Information Technology

In a broad sense, IT covers all areas of the creation, transmission, storage and perception of information , not limited to computer technology. At the same time, IT is often associated precisely with computer technology, and this is no coincidence: the advent of computers brought IT to a new level, like once television , and even earlier printing .

The information technology industry is engaged in the creation, development and operation of information systems . Information technologies are called upon, based and rationally using modern achievements in the field of computer technology and other high technologies , the latest communication tools, software and practical experience, to solve the problems of effectively organizing the information process to reduce the time, labor, energy and material resources in all areas human life and modern society. Information technologies interact and often form part of the service sector, management, industrial production, social processes ^[6] .

People have stored, retrieved, processed, and transmitted information since the invention of the Sumerians of writing about 3000 BC ^[7] , but the term “information technology” in its modern sense first appeared in a 1958 article published in the Harvard Business Review . Its authors, Harold J. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler, noted that “this new technology does not yet have a single, universally accepted name. We will call it information technology (IT). ” Their definition consists of three categories: processing methods, the use of statistical and mathematical methods for decision-making and modeling higher-order thinking using computer programs ^[8] .

Information technology began to actively develop since the 1960s, along with the advent and development of the first information systems (IP).

IBM released its first hard drive in 1956, as part of the 305 RAMAC computer system. Most digital data today is still stored magnetically on hard drives or optically on media such as CDs . Until 2002, most of the information was stored on analog devices , but that year the digital capacity exceeded the analog device for the first time. As of 2007, nearly 94% of the data stored worldwide was digitally stored: 52% on hard drives, 28% on optical devices and 11% on digital magnetic tape. It was estimated that in the world, the capacity for storing information on electronic devices has grown from less than 3 exabytes in 1986 to 295 exabytes in 2007, doubling approximately every 3 years.

• Structured standards for digital data exchange algorithms ;
• Widespread use of computer storage and the provision of information in the required form;
• The transmission of information through digital technology at virtually unlimited distances.

Information technologies cover all the resources necessary for information management, especially computers, software and networks necessary for the creation, storage, management, transmission and retrieval of information. Information technology can be grouped as follows ^[9] :

• Technical means;
• Communication tools;
• Organizational and methodological support;
• Standardization.

Networks

Currently, there are various data transmission networks - a set of communication terminal devices (terminals) connected by data transmission channels and switching devices (network nodes), which ensure the exchange of messages between all terminal devices.

The following types of data transmission networks are available:

• Telephone networks - subscriber communication networks for access to which telephone sets , automatic telephone exchanges and data transmission equipment are used;
• Computer networks are networks whose terminal devices are computers .

Telephone

The main until 2003-2004, currently obsolete method for connecting to the Internet is to use a modem connected to the telephone network . Although it has all the necessary features, broadband is more preferable for many Internet users. In almost all countries of the European Union, telephone line households are very accessible, with the exception of Austria, Finland and Portugal. However, in Spain, access to major telephone networks (narrowband) has virtually disappeared. In 2003, half of all Internet connections were telephone. Currently, 97% of Internet connections are made through broadband access systems. Almost 95% of connections are carried out at a speed greater than or equal to 1 Mbps. ^{[10] [11]} .

Broadband

The term broadband includes a wide range of technologies that provide higher data transfer speeds, access to the Internet. These technologies use wires or fiber optic cables.

Multilink dial-up

They provide increased throughput by connecting two or more remote access connections together and treating them as one data channel. Requires two or more modems, telephone lines, and account numbers, as well as a provider that supports this technology. This option was briefly popular before ISDN, DSL, and other more modern technologies. Some manufacturers have created special modems to support this method ^{[12] [13]} .

ISDN

ISDN ( Eng. Integrated Services Digital Network ) - a digital network with service integration. Allows you to combine telephone services and data exchange. The name was proposed by XI CCITT in 1981. The main purpose of ISDN is data transmission at speeds up to 64 kbit / s via a subscriber wire line and providing integrated telecommunication services ( telephone , fax , etc.). The use of telephone wires for this purpose has two advantages: they already exist and can be used to supply power to the terminal equipment. To combine different types of traffic in the ISDN network, TDM technology ( Time Division Multiplexing , time multiplexing ) is used. For each data type, a separate band is allocated, called the elementary channel (or standard channel ). For this band, a fixed, consistent fraction of the bandwidth is guaranteed. The allocation of the band occurs after the CALL signal on a separate channel, called the channel extra-channel signaling .

xDSL

xDSL ( digital subscriber line , digital subscriber line) is a family of technologies that can significantly increase the throughput of a subscriber line of a public telephone network by using effective linear codes and adaptive methods of correcting line distortions based on modern achievements of microelectronics and digital signal processing methods. XDSL technologies appeared in the mid-90s as an alternative to the ISDN digital subscriber termination. The main types of xDSL include ADSL , HDSL , IDSL , MSDSL , PDSL , RADSL , SDSL , SHDSL , UADSL , VDSL . All these technologies provide high-speed digital access via a subscriber telephone line. Some xDSL technologies are original designs, others are just theoretical models, while still others have become widely used standards. The main difference between these technologies are modulation methods used to encode data.

