ITM 301 Chapter 1: Chapter 1 Introduction.docx

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Information Technology Management
• Course: ITM 301
• Professor: Franklyn Prescod

Document Summary

Computer networks: a collection of autonomous computers interconnected by a single technology; two computers are said to be interconnected if they are able to exchange information. Connection can be made via copper wire, fiber optics, microwaves, infrared, and communication satellites. Distribution system: a collection of independent computers appearing to its users as a single coherent system. It has a single model that it presents to users with usually a layer of software (middleware) on top of the operating system. Example, world wide web is a distributed system which runs on top of the. Internet and presents a model in which everything looks like a document (web pages). Distinction: in computer networks, the model and software are absent. Users are exposed to actual machine, without the machine trying to look/act in a coherent way. Whereas a distributed system is software built on top of a network. The software gives a high degree of cohesiveness and transparency.