In modern society, information plays a decisive role, and information resources have become on a par with the main economic resources of the state - natural, material, labor, financial and others. The world information space has been formed, which forms the basis of the information society. It has large information conglomerates that unite systems for creating information (publishing houses, editorial offices of newspapers and magazines, television networks, television studios) and its distribution networks (cable, telephone, computer, satellite).
Information infrastructure occupies a special place in the modern market economy, since in the second half of the 20th century, information became an integral element of production factors, and there was a need to create special institutions that ensure the creation, accumulation, processing, selection and transportation of information. At the end of the century, the role of these institutions has dramatically increased due to structural shifts in the economy, an increase in the circulation of information and the emergence of new information technologies.
The definitions of information infrastructure, proposed by various scientists, were formulated in accordance with the role that information infrastructure played in the economy at a particular historical stage. In science, the concept of information infrastructure appeared only at the end of the 20th century, emerging from the concept of "infrastructure". Infrastructure in any socio-economic system is, first of all, a set of elements that ensure the smooth functioning of the interconnections of objects and subjects of this system. Accordingly, there are two main functions of the infrastructure: firstly, to ensure the functioning of the relationships between the elements of the system, and, secondly, to streamline the interaction of the elements, that is, the regulatory function. The first function is passive, it can even be called "technical", and the second is active, since it is capable of influencing relationships, changing and ordering them according to a certain principle. This principle is determined by the information used in the operation of the infrastructure. Thus, information provides an active role for infrastructure, and information infrastructures (AI) are "meta-infrastructure" in relation to infrastructure in general.
The information infrastructure of the economies of different countries at the beginning of the 21st century differs significantly in terms of development level. In some countries it is generally impossible to talk about the information infrastructure as a system, while in others it is so developed that it permeates absolutely all spheres of human activity. For the study of the world information infrastructure to be comprehensive, it must be carried out at two levels: at the level of individual states at various stages of economic development and at the supranational level, i.e., the global information infrastructure. Such a study is legitimate because the world information infrastructure at the interstate level is formed precisely due to the peculiarities of the infrastructures of various states. The integration of these infrastructures gives rise to new systemic properties inherent in the global information infrastructure.
The development of science and productive forces simultaneously with the "revolutions" in the field of transport and communications necessitated changes in the methods of storing, processing and transferring knowledge. These changes were leaps and bounds, which is why they are called "information revolutions." A. I. Rakitov, in the development of these ideas, identifies six information revolutions throughout the history of mankind, by which he understands "changes in the instrumental basis, the method of transmission and storage ..., as well as the amount of information available to the active part of the population." The first three information revolutions (the emergence of speech, the emergence of writing, the invention of printing) took place during the formation of economic relations before the emergence of industrial production. The fourth revolution took place simultaneously with the transition to machine mass production and consisted in the invention of means of transmitting information at a distance: telephone, telegraph and radio. The fifth information revolution took place in the second half of the 20th century with the advent of electronic computing technology. And, finally, the sixth revolution, the existence of conditions for which ... at the beginning of 2000, primarily consists in "the creation of global information networks that open to all subscribers customers access to any information at any time and in any place ...".
The formation of the global information infrastructure began at the turn of the 20th - 21st centuries. The integration of the economy into the global information infrastructure during this period becomes one of the main factors of its competitiveness and efficiency.
The globalization of information systems as a mass phenomenon began in the 1990s. The convergence of the computing, communications and content industries is spawning a new industry. Convergence of technologies is taking place (unification, allowing technologies to interact by exchanging information), as a result of which a new interactive polymorphic information environment appears (a kind of result of the consolidation of AI sectors), stimulating global changes in society. It is such an institution that is the global information infrastructure - a new branch of social production. At the global level, the composition of the information infrastructure can be identified only by enlarged blocks. If we use the thesis that the information infrastructure ensures the operation of the infrastructures of the markets for goods, labor, capital and state regulatory bodies, then it is legitimate to single out groups of information infrastructure institutions that are equally necessary for the normal functioning of all market infrastructure institutions shown in Fig. one.
Rice. one
In the presented scheme, the composition of the information infrastructure includes both traditional elements, such as libraries and the media, and those that have appeared in recent years (databases). All these groups of institutions are largely integrated using the Internet and other open information systems, due to which there is a continuous information exchange between the institutions of the information infrastructure.
Libraries appeared at the very initial stage of the formation of infrastructure, and then, with the development of productive forces and the deepening of the division of labor, there were communications (telephone and telegraph), media, computers, and, finally, global information systems (Internet). Libraries as the most ancient institution of information infrastructure have not lost their relevance to this day. The state system of scientific and technical information of the USSR and many other countries was built on the system of libraries. Now libraries are also functioning and mainly provide the work of such segments of the market infrastructure as science, reproduction of labor (training), etc.
The high level of education in society, which is still maintained thanks to the widespread use of libraries, will quickly be lost if the state does not ensure the formation of new accessible information systems that replace libraries around the world based on the Internet and its possible analogues.
