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Operational databases allow you to modify that data (add, change or delete data), doing it in real-time. OLTP databases provide transactions as the main abstraction to guarantee data consistency that guarantees the so-called ACID properties. Basically, the consistency of the data is guaranteed in the case of failures and/or concurrent access to the data.\r\nSince the early 90s, the operational database software market has been largely taken over by SQL engines. Today, the operational DBMS market (formerly OLTP) is evolving dramatically, with new, innovative entrants and incumbents supporting the growing use of unstructured data and NoSQL DBMS engines, as well as XML databases and NewSQL databases. NoSQL databases typically have focused on scalability and have renounced to data consistency by not providing transactions as OLTP systems do. Operational databases are increasingly supporting distributed database architecture that can leverage distribution to provide high availability and fault tolerance through replication and scale-out ability.\r\nThe growing role of operational databases in the IT industry is moving fast from legacy databases to real-time operational databases capable to handle distributed web and mobile demand and to address Big data challenges. Recognizing this, Gartner started to publish the Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems in October 2013.\r\nOperational databases are used to store, manage and track real-time business information. For example, a company might have an operational database used to track warehouse/stock quantities. As customers order products from an online web store, an operational database can be used to keep track of how many items have been sold and when the company will need to reorder stock. An operational database stores information about the activities of an organization, for example, customer relationship management transactions or financial operations, in a computer database.\r\nOperational databases allow a business to enter, gather, and retrieve large quantities of specific information, such as company legal data, financial data, call data records, personal employee information, sales data, customer data, data on assets and much other information. An important feature of storing information in an operational database is the ability to share information across the company and over the Internet. Operational databases can be used to manage mission-critical business data, to monitor activities, to audit suspicious transactions, or to review the history of dealings with a particular customer. They can also be part of the actual process of making and fulfilling a purchase, for example in e-commerce.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is DBMS used for?</span>\r\nDBMS, commonly known as Database Management System, is an application system whose main purpose revolves around the data. This is a system that allows its users to store the data, define it, retrieve it and update the information about the data inside the database.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is meant by a Database?</span>\r\nIn simple terms, Database is a collection of data in some organized way to facilitate its user’s to easily access, manage and upload the data.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is the use of DBMS recommended? Explain by listing some of its major advantages.</span>\r\nSome of the major advantages of DBMS are as follows:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Controlled Redundancy:</span></span> DBMS supports a mechanism to control the redundancy of data inside the database by integrating all the data into a single database and as data is stored at only one place, the duplicity of data does not happen.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Data Sharing:</span></span> Sharing of data among multiple users simultaneously can also be done in DBMS as the same database will be shared among all the users and by different application programs.</li><li> Backup and Recovery Facility: DBMS minimizes the pain of creating the backup of data again and again by providing a feature of ‘backup and recovery’ which automatically creates the data backup and restores the data whenever required.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Enforcement of Integrity Constraints:</span></span> Integrity Constraints are very important to be enforced on the data so that the refined data after putting some constraints are stored in the database and this is followed by DBMS.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Independence of Data:</span></span> It simply means that you can change the structure of the data without affecting the structure of any of the application programs.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the purpose of normalization in DBMS?</span>\r\nNormalization is the process of analyzing the relational schemas which are based on their respective functional dependencies and the primary keys in order to fulfill certain properties.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The properties include:</span></span>\r\n<ul><li>To minimize the redundancy of the Data.</li><li>To minimize the Insert, Delete and Update Anomalies.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_ODMS.png","alias":"odms-operational-database-management-system"},"51":{"id":51,"title":"PaaS - Platform as a service","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Platform as a Service (PaaS)</span> or <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Application Platform as a Service (aPaaS)</span> or <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">platform-based service</span> is a category of cloud computing services that provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching an app.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">PaaS can be delivered in three ways:</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">As a public cloud service</span> from a provider, where the consumer controls software deployment with minimal configuration options, and the provider provides the networks, servers, storage, operating system (OS), middleware (e.g. Java runtime, .NET runtime, integration, etc.), database and other services to host the consumer's application.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">As a private service</span> (software or appliance) behind a firewall.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">As software</span> deployed on a public infrastructure as a service.\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">The original intent of PaaS technology was to simplify the code-writing process for developers, with the infrastructure and operations handled by the PaaS provider. Originally, all PaaSes were in the public cloud. Because many companies did not want to have everything in the public cloud, private and hybrid PaaS options (managed by internal IT departments) were created.</span>\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">PaaS provides an environment for developers and companies to create, host and deploy applications, saving developers from the complexities of the infrastructure side (setting up, configuring and managing elements such as servers and databases).</span>\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">PaaS products can improve the speed of developing an app, and allow the consumer to focus on the application itself. With PaaS, the consumer manages applications and data, while the provider (in public PaaS) or IT department (in private PaaS) manages runtime, middleware, operating system, virtualization, servers, storage and networking.</span>\r\n<span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">PaaS offerings may also include facilities for application design, application development, testing and deployment, as well as services such as team collaboration, web service integration, and marshalling, database integration, security, scalability, storage, persistence, state management, application versioning, application instrumentation, and developer community facilitation. Besides the service engineering aspects, PaaS solutions include mechanisms for service management, such as monitoring, workflow management, discovery and reservation.</span>\r\nThere are various types of PaaS providers. All offer application hosting and a deployment environment, along with various integrated services. Services offer varying levels of scalability and maintenance. Developers can write an application and upload it to a PaaS platform that supports their software language of choice, and the application runs on that PaaS.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">How PaaS works</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">PaaS does not replace a company's entire IT infrastructure for software development. It is provided through a cloud service provider's hosted infrastructure with users most frequently accessing the offerings through a web browser. PaaS can be delivered through public, private and hybrid clouds to deliver services such as application hosting and Java development.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Other PaaS services include:</span></p>\r\n<ul><li>Development team collaboration</li><li>Application design and development</li><li>Application testing and deployment</li><li>Web service integration</li><li>Information security</li><li>Database integration</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Users pay for PaaS on a per-use basis. However, different platform as a service providers charge a flat monthly fee for access to the platform and its applications.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">What are the types of PaaS?</h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Public PaaS</span></li></ul>\r\nA public PaaS allows the user to control software deployment while the cloud provider manages the delivery of all other major IT components necessary to the hosting of applications, including operating systems, databases, servers and storage system networks. \r\nPublic PaaS vendors offer middleware that enables developers to set up, configure and control servers and databases without the necessity of setting up the infrastructure side of things. As a result, public PaaS and IaaS (infrastructure as a service) run together, with PaaS operating on top of a vendor's IaaS infrastructure while leveraging the public cloud. \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Private PaaS</span></li></ul>\r\nA private PaaS is usually delivered as an appliance or software within the user's firewall which is frequently maintained in the company's on-premises data center. A private PaaS software can be developed on any type of infrastructure and can work within the company's specific private cloud. Private PaaS allows an organization to better serve developers, improve the use of internal resources and reduce the costly cloud sprawl that many companies face.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Hybrid PaaS </span></li></ul>\r\nCombines public PaaS and private PaaS to provide companies with the flexibility of infinite capacity provided by a public PaaS model and the cost efficiencies of owning an internal infrastructure in private PaaS. Hybrid PaaS utilizes a hybrid cloud.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Communication PaaS </span></li></ul>\r\nCPaaS is a cloud-based platform that allows developers to add real-time communications to their apps without the need for back-end infrastructure and interfaces. Normally, real-time communications occur in apps that are built specifically for these functions. Examples include Skype, FaceTime, WhatsApp and the traditional phone. CPaaS provides a complete development framework for the creation of real-time communications features without the necessity of a developer building their own framework.