Page 573 - Using MIS

Glossary 541

Dimension A characteristic of an OLAP measure. Purchase Encryption The process of transforming clear text into coded,
date, customer type, customer location, and sales region are unintelligible text for secure storage or communication. 404
examples of dimensions. 356 Encryption algorithms Algorithms used to transform clear
Discussion forums Forms of asynchronous communication in text into coded, unintelligible text for secure storage or
which one group member posts an entry and other group communication. 404
members respond. A better form of group communication Enterprise 2.0 The use of emergent social software plat-
than email because it is more difficult for one person to mo- forms within companies or between companies and their
nopolize the discussion or for the discussion to go off track. 50 partners or customers. 317
Diseconomies of scale A principle that states as develop- Enterprise application integration (EAI) A suite of software
ment teams become larger, the average contribution per applications that integrates existing systems by providing
worker decreases. 481
layers of software that connect applications together. 269
Distributed systems Systems in which application process- Enterprise information system Information systems that
ing is distributed across multiple computing devices. 277
support cross-functional processes and activities in mul-
Domain name A worldwide unique name that is registered tiple departments. 255
in the domain name system (DNS) and is affiliated with a Enterprise processes Processes that span an organization
public IP address. 219
and support activities in multiple departments. 255
Drill down With an OLAP report, to further divide the data Enterprise resource planning (ERP) A suite of applications
into more detail. 357
called modules, a database, and a set of inherent processes
Dual processor A computer with two CPUs. 116 for consolidating business operations into a single, consis-
Dynamic processes Flexible, informal, and adaptive pro- tent, computing platform. 263
cesses that normally involve strategic and less specific man- Enterprise social network (ESN) A software platform that
agerial decisions and activities. 252 uses social media to facilitate cooperative work of people
Dynamic reports Business intelligence documents that are within an organization. 316
updated at the time they are requested. 371 Entity In the E-R data model, a representation of some
Dynamo A nonrelational data store developed by Amazon thing that users want to track. Some entities represent a
.com. 188 physical object; others represent a logical construct or
Elastic In cloud computing, the situation that exists when the transaction. 179
amount of resource leased can be dynamically increased or Entity-relationship (E-R) data model A tool for construct-
decreased, programmatically, in a short span of time, and ing data models that defines the entities stored in a data-
organizations pay for just the resources that they use. This base and the relationships among those entities. 179
term was first used in this way by Amazon.com. 207 Entity-relationship (E-R) diagrams A type of diagram used
Email A form of asynchronous communication in which by database designers to document entities and their rela-
participants send comments and attachments electroni- tionships to each other. 181
cally. As a form of group communication, it can be disorga- ERP system An information system based upon ERP
nized, disconnected, and easy to hide from. 49 technology. 263
Email spoofing A synonym for phishing. A technique for Ethernet Another name for the IEEE 802.3 protocol, Ethernet
obtaining unauthorized data that uses pretexting via email. is a communications standard that specifies how messages
The phisher pretends to be a legitimate company and sends are to be packaged, processed, and transmitted for wired
email requests for confidential data, such as account num- transmission over a LAN. 214
bers, Social Security numbers, account passwords, and so
forth. Phishers direct traffic to their sites under the guise of Exabyte (EB) 1,024 PB. 118
a legitimate business. 393 Experimentation A careful and reasoned analysis of an op-
portunity, envisioning potential products or solutions or
Encapsulated A characteristic of systems design in which
the details of a process are hidden from users of that pro- applications of technology and then developing those ideas
cess. A formal interface is defined for the process that speci- that seem to have the most promise, consistent with the
fies how the process is to be accessed, what data it requires, resources you have. One of four key skills for nonroutine
and the data that it will produce. The means by which that cognitive thinking. 8
process creates those results are never exposed, nor do they Expert systems Rule-based systems that encode human
need to be. 223 knowledge in the form of If/Then rules. 367