The mass media have become the second institution of information infrastructure after libraries, which has emerged as an independent branch of production. The history of the formation of the media is no less lengthy than the history of libraries, but initially they played a predominantly socio-political role. The media as an element of the market economy clearly stood out only in the 19th century, at the stage of transition to large-scale industrial production, with the emergence of interregional and international markets, stock exchanges, advertising, etc. The current state of the media is in transition. There is a gradual transition from print to electronic, from local to international, global media, which is due to the ongoing information revolution, globalization of the economy and its infrastructure. The traditional media market, despite the ongoing changes, is mature and stable. By traditional we mean institutions that have existed for several decades and emerged at the stage of the third or fourth information revolutions: newspapers and magazines, news agencies, radio and television. They mainly support the market for consumer goods and services through the delivery of advertisements and other information to consumers. At the same time, within each media sector, be it newspapers or news agencies, there is a strict specialization. In the post-Soviet space, during the first years of market transformations, the media were the most rapidly developing sector of the information infrastructure, since during this period it was the consumer market that was the most profitable. Thanks to a steady flow of investments, this sector was fully formed by the end of the 20th century and was slightly inferior to the level of economically developed countries. The processes of globalization and the transition of information infrastructure to the use of open information systems have also led to the transformation of the media. The specificity of this process manifested itself in the fact that the transformation did not cause a significant redistribution of forces between the largest mass media, but was expressed in the fact that the media began to use new technologies in their work as the productive forces developed. Thus, news agencies that previously disseminated information by telegraph have now completely switched to broadcasting over computer networks, radio and other communication channels. So, most media outlets transmit information via the Internet (including CNN, NBC, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune). Typically, access to information products of newspapers and magazines via the Internet is usually free, while the subscriber has to pay for traditional paper editions. This indicates high competition between the media in the field of electronic broadcasting. Paper or electronic newspapers continue to be one of the most influential, important and widely accessible media as institutions of information infrastructure.
Telephone communications appeared during the fourth information revolution. This infrastructure industry developed rapidly and by the time new digital technologies appeared at the end of the 20th century, it had not lost its relevance. However, the development of the productive forces and the fifth information revolution had no less dramatic impact on telephone communications than on libraries and the media. In the field of telephony, there is a rapid transition to wireless technologies, as well as to systems for transmitting large amounts of data at a distance (Table 1). The use of telephone networks for the transmission of non-voice data using fax and modem began in the 1970s with the beginning of the fifth information revolution. It was the telephone connection that became the main prerequisite for mass user access to the Internet. However, subsequently, the Internet became the main competitor of wired communications and began to rapidly replace it.
Table 1 - Stages of technological development of telephone communications
|
Information revolution |
Technological changes in telephony |
|
IV. Invention of means of transmitting information at a distance: telegraph, telephone, radio |
The emergence and development of wire communication using switches, and then - analog automatic telephone exchanges (ATS) |
|
V. The emergence of electronic means of storage, processing and transmission of data |
The invention of digital automatic telephone exchanges, the beginning of data transmission and connection to the Internet via telephone channels (fax, modem), the emergence of cellular and satellite communications |
|
Vi. Formation of a global information infrastructure |
Using the Internet to transmit a telephone signal, the ability to access the Internet from cell phones without using a computer, integration of all world cellular networks using roaming |
Telephone communication is one of the most quickly recouped sectors of the information infrastructure, since it is used in all business processes without exception. Thanks to this, this industry can easily attract investment and is developing rapidly. New technological opportunities have allowed telephone companies to quickly integrate into the Internet and rapidly develop the wireless sector. Modern telephone communication in developed countries is divided into two practically equivalent components: traditional (wired) and mobile (cellular, satellite phones, etc.).
Based on the above, the priority for the development of telephone companies will be wireless communication systems (satellite and cell phones), as well as modern digital telephone lines. Over time, the latter will give way to high-speed data transmission channels over the Internet, making it possible to telephone and video communications. Mobile phones, on the other hand, already in the first years of the XXI century provide an opportunity to access the Internet.
Thus, the telephone communication system in the coming years will be fully integrated into the global information infrastructure. This should be taken into account in strategic planning for all companies providing communication services, as well as government agencies that control the formation of communication systems and license this activity.
Computers as a universal tool for storing, processing and transmitting information have become the basis of all modern information systems, causing the V information revolution and becoming a necessary prerequisite for the VI revolution. The computerization of society (the number of computers per capita) is a direct indicator of the development of information infrastructure.
Initially, computers were used only in an industrial environment, since they were expensive, bulky and not very functional. With the development of information technology, personal computers have appeared. Their number increased rapidly as they became cheaper. At the same time, by the beginning of the 2000s, the massive integration of autonomous computers through communication networks began, which became the basis of the global information infrastructure. The actual infrastructural role of computers was manifested in the fact that they began to be widely used to ensure the efficient operation of all sectors of social production and distribution: from industry to education, from trade to economic analysis and forecasting.
Thus, computers have become an objective prerequisite for the development of the information infrastructure of the market economy at the stage of the 2000s. It was during this period that the number of computers became one of the most important indicators of the level of development of information infrastructure in different economies.