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Mobile PaaS</span> </li></ul>\r\nMPaaS is the use of a paid integrated development environment for the configuration of mobile apps. In an mPaaS, coding skills are not required. MPaaS is delivered through a web browser and typically supports public cloud, private cloud and on-premises storage. The service is usually leased with pricing per month, varying according to the number of included devices and supported features.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Open PaaS</span></li></ul>\r\nIt is a free, open source, business-oriented collaboration platform that is attractive on all devices and provides useful web apps, including calendar, contacts and mail applications. OpenPaaS was designed to allow users to quickly deploy new applications with the goal of developing a PaaS technology that is committed to enterprise collaborative applications, specifically those deployed on hybrid clouds.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/PaaS_-_Platform_as_a_service.png","alias":"paas-platform-as-a-service"},"54":{"id":54,"title":"MDM - master data management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Master data management (MDM)</span> is the core process used to manage, centralize, organize, categorize, localize, synchronize and enrich master data according to the business rules of the sales, marketing and operational strategies of your company. \r\nIt is a technology-enabled discipline in which business and IT work together to ensure the uniformity, accuracy, stewardship, semantic consistency and accountability of the enterprise’s official shared master data assets. Master data is the consistent and uniform set of identifiers and extended attributes that describes the core entities of the enterprise including customers, prospects, citizens, suppliers, sites, hierarchies and chart of accounts.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Essential Master Data Management Capabilities</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Flexible and multi-domain.</span>An extensible master data repository with flexible data modeling features provides a centralized view of all relationships between data types, clarifying complex cross-domain relationships, providing a flexible and multi-domain master data software.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Multi-style MDM.</span> Master Data Management platform should support all four main styles of MDM:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Centrally authored:</span> In this style data is authored in the MDM, other systems subscribe to the MDM for master data (or the MDM pushes the data into downstream applications).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Consolidation:</span> Source systems feed data into the MDM for consolidation into golden records\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Coexistence:</span> A mashup of centrally authored and consolidation that allows for creation of data in multiple systems.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Registry:</span> Rather than consolidating records, joining/aligning unique identifiers from across all the systems into join tables.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Real-time, secure data.</span> The top MDM software today allow you to publish and subscribe to data on demand, providing accurate master data to systems when and how you need it without compromising security. With real-time data, users can better react to the data and make faster decisions based on the insights discovered.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Data and Workflow visualization.</span> Master Data Management software provides a data visualization component that allows you to identify and easily fix quality issues. The capability can also helps users collaborate to constantly make improvements, monitor processes, and create dashboards for actionable data analysis.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">A customizable, business-friendly user interface.</span> A zero coding visual design time environment allows you to develop custom UIs using simple drag and drop actions. You can design cleaner, simpler, and more flexible role-based user interfaces for your Master Database Management system.\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">Things to Look for in MDM Management Software</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Because MDM is such a major task, you need the right software solution to assist you. The good news is that you have plenty of selections to choose from. The hard part is deciding on one. Here are a handful of features to look for:</p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Flexibility.</span> MDM isn’t a static issue. MDM software vendors continually updating products, so solutions will change rather dramatically over the course of a few months or years. With that being said, it’s smart to look at flexibility when it comes to master data management tools list. You may have a very specific need now, but will your solution allow you to address a future need that looks considerably different? \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Modeling.</span> Can you leverage the data model(s) of the member applications and eliminate the need to model? It could save you time, money, and help your master data be readily consumed without requiring additional transformation from an abstract data model to the data model in the member application(s). \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Cost.</span> While it shouldn’t be the only factor, money is obviously something that must be considered in the context of budgeting. This may be one of the first factors you use to narrow your choices. If you know you can only spend X dollars, then there’s no point in evaluating selections that cost more.\r\n <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Scalability.</span> How well does the solution scale? Your business is a fluid entity that will grow, contract, stagnate, grow again, etc. There’s no point in investing in thebest master data management tools that can only be used at your current size. Find one that easily grows and contracts in a cost-effective manner.\r\n <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integration.</span> The final thing to think about is integration. Since the point of MDM software is to create a centralized destination for data, you need to carefully ensure that it will work with your current setup.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/MDM_-_master_data_management1.png","alias":"mdm-master-data-management"},"66":{"id":66,"title":"BPM - Business Process Management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Business process management (BPM)</span> is a discipline in operations management in which people use various methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve, optimize, and automate business processes. BPM focuses on improving corporate performance by managing business processes. Any combination of methods used to manage a company's business processes is BPM. Processes can be structured and repeatable or unstructured and variable.\r\nAs an approach, BPM sees processes as important assets of an organization that must be understood, managed, and developed to announce and deliver value-added products and services to clients or customers. This approach closely resembles other total quality management or continuous improvement process methodologies. ISO 9000 promotes the process approach to managing an organization.<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Successfully employing BPM usually involves the following:</span>\r\nOrganizing around outcomes not tasks to ensure the proper focus is maintained\r\nCorrecting and improving processes before (potentially) automating them; otherwise all you’ve done is make the mess run faster\r\nEstablishing processes and assigning ownership lest the work and improvements simply drift away – and they will, as human nature takes over and the momentum peters out\r\nStandardizing processes across the enterprise so they can be more readily understood and managed, errors reduced, and risks mitigated\r\nEnabling continuous change so the improvements can be extended and propagated over time\r\nImproving existing processes, rather than building radically new or “perfect” ones, because that can take so long as to erode or negate any gains achieved\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Business Process Management Software (BPMS)</span> is a process automation tool. It helps you map out your everyday processes to identify and eliminate bottlenecks, control your company’s costs, make your day-to-day processes as efficient as possible, and ensure the effectiveness of the people involved in your processes. A business process management solution to a company’s needs begins with the alignment of business goals with an eye toward creating value through process change initiatives. This alignment leads to a thorough understanding and design of representative processes typically following an industry standard framework \r\nA BPM based foundation provides for complete lifecycle management of business processes, integration across technologies, and imbeds efficiency among people, processes, and technologies.\r\nCommercial business process management tools tend to center on the automation of business processes, essentially moving them from manual pen-and-paper endeavors to effortless automated transactions. BPM software products track how business information is used and then maps the relevant business process and ensure that transactions are done accordingly. This effectively shows where data and process bottlenecks occur and highlights various deficiencies in business processes, including areas where resources are wasted, allowing managers streamline and optimize those processes.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">There are three key types of BPMS:</span></p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Efficiency Monitors:</span>Monitors every system of the enterprise for inefficiency in the processes by following it from start to finish. BPM program accurately pinpoints weakness and bottlenecks where customers might get frustrated and discontinue transactions and processes.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Workflow Software:</span> Uses detailed maps of an existing processes and tries to streamline them by optimizing certain steps. BPM workflow software cannot suggest improvements to the process, only optimize it, so this software is only as good as the process itself.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enterprise Application Integration Tools:</span> A mixture of efficiency monitors, process and workflow management, EAI software is used to integrate legacy systems into new systems. This software can be used to map points for integrating old and new systems, optimizing their information-gathering characteristics and increasing the efficiency of system communications.<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">What Are the Types of Business Process Management Software?</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\">There are <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">three basic kinds</span> of BPM frameworks:</p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Horizontal frameworks.</span>They deal with design and development of business processes. They are generally focused on technology and reuse.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Vertical BPM frameworks.</span>&nbsp; This focuses on specific sets of coordinated tasks, using pre-built templates which can be easily deployed and configured.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Full-service BPM suites.</span>&nbsp; They have five basic components: Process discovery and project scoping; Process modeling and design; Business rules engine; Workflow engine; Simulation and testing.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\">There are <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">two types of BPM software</span> as it pertains to deployment:<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"></span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">On-premise</span> business process management (BPM). This has been the norm for most enterprises.