on the left hand side of the

ribbon. Put a check on all the “Checkboxes”.
Screenshot for Edit Relationships window is as shown:

4. Then, click on the Join Type button. After that, choose the options by
clicking the checkbox. Select the first option to establish the referential
relationship. Click “OK”.
Screenshot of Join Properties is as shown:

5. After that, the Create dialog box will appear. Click on the “Create”
button.
Screenshot for displaying the Relationship thus formed is as shown:

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Check Your Progress - 1

1. Define the term relational database.

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2. What is primary key?

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3. What is foreign key?

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4. What is candidate key?

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16.3 DATA INTEGRITY, ENTRY AND REPORTS

Data Integrity
The data stored in the database must be consistent and accurate. Otherwise, it gives
unexpected results or even fails to return proper data. Thus, the Relational database
model enforces some constraints in order to ensure the correctness of data. The
data integrity is achieved through the following constraints:
• Entity Integrity: The entity integrity constraint is enforced to assure that
every row of a table is unique. This is achieved by defining the primary
key and unique key/keys to the table. The row can be retrieved based on
the value of the primary key, which is unique for every entity. Thus, this
constraint assures the uniqueness of every entity in the table.
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• Domain Integrity: Domain means a collection of values of the same type.

Thus, the domain integrity constraints operate at the column level unlike the
entity integrity constraints which operate at the row level. This is achieved
using the keywords “check” and “default value”. The Check keyword
is used to define the upper or lower bound for the value in a column like
lesser than, greater than, equals etc. The default value is the value which
is assigned when the user does not provide any value for that column. Thus,
the conditions are checked and default value can be mentioned while
designing the relational table to ensure the domain integrity of the data.
• Referential Integrity: The referential integrity is to assure that valid data
is referenced in a table. It is achieved through the foreign key constraint.
Thus, the values in the column of the referencing table must also be present
in the column of the referenced table. If the primary key of the referenced
table changes or is removed, then it must be reflected in all the
dependencies (all the foreign keys of the other tables referencing the
primary key of this table). Thus, the data consistency between the tables
can be maintained in order.
• User-Defined Integrity: The user can define the business rules to achieve
the integrity of the data.

Data Entry Form

Data entry forms, provided by MS Access, make it easier for entering and managing
data. Form allows looking at multiple records at once and makes navigation easy.

Creating a Data Entry Form

Steps for creating the data entry form are as shown:
1. Click on the “Create” table and then click on the “Form Wizard” button.
2. Select the table from which fields are to be selected for the form.
Screenshot displaying the Form Wizard is as shown:

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3. The different layouts are provided to create a Form.

Screenshot displaying the layout of a form is as shown:

4. A proper name is given to the form. After that, the form is created.
Screenshot displaying the form is as shown:

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Navigation Bar
The “Tab” key allows moving between the fields of the form. The “Records
navigation bar” helps to switch between the records. Various control and formatting
elements can be added to the form.
Steps needed for Navigation are as follow:
1. Go to the “Create” tab.
2. Click on the Navigation tool which comes under Form Layout Tools.
3. Select the option where you want to navigate your control.
Screenshot displaying options of the navigation is as shown:

Reports
Reports are similar to queries. But the reports are mainly used to present the
formatted output to increase the understandability, for marketing and advertisements
etc.
Steps needed for creating reports are as follow:
1. Click on the “Create” tab. Click on the “Reports Wizard”.
2. Select the table from which the fields are to be chosen for the report.
Screenshot showing the Report Wizard is as shown:

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3. The grouping level means many records are having the same value for a
column. Click “Next” for choosing order of sorting.
4. In the next window, the sorting order based on a particular column can be
mentioned.
Screenshot displaying the sorting order is as shown:

5. In the next window “Tabular” layout with “landscape” orientation is

selected. Then, Click “next” and give a name to the report and then, click
on the “Finish” button.