According to analysts from the World Bank, the United States has the largest number of computers per capita. It is believed that in this country there is a computer in every second "white" family and in every fourth "color" family. The high level of computer literacy, in particular, allowed the United States to become the founder of the global information infrastructure and the founder of the Internet.
During the last decade of the 20th century, the Internet has given the information infrastructure a qualitatively new meaning, predetermining the transition from a set of disparate institutions to a unified information system, the turnover of information in which is many times higher than the turnover of libraries, media and other traditional AI institutions. Today the Institute of the "Internet" includes three interconnected systems: the computer network itself, a set of rules for its functioning and organizations that control and coordinate the network. The year of the beginning of the massive use of the Internet can be considered 1993, when the main network standards were approved and the first search engines appeared - computers containing reference information about the resources of other network participants and providing users with the ability to search for information. Subsequently, search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, Russian Yandex, Rambler and List.ru) became the most popular and widely visited Internet servers.
At present, obsolete branches of information infrastructure (for example, traditional libraries) are at a high level of development in countries with post-socialist economies. In their development, they are ahead of the level of developed countries. The more modern branches of information infrastructure, such as telephony, in countries with economies in transition are already noticeably inferior to those in the West. In terms of the number of stationary telephones per capita, there is a 2-3-fold lag. The difference is even stronger in the part of mobile communications, in which the lag is tenfold.
The listed characteristics suggest that the information infrastructure is obsolete in countries with economies in transition. The pace of its development is insufficient, and therefore government authorities and commercial structures must prioritize the stimulation of AI. At the same time, the most modern industries of RII, associated with the computerization of production and social processes and the globalization of information systems, need the greatest investments and incentives.
Information infrastructure. 3
Information and analytical system (IAS) as part of software support for the organization's information structure. 4
IAS Institute project. eight
Conclusion. 12
Literature. 14
Introduction
At present, the management of any activity is impossible without analyzing a large amount of information and processing it using computers. The use of computing technology in various fields of human activity has come a long way, which was determined not only by the development of technology itself and, but also by the development of principles and methods of information processing, both in terms of areas of application and in terms of breadth of use.
With the creation of personal computers in the 1980s, there was not only an increase in computerized work places, but more importantly, a change in the requirements for software that was used in the field of management and others. The software should no longer require a specially trained operator and should be understandable to a specialist in the subject area who uses a computer as a tool.
In addition, the information we are working with now is distributed between different computers and local networks are used to access "foreign" data, which have replaced multi-terminal systems.
Another important, and recently perhaps the most important aspect of the use of personal computers has become the development of global networks and their use not in mail mode, but in real time. Thanks to the development of telecommunications and communications, it becomes possible to access the vast knowledge accumulated over the centuries using modern information retrieval systems. This aspect of activity is extremely important in scientific and educational work, advanced training. The possibilities and bandwidth of global networks are evidenced by the fact that many computer games provide for playing over the Internet.
Information infrastructure
Information infrastructure (AI) is the organization of the interaction of information flows (in this case, which medium is insignificant).
The creation of AI using computer technology implies a set of activities that includes:
Organizational measures (determining the structure of documents and routes of their movement, determining responsibility for the types of activities being carried out, determining the rules for organizing the development of programs and the structure of the database, methods of financing, and others);
Technical measures (purchase, installation and maintenance of equipment operation, creation of a cable system);
Determination of the system software that will be used in the organization and the creation of a LAN as a software and hardware complex (installation of system software, organization of routing between subnets, network administration and work with network users);
Training of employees of the organization;
Using standard software when working with documents, organizing postal services, organizing access to the Internet;
Design and development of software products and the creation of an information and analytical system (IAS);
Ensuring the security of information;
Operation of the operation and implementation service;
Database filling;
Ensuring the creation of AI using computer technology should be provided by the following services (departments or laboratories):
1. Technical service. Functions - LAN installation works, equipment installation, equipment repair and replacement.
2. Service of operation and implementation. Functions - work with the Customer of IAS applications on setting the task, installing IAS applications, preparing tasks for the software development group, personnel training.
3. Software development group.
Information and analytical system (IAS) as part of software support for the organization's information structure
IAS is a part of the software support of the organization's information infrastructure, which provides special management tasks.
When developing any software products, there is a problem of obsolescence of the program at the time of its creation and, as a consequence, the need to modify it immediately after the end of development. Therefore, two requirements for the currently developed software products and IAS in particular are becoming important. First, the system should be open, and not be a “thing in itself,” changes to which can only be made by the people who developed it. Second, the technologies that are used during development should be at least modern, and even better take into account the trends in software development. This item refers both to the mechanisms that are implemented by the developers of the software product, and to those tools that are used during development.
Secondly, software products that either carry the means of modifying programs, or are so simple and universal that they do not need to be modified, are currently popular. Developing environments with their own tools and data modification languages is somewhat complicated and unprofitable to use because it is doubtful that a native language will be so much better than existing ones that it makes sense to learn and use it as a standard in a given enterprise. In addition, the problem of "lagging" in development is obviously increasing in this case.