</p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Software as a Service (SaaS).</span> Advances in cloud computing have led to an increased interest in various “software-on-demand” offerings.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">What are BPM Tools?</h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Business Process Management (BPM) tools</span> are used for automating, measuring and optimizing business processes. BPM automation tools use workflow and collaboration to provide meaningful metrics to business leaders.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Misconceptions about BPM Tools.</span> There’s a common misconception that BPM tools do not easily demonstrate their benefit to the organization. While the benefit from using BPM tools can be hard to quantify, it can be expressed more effectively in terms of business value.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Process Management Tools.</span> Tools that allow process managers (those that are responsible for organizing the process or activity) to secure the resources needed to execute it, and measure the results of the activity, providing rewards or corrective feedback when necessary. Process manager tools also allows process managers to change and improve the process whenever possible.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Process Modeling Tools.</span> Software tools that let managers or analysts create business process diagrams. Simple tools only support diagramming. Professional Process Modeling Tools store each model element in a database so that they can be reused on other diagrams or updated. Many business process improvement software supports simulation or code generation.<br /><br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/BPM_-_Business_Process_Management.png","alias":"bpm-business-process-management"},"67":{"id":67,"title":"WMS - Warehouse Management System","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">A warehouse management system (WMS)</span> is software and processes that allow organizations to control and administer warehouse operations from the time goods or materials enter a warehouse until they move out. \r\nA WMS handles the orchestration of <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">tasks </span>involved with:<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"></span>\r\n- Inbound and outbound operations\r\n- Inventory tracking\r\n- Processing orders and shipments\r\n- Inventory cycle counts\r\n- Order processing and shipping\r\nUsing a database that has been configured to support the operation of a warehouse, a warehouse system is a powerful tool to drive efficiency and accuracy across the business.The warehouse management software provides the means of warehouse control, enabling facility managers to have visibility into processes, labor resource activity, and much more.\r\nData involving operational processes flows into the warehouse system software from automated data capture methods such as barcode scanners, mobile computers and RFID enabled devices.&nbsp; The data is then used throughout the system to track inventory through the progression of warehouse processes.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Types of warehouse management systems</span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">WMS come in a variety of types and implementation methods, and the type typically depends on the size and nature of the organization. They can be <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">stand-alone systems</span> or <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">modules </span>in a larger enterprise resource planning (ERP) system or supply chain execution suite.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">They can also <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">vary</span> widely <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">in complexity.</span> Some small organizations may use a simple series of hard copy documents or spreadsheet files, but most larger organizations - from small to medium-sized businesses to enterprise companies - use complex and smart warehouse system. Some warehouse management solutions are designed specifically for the size of the organization, and many vendors have versions of WMS products that can scale to different organizational sizes. Some organizations build their own warehouse software from scratch, but it's more common to implement a WMS from an established vendor.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">A WMS can also be designed or configured for the <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">organization's specific requirements</span>; for example, an e-commerce vendor might use a WMS that has different functions than a brick-and-mortar retailer. Additionally, an enterprise WMS may also be designed or configured specifically for the types of goods the organization sells; for example, a sporting goods retailer would have different requirements than a grocery chain.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">How does using a Warehouse Management System help a business be more competitive?</h1>\r\nToday, businesses across the supply chain use warehouses to store goods on their way to customers.&nbsp; Whether the goods are destined for consumers, retailers, manufacturers or other business entities, it is important that whatever goods are ordered, shipped and delivered are processed properly, quickly, reliably and accurately.\r\nThe speed at which operational processes are performed, whether in a fulfillment center, third party logistics warehouse or distribution center is often a critical factor.&nbsp; \r\nUsing a WMS products that is appropriate for the needs of your operation can help you optimize operational processes for greater efficiency, enhance labor productivity, provide valuable insight into your operation and enable you to compete for, win and retain clients.\r\nHere are some other reasons why using a management warehouse system gives your business a competitive edge:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enables stringent inventory management and inventory control capabilities.</span></li></ul>\r\n Helps ensure optimal handling, storage, processing and tracking of inventory. Increased operational efficiency helps keep costs and errors down, critical in attracting and retaining clients.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Real time information visibility.</span></li></ul>\r\nThese days, data is seamlessly transmitted across the warehouse and along the supply chain.&nbsp; Using warehouse software solutions with automated data collection such as barcode scanners, mobile computers or RFID enables the capture and use of vital information for quick decision making and planning.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Automated operations reduce errors, wasted time and inefficiency from manual operations and workarounds.</span></li></ul>\r\nMany warehousing management solutions are now workflow-based or workflow-driven.&nbsp; This means that the WMS can automate the execution of work, step-by-step to ensure greater accuracy.&nbsp; Not only is this important for efficiency and error reduction but also for ensuring that quality control and quality assurance processes are carried out in conjunction with established SOPs.&nbsp; This can prove especially critical when dealing with temperature-sensitive products, fragile inventory and perishable goods.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Speed, agility and reliability of warehouse operations.</span></li></ul>\r\nSpeed and agility are critical factors in warehouse operations and provide keen competitive advantage, especially if you are competing against a rival that is still using a legacy WMS or no system at all.&nbsp; A cutting-edge warehouse management software solutions make use of data to plan, execute and report on operations reliably, quickly and efficiently and can adapt to changing business conditions.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enhanced workforce productivity, essential to daily operations.</span></li></ul>\r\nUsing a WMS helps provide your business with key metrics to use to properly manage, train and engage with your workforce.&nbsp; Getting the most work done in less time with fewer errors means that there will be less work done researching and correcting errors and billing.&nbsp; This lowers the burden on customer service representatives so that they can focus on providing top quality support.<br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/WMS_-_Warehouse_Management_System.png","alias":"wms-warehouse-management-system"},"70":{"id":70,"title":"OLAP - online analytical processing","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">OLAP (online analytical processing)</span> is a computing method that enables users to easily and selectively extract and query data in order to analyze it from different points of view. OLAP business intelligence queries often aid in trends analysis, financial reporting, sales forecasting, budgeting and other planning purposes.\r\nTo facilitate this kind of analysis, data is collected from multiple data sources and stored in data warehouses then cleansed and organized into <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">data cubes.</span> Each OLAP cube contains data categorized by dimensions (such as customers, geographic sales region and time period) derived by dimensional tables in the data warehouses. Dimensions are then populated by members (such as customer names, countries and months) that are organized hierarchically.\r\nAnalysts can then perform five types of online analytical processing system operations against these multidimensional databases: \r\n<ol><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Roll-up.</span> Also known as consolidation, or drill-up, this operation summarizes the data along the dimension.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Drill-down.</span> This allows analysts to navigate deeper among the dimensions of data, for example drilling down from &quot;time period&quot; to &quot;years&quot; and &quot;months&quot; to chart sales growth for a product.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Slice. </span>This enables an analyst to take one level of information for display</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Dice. </span>This allows an analyst to select data from multiple dimensions to analyze</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Pivot.</span> Analysts can gain a new view of data by rotating the data axes of the cube.</li></ol>\r\nOLAP software then locates the intersection of dimensions, such as all products sold in the Eastern region above a certain price during a certain time period, and displays them. The result is the &quot;measure&quot;; each OLAP cube has at least one to perhaps hundreds of measures, which are derived from information stored in fact tables in the data warehouse.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Types of OLAP: &nbsp; </span></p>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Relational online analytical processing (ROLAP):</span> ROLAP is an extended RDBMS along with multidimensional data mapping to perform the standard relational operation.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Multidimensional OLAP (MOLAP):</span> MOLAP Implementes operation in multidimensional data.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Hybrid OnlineAnalytical Processing (HOLAP):</span> In HOLAP approach the aggregated totals are stored in a multidimensional database while the detailed data is stored in the relational database. This offers both data efficiency of the ROLAP model and the performance of the MOLAP model.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Desktop OLAP (DOLAP):</span> In Desktop OLAP system, a user downloads a part of the data from the database locally, or on their desktop and analyze it. DOLAP is relatively cheaper to deploy as it offers very few functionalities compares to other OLAP tools.