Week 14: Clear: Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks

The Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disk, also known as RAID, is used to combine two or more physical drives into a single unit that acts like a large hard disk. This allows for the hard disks to work together thus providing faster speeds. There are three main types of RAID organizations, these are RAID0, RAID1, and RAID5.

RAID0 is also called stripped disk. It's when the data is spread over numerous disks that dramatically improves speeds constantly. However, if one of the disks fail then the data on all of the disk is lost and the system crashes. This is better known as redundancy. In RAID0 there isn't any mirroring or any parity. It is best for people who have temporary data and want to access it quickly.

RAID1 is also known as mirroring. Basically its two or more drives that are exact copies of each other in a 1:1 ratio. If one of the drives fails the system will still perform just as fast and there isn't any data loss. The only step needed to be done is to "re-mirror" the data to the replacement drive.

RAID5 requires three or more drives that all the data is spread across except for one. The last drive is used for parity. Parity is when the drive adds up the data bits of the others and records the sum, if odd as a 1 and 0 if even. The benefits of RAID5 is it's fast speeds and reliability. If a drive fails then there is no data loss but the speed is reduced. The IT then must replace the failed drive and allow the system to reconstruct the data on the new disk before another failure occurs.


The Business Environment

RAID systems are used all over in the business world. In fact, nearly every big corporation uses one. The most common is the RAID5 because it is the most reliable. The odds of more than one disk failing at the same time is astronomical. In addition, RAID1 is used a lot more in smaller corporations because of the speeds it offers. It's also much more reliable than RAID0. RAID0 is mostly used in video editing and companies like that because their data is temporary and they don't care about it as much.

Related Article

This site tells about all the different types of RAID systems and how they are used. It is very short and gets to the point so it's a good learning tool. It also distinguishes between the types of each and what types of companies use them.

Secure Email Project

TJX corporation is being sued by nearly 300 banks because it failed to secure their data correctly over the past 18 months. An unknown amount of people hacked into their system and exposed over 45.7 million credit and debit card holders. This is a serious identity fraud problem that could be well avoided if the company was more secure with their data. The banks have suffered tremendously from this incident and are demanded to be compensated. The suit is not only that the company wasn't secure enough but also that it lied on how it was handling the data. The PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) even stated the other companies should study the security breach of TJX just to learn what not to do with customer data. More Information about the lawsuit can be found here.

Week 13: Clear: Information Theft & Piracy

Information theft is when somebody steals another's personal information and uses it to their benefit. Some of the most common stolen information is financial data such as credit card numbers and passwords to accounts such as email and Ebay. This is a rising problem due to the capabilities of computers and their users. This information is most commonly stolen by viruses and hackers.

Software piracy is highly illegal and highly frowned upon. There are many laws that exist due to the abundance of software piracy. All software comes with a EULA that states somewhere in the document not to redistribute or copy without the approval from the creator. People who violate this are punished to the fullest extent of the law which is generally $250,000 and some jail time.

In order to avoid these things users must be very cautious. For instance, to protect yourself from information theft you want to install an anti-virus software and a firewall. This way hackers can't penetrate your system and steal your information. To be protected from piracy you can decide only to buy software from well respected sellers and avoid any website that is known for piracy. Basically, the only way to be protected of these things is to be smart about web surfing and using a computer.

The Business Environment

In the business world a company can get in huge trouble with software piracy and information theft. Specifically, a company can even get in trouble for getting it's own information stolen such as banks and lawyers. This can cause huge problems in the outside environment with this leaked information. I think the knowledge of software piracy and information theft is vital for companies because it could really hurt a company if they don't.

Related Link

This Link explains software piracy and how it is used. It also goes into detail how to protect yourself and others of piracy. It's definitely a good tool to use to learn about software piracy and theft.

Week 12: Clear: Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project is project management software created by Microsoft used for assisting project managers with developing plans, assigning resources, tracking progress, managing budgets, and analyzing workloads. The Application creates what are called critical path schedules. These critcal path schedules are mathematically based algrithms used for scheduling project activities. In addition, Microsoft Project can create schedules that are resource leveled and visualized in a Gantt chart. A Gantt chart is a chart that illustrates project schedules in a bar chart.

Microsoft Project was invented in 1984 for the Operating System DOS. It was created by a company working for Microsoft however, Microsoft bought the rights to the software in 1985. The company then released versions two, three, and four of the software the following year. The Version four of the software was the final release. A few years later in 1991 a version was released for Macintosh.

Microsoft Project uses assignment work and resource rates to create budgets. As the resources are assigned to the tasks and the amount of work is estimated, the programs calculates how to allocate the resources to the project. Resources can be people, equipment, and materials. The only problem with Project is that it can't determain how many finished products can be producted with a certain amount of raw material because it presumes that additional raw material is always available without limit.

The Business Environment

Microsoft Project is a very useful program in the Business World. It can allocate resources very cheaply and easily. Almost to the point to where a company wouldn't need an accountant. Second to Microsoft Access I believe Microsoft Project is the best tool a company can have.

Related Link

TopTenReviews tells the features of Microsoft Project and how it can be used. It also states that it's a very useful tool and costs around 450 dollars. I think this would be a quick way to understand the program and a pretty good learning tool also.