Thirdly, when developing IAS, the modular principle of organizing applications and data must be observed, since in this case additions and changes can be made at lower costs and it is guaranteed that there are no changes in parts that are not affected when modifying other parts.
In this way:
1. IAS is an open, modular system that uses the client-server architecture with the implementation of business logic rules as COM objects of the transaction server.
2. Clarification of the properties of objects that the IAS operates with can be performed by the user at a descriptive level. For this, system components can be written using Wizard technology.
3. Modules implementing new objects and functions of the system should be created mainly at the level of services and server objects.
4. Workstations of specialists (AWPs) should be arranged as containers containing modules (screen forms and procedures for processing reports) for working with individual IAS objects and, possibly, created at the level of descriptions of what this AWS includes.
5. Ready-made software products that support work with databases should be used. For example, a Crystal Report or MS Excel report generator.
6. There are IAS components that have a similar structure and use the same data processing methods for all enterprises and institutions (“IAS structural invariant”), for example, accounting (AWP of the chief accountant), which, due to the fact that accounting principles are the same for any organizations (the principle of double entries and the journal-order reporting system). For example, the organizational structure of the institution or the personnel of the organization. Another type of tasks (“functional invariant of the IAS”) are the components of the IAS, which perform the same functions, but based on different considerations and using, perhaps, different initial data. Functional invariants include the task of calculating wages. Functional invariants must be implemented as a COM object library. The important thing in this case is that the COM interfaces of objects of such a library can be defined once and not changed in the future.
Obviously, to describe the specifics of the enterprise and clarify the content of the component-invariants, additional data and functions for their processing will be required. The qualifying components include, for example, the academic degrees of the Institute's employees. As a rule, follow-up data are related to the main data as many to one. Data connectivity is ensured at the level of database objects (links and triggers). Deletion or transfer to the archive of master data must be carried out together with all clarifying records. At the same time, work with records of one lookup table is implemented at the level of stored procedures of the SQL server, and the COM object of the transaction server provides a sequential call of stored procedures for each object. The addition, change and removal of refining components cannot, therefore, lead to a change in the structure of the IAS as a whole, but only change the content of some reports.
In addition to the above, there are modules that implement particular tasks and interact with system invariants and additional modules. If we consider the accounting of material values and the projects of the organization, then the tasks of processing applications and receiving materials, being an additional service, connects these invariants. Additional modules are modules that provide functions for statistical and other processing of information stored in one database and export of already processed information to another database. An example of such a task would be “tuition fees at a university,” which links the payment of each student to the institute's cash desk, as part of the chief accountant's workstation. Another example is the export of data on university graduates to the alumni database of all educational institutions in Russia. It is obvious that add-on modules may not contain any data. In this case, their implementation can consist in programming COM objects of the transaction server and adding a call to it in the client program. If the additional module requires the storage of some information, tables can be created in another database.
Information infrastructure- a system of organizational structures, subsystems that ensure the functioning and development of the country's information space and means of information interaction.
Includes:
Provides consumer access to information resources.
Collegiate YouTube
1 / 2
IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service. ProCloud
Best in profession Girba E Yu UMC Serpukhov
Subtitles
Global information infrastructure
This is information education, which began to form in 1995 by a group of developed countries. The global information infrastructure is being developed as a global information network for the mass service of the planet's population based on the integration of global and regional information and telecommunication systems, as well as digital television and radio broadcasting systems, satellite systems and mobile communications.
Information infrastructure in Russia
The President of the Russian Federation through the document "Fundamentals of the policy of the Russian Federation in the field of development of science and technology for the period up to 2010 and beyond" outlined the task of the country's transition to an innovative path of development. But for this, our country needs an information infrastructure, which is currently actively developing, and therefore attracts great attention. Russia has not yet developed an information infrastructure that would provide information support for the innovation cycle from the emergence of an idea to its implementation.
Examples of information infrastructure
As examples of information infrastructure, one can cite such well-known areas of our life as:
- Network media
- Advertising, PR
The above examples are common to all countries. At the same time, there are examples of the results of the work of specific organizations:
- Science Citation Index from Institute for Scientific Information.
- Layer 1. User (consumer) layer - a layer of information resource consumers with the rules for their interaction with the information structure.
- Layer 2. Functional layer with a set of services provided to users (consumers) by various information providers.
- Layer 3. Information layer, which directly contains the information resource.
- Layer 4. Communication layer considered as a single information highway (information network).
- Information infrastructure of the organization -
The use of information technology is an indispensable part of any modern enterprise. How effectively information technology is applied in an organization depends on its success, competitiveness and cost. What is the information infrastructure of the enterprise?
Information infrastructure (IT infrastructure) is a collection of information technologies, hardware and software, communications and telecommunications based on business processes in an organization.
The infrastructure consists of the following components:
Computers and servers;
Server and workstation software;
Data and storage media;
Office equipment (printers, copiers, fax machines, scanners);
Data transmission networks, telephone networks;
Active and passive network equipment (routers, switches, structured cable networks);
Telephone exchanges.
Joint, interconnected work of all parts of the IT system, their functional and technical compatibility, as well as optimization in work and ease of use, are the main requirements for a modern, high-quality IT infrastructure.