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web based OLAP (WOLAP):</span> Web OLAP which is OLAP system accessible via the web browser. WOLAP is a three-tiered architecture. It consists of three components: client, middleware, and a database server.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile OLAP:</span> Mobile OLAP process helps users to access and analyze OLAP data using their mobile devices</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Spatial OLAP:</span> SOLAP is created to facilitate management of both spatial and non-spatial data in a Geographic Information system (GIS) </li></ul>","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">Implementing an OLAP Solution</h1>\r\nImplementation of OLAP depends not only on the type of software, but also on underlying data sources and the intended business objective(s). Each industry or business area is specific and requires some degree of customized modeling to create multidimensional “cubes” for data loading and reporting building, at minimum. An OLAP program might be intended for dynamic reporting for finance professionals, with source data originating in an ERP system. Or a solution might address a medical institution’s activities as concerns patient analysis. All of which is to say that customers need to have clear objectives in mind for an intended solution, and start to consider product selection on that basis. Another factor to consider in an OLAP implementation is the delivery to end users: does the initial user base want to adopt a new front end, or is there a preference for utilizing a dashboard? Or&nbsp; perhaps users are better served by a dynamic spreadsheet “delivery” system to achieve, for example, a collaborative budgeting and forecasting solution.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Advantages and Disadvantages of OLAP</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Advantages</span></p>\r\n<ul><li>OLAP is a platform for all type of business includes planning, budgeting, reporting, and analysis.</li><li>Information and calculations are consistent in an OLAP cube. This is a crucial benefit.</li><li>Quickly create and analyze &quot;What if&quot; scenarios</li><li>Easily search OLAP database for broad or specific terms.</li><li>OLAP provides the building blocks for business modeling tools, Data mining tools, performance reporting tools.</li><li>Allows users to do slice and dice cube data all by various dimensions, measures, and filters.</li><li>It is good for analyzing time series.</li><li>Finding some clusters and outliers is easy with OLAP.</li><li> It is a powerful visualization online analytical process system which provides faster response times</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Disadvantages</span></p>\r\n<ul><li>OLAP requires organizing data into a star or snowflake schema. These schemas are complicated to implement and administer.</li><li>You cannot have large number of dimensions in a single OLAP cube.</li><li>Transactional data cannot be accessed with OLAP system.</li><li>Any modification in an OLAP cube needs a full update of the cube. This is a time-consuming process.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/OLAP_-__online_analytical_processing.png","alias":"olap-online-analytical-processing"},"72":{"id":72,"title":"LMS - Learning Management System","description":"A<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"> learning management system (LMS</span>) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, or learning and development programs. \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">L — Learning. </span>With an LMS, you can create a single source of online courses and training materials. This will become a unique source of knowledge in your area so that you can keep and increase the in-house expertise of your company.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">M — Management.</span> You can manage courses and learners, and even improve your own efficiency. Unlike file-sharing services, an LMS is not just a heap of files; it’s a well-organized system where you manage the training process. To start training, simply add employees and assign courses.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">S — System.</span> A computer system, to be exact. An LMS automates the most boring and tedious work such as grading, processing statistics, and preparing reports. Plus, you can train your employees without leaving the office, managing all the processes right from your work computer.</li></ul>\r\nThe learning management system concept emerged directly from e-Learning. Although the first LMS appeared in the higher education sector, the majority of the LMSs today focus on the corporate market. Learning Management Systems make up the largest segment of the learning system market. \r\nLearning management systems were designed to identify training and learning gaps, utilizing analytical data and reporting. LMSs are focused on online learning delivery but support a range of uses, acting as a platform for online content, including courses, both asynchronous based and synchronous based. Learning management solutions may offer classroom management for instructor-led training or a flipped classroom, used in higher education, but not in the corporate space. \r\nMost modern learning management systems are web-based. There are a variety of integration strategies for embedding content into LMSs, including AICC, xAPI (also called 'Tin Can'), SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) and LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability). LMSs were originally designed to be locally hosted on-premises, where the organization purchases a license to a version of the software, and installs it on their own servers and network. Many LMSs are now offered as SaaS (software as a service), with hosting provided by the vendors.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Features Of An LMS</span></p>\r\nAll modern LMSs are loaded with many features. Some of the common features are:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Course content authoring and upload.</span> An LMS lets you author course content and upload course content in a wide variety of formats including audio, video, multimedia, documents, etc.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">User and course management.</span> An LMS offers user management and course management. User enrollment, tagging, course administration, order management, pre-registration and assigning courses can be done semi-automatically.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Communication management.</span> An LMS can handle all course communications and notifications to concerned users. For example, an LMS can automatically send a notification to all enrolled users when a new assignment is uploaded by the teacher. There is no need to copy and paste contact data or switch between two digital services.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span></li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Report management. </span>An LMS can generate a wide variety of reports, including student progress, score, student engagement, etc. The data can be utilized to gain valuable insight into the effectiveness of the course content.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span></li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Assessment creation and management.</span> Assessments are a key part of any course. An LMS makes it easy to create and manage these assessments, both system evaluated and tutor evaluated. You can get a result in a single click for all students.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Types of Learning Management Systems</span></h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Free vs. Commercial.</span> This is typically one of the first dilemmas organizations face when choosing an LMS.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Free, open-source software</span> has a pretty clear upside: It’s free. Also, because the source code is open, it can be modified to be highly customizable for each organization. However, most free LMS products tend to be more complicated than commercial products — typically they are utilized by more sophisticated users. \r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Commercial software</span>, on the other hand, offers users a support staff, and tends to be much easier to deploy, and use. But of course it costs money. Among commercial LMS products, there are typically two main forms: Installed, or the service-based cloud option.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Installed vs. SaaS.</span> One of the most important elements of an LMS is the ability to scale up or down quickly and easily. Commercial LMS software solutions are typically sold as either a locally hosted enterprise product, which is hosted on an organization’s own servers, or as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, which is hosted on the vendor’s servers and is accessible from anywhere (the data is stored in “the cloud”).\r\nGenerally,<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"> cloud-based</span> LMS products offer trainers more flexibility when it comes to scaling up or down. Because the product is sold as a “service” (usually monthly), the burden of making systems upgrades, freeing up bandwidth, and providing IT support falls on the vendor. Because data does not have to be stored on local servers, scalability isn’t a concern; most SaaS LMSs can ramp up or down by thousands of users with ease.\r\nA <span style=\"font-style: italic; \">locally installed LMS</span> offers users the ability to individualize and customize their LMS. So if an organization already has an IT staff in place that can administer the system, handle support and customization and scalability concerns, a locally hosted LMS can be powerful.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Course-creating or not. </span>Another thing to look for in an LMS is whether it comes with the ability to create training content. In some cases, an LMS is simply a tool to distribute course content, which must be created in a Learning Content Management System elsewhere.\r\nSome LMS systems, however, do come with some authoring tools that allow trainers and designers to develop their own unique content. Other LMS vendors offer separate course-creation tools for purchase, while some offer no authoring tools whatsoever, and instead rely on third-party course materials.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Integrated. </span>As LMS systems become more sophisticated, one of the most exciting developments is the ability for the system to integrate with other applications your organization already uses — whether that’s internal calendars, email, or social networks. \r\nOther LMS products may also integrate closely with <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">talent management systems</span>, which tend to focus on providing support to Human Resource staff functions like recruiting, performance management, and payroll. Depending on your organization’s needs, you may keep an eye out for an LMS that features this sort of app integration.<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"></span>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Choosing a Learning Management System</span></h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Choosing the right LMS is crucial to the success of your eLearning strategy. The selection process may seem overly complicated and stressful, but it doesn’t have to be! With these steps to choosing an LMS, you’ll discover a simple and straightforward technique to help you choose perfect LMS for your business needs. </p>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Identify your audience.</span> Identify exactly what you need from your LMS and who your learning content is aimed towards. This will vary depending on your learner audience and the type of training you wish to deliver.