G53DDBDevelopments in Digital Business

Introduction

Basic Info

• Lecturer: Dr Guoping Qiu– qiu@cs.nott.ec.uk– Office: C34, School of CS

• Module Activities: – 2 lecture meetings per week.

• Fridays, 9:00 –10:00, JC-EXCHE-C33+ • Fridays, 11:00 – 12:00, JC-BSSOUTH-B52+

• Web page:– http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~qiu/Teaching/G53DDB

2

Educational Aims

• This module aims to give students an understanding of contemporary issues in the application of information and communications technology to the business world.

• As this area is changing rapidly the content of the module will vary from year to year to reflect these changes.

3

Expected Learning Outcomes

• To know of recent effective uses of communications technology and understand the reasons for their success.

• To understand the technology behind recent and predicted advances in internet based services.

• To know about the recent developments in Digital Business, to understand the effects of such developments in historically similar situations and make predictions based on this information.

4

Expected Learning Outcomes(cont.)

• To assess the opinions and predictions of journalists and professionals involved in Digital Business

• To acquire and evaluate information on the recent developments in Digital Business.

• To communicate effectively in writing. • To retrieve information from appropriate sources

(e.g. learning resource centre, internet etc)

5

How?

• Invited guest lecturers from academia and industry:– Covers a broad range of contemporary issues,

recent technical developments, and case studies;– Ensures exposure to a wide range of opinions and

predictions.

6

How? (cont.)

• Coursework; an essay on a current topic:– Information gathering.– Critical evaluation of sources.– Forming opinions and making predictions.– Communicating results effectively in writing.

• Self study!

7

Resources

• Main book: Kenneth C. Laudon and Carol Guercio Traver. E-Commerce: Business, Technology, Society, Prentice Hall, 3rd Edition, 2006.

• Tom Standage. The Victorian Internet, Phoenix Press, 1999.

• Chris Anderson. The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, Hyperion, 2006

• Individual lectures may have some suggested readings. Please check the web site of the module

8

Lecture Overview

• January 29th (9-10), Introduction/Warriors of the net (Qiu)

• January 29th (11-12), Coursework description (Qiu)

• Feb 5th (9-10), Video: How the Victorians Wired the World

• Feb 5th (11-12), Introduction to e-commerce (Qiu)

9

Lecture Overview (cont.)

• Feb 12th (9 – 10), TBA

• Feb 12th (11 – 12), 21st Century Communications - How we Wire the World, John Poon, BT

• February 19th(9-10), Information Security, Joe Dauncey, Scottish & Southern Energy

• February 19th (11-12), Open source software business models - Stephen R. Walli (Optaros), Brian Aker (MySQL), Miguel de Icaza (Novell/Ximian), and Mike Olsen (Oracle/SleepyCat) (from USENIX Conference 2006)

10

Lecture Overview (cont.)

• February 26th (9-10), Coursework questions and answers (Qiu)

• February 26th,(11-12) On Demand Business Infrastructures, Kevin Malone, IBM

• March 5th (9-10), Business of web design: latest trends in web design and web-based applications, Simon Collison, Erskine Design

• March 5th,(11 -12), eTourism and Strategic Management, Speaker TBA, Nottingham Business School

11

Lecture Overview (cont.)• March 12th (9-10), Trends in Digital Payments, Paul Love, ACI

Worldwide•

• March 12th (11-12 Facebook for the Business User?, Alfresco and the benefits of Web 2.0 technologies for business and government, John Powell, Alfresco (TBC)

• April 19th (9-10), The Past, Present and Future of computer games development, Nick Burton, Rare

• April 19th (11-12), Business In The Virtual World, Speaker TBA, Nottingham Business School

12

Lecture Overview (cont.)

• March 26th (9-10), The Use of Simulated Learning in Business, Samantha Sierwald, Accenture

• May 7th , Sustainable IT, Steve Cayzer, HP (TBC)

• May 14th, Advances in Digital Identity, Steve Plank, Microsoft

13

Lecture Overview (cont.)