Competent selection and organization of the work of IT elements provide a real opportunity to greatly increase the efficiency and continuity of all business processes in general. IT infrastructure is not just another item of expenditure, it is a capital investment in the successful development of a business.
The creation and maintenance of the stable functioning of the IT infrastructure is a multifaceted process that must be planned initially and best implemented in a complex. Using an integrated approach when implementing IT infrastructure in your office will help you save significant money and avoid many problems associated with the functioning of the system in the future.
When designing an IT infrastructure, not only all the current requirements for the functioning of the system are taken into account, but also the possibilities of expanding it and increasing the number of tasks performed by it.
An integrated approach excludes mistakes that can be made at the stage of system design, thus avoiding a decrease in the efficiency of the enterprise in the future.
The creation of AI using computer technology implies a set of activities that includes:
- organizational measures (determination of the structure of documents and routes of their movement, determination of responsibility for the types of activities carried out, determination of the rules for organizing the development of programs and the structure of the database, methods of financing, and others);
- technical measures (purchase, installation and maintenance of equipment operation, creation of a cable system);
- determination of the system software that will be used in the organization and the creation of a LAN as a software and hardware complex (installation of system software, organization of routing between subnets, network administration and work with network users);
- training of employees of the organization;
- using standard software when working with documents, organizing postal services, organizing access to the Internet;
- design and development of software products and the creation of an information and analytical system (IAS);
- information security;
- operation of the operation and implementation service;
- filling the database;
Ensuring the creation of AI using computer technology should be provided by the following services (departments or laboratories):
1. Technical service. Functions - LAN installation works, equipment installation, equipment repair and replacement.
2. Service of operation and implementation. Functions - work with the Customer of IAS applications on setting the task, installing IAS applications, preparing tasks for the software development group, personnel training.
3. Software development group.
IAS is a part of the software support of the organization's information infrastructure, which provides special management tasks.
When developing any software products, there is a problem of obsolescence of the program at the time of its creation and, as a consequence, the need to modify it immediately after the end of development. Therefore, two requirements for the currently developed software products and IAS in particular are becoming important. First, the system should be open, and not be a “thing in itself,” changes to which can only be made by the people who developed it. Second, the technologies that are used during development should be at least modern, and even better take into account the trends in software development. This item refers both to the mechanisms that are implemented by the developers of the software product, and to those tools that are used during development.
Secondly, software products that either carry the means of modifying programs, or are so simple and universal that they do not need to be modified, are currently popular. Developing environments with their own tools and data modification languages is somewhat complicated and unprofitable to use because it is doubtful that a native language will be so much better than existing ones that it makes sense to learn and use it as a standard in a given enterprise. In addition, the problem of "lagging" in development is obviously increasing in this case.
Thirdly, when developing IAS, the modular principle of organizing applications and data must be observed, since in this case additions and changes can be made at lower costs and it is guaranteed that there are no changes in parts that are not affected when modifying other parts.
In this way:
1. IAS is an open, modular system that uses the client-server architecture with the implementation of business logic rules as COM objects of the transaction server.
2. Clarification of the properties of objects that the IAS operates with can be performed by the user at a descriptive level.
3. Modules implementing new objects and functions of the system should be created mainly at the level of services and server objects.
4. Workstations of specialists (AWPs) should be arranged as containers containing modules (screen forms and procedures for processing reports) for working with individual IAS objects and, possibly, created at the level of descriptions of what this AWS includes.
5. Ready-made software products that support work with databases should be used. For example, MS Excel report generator.
6. There are IAS components that have a similar structure and use the same data processing methods for all enterprises and institutions ("IAS structural invariant"), for example, accounting (AWP of the chief accountant), which, due to the fact that accounting principles are the same for any organizations (the principle of double entries and the journal-order reporting system). For example, the organizational structure of the institution or the personnel of the organization. Another type of tasks ("functional invariant of the IAS") are the components of the IAS, which perform the same functions, but based on different considerations and using, perhaps, different initial data. Functional invariants include the task of calculating wages. Functional invariants must be implemented as a COM object library. The important thing in this case is that the COM interfaces of objects of such a library can be defined once and not changed in the future.
Obviously, to describe the specifics of the enterprise and clarify the content of the component-invariants, additional data and functions for their processing will be required. The qualifying components include, for example, the academic degrees of the Institute's employees. As a rule, follow-up data are related to the main data as many to one. Data connectivity is ensured at the level of database objects (links and triggers). Deletion or transfer to the archive of master data must be carried out together with all clarifying records. At the same time, work with records of one lookup table is implemented at the level of stored procedures of the SQL server, and the COM object of the transaction server provides a sequential call of stored procedures for each object. The addition, change and removal of refining components cannot, therefore, lead to a change in the structure of the IAS as a whole, but only change the content of some reports.