\r\nIf you’re<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"> </span><span style=\"font-style: italic; \">training your employees,</span> you’ll need an LMS tools to formalize learning processes, like employee onboarding, and improve employee retention.\r\nIf <span style=\"font-style: italic; \">compliance training </span>is your focus, you’ll need an LMS that makes it easy to achieve, maintain, and track compliance.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer training</span> delivered through an LMS optimizes onboarding, increases retention and presents opportunities for upselling thanks to customers who complete training having a more thorough understanding of your product or service.\r\nIf you need an LMS for <span style=\"font-style: italic; \">partner training,</span> your priorities will be scaling your partner business while building and protecting your brand. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Focus on important features. </span>There are many basic LMS’s out there, but your LMS has to support your “need to have” features to ensure it’s fit for purpose. Some examples of invaluable LMS features include:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Ease of use</span> - A platform that’s easy to use ensures your learners and admins can use the LMS without needing training on how to do so. This makes the process of using the LMS a positive experience, increasing engagement.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Reporting</span> - LMS reporting makes it easy to accurately track learner progression, course status and completion rate, exam results, etc.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Integrations</span> - By integrating applications you already use in your organization, you’ll get the most efficiency out of your LMS. LMS integration can help increase learner and admin engagement, and delivers a better user experience.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">SCORM and xAPI compliant </span>- Ensuring your LMS is SCORM and xAPI compliant is a pretty essential feature. If the LMS you’re considering isn’t compliant, it’s likely it’s a very basic system.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Portals</span> - Learning portals offer your learners a great user experience, but also make it possible to manage multiple training audiences in one system.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"><span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">Evaluate each LMS. </span></span><span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \">Start evaluating potential contenders by doing an initial round of high-level research to identify systems that appear to meet both your training audience and features list needs. This will become your LMS longlist. Once compiled you can then evaluate each one individually to rule it in or out of the next stage of selection.</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Look beyond the LMS.</span> Go online and research LMS vendors on your shortlist. Find out as much as you can about each company. Once you’re satisfied with the company’s reputation, peer reviews, and support services, sign yourself up for a free trial and demo so that you can see the LMS in action and understand how the system will meet your audience and feature requirements. You could also submit support tickets to each vendor during your free trial to compare the responsiveness and attentiveness of each support team. \r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the advantages and disadvantages?</span><span style=\"font-style: italic; \"></span></h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Advantages:</span></span> </p>\r\nThere are six major advantages of LMS: interoperability, accessibility, reusability, durability, maintenance ability and adaptability, which in themselves constitute the concept of LMS.\r\nOther advantages include:\r\n<ul><li>An LMS supports content in various formats: text, video, audio, etc.</li><li>One can access materials anytime, from everywhere, teachers can modify the content, and students can see the updated material.</li><li>The evaluation of students is easier and fair, based on student attendance and online quizzes.</li><li>Students and teachers can re-use the material every time they need.</li><li>Students can learn collaboratively by setting up a School website with the LMS software and helps &quot;Keeps organizations up-to-date with compliance regulations. If your organization must stay up-to-date with current compliance regulations, then a Learning Management System can be an invaluable tool. Compliance laws change on a regular basis, and updating a traditional course to reflect these changes can be a time-consuming chore.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Disadvantages:</span></span></p>\r\nAlthough there are many advantages of LMSs, authors have identified some disadvantages of using these systems.\r\n<ul><li>Implementing an LMS requires a well-built technology infrastructure. Teachers have to be willing to adapt their curricula from face to face lectures to online lectures.</li><li>Expense.</li><li>Difficulty of learning to use authoring software.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/LMS_-_Learning_Management_System1.png","alias":"lms-learning-management-system"},"74":{"id":74,"title":"BRMS - Business Rule Management System","description":"A<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"> BRMS (Business Rule Management System)</span> is an operating principle, practice or policy of an organisation. It has to be adhered to in order to satisfy either a required common approach to a particular event or regulatory requirements for the industry that the organisation is part of. It is a statement of truth about an organisation and is an attempt to describe the operations of an organisation, not an attempt to prescribe how an organisation should operate.\r\nBusiness Rules Management Software is a software component that is used to define, register, verify consistency, deploy, execute, monitor and manage the variety and complexity of decision logic that is used by operational systems within an organisation or enterprise. This logic, also referred to as business rules, includes policies, requirements, and conditional statements that are used to determine the tactical actions that take place in applications and systems. The BRMS software also provides the ability to define the relationships between different rules, and relate some of these rules to IT applications that are affected or need to enforce one or more of the rules.\r\nA Business Rules Management System Software acts as a central repository for business rules. Decision owners and IT employees can collaborate to develop, version, and edit rules in a single-sourced environment. A BRMS helps businesses automate tasks, improve consistency, and shorten turnaround on policy changes. BRMS vendors provide tools for developing, tracking, and editing business rules. Often, these tools support both programmers and non-programmers. Vendors also provide an engine to simulate and validate business rules before they are implemented. \r\n<p class=\"align-center\">Business Rule Management System includes, at minimum:</p>\r\n<ul><li>A repository, allowing the defined rules to be managed in terms of versions and variants and be available for reuse;</li><li>A development environment, which provides tools for both technical developers and business experts to define and manage the business rules;</li><li>A runtime environment, allowing applications to invoke business rules management and execute it using a business rules engine;</li><li>A management environment that provides the ability to not only monitor the development and runtime environments, but also manage them both.</li></ul>","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">What are the business rules?</h1>\r\n<div>Business rules are statements that will guide the proper functioning of your business. BRMS rules may be simple, or more complex, even involving rules of logic. But they have the function of basically defining what, where, when, why, and how something must be done within an organization.\r\nBusiness rule management system <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">example:</span> if your company provides 10% discounts on purchases made through your website on a customer’s birthday, that’s a business rule.\r\nThis benefit (what) should be applied on the customer’s birthday (when), needs to happen in purchases through the site (where), with a value of 10% (how) to please the customer on their day – and, who knows, maybe persuade them (why).\r\nBut you must understand that the rules are as varied as possible and must always be in accordance with the policies, objectives, and specificities of each company.\r\nThey may create advantages associated with:</div>\r\n<ul><li>Reducing costs</li><li>Making company strategies stronger;</li><li>Assisting in decision-making processes;</li><li>Providing greater process control;</li><li>Providing benefits to customers in a controlled and well-planned manner;</li><li>Increasing process agility;</li><li>Reducing problems with customer defaults.</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Why use a Business Rules Management System?</span></h1>\r\nA BRMS empowers companies to define and maintain the rules guiding a system’s decision workflow to determine what actions are enabled in any given circumstance. With logic outside the programming code, these systems deliver a profound boost to business agility, productivity and logic accuracy—and in so doing, deliver reliable cost savings and faster rules changes when necessary.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/BRMS_-_Business_Rule_Management_System__1_.png","alias":"brms-business-rule-management-system"},"76":{"id":76,"title":"CPM - Corporate Performance Management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Corporate performance management (CPM)</span> is an umbrella term that describes the methodologies, metrics, processes and systems used to monitor and manage the business performance of an enterprise. Applications that enable CPM translate strategically focused information to operational plans and send aggregated results. These applications are also integrated into many elements of the planning and control cycle, or they address BAM or customer relationship optimization needs.\r\nCPM must be supported by a suite of analytical applications that provide the functionality to support these processes, methodologies and metrics.\r\n&nbsp;A CPM system is software that monitors and manages an organization's performance, according to key performance indicators. These can be revenue, return on investment, or other corporate strategic goals, such as increasing operational efficiency or improving corporate strategy.\r\nCorporate performance management system supports financial budgeting, planning and forecasting, and help leaders manage strategy and track the company’s financial health against goals. Corporate performance management tools are commonly used by the finance department, but are increasingly designed to be used across the enterprise. All in all, financial corporate performance management helps CFOs and other leaders maintain a clear picture of organizational performance.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">CPM Software Comparison</span></p>\r\nTo compare different CPM tools, you might want to consider evaluating options based on these factors:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Finance vs Strategy:</span> Do you care more about strategic planning or financials (such as consolidation and close, reporting, etc)? Financial corporate performance management products rarely do both of these well, so depending on which is your priority, compare tools based on both capabilities. Look at feature ratings for budgeting, planning and forecasting, versus consolidation and close and reporting.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Deployment type:</span> Corporate performance management solutions may be cloud-based, on-premise, or offer both deployment types.