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Metadata (...more)

Here's a post that discusses a word that happens to represent an important leap in abstract thinking that helps us to understand how distributed software elements communicate and establish logical connections. Meta. Actually it's more a prefix than a word....

From Data to Intelligence (...more)

Now that you've been introduced to databases, we can take a closer look at what a relational database is, how they work, and how they are used to build business intelligence.

An Intro to Databases (...more)

Where the presentation layer governs the user's interaction with an ebusiness system and the application layer coordinates its behaviour, it's the data layer that brings an ebusiness system to life -- structured information defines entities and relationships representing the actual...

A closer look at the Application Layer (...more)

"Application layer" describes that part of an ebusiness 3-tier architecture which is the operating environment for application software. Though the presentation layer (i.e the user interface) and the data layer (i.e a relational database management system) perform essential functions the...

Amazon Example (...more)

Sometimes the inner workings of software can be better understood by looking at an ebusiness system in action. Let's look at how "documents" are exchanged between applications to create an ebusiness experience. Imagine what the ebusiness system that is Amazon.com...

Two birds with one stone: Understanding 3-tier client/server architectures (...more)

Here we will use conceptual models to illustrate a couple major principles of software architecture. By now you should be getting a feel for what a sentence like this means. If you don't please make a comment here. No question...

3-tier architecture (...more)

A three-tier architecture is a design strategy (a kind of software framework) that describes a software application by grouping its components into three classes: Presentation, Application, and Data.

Client/Server Architecture (...more)

A client/server architecture is a design strategy (a kind of software framework) in which processing and storage tasks are divided between two classes of components: clients and servers. Though a hardware configuration might be referred to in these terms in...

Using conceptual models to illustrate software (...more)

Keeping up? In this simple post I want to remind you (yes again) that for this course when we’re talking technology we’re primarily concerned with software elements of ebusiness. For our purposes as managers we can simplify (abstract) the picture...

Perspective is everything.... (...more)

As we continue to focus on the wonders of software, here's sort of a thinking post, about how we must mutually understand the proper context, or perspective, before we can meaningful analyze and discuss the inner workings of systems. High...