PHTR 498Spring 2014

Health Informatics

Lecture #3Introduction to Information Technology

Amar Hijazi, Majed Alameel, Mona Almohaid

What is a computer?

• A machine that can be programmed• A machine that accepts input, processes

that input, and produces output

What is a network?

• Two or more computers connected together using communications equipment.

The computers can be geographically located anywhere

All together“online” which means using a computer to access information from another computer through the use of a network.• The Internet• E-mail• Applications• Social Media • E-business• EHR• E-government• E-learning

Type of Computers

1. Supercomputers

2. Mainframes

3. Workstations

4. Microcomputers

5. Embedded Computers

Supercomputers• Extremely Fast computer• Up to 350 million dollars• Consists of thousands of

processors and can carry out several trillion calculations per second.

• Used for scientific and engineering problems– computer simulations – tracking hurricanes– biological contamination – understanding ocean currents.

JAPAN'S K SUPERCOMPUTERAs of 2013

• 80K 2.0 GHz 8-core SPARC64 VIIIfx processors• Contained in 864 cabinets• Consumes 10 MW of power – the equivalent of

almost 10,000 suburban homes• A performance of 8.162 petaflops = one million

linked desktop computers• Annual running costs are estimated at

US$10 million

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_computer

Mainframes

• Up to 5 million dollars• Used by corporate and large

organizations such as banks, airlines, insurance companies, colleges.

• Processes billions of instructions per second.

• Used for transaction processing

• Very high stabile and reliabile

Workstations

• Usually used for complex scientific, mathematical, and engineering calculations and for computer-aided design

• Example: designing airplanes, special effects in movies

Microcomputer• Personal Computer (PC)

– Desktop PC– Laptop / Notebook

• Mac– Apple Mac

• SmartPhones

Embedded Computers

• Small• Specialized• Exist in:

– Home Appliances– Cars– ATM

Clients and Servers

• Server: A central computer that holds collections of data & running programs to serve the request of clients

• Clients: PCs, workstations, & other devices typically connect to a server thru a network

• Server + Clients linked together to form a client-server

architecture

How Computers WorkThe purpose of a computer is to process data into information.• Data (Input)• Information (Output)

Data

Raw facts such as an employee’s name and number of hours worked in a week, inventory part numbers or sales orders.

Information

A collection of facts organized in such a way that they have additional value beyond the value of the facts themselves.

Data Information

$35,000 1 Units $12,000 ALI Western Region $100,000 5 Units 7 Units

Data Processing

Salesperson: ALI Sales Territory: Western Region Current Sales: 147K Units = 13

Main components of Computers

• Hardware– The hardware components of a computer system are the

electronic and mechanical parts.• Software

– The software components of a computer system are the data and the computer programs.

Basic operations that a computer can perform

Input devices

Output devices

Processing

– Computer box has:• The processor chip (CPU – Central

Processing Unit)• Memory chips (RAM – Random Access

Memory)• Motherboard with power supply• Video card• Etc. …..

CPU speed

CPU speed is measured in gigahertz

equal to 109 hertz. Symbol: GHz

Storage devices

Hard Disk Drive (HDD)

Storage devices

Solid-State Drive (SSD)

Any differences?

SSD Vs HDD ComparisonAttribute SSD (Solid State Drive) HDD (Hard Disk Drive)

Power Draw / Battery Life

Less power draw, averages 2 – 3 watts, resulting in 30+ minute battery boost

More power draw, averages 6 – 7 watts and therefore uses more battery

Cost Expensive, $1.00 per gigabyte (based on buying a 240GB drive)

Only around $0.075 per gigabyte, very cheap (buying a 4TB model)

Capacity Typically not larger than 512GB for notebook size drives

Typically 500GB – 2TB for notebook size drives

Operating System Boot Time

Around 22 seconds average bootup time Around 40 seconds average bootup time

Noise There are no moving parts and as such no sound

Audible clicks and spinning can be heard

Vibration No vibration as there are no moving parts The spinning of the platters can sometimes result in vibration

Storage capacity is measured in:

• 1 byte - 1 character is represented using 1 byte.

• 1 kilobyte - 1,024 characters. 210

• 1 megabyte - 1,048,576 characters. 220

• 1 gigabyte – 1,073,741,824 characters. 230

• 1 terabyte - more than 1 trillion characters. 240

Software

• System software– is computer software designed to operate and

control the computer hardware and to provide a platform for running application software

• Application Software– is computer software that causes a computer to

perform useful tasks beyond the running of the computer itself

System software

• Microsoft Windows• Linux• Mac OS• Unix

Application software

• Microsoft Office• Adobe Acrobat• Adobe Photoshop

Computer Network

• A computer network consists of a collection of computers, printers and other equipment that is connected together so that they can communicate with each other

LAN, MAN, and WAN

• Local Area Network (LAN) is Network in small geographical Area (Room, Building or a Campus)

• Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is Network in a City

• Wide Area Network (WAN) is Network spread geographically (Country or across Globe)

Components of Network

• A minimum of at least 2 computers • A network interface card (NIC) on each computer• Cables that connect the computers to each other• A Switch used to connect various network devices

together, like computers, to allow communication between those devices.

• Network operating system

Network Interface Card (NIC)

• is also known as a network card. • It connects the computer to the network

cabling • Each computer on a network must have a

network card. • Most modern network cards are 10/100/1000

NICs and can operate at either 10Mbps, 100Mbps, or 1Gbps

Switches

• Switches is ‘boxes’ to which computers, printers, and other networking devices are connected to.

Wireless Networks

• Refers to two or more computers communicating without the use of cabling to connect the devices together

• The computers use wireless radio signals to send information from one to the other

Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)

• Consists of two major components:– Wireless Access Point (AP)– Wireless Network Card (wNIC)

WLAN Advantages and Disadvantages

• Advantages – Allows mobility and availability– Increases productivity– No need for any more wires or cables

• Disadvantages – Less than cable’s bandwidth– Less efficient and reliable– Security

Cloud Computing

What is it?

• provide a variety of computing resources , from servers and storage to enterprise applications such as email, security, backup, voice (VOIP), all delivered over the Internet

Cloud Flavors?

• SaaS – Software as a Service• IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service• PaaS – Platform as a Service• DaaS – Desktop as a Service

What is Software as a Service? (SaaS)

• SaaS is a software delivery methodology that provides licensed multi-tenant access to software and its functions remotely as a Web-based service.

– Usually billed based on usage– Usually multi tenant environment– Highly scalable architecture

• Multi-tenancy is an architecture in which a single instance of a software application serves multiple customers

Virtualization

What is virtualization?

• Virtualization allows one computer to do the job of multiple computers.

• Virtual environments let one computer host multiple operating systems at the same time

How it works?