In addition to the above, there are modules that implement particular tasks and interact with system invariants and additional modules. If we consider the accounting of material values and the projects of the organization, then the tasks of processing applications and receiving materials, being an additional service, connects these invariants. Additional modules are modules that provide functions for statistical and other processing of information stored in one database and export of already processed information to another database. An example of such a task would be “payment for university tuition,” which links the payment of each student and the institute's cash desk, as part of the chief accountant's workstation. Another example is the export of data on university graduates to the alumni database of all educational institutions in Russia. It is obvious that add-on modules may not contain any data. In this case, their implementation can consist in programming COM objects of the transaction server and adding a call to it in the client program. If the additional module requires the storage of some information, tables can be created in another database.
Since any IAS contains a large amount of diverse data, and one of the basic principles of relational databases is that there should be no duplication of data in the system, the issue of connections between components is one of the main ones. Some links are attributes of the data structure of individual components. For example, a link to an employee in the vacation table. Others are individual tables that implement many-to-many relationships. For example, a job assignment table that contains two links: a person and a job. In this case, link tables can contain additional data that specify the characteristics of a specific link between instances of two or more objects. Such tables are the basis for defining the rules of the IAS business logic. Some connections between system data can be temporary and contain only two links. Let's call this kind of connection a union. Obviously, the process of creating link tables, establishing links between records and deleting links can be automated, since the information required for this is only the names of the tables that need to be linked, and the fields of these tables, which will be link keys and those in which meaningful information will be located (characteristics records). To determine a specific relationship, two lists in the client application are sufficient, containing the characteristics of the records to be linked, and the mechanism for establishing and removing the relationship itself.
Thus, the information and analytical system (IAS) of an enterprise or institution should have components of varying degrees of uniqueness (meaning the possibility of using them without changes or with minor changes by another organization). Different parts of the IAS have different "weights". Some must be present in any system; others may or may not be; the third, describing temporary connections, arise in the system and disappear from it during its operation. In addition, some objects can only be created as part of other objects.
Often, IT professionals have little idea of the entire set and complexity of the information system and, especially, its environment. This is generally normal in the current time of narrow specialization, but it is still desirable for a real specialist to have an idea of at least what might hinder the implementation of his plan. In the end, the understanding that the operation of your software package depends on many, many factors, including sometimes not obvious, will not hurt anyone.
The interpretation of the concept of an information system can be found, for example, on Wikipedia.
Just in case:
restrictions and agreements
1. The following is not a dogma, it is exclusively my vision of the situation. Based, however, on a fairly large practical experience.
2. In modern times, access to information implies almost exclusively the use of electronic means, and I will talk about them, leaving out of the brackets newspapers, books and classic libraries.
3. We will restrict ourselves to rather insignificant scales, say, from a personal, home, smallest network, to the system of an individual enterprise - considering the issue within the framework of the planet or at least the country can only be theoretically, and I am primarily interested in applied aspects.
4. At the same time, I will leave aside such an important component of the information system as the software of the entire complex, I will focus on the "iron" components. This is, of course, wrong. We mean that software is present in one way or another in any element of the system.
5. The figures given below are quite conditional, as it is written in the design documentation, "reference".
Information infrastructure subsystems. The purpose of subsystems, the tasks they solve
How do I see the infrastructure of the information system? A kind of pyramid, the top of which, the “first layer”, is the consumer and the sought-after, processed and ready-to-use information. Information, as perceived by a person intangible. A human is also an element of this infrastructure, and quite significant, like software; however, for some reason it is not accepted to refer it to technical, engineering elements. Nor will I.What is this information? What we see on the monitor screen, we hear from the speakers; then, on the basis of which we make certain decisions - or deliberately delegate the right to make these decisions, again to computer technology.
Conventionally, the "second layer" of the pyramid - interfaces, display devices, control, input-output. Why did I decide to move the interfaces into a separate entity? Because the decisions made by the consumer depend on the "quality" of the information provided to the consumer - for quite subjective reasons. Yes, both technically and software-technical interfaces are a completely independent area.
The interface systems "communicate" directly with the third layer, with information processing devices that convert the data arrays into a form available for presentation with the same personal computers. Nowadays, sometimes it is already difficult to draw the line between the interface and the "computer", an example of this are smartphones and tablets.
A computer (laptop, tablet, smartphone) by itself, without data for processing, without communication with the source of information, is not a particularly necessary expensive piece of hardware. Once upon a time, the "source" of data for computing systems were (if we leave behind the scenes the primary source - a person and the surrounding reality / environment) teletypes, punched cards, punched tapes, then magnetic tapes ... Now the initial data, as a rule, is taken through networks from other computing devices, places of mass storage through telecommunications. This is the fourth layer, which provides connections of terminal devices, preparing information for human consumption, with data sources.
The fifth and sixth layers are the processing of primary, basic information, and data storage. These two layers can be understood, for example, the entire Internet - as Saturday entertainment, or a data center, or a separate mainframe tied to a data storage system, a disk array, dozens of FiberChannel channels through appropriate switches (here it has its own mini-hierarchy, which also fit into the above scheme); or just a home NAS server.
It is clear that in order to implement the just described method of accessing information (and operating with this information) within the framework of the adopted restrictions, it is necessary to use technical, and not just technical, but high-tech means. Which can only work when a number of conditions are met.
