Role of Information Technology - Research Paper Example

? Information Technology Information technology has become a vital component of day-to-day life of almost every individual. Today, everyone stores and retrieves information using computer system. Thus, there is a need to provide greater confidence that the system an individual is using is reliable and provides enough security against data losses which is quite crucial. Numbers of techniques are being used to ensure the reliability and the security of the computer system. Backups and Redundancy are the two methods to keep one’s data safely for future assessment, if the data gets corrupted. Several new components are being utilized to avoid any kind of data loss and to enhance the performance of the system. However, every system has its own advantages and disadvantages. Certain components easily get corrupted due to many reasons like improper handling and heat. Therefore, the factors causing damage must be carefully analyzed and techniques to reduce and to protect the data must be adopted. Role of Information Technology Information Technology plays a key role globally. It deals with computing technology, such as the internet, software, hardware or networking system. In other words, it is the tool of managing information using different software and hardware devices (Agarwal & Prasad, 2012). At present, information technology is used in varied sectors like medical and health, education and widely in corporate sectors. Information technology has become an inseparable part of private as well as public sector institutions. Consequently, the risk of media failure and data losses has been a serious matter of concern. Thus, creating the needs for reliable backup media to avoid data losses is quite imperative (Chau & Hu, 2001). Backup Media Backup is usually an activity of copying databases in order to preserve that database in case a system failure takes place. Backup is a routine operation for the IT users. Backup prevents the users when catastrophe occurs in the system. The file when retrieved back to the system, it is called restoring. Various types of physical backup media are used to backup files, such as Optical DVD media, Internal Hard Disk, External Hard Disk and Flash memory (Hagen & Bieringer, 2001). Optical DVD Media Optical media comprises recordable/rewritable as well as dual layer formats DVD and CD disks. Optical Disc Drives use electromagnetic or laser light waves for reading and writing data. These devices are reasonably cost effective media to store small amount of data. In present times, nearly each and every personal computer comes with DVD or CD burners or writers. Data can be written and stored easily in a few minutes. Data can be stored in the form of documents, audio, video or in digital form. DVD rewritable permits the user to write discs and then erase and rewrite. DVD recordable provides permanent record for the data copied. Optical discs do not provide enough data storage space when compared to other media storages. Optical disks are not suitable for full system backup as it does not have sufficient capacity to store data .It needs certain special drives to write or read. Data stored in optical media gets destroyed, if it is scratched or exposed to heat. Thus, long-term reliability of optical DVD media cannot be assured (Hagen & Bieringer, 2001). Internal Hard Disk or A Second Hard Disk, Mounted Internally Internal Hard Disk is used for storing and retrieving digital information in the computer system. The hard disk may result in failure in many ways and cause loss of data either partly or totally. Internal hard disks are within the computer system and are easily available. Moving of files in case of internal hard disk is easy and fast. The benefit of using internal hard disk is that its cost is low and the data transfer is easy. Data can be kept stored in the internal hard disk for considerable amount of time in various types of data format. It is highly vulnerable to virus attacks and malware. Trojans and power loss can cause data corruption and in such circumstances it cannot be used with another computer system (Sobti, 2006). External Hard Disk or A Second Hard Disk, Mounted Externally External Hard Disk is used in the form of high capacity flash drives. One can transfer large quantities of data from one computer to another with the use of external hard disk. External hard disk is portable and can be operated on the basis of plug and play. It can be used for storing data on any computer having USB or Fire Wire capability. However, the cost of external drive is relatively high and can be stolen or damaged easily. It is also time consuming to maintain external hard disk. There is the same risk of data loss in external hard disk caused by viruses and worms similar to the internal hard disk. To take backup of the data from the system requires certain additional software. But, if handled carefully, data can be stored for many years (Sobti, 2006). Solid-state Flash Memory Flash memory can be used in many ways. It can be used in digital video cameras and also as external portable storage drives. USB flash drive has potential to store data of any kind such as videos files, word documents and image files among others. The storage capacity of USB drive is calculated in megabytes (MB), gigabytes (GB) or terabytes (TB). Flash drive memory is relatively small in size and is available in versatile design in the market. The cost of the flash memory depends on its storage capacity and is cheaper than other forms of media. There is less risk of losing data as it does not require power to operate. Solid State Drives (SSD) work faster than the other storage media and consumes less power than conventional HDD. SSD can handle multiple tasks nearly three times faster than the other media. Even if, it falls accidentally the chance of destroying vital information is very less. Another major advantage of flash memory is that the data can be stored, written and erased easily and quickly. One of the vital disadvantages of flash memory is that its life span is relatively short (Al-Zarouni, n.d.). Ejecting flash memory without using safe