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Usability:</span> Ease of use is an important factor, even more so if your use of the CPM software will extend beyond the Finance team. Look for comments about usability in pros &amp; cons sections of reviews, and compare how the products rate for usability.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Reporting:</span> Corporate performance management software is very centered on reporting and the ability to build custom reports. Reviewers often comment on the quality of reporting, and are asked to rate products based on reporting features.\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">Why is CPM important and who is CPM important for?</h1>\r\nRecent studies have shown that strategy execution is the number one area of focus for senior executives today and CPM performance management is a way to help ensure your strategies get executed. By integrating organizational goals, metrics, and projects, your company is aligned around strategic priorities and can focus on the key drivers of the business.\r\nCPM is important for every company, but especially those looking to:\r\n<ul><li>Remodel their budget</li><li>Reduce costs</li><li>Better align KPIs</li><li>Upgrade their organizational strategy</li><li>Improve the financial planning process<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"></span></li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Importance of Corporate Performance Management Software</h1>\r\nIn the era of business management intelligence, it’s important that corporations embrace processes automation. Here are some of the benefits of adopting an enterprise and corporate performance management solution.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">1. Real-time feedback.</span> Performance management software has smart dashboards which contain every measurable metric a management team may need to use in its decision-making. However, the detail is not in the variety. It’s in the ability to read and use data as changes happen in real-time across all parts of the organization. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">2. Data consolidation for easy management.</span> The tools have the intelligence to gather, group, and combine data from multiple sources, be it departments, spreadsheets, or even companies. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">3. Provide ease of risk management.</span> One significant advantage of CPM is the integration of tools like what-if models. For instance, the model empowers managers to mitigate risks and make informed decisions based on the simulation of the best-worst case scenarios. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">4. Provide simple data feedback and access.</span> Performance management tools enable managers to have ease of access to information while still fostering accuracy and quality. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">5. Ease of collaboration.</span> CPM tools are not only locally integrated but also cloud connected to allows all users to stay in sync across all departments.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/CPM_-_Corporate_Performance_Management.png","alias":"cpm-corporate-performance-management"},"150":{"id":150,"title":"Workforce Performance Management","description":"","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Workforce_Performance_Management.png","alias":"workforce-performance-management"},"152":{"id":152,"title":"Contact Center","description":"A contact center is a central point from where you can contact.\r\nThe contact center typically includes one or more call centers but may include other types of customer contact, as well. A contact center is generally part of an enterprise's overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy.<br />Contact centers and call centers are both centers for customer service, and the two terms are often used interchangeably, but a contact center supports more services than a typical call center.\r\nContact centers offer omnichannel customer support, including email, chat, voice over IP (VoIP) and website support. A call center typically uses phones as the main channel of communication and can handle a mass volume of calls.<br />Contact centers are used for inbound communication, outbound communication or a hybrid of both. Contact center agents also interact with customers via web chat, phone, email or other communication channels.\r\nThe contact center infrastructure that is necessary to support communications may be located on the same premises as the contact center, or it can be located externally.\r\nIn an on-premises scenario, the company that owns the contact center also owns and manages its own hardware and software. This requires staffing and IT investments that some companies choose to forgo by outsourcing those tasks to cloud providers or hosting companies.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Call Center?</span>\r\nTraditionally, a call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. Inbound call centers receive calls for customer support and often serve as a knowledge base for tech support, billing questions, and other customer service issues. These call centers focus on quick call resolution times and agent productivity. In outbound call centers, agents make calls rather than receive them. These could be sales calls, marketing offers, surveys, fundraising requests, or debt collection, for example.\r\nThe term “call center” conjures an image for many people of waiting on perpetual hold or being routed through an endless IVR that never gives them what they need. Because so many consumers have had a dreadful customer service experience along these lines, call centers have developed a bad rap. But as legacy phone systems give way to newer digital technologies, call centers are evolving.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Contact Center?</span>\r\nThe term &quot;contact center&quot; (or “contact centre”) reflects the modern reality that there are many other ways to connect with a customer these days besides by telephone. The combined trends of increased customer expectations and newer technologies that allow for many channels of communication are creating a shift in the traditional call center model which has existed for decades. Consumers want more ways to reach businesses, and businesses are looking for new ways to improve customer experience.\r\nWhile call center agents generally focus on inbound and outbound calls, either on traditional phone lines or over VoIP, contact center agents handle a wide variety of communications. In a modern multichannel contact center, technical support might be delivered over in-app chat or video, while order status updates are delivered via SMS, event promotions are sent as push notifications, surveys are deployed over Facebook Messenger, and sales inquiries received by email are sent directly to an agent to connect by phone. Call centers handle voice communications, contact centers handle all communications.\r\nA company’s contact center is usually integrated with their customer relationship management (CRM) system, where all interactions between the organization and the public are tracked, coordinated, and managed. Depending on the infrastructure and ecosystem, it could be comprised of an alphabet soup of complex components. Many companies have purchased off-the-shelf systems or a highly customized network of technologies from multiple vendors. Some companies have adopted a cloud-based solution or two, but they remain siloed from the rest of their systems and can’t talk to each other.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Contact_Center1.png","alias":"contact-center"},"154":{"id":154,"title":"TMS - Transport Management System","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">TMS </span>(Transportation Management System)</span> is specialized software for planning, executing and optimizing the shipment of goods. Users perform three main tasks on a TMS: 1) find and compare the rates (prices) and services of carriers available to ship a customer's order, 2) book the shipment, then - 3) track its movement to delivery. The broader goals of using a TMS are to improve shipping efficiency, reduce costs, gain real-time supply chain visibility and ensure customer satisfaction.\r\nTMSes are one of the core technologies used in supply chain management (SCM), a discipline sometimes divided into supply chain execution (SCE) and supply chain planning (SCP). They are available as stand-alone software or as modules within enterprise resource planning (ERP) and SCM suites. Typically, a transportation management solutions serves both shippers, carriers and other logistics providers. Manufacturers, distributors, e-commerce organizations, wholesalers, retailers and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) are major users of TMS software.\r\nWhile some TMS, transport management solutions, focus on a single mode of transportation, most support multimodal (where at least two of the various modes of transportation -- truck, rail, air and sea -- are used in a single contract) and intermodal (in which a cargo container is carried by at least two modes of transportation).\r\nLike most enterprise software systems, TMSes started as on-premises systems but have increasingly been deployed in the cloud either hosted or as SaaS. There are also TMS managed services. Cloud transportation management system has obvious advantages in easing connectivity between TMS users, carriers, customers and supply chain partners. Some TMS vendors try to differentiate themselves by offering single-instance multi-tenant SaaS, which they say has cost and integration advantages over single-tenant SaaS and private-cloud options. \r\nIn fact, according to Gartner, most of the growth in the TMS market comes from cloud offerings that companies bought to replace on-premises TMS, a trend that is likely to persist. Meanwhile, TMS vendors continue to migrate their products to SaaS, in large part to fend off competition from fast-growing &quot;cloud native&quot; vendors who started with SaaS transportation management system. \r\nVendors of TMS software fall into four categories: ERP suites, SCM suites, niche TMS and TMS services. Microsoft, Oracle and SAP are prominent TMS ERP system vendors. Most other ERP vendors rely on TMS vendors with which they have integration. Smaller ERP vendors also have distribution modules that handle some TMS tasks but aren't true TMSes.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">Functions of TMS</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Planning.</span> A transportation data management system helps the business select the optimal mode of shipment and the best carrier, based on cost, efficiency, and distance, including optimizing multi-leg carrier routes. A strong transport manager system can provide visibility into every stage of the supply chain, and together with global trade management functionality, it can also provide information on trade and tariffs, and if there are any potential delays that may happen because of customs and other trade regulations.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Execution.</span> The execution features of TMSes vary widely but can include matching loads and communicating with carriers, documenting and tracking shipments, and assisting with freight billing and settlement. Some advanced TMS supply chain management solutions also provide track and trace services—enabling real-time information exchange among carriers, distributors, warehouses, and customers. Such advanced systems may also have the functionality to handle complex international logistics, including providing proper import and export documentation making sure shipments are trade compliant.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Optimization.</span> TMS optimization capacities usually include the ability to measure and track performance with reports, dashboards, analytics, and transportation intelligence.