Power Communication

Power line communication is a term that describes several different systems for using power lines (power lines) to transmit voice information or data. The network can transmit voice and data by overlaying an analog signal over a standard alternating current with a frequency of Template: 50 or 60 . PLC includes BPL ( Broadband over Power Lines ), which provides data transfer speeds of up to 200 Mbps, and NPL ( Narrowband over Power Lines - narrowband transmission via power lines) with significantly lower transmission speeds data up to 1 Mbps.

ATM

ATM - (asynchronous method of data transfer) is a high-performance network switching and multiplexing technology based on data transmission in the form of cells of a fixed size (53 bytes ^[14] ), of which 5 bytes are used for the header. Unlike the synchronous data transfer method (STM - Synchronous Transfer Mode ), ATM is better suited to provide data services with very different or varying bit rates.

Cellular

One of the types of mobile radio based on a cellular network . A key feature is that the total coverage area is divided into cells (cells), determined by the coverage areas of individual base stations (BS). Cells partially overlap and together form a network. On an ideal (flat and without building) surface, the coverage area of ​​one BS is a circle, so the network composed of them has the form of hexagonal cells (cells). The network consists of spatially spaced transceivers operating in the same frequency range, and switching equipment that allows you to determine the current location of mobile subscribers and to ensure continuity of communication when a subscriber moves from the coverage area of ​​one transceiver to the coverage area of ​​another.

Telecommunication

A type of communication , a method of transmitting information using electromagnetic signals , for example, by wire, fiber optic cable or radio. At present, the transmission of information over long distances is carried out using such electrical devices as a telegraph , telephone , teletype , using radio and microwave communications , as well as fiber optic links , satellite communications and the global information and communications network Internet . The principle of telecommunication is based on the conversion of message signals ( sound , text , optical information ) into primary electrical signals. In turn, the primary electrical signals using the transmitter are converted into secondary electrical signals, the characteristics of which are in good agreement with the characteristics of the communication line . Further, through the communication line, secondary signals are fed to the input of the receiver . In the receiving device, the secondary signals are converted back into message signals in the form of sound, optical or text information.

Hardware

Hardware of computer systems is a generalized name for equipment on which computers and computer networks work. A peripheral device is an important piece of hardware that allows you to enter information into or out of a computer.

Terminals act as user access points to the information space.

Personal Computer

Computer - ( English computer - “computer”), an electronic device designed for use by one user, that is, for personal use. Personal computers (hereinafter referred to as PCs) can conditionally include any other computer used by a specific person as his personal computer. The vast majority of people use desktop and various portable computers (laptops, tablet computers) as PCs. Although the computer was originally created as a computer , it is usually used as a PC for other purposes - as a means of access to information networks and as a platform for computer games , as well as for working with graphical interfaces.

Cell Phone

A mobile phone designed to work in cellular networks ; uses a radio transmitter and traditional telephone switching to carry out telephone communications in the territory of the coverage area of ​​the cellular network . Currently, cellular communication is the most widespread of all types of mobile communication , which is why it is usually called a mobile phone as a mobile phone, although mobile phones, in addition to cell phones, are also satellite phones , radiotelephones and trunk communication devices.

TV

A modern electronic device for receiving and displaying images and sound transmitted wirelessly or via cable (including television programs or signals from video signal reproducing devices, such as video recorders ).

Game console

A specialized electronic device designed and built for video games . The most commonly used output device is a television or, less commonly, a computer monitor — which is why such devices are called set-top boxes because they are attached to an independent display device. Portable (handheld) game systems have their own built-in display device (they are not attached to anything), therefore, calling them game consoles is somewhat incorrect. Initially, game consoles differed from personal computers in a number of important ways - they suggested using a TV as the main display device and did not support most of the standard peripherals created for personal computers - such as a keyboard or modem . Until recently, almost all consoles sold were intended to launch proprietary games distributed under conditions of lack of support for other consoles. However, with the development of game consoles, the difference between them and personal computers began to gradually blur - some consoles can allow the connection of a keyboard, hard disk and even launching the Linux operating system on them. Schemes and software of some consoles may be distributed, as an exception, under free licenses . The game console market has evolved from relatively simple electronic television gaming systems such as Pong , and has now become powerful multi-functional gaming systems.