removal option can cause data corruption. Solid State drive does not provide sufficient security in deleting and encrypting data (Al-Zarouni, n.d.). Data Redundancy Data redundancy practically implies repetition of the data. It creates a straight copy of the entire data system which is always ready to take over incase of original system failure. On the other hand, backup refers creating second copy of the existing data for future in the event of data corruption. But both, redundancy and backup are equally important for the users and help the users to secure the vital information stored in the computer system. If in case, a disaster such as fire occurs or Central Processing Unit (CPU) gets damaged and motherboard stops functioning then data redundancy might not be able to take place (Eesti Infotechnoloogia Kolledz, 2009). RAID Striping Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) striping is the process of improving the performance of the large storage system. Normally, PCs files are stored in only on single hard drive. The large storage arrays often organize the disk into RAID groups which enhances the system performance and protects data at the time of disk failure. Striping, also known as RAID-0, is a technique that breaks up the file into the entire disk in the groups of RAID. The process allows all disks to access the content of the file concurrently (Smith & Mosier, n.d.). RAID Mirroring Raid mirroring or RAID-1 provides redundancy of data by saving the data concurrently into two disks. In case one drive fails, the computer system keeps on functioning on the other disk devoid of any interruption (Smith & Mosier, n.d.). RAID Parity RAID parity is a technique of checking in the computer system whether the data stored is missing or is written over when the data is moved from one to the other storage or in the times of transmitting the data from computer to another computer system (Smith & Mosier, n.d.). Fault Tolerance and Prevention In a system, fault tolerance is created to ensure reliability by providing options for the entire critical components like storage disk and power supply in a computer. If any component of the computer fails another component will take over its task without causing interruption. Though redundant hardware to tolerate fault is costly but the system enhances the performance after failures occur (Avizienis, 1967). Not only the non-volatile memory is suspected to be corrupted but the volatile memory or random-access memory (RAM) is also prone to memory corruption. Usually, RAM gets corrupted as a result of improper handling and due to constant meager power supplies or due to high voltage. Heat emitted from other components of the system can damage the RAM (Sidebotham, 1986). Error Detection and Prevention Commonly, error detection is done to add some redundancy to the message that can be consistently checked by the receiver. Systematic or non systematic schemes can be used to detect errors. Under systematic scheme, actual data is transmitted and a preset number of check bits is attached that is obtained by certain algorithm which is specially a deterministic type. Thus, the receiver makes use of the same algorithm to those acknowledged data bits and compares with the check bits. In case if the value does not match with the expected result, then it can be comprehended that an error has occurred during the transmission. It is therefore necessary that good error selection scheme is employed essentially on the characteristic of the chosen communication channel. Error correction can be comprehended usually in two ways, Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) and Forward Error Correction (FEC). Automatic repeat request, also referred as backward error correction, unites the error detection with the call for retransmitting erroneous data. Error detection code checks each block of data and if it fails to check the data requested for retransmission then the process may continue unless the data is verified. Another error correction technique is forward error correction where the data is encoded by using error correcting code before the transmission takes place. The receiver uses the additional information added by the code to obtain the original data (Shooman, 2002). CPU Throttling CPU throttling is the technique to slow down the computer in order to preserve battery and use lesser energy. With this technique, CPU components emit less heat thus minimizes the risk of damages and data losses. CPU throttling efficiently saves power and energy but it also results in slowing down website browsing. The technique decreases the cooling cost and reduces the noise generated by the fan (Shooman, 2002). References Agarwal, R. & Prasad, J. (2012). A conceptual and operational definition of personal innovativeness in the domain of information technology. Retrieved from http://infosys.highwire.org/content/9/2/204.short Al-Zarouni, M. (n.d.). The Reality of Risks from Consented use of USB Devices. Retrieved from http://ro.ecu.edu.au/ism/70/ Avizienis, A. (1967). Design of fault-tolerant computers. Retrieved from http://dependability.org/articles/laprie/p733-avizienis.pdf Chau, P.Y. K. & Hu, P. J. H. (2001). Information technology acceptance by individual professional. Retrieved from ftp://ftp.cs.ntust.edu.tw/ckchen/RM/Paper%20%232.pdf Eesti Infotechnoloogia Kolledz. (2009). Raid. Retrieved from http://enos.itcollege.ee/~ppung/crypto/PriitPungRAID.pdf Hagen, R. & Bieringer, T. (2001). Photo addressable polymers for optical data storage. Retrieved from http://atmsp.whut.edu.cn/resource/pdf/7396.pdf Sobti, S. (2006). Modeling hard disk power consumption. Retrieved from http://static.usenix.org/event/fast03/tech/full_papers/zedlewski/zedlewski_html/ Smith, S.L. & Mosier, J.N. (n.d.). Data protection. Retrieved from http://hcibib.org/sam/6.html Sidebotham, B. (1986). Vohunes: The andrew file system data structuring primitive. Retrieved from http://reports-archive.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/anon/usr/ftp/itc/CMU-ITC-053.pdf Shooman, M. L. (2002). Reliability of computer systes and networks. 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