- First, without electricity, which meets certain requirements and standards, the operation of IT equipment, oddly enough, is impossible - such is the paradox.
- Secondly, electronic components of IT equipment, in accordance with the laws of physics, can work normally, without a large number of failures, can only in a fairly limited temperature range, conditionally from -40 to + 50ºC, and the range of 20 ± 2ºC is considered "comfortable". At the same time, the IT equipment itself is a source of heat: all consumed electrical energy is converted by the components of IT systems into thermal energy.
- Thirdly, due to the technologies used now, there are restrictions on the level of relative humidity: at high humidity, dew may fall out, which means that a short circuit in electrical circuits is likely; Low humidity conditions can build up static electricity and increase the likelihood of electrical breakdown.
- Fourthly, taking into account the “second and third”, IT equipment must be protected from unwanted external influences, from dust getting into them, and ending with a stone thrown by a bully. A layer of dust makes it difficult to remove heat from the components, and contributes to the accumulation of static; with a stone and so everything is clear.
- There is also the problem of compact placement of IT systems and systems that support them. That is - an architectural subsystem, a dedicated area, or a room, or a building, or structures where the entire economy is located. This problem is solved in different ways, and often this solution requires a very significant part of the funds allocated to the information system. Let's leave this aside, although this is also wrong - as well as the fact that we do not take into account the software.
This is how the seventh, engineering, layer of information infrastructure turns out to be so thick - its own separate complex infrastructure of several, sometimes many, subsystems.
Interestingly, this is not the end of the chain at all, since then there is energy transportation, city and regional power supply networks, power generation, energy extraction ... But this, we will assume, is beyond the scope of the topic, I promised to limit myself to the scale of the enterprise.
Purposes for which a specific information system is being built; dependence of infrastructure on the chosen goal
The goal, in fact, is clear: to provide the consumer with the necessary level of responsibility (or just the right) with information for the final analysis and decision-making; as an option - for some kind of pleasure (do you play computer games? And movies? And music?). The scale of the infrastructure designed to provide the consumer with information directly depends on the final importance of the problem being solved.Information infrastructure. Examples are obvious: on the one hand, a "home network" that includes a PC, laptop and a couple of smartphones as clients, a router as a central hub, and the only communication channel to the provider; on the other hand, an enterprise with branches in half of the world, with 15 data centers throughout the country. The range is the widest. Accordingly, to implement these two infrastructure solutions, equipment of different levels is required; manufacturers are aware of this "problem", and pre-position the devices: "home wi-fi router", "switch for workgroups", "enterprise-wide server".
The complexity and high cost of solutions for each specific task is determined by the importance of this task - this was decided long ago. As an individual, how valuable are your photos, videos, films and books stored on your laptop disk? Are they worth buying a RAID 10 NAS? Or will an 8 gigabyte "flash drive" be enough? Or, for example, two 32 GB flash drives? Will the cost of NAS pay off your moral suffering from the possible loss of unique photos from Cyprus?
On the other hand, how valuable is information “living” in petabyte storage to a commercial bank? Do I need to mirror it, the storage, to a second one of the same in another city, or will a daily backup to tapes be enough? Will the losses from the bank's downtime for repairs and recovery after the storage collapse be so great that a "mirror" for several tens of millions of dollars will turn out to be petty expenses?
Engineering infrastructure. Do I need to buy an uninterruptible power supply at home that will take up a scarce space, but can save you from data loss? Are the costs justified - if, in your memory, the electricity at home has been cut off twice in the last five years? And what scheme of redundancy of air conditioners in the data center to choose: N + 1 or 2N - considering that each extra air conditioner with refrigerating capacity, for example, 50 kW, will cost one and a half million?
The questions are quite rhetorical, any infrastructure must correspond to the scale of the task, and be built on the basis of, albeit not very accurate, calculations.
Determination of the scope of infrastructure, composition of subsystems
As long as your "photos" are placed on one CD, you seem to have no problems with the infrastructure: your data is always safe (unless, of course, you do not forget to take care of it yourself), accessibility, and in the event of the collapse of your personal information systems, this data is quite simple to restore. It is a different matter when the amount of data to which at least sometimes it is necessary to have access is tens and hundreds of terabytes; at the same time, it is easy to imagine a situation in which you (the company) will incur losses (financial, reputational, moral in the end) if this data is unavailable, even for a short time.You can try to determine the necessary scale of the infrastructure, and the required composition of its systems and subsystems.
The amount of information provided to the consumer(the one that needs to be stored "at home") is quite possible to estimate, this is what is used in everyday activities and, as a result, "settles" on hard drives - with the exception of random and unproductive information (for an enterprise, this is, say, deeply personal stocks of music on personal computers of employees; at home, for example, TV shows, which after watching can be erased without regret, but which still take up disk space). That is, those volumes of data that we operate at the moment, and that may be needed in the future. It is possible to predict the growth in the volume of data if there are few statistics for previous periods (if you are an enterprise, and you do not have such statistics, then your administrators are either downright lazy or incompetent).
Based on the amount of data available, the intensity of their use and growth forecasts based on statistics, it is quite possible to estimate which equipment to use at which "level" of infrastructure.