Email

The technology and the services it provides for sending and receiving electronic messages (called "letters" or "emails") over a distributed (including global ) computer network. E-mail in terms of the composition of elements and the principle of operation practically repeats the system of ordinary (paper) mail , borrowing both terms (mail, letter, envelope, attachment, mailbox, delivery, etc.) and characteristic features - ease of use, delay in sending messages, sufficient reliability and at the same time lack of a guarantee of delivery. The advantages of e-mail are: easily perceived and remembered by a person addresses of the form user_name @ domain_name (for example, somebody@example.com); the ability to transfer both plain text and formatted, as well as arbitrary files; server independence (in the general case, they contact each other directly); sufficiently high reliability of message delivery; ease of use by humans and programs. Disadvantages of e-mail: the presence of such a thing as spam (mass advertising and viral mailings); the theoretical impossibility of guaranteed delivery of a particular letter; possible delays in message delivery (up to several days); restrictions on the size of one message and on the total size of messages in the mailbox (personal for users).

Search Engine

A hardware-software complex with a web interface that provides the ability to search for information on the Internet . A search engine usually refers to a site that hosts an interface ( front-end ) of a system. The software part of a search engine is a search engine (search engine) - a set of programs that provide search engine functionality and is usually a commercial secret of a search engine company. Most search engines look for information on World Wide Web sites, but there are also systems that can search for files on FTP servers, products in online stores , and information in Usenet newsgroups . Improving the search is one of the priority tasks of the modern Internet (see about the main problems in the operation of search engines in the article Deep Web ). According to Net Applications , ^[15] in November 2011, the use of search engines was distributed as follows:

• Google - 83.87%
• Yahoo! - 6.20%;
• Baidu - 4.22%;
• Bing - 3.69%;
• Yandex - 1.7%;
• Ask - 0.57%;
• AOL - 0.36%.

Hilbert and Lopez note an exponential increase in technological progress (a kind of Moore's law ) as an increase in the specific power of all information processing machines twice per capita every 14 months between 1986 and 2007; the global per capita telecommunication capacity doubles every 34 months; the amount of information entered per capita in the world doubles every 40 months (that is, every three years), and the transmission of information per capita tends to double approximately every 12.3 years ^[16] .

According to data collected by Timur Farukshin ( IDC Consulting Director in Russia and the CIS ) for 2010 , in terms of cash costs for IT equipment, Russia was among the top ten leading countries in the world, 3-5 times behind developed countries in Western Europe and the USA by 3-5 times. IT equipment costs per capita. Significantly less is spent in Russia on the purchase of software per capita, at this point in spending Russia lags behind the United States by 20 times, from the leading countries of Western Europe - by 10 times, and by 55% from the global average. In 2010, Russia took only 22nd place in the provision of IT services and lost 66% to the global average ^[17] .

According to IT experts, the main problem in the development of IT technologies in Russia is the digital gap between different Russian regions. According to 2010 statistics, the lag in this area of ​​such regions as Dagestan and Ingushetia , compared with Moscow , St. Petersburg , the Tomsk Region , the Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Districts, by some indicators even tends to increase. Since the lack of IT specialists and the general educational level of the population in the lagging regions compared with the advanced ones, in 2010 already reached a ratio of 1 / 11.2; despite the fact that school access to the Internet in lagging and advanced regions had a lower ratio - 1 / 2.2 ^[17] .

Analysts at IDC compiled a report with projections on expenditures and on the direction of trends in financial flows in the development of information technologies in Russia in 2011-2015. According to IDC forecasts, over this five-year period, the average annual growth rate of spending on information technology in Russia will amount to 11.6%. In 2015, the annual expenditure of funds for the development of information technologies will reach 41.1 billion US dollars ^[18] .

• Information infrastructure
• IT Olympiads
• Information Technology Crimes
• High tech
• Information and Communication Technology Development Index in the World

• Информационная технология по ГОСТ 34.003-9
• Сайт ООН Информационно-коммуникационные технологии
• Александр Латкин. Технологии, которые изменили мир — М.: «Манн, Иванов и Фербер», 2013. — С. 360. — ISBN 978-5-91657-009-0