Chapter 5: Network Applications

1. Describe the three network applications that we discussed in this section and the tools and technologies that support each one.
Enterprise Networks incorporate the backbone of the firms information systems. It enables the firm access to high-speed central networks to which smaller networks (LAN and WAN) are connected to one another. This allows the firm to have increased access to information for business decision making and other functions of the business.
WAN are networks that cover a large area, increasing the information that is available to the organisation
LAN networks are those over a small geographical area, restricting the access of the business to other resources of other firms . It keeps the documents created by the firm secure to no one else has access to them.

2. What are the business conditions that are leading to the increased importance of videoconferencing?
The conditions that leading to the increased importance of videoconferencing are:
- Globalisation and international business operations: more personnel are operating overseas and meetings can be conducted over the internet with ease. This allows face-to-face communications
- Participants can see one person in numerous locations
- enables a telepresence of the persons to be involved in the business meeting or conferences
- It is a real time application that allows companies to bridge time and space to make business decisions and include other persons in the decision making process.

Section 5.2

1. Describe the underlying technologies, applications and types of Web sites that comprise Web 2.0.

The Web2.0 is a loose collection of information technologies and applications and the websites that use them. It is a global, Web-based platform that uses many applications to publish information on the Web. This type of Web encourages the use of social and interactive applications that affirms collaboration and experiential approaches. The underlying concept of this is the fact that the internet has become more personally reflective and subjective to the information and data that is produced by persons.

2. Describe the function of Web services.
Some of the technologies, applications and websites that comprise Web2.0 include:
- AJAX: allows a proportion of the Web pages to reload with fresh, up to date information. This speeds up the response process and increases user satisfaction.
- Tagging: is a word associated with a piece of information. This tagging process allows information to be interconnected in multiple networks.
- Blogs: are an interactive method that allows personal experiences and thoughts to be posted on the internet. This is a source of information that is open to the public. In marketing sense, it has been used to display satisfaction or dissatisfaction of a particular product or service.
- Wiki: is a personal post of changes or additions to other materials on the internet. This has allowed for the source of information to be formulated by a number of additional values, increasing the accuracy of the information.
- Podcasts: is a digital audio file that can be distributed over the internet that is playable on the computer.
- Videocasts: Has the same capabilities of a podcast but instead of an audio file, it displays a digital video file
- Social networking sites: allows users to upload and publish personal information about themselves in the form of text, audio, pictures, videos. Example of these websites include, MySpace, Facebook
- Mashups: are applications that mix and match content from other information sources over the internet, creating a new form of information or content.

3. Describe the function of service-oriented architectures.

Service orientated architectures is an IT architecture that makes it possible to construct business applications using Web services.