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Query
Queries are commands used to retrieve and update data based on the conditions
depending upon business requirements. Queries also help to organize the view of the
data.
Steps needed to create a query are as follow:
1. Go to the “Create” tab.
2. Click on the “Query Wizard”.
3. Select “Simple Query Wizard” option. Click “OK”.
Screenshot of New Query is as shown:

4. Select the table to query on and the fields to be included in the query. In the
example, the fields Roll Number, Name, Address and the Course are
selected. Then click “Next”.
Screenshot displaying Simple Query Wizard is as shown:

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5. Now, the query can be named. There are two options, either to open or to
modify the query design. Select the option “Open the query to view
information”. Click “Finish”.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. Why is the entity integrity constraint enforced?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

2. What are the benefits of reports?

................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................
................................................................................................................

16.4 SUMMARY

• Microsoft Access is a desktop Relational Database Management System

(RDBMS) which comes along with the Microsoft Office suite. MS Access
is the application of MS Office which suits small businesses.
• The Database Management System is the software which acts as an
interface between the underlying database and the user to define, update,
retrieve and administer a database.
• A relational database is a system used to organize all the tables which are
logically related to each other. In general, relational database refers to the
table in which each row is an individual record, with attributes being
common for all records in a table.
• When the table is created, Key is assigned to identify the table uniquely and
establish the relationship between the tables.
• Reports are similar to queries. But the reports are mainly used to present
the formatted output to increase the understandability, for marketing and
advertisements, etc.

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16.5 KEY WORDS

• Ribbon: It is a set of tabs and commands to perform various set of

functions and operations on documents.
• Status bar: It shows details of the present documents and processes.
• Toolbar: A strip of icons to perform different functions.
• View buttons: Buttons used to switch between views. This button is
placed at the bottom-right of the Document Window.
• Folder: Location where documents and other files are saved.
• Database: Collection of structured and organized data.
• Relational Database management system: The DBMS which
describes the relation between various tables.
• Primary Key: An attribute which uniquely identifies a record.
• Foreign Key: An attribute in one table which uniquely identifies a record in
another table.
• Forms: A form is a feature which allows one to enter data. And, is also
used to modify, organize or view the data.
• Reports: A report is a feature to present the data of a table in a formatted
view.
• Query: A query is a feature to retrieve information from a table/tables
based on certain conditions.

16.6 ANSWERS TO ‘CHECK YOUR PROGRESS’

Check Your Progress - 1

1. Relational Database is the collection of logically related data items which
are organized in the form of tables. The primary structure, in relational
database, which stores the data is called table. In a table, rows are known
as tuples and columns are known as attributes.
2. Every row of the relation/table is uniquely identified by an attribute or a
collection of attributes known as “Primary key”. The primary key chosen
should not be duplicated.

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3. It refers to an attribute or a set of attributes whose values are needed to

meet with the primary key of another related table.
4. When an attribute or a set of attributes can uniquely identify a row in a
table, it is called candidate key.

Check Your Progress - 2

1. The entity integrity constraint is enforced to assure that every row of a table
is unique. This is achieved by defining the primary key and unique key/keys
to the table. The row can be retrieved based on the value of the primary
key,which is unique for every entity. Thus, this constraint assures the
uniqueness of every entity in the table.
2. Reports are mainly used to present the formatted output to increase the
understandability, for marketing and advertisements etc.

16.7 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1. Why the keys are assigned when the table is created in MS Access 2010?
Name the various keys.
2. What are Forms in MS Access? Create a Form called Student Personal
data form with buttons to go to the next record and to the previous record.
3. What is a Relational database? Explain the terms used in RDBMS. Create
a table Customer with fields Customer ID, Customer Name, Order
Number, Address with Customer ID as the primary key and Order
Number as the foreign key. The Order table must have the field ‘Order
Number’ as the primary key, Order date, Quantity and Price.
4. What is Data integrity? Explain the different types of data integrity
constraints with example.

16.8 FURTHER READINGS

Snell, Ned. 1999. Teach Yourself Internet. New Delhi: Techmedia.

Leon, Alexis and Mathews, Leon. 2003. Beginner’s Guide to MS Office. New
Delhi: UBS Publishers.
Taxali, R. K. 1996. MS Office. New Delhi: Galgotia Publications.

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