• As you can see, not all slots in the schedule have been filled with lectures yet

• Some more lectures will be announced in the few next days

• Please check the lectures schedule in the web site for updates or cancellations

Assessment – Examination (75%)

• The exam counts for 75 % of the total mark.– 3 out of 6 questions have to be answered

on the exam, each worth 25 %.• Focus on understanding of issues, critical

evaluation, and forming opinions.

15

Assessment – Examination (75%) Examinable Material

• Lectures– What’s written on the slides– What’s said– What’s written on the whiteboard

• Course textbook• Copies of slides and any other electronic supporting material

will be made available via the module web page when possible.

• However! The electronic record of the lectures is neither guaranteed to be complete nor self-contained!

• Come prepared to take notes.

16

Assessment – Coursework (25%)

• The coursework (essay) counts for the remaining 25 %.

• The details of the coursework will be discussed during next lecture and provided in the module web-site.

17

Internet Basics

The Internet – Definition

• The term Internet was coined during the 1970s by the community of scientists that designed it

• “the word “Internet” is derived from the word internetwork or the connecting of two or more computer networks”

• It appeared in the RFCs, the documents that specify all standard internet protocols

19

First RFC mentioning the Internet name

20

Network Working Group R. KalinRequest for Comments: 60 MITCategory: Experimental 13 July 1970

A Simplified NCP Protocol

Status of this Memo

This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

.

.

.

The Internet – Definition (cont.)

• A network of 1000s of interconnected networks connecting millions of computers– Backbones (international reach)– Network Service Providers (NSPs)

• major telecommunication companies(e.g. BT, MCI WorldCom, AT&T, Virgin, Sprint)

• Access/delivery sub-networks– local and regional Internet Service Providers (ISPs)– Retail providers (e.g. Eastlink, Sympatico, AT&T WorldNet)

• Private institutional networks– connecting organizational servers

21

Internet network architecture

22

Adapted from Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective.Turban, Lee, King and Chung, 2000. Pg. 385

NSP

NSP

NSP

NSP

Distinguishing factor of networks –Bandwidth (speed)

23

Adapted from Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective.Turban, Lee, King and Chung, 2000. Pg. 385

What can you do with speed?

Connection Speed

Time to load a typical web page(100 Kb)

Time to download a typical 5-minute song(5 Mb MP3 file)

Streaming Video Quality

56K dial-up modem 14 sec 12 min 30 sec

256K broadband 3 sec 3 min Low Quality

512K broadband 1.6 sec 1 min 30 sec

1Mb broadband 0.8 sec 41 sec

2Mb broadband 0.4 sec 20 sec Medium Quality

4Mb broadband 0.1 sec 5 sec

6Mb broadband Instantaneous Instantaneous

8Mb broadband Instantaneous Instantaneous TV Quality

24

http://www.broadband.co.uk/guide.jsp?section=3

Key enabling technology

• Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)– “a protocol that establishes the connections among sending and

receiving computers, handles the assembly of packets at the point of transmission, and their reassembly at the receiving end.”

– ensures that two computers can communicate with each other reliably

• Internet Protocol (IP)– “a protocol that provides the Internet’s addressing scheme”

(Laudon & Traver, pg. 116)– ensures that the receiving address of all packets is known

• 1983 –TCP/IP becomes a standard network protocol (RFC 791 for IP, 793 for TCP). Now superseded by 1122

25

Growth of the Internet and the Web• Created in the late 1960s • About 350 million computers worldwide to

date• Links businesses, educational institutions,

government agencies, and individuals• Provides services such as e-mail, document

transfer, newsgroups, shopping, research, instant messaging, music, video, and news

26

WorldCom backbone (now MCI)2002

27

Is this backbone design robust?

• Why the Mediterranean is the Achilles' heel of the web

28

29http://www.caida.org/analysis/topology/as_core_network/AS_Network.xml

How does the Internet work?

• Warriors of the net – movie

30