Chapter 3 • Telecommunications and Networking 91Summary
The telecommunications and networking area has existed
for considerably longer than computer hardware and
software, but the developments in all three areas have
merged in the past three decades to put more emphasis on
telecommunications than ever before. The late 1990s and
the first decade of the 2000s are the era of networking.
Networks provide enhanced communication to organiza-
tions and individuals and permit the sharing of resources
and data. They are also essential to implement distributed
data processing and client/server systems. The exploding
role of telecommunications and networking is evident in
many organizational activities, including online operations
and electronic commerce. There is an intense desire to
improve organizational communications through universal
connectivity. A communications revolution is underway,
with networking—and particularly the Internet—at the
heart of it.
The technology of telecommunications and network-
ing is extremely complex, perhaps even more so than
computer hardware and software. By concentrating on a
number of key elements, we have developed a managerial-
level understanding of networks. Communication signals
may be either analog or digital. It is easier to transmit data
digitally, and there is a concerted movement toward digital
transmission today. Networks employ a variety of trans-
mission media (e.g., twisted-pair and fiber-optic cable) and
are configured in various topologies (e.g., rings and buses).
Major network types include computer telecommunicationsThe Newest Buzzword: Cloud Computing
In the last few years, cloud computinghas become the hot button for IT vendors and IT executives. What
is cloud computing all about? Cloud computing means obtaining IT capabilities (i.e., hardware,
software, or services) from an outside vendor over a network, usually the Internet. “The cloud” is a
metaphor for the Internet, so the “cloud computing” phrase means that IT capabilities of some sort are
purchased from a vendor and delivered to the customer over the Internet. From the customer’s
standpoint, the IT capabilities come from “the cloud”—the customer doesn’t care where the actual
computing is taking place. “The cloud is a smart, complex, powerful computing system in the sky that
people can just plug into,” according to Web browser pioneer Marc Andreessen.
The details of cloud computing are still evolving, but there are three basic types of cloud comput-
ing. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)—also called utility computing—provides the computing capabilities
(i.e., servers, networks, storage, and systems software) to augment or replace the functions of an entire
in-house data center. Such services are offered by traditional vendors such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and
Sun, as well as companies such as Amazon that possess extensive computing capacity. Platform as a
Service (PaaS) provides a development environment as a service—virtualized servers on which users can
run existing applications or develop new ones. The highest profile examples are Salesforce.com’s
Force.com, Microsoft’s Azure, and Google’s App Engine. Software as a Service (SaaS) is the most widely
known and widely used form of cloud computing. SaaS delivers a single application to its multiple users
through a Web browser. Familiar examples include Google Gmail and Apps, VoIP from Vonage and
Skype, and IM from AOL, Yahoo!, and Google. The key to these types of cloud computing, and to the
many variations that exist, is that computing capabilities of some sort are being delivered to the user via
a network, usually the Internet.
Note that while the cloud computing terminology is relatively new, the underlying concepts are
decades old. Utility computing in some form has been offered for more than two decades. Application
service providers (ASPs) arose in the 1990s, where the customer elected to use a “hosted” application—
running on the ASP’s server—rather than purchasing the software application and running it on its own
equipment. SaaS has also been around since the 1990s. However, the range of cloud computing
services now available—or at least currently under development—is making cloud computing a much
more attractive alternative for IT executives who need to be able to increase capacity or add capabilities
quickly, without investing in new infrastructure, personnel, or software. Cloud computing, in some
form, appears here to stay.
[Based on Fogarty, 2009; Hamm, 2008; and Knorr and Gruman, 2008]