In this section we take a closer look at the five key resources in an information system, i.e. People, Hardware, Software, Data and Network (Communication).
People
People are an important part of any information system, with most being ‘Socio-Technical Systems’ – i.e. involving Society and Technology. We could break people down into 2 key groups – the End Users, who use the system, and the IS Specialists, who design, develop, implement and maintain information systems.
Hardware
Hardware are the physical / tangible devices and materials used in an information system. The important part being that you can touch it. We could break it down into 2 key groups – the Machines, such as PCs, monitors and printers, and the Media, such as printouts or disks.
Software is a set of processing instructions. Often software is broken down into System Software and Application Software – where the system software includes the operating system and important instructions to get the machine to work (including drivers etc.). The Application Software are the programs that we can use to perform the tasks we need in our information system, such as word or excel. Taking the definition of software as ‘a set of processing instructions’, there is a further set of software – as well as the instructions followed by the computer, there are instructions followed by people – i.e. the operating instructions such as data entry procedures. These are also an important part of an information system.
Data
We have already discussed data, but in computer based systems data is stored either in the RAM (Random Access Memory) and/or in secondary memory. Data in primary memory is often stored as variables, although there are many exciting data structures to discover later. Data can also be stored in different ways on the hard disk, commonly in files or in a database.
Network
The communication network is an increasingly important part of information systems as information needs to be shared. To facilitate the communication network we need communication media, such as cables, fiber optics, and wireless networks, as well as supporting hardware technology such as modems along with software technology such as internet browsers.