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">The Benefits of a TMS</h1>\r\nA TMS—and modern integrated transportation management in general—provides many benefits to businesses. Some of the top benefits are:\r\n<ul><li>Reduced costs for the business and the end customer</li><li>Simplification of supply chain processes across geographies, modes, and carriers</li><li>Automation of business operations for faster and more accurate billing and documentation</li><li>Improvement in visibility and security, especially in transit</li><li>Time savings—fewer manual steps result in fewer delays and faster delivery times</li><li>The ability to track freight, both locally and globally, on a single platform</li><li>Better import and export compliance minimizing penalties and shipment delays</li><li>New business insights as better reporting leads to faster action and process improvement</li><li>Improvements in customer service and customer satisfaction with real-time updates and fewer shipment delays</li><li>The ability to scale the business by meeting and exceeding customer demands for fast, on-time shipments</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/TMS_-_Transport_Management_System.png","alias":"tms-transport-management-system"},"156":{"id":156,"title":"FMS - Fleet Management System","description":"The Fleet Management Systems Interface (FMS) is a standard interface to vehicle data of commercial vehicles. The six European manufacturers Daimler AG, MAN AG, Scania, Volvo (including Renault), DAF Trucks and IVECO developed the so-called FMS-Standard in 2002 to make manufacturer-independent applications for telematics possible.\r\nThe following data are broadcast at the FMS interface:\r\n<ul><li>Vehicle improvement (all round)</li><li>Vehicle speed (wheel based)</li><li>Vehicle speed (from tachograph)</li><li>Clutch switch (on/off)</li><li>Brake switch (on/off)</li><li>Cruise control (on/off)</li><li>PTO (Status/Mode)</li><li>Accelerator pedal position (0–100%)</li><li>Total fuel used (litres since lifetime)</li><li>Fuel level (0–100%)</li><li>Engine speed</li><li>Gross axle weight rating (kg)</li><li>Total engine hours (h)</li><li>FMS-Standard software version (supported modes)</li><li>Vehicle identification number (ASCII)</li><li>Tachograph information</li><li>High-resolution vehicle distance</li><li>Service distance</li><li>Engine coolant temperature</li></ul>\r\nThe data are coded according to SAE J1939. The repetition rate of the data is between 20 ms (e.g. engine speed) and 10 seconds (e.g. vehicle identification number).\r\nWith the FMS standard it is now possible to have manufacturer independent applications and evaluations of the data.\r\nAccording to a note from the truck manufacturers, the FMS standard is seen as a worldwide standard. A direct connection to the internal vehicle bus system is not permitted by the truck manufacturers and could lead to the loss of warranty. Meanwhile, some manufacturers are quite restrictive in their workshops and cut all unknown connections to the internal bus system.\r\nAccording to ACEA ca. 160,000 vehicles were fitted with an FMS standard interface in 2007. The FMS-Standard was as well the base for the Bus-FMS-Standard for buses and coaches which was published in the year 2004. ","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Is the Purpose of Fleet Management in a Business?</span>\r\nThe purpose of Fleet Management in business is to ensure the work vehicles of business are operating smoothly, are constantly seeking ways to improve performance, are able to keep operating costs at a minimum, and maintain compliance with government regulations.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Is Fleet Management?</span>\r\nFleet Management refers to the applications, tools, technologies and practices that help businesses maintain optimal use of their work vehicles from a central platform. In its current form, Fleet Management entails the use of:\r\n<ul><li>database information software</li><li>telematics and GPS tracking software</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Are the Benefits of Using Fleet Management?</span>\r\nCompanies who have been using Fleet Management agree that it generally allows businesses using it to:\r\n<ul><li>Acquire more control over drivers and vehicles.</li><li>Less time spent on predicting the time of departure and arrival, getting hold of traffic updates and road conditions improves productivity.</li><li>Save on fuel consumption.</li><li>Prevent delays in deliveries.</li><li>Reduce road accidents.</li><li>Improve driving habits.</li><li>Prevent dubious reporting.</li><li>Prevent unauthorized use of vehicles.</li><li>Track and recover lost vehicles.</li><li>Customer gets better service having real-time access to the location of their assets.</li><li>Lessen driver frustration while on the road, increasing employee satisfaction all around.</li><li>Reduce cost of insurance.</li><li>Lessen maintenance costs.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why Should You Use Fleet Management System?</span>\r\nThe use of Fleet Management System ensures that the operation of company vehicles totally aligns with company goals rather than a source of headache, which typically happens in its absence. The improper use of business vehicles can easily add substantial losses to your business operation, not to mention the time wasted by managers to drivers looking over the issues in search of meaningful ways to address those losses. If your business is directly involved with providing transportation to the public, it may mean the difference between continuing operations or shutting down if you have accumulated enough grave offenses to compliance regulations.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How Does Software Tools Optimize Fleet Management?</span>\r\nFleet Management Software that stores all the vehicles your organization has purchased or leased, their specifications, details of maintenance, service and part histories, drivers and related compliance documents including licenses and tax, fleet insurance, fuel transactions, operating expenses reduces all involved administrative process and makes sense of everything to do with your fleet in terms of operating costs, overall cost of ownership, and all things pertaining to compliance and whether you are still on the legal side of things. The software’s capability to generate reports, alerts and emails, things simply get better and faster for your organization, a thing that is not possible in the fast.\r\nTelematics software gives your company unprecedented real-time tracking of all your vehicles, making it more efficient and easier to dispatch the involved workforce as well. It enables you to determine precisely when vehicle and driver will get to their destination, and how the vehicles are driven and handled by the driver.\r\nIntegrating the functions of both software hands any organization a degree of control unheard of in the past, a way to optimally run and manage their fleet of vehicles no matter what size.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/FMS_-_Fleet_Management_System1.png","alias":"fms-fleet-management-system"},"164":{"id":164,"title":"Billing","description":"Billing is a complex set of programs that allows you to calculate the number of services provided, while the calculations are carried out in a variety of units of measurement. Services are charged and as a result, the client receives a ready invoice, which additionally takes into account all promotions and discounts. The billing covers three main functions: settlement operations, provision of information, financial services.\r\nTypes of billing:\r\n<ul><li>Convergent billing is a carrier-class subsystem that provides mutual settlements with the customer of any network and an arbitrary informative application.</li><li>Automatic billing is a broad definition, including a variety of phenomena: from bank statements to making a payment with a plastic card.</li><li>Deferred billing is called billing, in which the calculation is made on the basis of the calls made.</li><li>Using hot billing reduces the delay in debiting funds, i.e. the speed of interaction with the service provider increases.</li><li>Mobile billing (SMS billing) is a method of electronic payment, in which payment for services is made using a telephone.</li></ul>\r\nCurrency calculation unit between the bank and the world payment system is called the billing currency. When the billing currency is different from the currency of the account, automatic conversion of funds occurs at the bank exchange rate.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Billing tasks:</span>\r\nThe main task of the billing is to provide a full account to the subscriber, information about which is available in this billing network. The billing system is responsible for the transfer of funds from the client’s account to the organization’s account for the services provided.\r\nBilling systems allow complete accounting of each consumer’s account.\r\n<ul><li>revenues;</li><li>costs;</li><li>used services;</li><li>personal tariff plans;</li><li>the amount of funds on the balance sheet;</li><li>discounts and promotions;</li><li>other information of an informative plan.</li></ul>\r\nEffective billing is needed to save time for both operators and consumers. With all this, the billing system should be as transparent as possible, that is, the client must know exactly what services he uses and how much he pays for it. The billing system should be as simple and understandable as possible to consumers, but it should take into account all the parameters set by the service.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customer billing options:</span>\r\n<ul><li>automated calculation of the cost of services;</li><li>the ability to quickly receive services;</li><li>automatic debiting of funds (monthly fee and/or payment for services);</li><li> instant receipt of bill details;</li><li>the ability to receive timely information about new services, discounts and so on;</li><li>automatic crediting of bonuses and calculation of discounts.</li></ul>\r\nA properly functioning billing system provides an opportunity for employees of an organization using it to quickly receive information about the use of services and automatically invoice consumers. With the help of billing, it becomes easy to serve customers with bills and coupons, get a quick payment for services. The billing also produces an estimate of consumption, based on this information, the organization can draw conclusions about the demand for various types of services. Thanks to billing, providing clients with advertising information about new promotions, services, and tariffs is automated.\r\nMembers of the billing process:\r\n<ul><li>organizations that produce the necessary resources for the billing process - billing providers;</li><li>organizations that are the primary consumer of billing - cellular operators, Internet telephony operators, Internet providers, providers of digital television and so on;</li><li>ordinary users.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Billing1.png","alias":"billing"},"168":{"id":168,"title":"EAM - Enterprise Asset Management","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">EAM</span> (Enterprise asset management)</span> involves the management of the maintenance of physical assets of an organization throughout each asset's lifecycle. EAM management system is used to plan, optimize, execute, and track the needed maintenance activities with the associated priorities, skills, materials, tools, and information. This covers the design, construction, commissioning, operations, maintenance and decommissioning or replacement of plant, equipment and facilities.\r\n&quot;Enterprise&quot; refers to the scope of the assets in an Enterprise across departments, locations, facilities and, potentially, supporting business functions eg; Finance &amp; GL, Human Resources and Payroll. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enterprise asset management software </span>is a computer software that handles every aspect of running a public works or asset-intensive organization. Maintenance management software collects and analyzes data for physical assets during all phases of the asset lifecycle, including the acquisition, maintenance, and disposal phase.