Chapter 14 Enterprise Computer

Enterprise computing involves the use of computers in networks,such as LANs and WANs, or a series of interconnected networks that encompass a variety of different operating systems,protocols, and network architectures

Types of enterprises
-Retail 
-Manufacturing
-Service
-Wholesale
-Government 
-Educational
-Transportation

• Most traditional enterprises are organized in a hierarchical manner
• In an enterprise , users typically fall into one of four categories

1. Executive Management 
2. Middle Management
3. Operational Management
4. Non management Employees

• Enterprise information is the information is the information gathered in the ongoing operations of an enterprise-sized organization

- Business intelligence 

-Business process management

-Business process automation

• Managers coordinate resources by performing four activties

-Planning

-Organizing

-Leading

-Controlling

Information System in the Enterprise

An information system  is a set of hardware,software,data,people, and procedures that work together to produce information

• Functional units within an enterprise might include

-accounting and finance

-human resource

-engineering or product development

-manufacturing

-marketing 

-sales

-distribution

-customer

-information technology

• Acounting software manages everyday transactions
• Billing software helps the company reconcile purchases with customer payments
• Financial software helps managers budget , forecast, and analyze
• A human resources information system(HRIS) manages one or more human resources functions 
• Employee relationship management systems manage communication between employees and the business 
• Computer-aided design(CAD) uses computers and special software to aid in engineering , drafting , and design
• Computer-aided engineering (CAE) uses computers to test product designs
• Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) is the use of computers to control production equipment
• Computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) uses computers to integrate the many different operations of the manufacturing process
• Material Requirements Planning (MRP) uses software to help monitor and control processes related to production
• Manufacturing Resource Planning 11 (MRP11)is an extension of MRP and also includes software that helps in scheduling

A quality control system helps an organization maintain or improve the quality of its products or services

A marketing information system serves as a central repository for the tasks of a marketing department

• sales force automation(SFA) software equips traveling salespeople with the electronic tools they need to be more productive

Distribution system perform the following fucions

-Provide forecasting for inventory control

-Manage and track shipping of products

-Provide information and analysis on inventory in a warehouse

• Customer interaction management (CIM) software manages the day-to-day interactions with customers
• The information technology (IT) department makes technology decisions for the enterprise
• Web site management programs collect data designed to help organization make informed decisions regarding their Wed presence

General purpose information systems generally fall into one of five categories
-office information system 

-transaction processing system 

-management information system

-decision support system

-expert system

• Batch processing vs online transaction processing

Integrated Information Systems

-Customer relationship management manages information about customer,interactions with customers, past purchases and interests

-Enterprise resource planning provides centralized,integrated software to help mange and coordinate ongoing activities

-Content management system are information system that combine databases ,software, and procedures

Enter-Wide Technologies and Methodologies

Some technologies used in enterprises include

-portals

-data warehouses

-electronic data interchange

-extranets

-web services

-document management systems

-workflow

-virtual private networks

-A portal is a collection of links, content, and services presented on a Web page that are interesting for a particular job function.

-A data warehouse is a huge database that stores manages the data required to analyze historical and current transactions.

-Web services allow businesses to create products and B2B interactions over the Internet.

-A document management system (DMS) allows for storage and management of a company's documents.

-A workflow is a defined process that identifies the specific set of steps involved in completing a particular project or business process.

-A virtual private network (VPN) provides mobile users, vendors, and customers with a secure connection to the company network server.

Virtualization and cloud Computing

-Virtualization is the practice of sharing or pooling computing resources.

-Server virtualization: Provides the capability to divide a physical server logically into many virtual servers.

-Storage virtualization: Provides the capability to create a single logical storage device from many physical storage devices.

Enterprise Hardware

-Enterprise hardware allows large organizations to manage and store information and data using devices geared for: Heavy use, Maximum availability, Maximum efficiency.

-RAID duplicates data and implements duplication in different ways.

-Network attached storage (NAS) is a server that provides storage to users and information systems attached to the network.

-A storage area network (SAN) is a high-speed network that provides storage to other servers to which it attached.

-An enterprise storage system is a strategy that focuses on the availability, protection, organization, and backup of storage in a company.

-A blade server packs a complete computer server on a single card rather than a system unit.

-A thin client is a small terminal-like computer that mostly relies on a server for data storage and processing.

-The processing for a  thin client usually is done on a server.

High Availability, Scalability, and Interoperability

-A high-availability system continues running and performing tasks for at least 99% of the time.

-Scalability is a measure of how well computer hardware, software, or an information system can grow to meet increasing performance demands.

-Interoperability is the ability for an information system to share information with other information systems within an enterprise.

Backup Procedures

-Continuous data protection provides automatic data backup whenever data is changed in an enterprise.

-A disaster recovery plan is a written plan describing the steps a company would take a restore computer operations in the event of a disaster.

-Contains four major components: Emergency plan, Backup plan, Recovery plan, Test plan.