CSE494/598Principles of Information

Engineering

Spring 2003

Forouzan Golshani

 Lesson Objectives: 1.    - Define Data, Information, and Knowledge.2.    - Recognize the importance of Information Engineering.3.    - Describe why many internet-based companies have failed.4.    - Explain the classes of information availability. Reading Material:

Read several paragraphs from John Barlow’s work entitled “The Economy of Ideas”. It can be found at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas_pr.html  Read the paragraphs in the middle starting with the section titled “A taxonomy of information” through the section titled “Information as its own reward”.

Course topics• Introduction• Information Life Cycle• Information Transport• Configuration Management• Information Security• Business Formation• Legacy Systems• Intellectual Property• Information Policies• Information Implications in the New Economy • Information Science

A New Perspective

• In computer science, we do our work with the question “HOW” in mind– The question in this course should be “WHY?”

• In physics, after so many years, we generally know if we are doing something right or wrong– In CS/IT we do not!

Class Objectives

• To develop a good understanding of the role of information in an information-centered enterprise

• To develop full understanding of the spectrum of activities that an enterprise does with its information

• Study Information Engineering as an information-centered area.

Strategic Use of Information Resources• Dell Computer Case• Stopped selling PCs through retailers 1994• Direct Business Model, enabled by a well designed

information system– No middleman surcharges– IS enables the assembly of the most current computers satisfying

the exact wishes of the buyer without the expense of large inventories

– Saving are passed to the customer

• Concentrate on producing only the current products – important in “low margin” products– Dell has maintained strategic leadership

Value of Information

• The airline industry 1993-4– American, United, Delta, … lost money– AMR and Southwest made money!

• Q: What contributed more to GE‘s profits?A:

• Appliances?

• Technical products and services?

• Its pension plan/financial

Value of InformationSubject: Lost pet fees cost Toronto $700,000 ... the city lost out on nearly $700,000 in pet fees last year because nearly half of Toronto's dog and cat owners were never billed. The staffer who knew how to run the computerized billing system was laid off. [...] Only one city employee ever understood the system well enough to debug it when problems arose. That person was lost last year [due to downsizing] leaving no one to get things going again when the system ran into trouble and collapsed.

[Source: *Toronto Globe and Mail*, 15 Feb 2001]

Information related activities

Information ScienceInformation Science

Acquisition

Analysis/mining/processing

Coding/Compression

Storage

Re -engineering

Preservation

Retrieval

Packaging/Visualization

Presentation

Transport

Discard

Information ScienceInformation Science

Acquisition

Analysis/mining/processing

Coding/Compression

Storage

Re -engineering

Preservation

Retrieval

Packaging/Visualization

Presentation

Transport

Discard

Data, Information and Knowledge

• Data: Atomic values, usually applicable to individual objects of the domain of discourse

• Information:Interpretation, generalization or validation of factual data, usually applicable to groups or subsets of the domain of interest

• KnowledgeVerified, tested and validated information applicable to diverse situations.

Computers in Business

• Introduced in to business in late 1950s– Accounting tasks, payroll, accounts

receivable/payable

• Manufacturing domain in 1960s– Inventory, Production control, customer orders,

purchasing

• By 1970s, many tasks were automated– Costs were considered R&D– No serious accountability

Computers in Business, cont’d

• High costs, as well as strategic importance of computer systems, became apparent in the 1980s– Information Resource Management– Strategic computing

• Today, most firms want their own specialized business information system– Migration– Integration

• Primary Role of IT:– 1960s: Efficiency. Automate existing paper based

processes• Justification: ROI

– 1970s: Effectiveness. Increase individual and group effectiveness

• Justification: Increasing productivity and better decision quality

– 1980-90s: Strategic. Industry/organization transformation• Justification: Competitive position

– 2000s: Value creation. Collaborative partnerships• Justification: Adding value

Evolution of Information Systems

Evolution of Information Systems

• Target of systems:– 1960s: Organizations

– 1970s: Individual, manager, group

– 1980-90s: Business process

– 2000s: Customer, supplier, competitor

• Information Model:– 1960s: Application specific

– 1970s: Data-driven

– 1980-90s: Business-driven

– 2000s: Knowledge driven

• Dominant technology– 1960s: Mainframe. Centralized intelligence– 1970s: Minicomputer. Decentralized

intelligence– 1980-90s: Microcomputer, Client server.

Distributed intelligence– 2000s: Internet. Ubiquitous intelligence

Evolution of Information Systems

A Sea of Information …  

 Type of Content

Terabytes/Year

Upper estimate Lower estimate

Paper

Books 8 1 2Newspapers 25 2 -2

Periodicals 12 1 2

Office documents 195 19 2

Subtotal: 240 23 2

FilmPhotographs 410,000 41,000 5Cinema 16 16 3X-Rays 17,200 17,200 2Subtotal: 427,216 58,216 4

Optical medium

Music CDs 58 6 3Data CDs 3 3 2DVDs 22 22 100Subtotal: 83 31 70

Magnetic Medium

Camcorder Tape 300,000 300,000 5PC Disk Drives 766,000 7,660 100

Departmental Servers 460,000 161,000 100

Enterprise Servers 167,000 108,550 100

Subtotal: 1,693,000 577,210 55  TOTAL: 2,120,539 635,480 50

Growth rate %

Trends in Media UseYearly media use by US households in hours per year, with estimated megabyte equivalent.