The nature of the final information can determine the content of the "upper layers" of the infrastructure pyramid,
technical level of interface means, and information provision: a web design studio is unlikely to be able to effectively compete in the market by providing its leading employees with computers based on Pentium-III for rendering and 14-inch monitors with a resolution of 800x600; on the other hand, many accountants use this technique, and may well use it for years.
Data usage and volume define the requirements for means of data transmission: in the above example with accounting, it will be enough to have (for an average office size) a network built on the basis of a "copper" structured cabling system of category 5 / 5e and 10/100 Layer 2 switches. The core of the bank's data center network already requires optics for SAN and not only, Layer 3-4 switches with interfaces with a transfer rate of 2-8 (for SAN) and 1-10 (for others) gigabits per second.
Information processing tools are represented by servers of different performance (and, accordingly, power), performance, cost and even purpose: from the level of a workgroup in a Midi-Tower case to monsters of the IBM p795 class. Blade servers have deservedly become popular in the "middle" segment (mainly due to the flexibility of solutions). The choice of a specific system depends on the complexity of the tasks to be solved (two big differences: the calculation of thermal protection of a spacecraft by the finite element method, or "play sapper") and, accordingly, the required performance.
Data storage- the task is quite traditional, it is solved in different ways (the base, however, now all methods have the same - mostly hard disks, if we mean operative storage, SSD for critical tasks to the speed of data processing, and magnetic tapes for backup and archive copies ; in fact, there is a special conversation about backing up information; in private life, CD / DVD and "flash drives" are added). Methods are chosen - oddly enough - depending on the required storage volumes and access speed. This can be a partition on a single HDD in a home computer, a RAID array inside a server, a disk "shelf" or their array, or a Hi-End system of three (five, seven) 42U cabinets, one or two of which are "brains" controllers, and the rest are disk array.
Requirements to engineering infrastructure systems are determined from the characteristics of everything listed above. The main indicator is power consumption, this is the basis for further calculations - if we are talking about an enterprise. Why mainstream? Payment for electricity accounts for the lion's share of the cost of operating data centers. The data processing center, where IT equipment with an electrical capacity of 250 kilowatts is installed, consumes almost 2.2 thousand megawatt-hours per year only for calculations, and together with the engineering infrastructure from 3 to 4 thousand megawatt-hours, depending on the efficiency of engineering systems. In terms of money today, this means from ten to twelve million rubles. Such potential waste should not come as a surprise and require prior assessment. How?
We summarize the electrical rating power consumed by each IT device, add 10-20% "just in case of fire" (according to our measurements during the generation of reports, that is, with intensive calculations, the power consumption of the IT system increased by an average of 9.67 percent compared to with the usual, steady-state daily capacity), if necessary, we add a margin for development, and we get the capacity that will be consumed by IT equipment, that is, approximately 50-70% of the required total capacity (for the entire infrastructure). At the same time, the required power becomes clear. guaranteed and uninterruptible power supply systems, and at the same time - the amount of heat that will need to be removed from IT equipment and from the UPS, that is, you can estimate the power air conditioning systems... After that, we determine the minimum allowable redundancy levels, and the basis for rough calculations is ready.
The capacities of the "engineering" systems are added to the capacities of IT equipment, and as a result, the required capacities of external power supply are determined, and the system of guaranteed power supply: emergency diesel generators, or something similar. That is - energetics.
This technique, with some amendments, is applicable, in general, for a rough estimate of both the scale of the information infrastructure necessary for the "functioning of the business" and the costs for it, taking into account measures to ensure some security. However, we are talking about security as a separate issue, this thing is multifaceted and varied in its manifestations, and in extreme cases it can be very expensive. By the way, one of the security measures can be considered to increase the reliability of both the entire infrastructure and the subsystems and components that make up it.
Reliability issues
The reliability of technical systems is quite a multifaceted and entertaining science. But we are only interested in the applied aspects; the main question is how to ensure acceptable reliability of the information infrastructure for reasonable money. Insofar as:- The main way to improve reliability is redundancy and duplication of components (devices, subsystems, communication channels, etc.).
- An additional way is to use highly reliable and therefore expensive components.
- Both of these ways to improve reliability are costly.
In my opinion, it turned out to be indicative. The different level of importance of the problem being solved determines different scales, and the scales determine the different cost of the solution.
In doing so, note that fundamental difference between the infrastructure, for example, "Mobile Telesystems", or VTB-24 and your home network is not. No one and nothing, except for your neighbors and your wallet, will prevent you, if you consider your personal data invaluable, additionally protect them: install a UPS under each device, and on the balcony - an emergency gasoline generator for the most extreme case; connect to two independent providers by installing a separate router / switch on each channel; add another one to the existing NAS with a 5th level RAID array, in the mirror; put another system unit under the cabinet "in reserve", identical to the one on the table (the so-called "cold reserve", yeah), and insert a BlueRay recorder into the drive on the table, on which to cut another disc with an invaluable one weekly; and take the recorded discs to a safe deposit box once a month; etc. Only do you need it?