                    Item                                       

1992 Hours 2000 Hours 2000 MB % Change

TV 1510 1571 3,142,000 4

Radio 1150 1056 57,800 -8

Recorded Music 233 269 13,450 15

Newspaper 172 154 11 -10Books 100 96 7 -4Magazines 85 80 6 -6Home video 42 55 110,000 30

Video games 19 43 21,500 126

Internet 2 43 9 2,050Total: 3,324 3,380 3,344,783 1.7

How much information… Yearly production of published information

                                                        

Item                                                         

Titles                                                         

Terabytes

Books 968,735 8

Newspapers 22,643 25

Journals 40,000 2

Magazines 80,000 10

Newsletters 40,000 0.2

Office Documents 7,500,000,000 195

Cinema 4,000 16

Music CDs 90,000 6

Data CDs 1,000 3

DVD-video 5,000 22

Total: 285

A Manufacturing Scenario…• One computer contains a specification that describes, with text and numbers, a

needed part and perhaps a flow chart graphic related to the part, • another computer contains an engineering drawing or a CAD file that was derived

from the specification for the part, • yet another computer contains an inspection photo of that part, taken while the part

is being materialized, • another data base contains a history of test readouts regarding that part, • yet another file type contains a video of that part in normal operation and another

showing abnormal operation• the project schedule milestone, and personnel assigned to each task is in another

data base, • the financial data regarding the revenue, costs, investments, development projects,

etc. for that part is in yet another data base,• Minutes from design review, project review, lessons learned and other meetings

are filed in various other data bases, perhaps in desk workstations.

Information Flow in Manufacturing Environments (ideal)

Product Strategy

Market AnalysisR&D Dept.

Product DesignDept.

Process Planning Dept.

Assembly and Manufacturing Dept. M

an

ufa

ctu

rin

g I

nfo

rma

tion

Sys

tem

AdministrativeDepartments

Payroll, purchasing

Market Analysis& Prediction Data

Production PlanningFunctional Specification

Product Physics /Engineering Drawing

Function Design /Engineering Drawing

Function Design /Fabrication DrawingTool/Facilities Planning

Control System

Process Control

System Control Data

NC Part ProgrammingDevice Control Info.

Process Scheduling

Product Design

Planning Info.

Sensory data

Manufacturing Info.

Operator

Manager

Supervisor

Devices

Enterprise manager

level

Ab

stractio

nC

lassifica

tion

Multimedia Technologies and MIMS

Product Strategy

Market AnalysisR&D Dept.

Product DesignDept.

Process Planning Dept.

Assembly and Manufacturing Dept.

Man

ufac

turin

g In

form

atio

n S

yste

m

AdministrativeDepartments

Payroll, purchasing

Market Analysis& Prediction Data

Production PlanningFunctional Specification

Product Physics /Engineering Drawing

Function Design /Engineering Drawing

Function Design /Fabrication DrawingTool/Facilities Planning

Control System

Process Control

System Control Data

NC Part ProgrammingDevice Control Info.

Process Scheduling

Product Design

Planning Info.

Sensory data

Manufacturing Info.

Minimally IdentifiedTypes of Media Objects

Text/Number

Image/GraphicText

Image/Graph/Text/Number

3-D Graphic/Number/Text

TextImage/3-D Graphic

3-D Animation(Movie)Image

TextNumber

- Various media types and information are exchanged between departments and members.- Traditional MIS cannot handle all of the requirements.

Information Types

Algebra/calculus

Signals/bits

Phonemes/words

Samples

Sentence

Paragraph

Discourse

Characters

Words

Concepts

Argument

Document

Pixels

Block

Still image

Videosegment

Film

Numbers

Records

Fields

Aggregates

Report

Symbols

Functions/predicatesPolygons

Drawing

Animation

Semantics - human understandable information

Lines Strings

Theory

Information Management Systems Design

• Successful implementations require:† Analysis of information flow in various organizations across the

entire enterprise.

† Abstraction and classification of information from the enterprise level to the lowest level.

† Identification of types of information.

† Specification of interfaces for information exchange (so that applications can be implemented independently).

• Various types of information and their flow must be identified and analyzed to support decision making and concurrent engineering.

• Information sharing and collaboration are essential.

Information Systems Planning

Strategic

Tactical

Operational

What needs to be done

How it shouldBe done

Implementing

Ab s

trac

tion

Cla

ssif

icat

ion

Steps in Developing Information Systems• Mission statement• Information system objectives• Primary information processes• Identify customers• Determine customer needs• Develop product/services features• Establish quality goals, and develop quality process• Design and implement• Test capabilities

Information Availability

• Crucial to business success

• Depending on potential consequences of loss, great resources may be allocated to availability assurance

• Methods vary for on-line systems and batch system (yes…they are still very common!)

Availability of typical IS classes

System type Unavailability Availability Class(Min/year)

Unmanaged 52,560 90% 1Managed 5,256 99% 2Well-managed 525 99.9% 3Fault tolerant 53 99.99% 4High availability 5 99.999% 5Very high Availability .5 99.9999% 6Ultra availability .05 99.99999% 7

Wednesday MasterMonday

Night

Batch

Run

Tuesday

Night

Batch

Run

Wed.

Night

Batch

Run

Monday

TransactionsTuesdayTransactions

WednesdayTransactions

Archive

Monday Master Tuesday Master Wednesday Master

Sunday Master Monday Master Tuesday Master

Availability assurance: Batch systems

Dual Fault-Tolerant

Replicated Database

Data Centers

Replicated Database

The Fault-Tolerant BankKiosk

Dual ATMs at each site

Availability assurance: On-line systems