&nbsp; EAM software is used by large organizations that have outgrown basic CMMS software. These organizations have hundreds of physical assets (machinery, equipment, etc) and employees that are responsible for managing the asset lifecycle. These employees, referred to as asset managers, are also responsible for making decisions that require them to track warranties, depreciation, and downtime.\r\nIn terms of features, the lines are becoming blurred between CMMS and EAM solutions as some CMMS products allow asset managers to track these items. But true EAM program gives asset managers the ability to track every phase of an asset’s lifecycle and provide full transparency about its historical and present state to other departments. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enterprise asset management system includes</span> elements of design perspectives centered on the idea that by creating digital models, companies can optimize how they utilize each asset that they invest money in according to its build and the greater context around its use. This helps companies better predict asset depreciation and never be surprised by unexpected asset failure.\r\nEAM asset management tools also include insurance and warranty information. They look at things like the environmental performance of an asset or piece of machinery to assist with audit trails and environmental impact reports. They also integrate with inventory and supply chain software to reduce menial data entry tasks and perform inventory management tasks. Another way to describe the key use of EAM solutions is they ensure change never affects the total cost of ownership (TCO) of an asset.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> What is EAM?</h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">EAM (Enterprise Asset Management)</span> system is the management of the assets of an enterprise across departments, facilities, business units and geographical locations. Enterprise asset management&nbsp; market integrates techniques for holistic control and optimization throughout asset life cycles, including design, commissioning, operations and replacement:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">EAM definition allows to categorize it as follows</span>:\r\n<ul><li>Physical asset and infrastructure management</li><li>IT service management</li><li>Digital asset (electronic media and content) management</li><li>Fixed asset management and accounting</li><li>Emerging asset management</li></ul>\r\nThe EAM framework optimizes and extends asset life cycles and reduces Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) while maximizing Overall Asset Productivity (OAP) and Return on Assets (ROA), which is key for manufacturing and similar industries with high-value equipment.&nbsp; EAM arose as an extension of the <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">computerized maintenance management system </span>(CMMS) which is usually defined as a system for the computerisation of the maintenance of physical assets.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Asset Management is geared toward the following results:</span> </p>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"color: rgb(97, 97, 97); \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Asset lifecycle management.</span> Keep all asset data and documentation at your fingertips, so it’s there when you need it — regardless of where you are in the asset’s lifecycle.</span></li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Work order management.</span> Diagnose a problem, and quickly assign specific technicians to the job. Schedule and organize work orders for employees and contractors, and keep track of upcoming work.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">MRO materials management.</span> Control costs with full oversight into inventory procurement and management. Understand the demand for materials at your facility and manage parts accordingly.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Labor management. </span>Manage assessment, training, and certification for employees and contractors responsible for asset management in your organization.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Service contract management. </span>Control compliance and spending at every step of the contract lifecycle. Create and manage contracts and service agreements with customers, vendors, partners, and employees.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Financial management.</span> Gather data on work order costs, and integrate with finance software to manage accounting and project spending.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Reporting and analytics. </span>Analyze asset performance to spot issues before they become bigger problems. Collect key performance indicators for your entire facility to make better business decisions.&nbsp; </li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Some of popular EAM software features include:</h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Downtime tracking and </span><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">asset tracking system.</span> When equipment breaks down, asset managers can manually log downtime in the EAM software based on the timestamps on fault codes or work requests. Also, when equipment is marked as non-operational by technicians during repairs and PMs, downtime is automatically tracked by the software. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Lockout-tagout.</span> This is a safety feature that documents and enforces the physical lockout-tagout devices that are used during maintenance on dangerous machinery. By tracking lockout-tagout and check in/out procedures in the EAM software, everyone in a facility knows when an asset is unavailable. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Maintenance reports. </span>Data that’s logged in maintenance software solutions shows the performance of assets in terms of reliability rather than production output. Seeing how reliable a machine is over time informs asset managers and procurement whether that machine model should be purchased again. \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Financial audits.</span> Asset managers can connect their software to financial software to align their efforts with the organization’s financial department. This data-sync streamlines financial audits and helps organizations manage the complete asset lifecycle without requiring financial departments to learn how to navigate the EAM software.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">What’s the difference between EAM and CMMS software? EAM vs CMMS comparison</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">At first glance, the differences between EAM and CMMS software are minimal—both help organizations move from a reactive to a preventive maintenance strategy by automating maintenance activities, inventory management, and work orders.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">But as the name indicates, a <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">computerized maintenance management system (CMMS)</span> is used primarily to manage maintenance during the operational part of an asset’s life—the time when it’s up and running and working as a productive part of a facility.</p>\r\nEAM asset management software, on the other hand, manages the entire lifecycle of an asset, from creation or procurement through to disposal. It is often used by organizations with a larger number of users across multiple sites and includes capabilities like lifecycle planning.\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Basically, <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">EAM lets you see a much bigger picture.</span> It gives you an overview of priorities and lets you see what tools—including finances, skills, materials, and information—are at your disposal to meet those priorities.</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/EAM_-_Enterprise_Asset_Management.png","alias":"eam-enterprise-asset-management"},"170":{"id":170,"title":"APS - Advanced Planning and Scheduling","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Advanced planning and scheduling</span> (APS, also known as advanced manufacturing) refers to a manufacturing management process by which raw materials and production capacity are optimally allocated to meet demand. \r\nAdvanced planning and scheduling system is especially well-suited to environments where simpler planning methods cannot adequately address complex trade-offs between competing priorities. Production scheduling is intrinsically very difficult due to the (approximately) factorial dependence of the size of the solution space on the number of items/products to be manufactured.\r\nAdvanced planning and scheduling software is offered as an extension of your ERP and when the two systems operate together, production is enhanced dramatically. Advanced planning system has been utilized by large production facilities since they were available. Large operations have always been in need of APS software, which has allowed for the misconception that small manufacturing operations do not necessarily need it. \r\nNot only does advanced scheduling software consider material, but it has the ability to perform bill of material explosions which net on hand inventory and net projected inventory receipts through purchase orders and manufacturing orders. Once inventory is netted, advanced production planning and scheduling software creates purchase orders and manufacturing orders to satisfy demand based on safety stock levels and lot sizing logic. When scheduling, advanced planning software dynamically allocates inventory and projected inventory receipts to production orders. If material is made constraining, the software then delays production based on the available of inventory generated by allocated orders.\r\nImplementation of an advanced scheduling system can allow your operation to be able to adequately compete against much larger size manufacturing operations through schedule optimization, market analysis, order anticipation, and many more capabilities. This is how you can separate yourself from other small manufacturing competitors and optimize your production facility quickly and efficiently.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">APS Advanced Planning and Scheduling Software’s enhanced functionality helps you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>extend the planning and scheduling horizon for as long as there is demand to drive it. Since demand includes sales orders and forecasts, the only practical limits are forecast accuracy and computer processing speeds.</li><li>quickly make accurate deliver commitments to customers. Called Capable-to-Promise (CTP), this feature often replaces the inaccurate, infinite scheduling based Available-to-Promise (ATP) features in ERP systems.</li><li>dynamically allocate and re-allocate inventory to upper level demand.</li><li>perform multi-plant planning and scheduling which answers questions such as “in which plant should this production be sited?”</li><li>plan throughout the supply chain.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Why use APS Advanced Planning System?</span></h1>\r\nFor planners, APS systems quickly analyse the implications of alternative decisions, highlight consequences and problems, and generate optimal or near-optimal plans and schedules.\r\nAPS systems provide better information (and recommendations) on which planners and managers can base their decisions. They are tools and techniques to help manage complexity. Fast-moving environments with large numbers of items, orders, machines and people are difficult to plan effectively, as are environments with complex constraints. In such industries (High tech, CPG, Third party logistics, and capacity constrained industries such as Process manufacturing) APS provides significant assistance.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Advanced Planning and Scheduling Benefits and Capabilities</h1>\r\nWith various capabilities such as multi-plant operation integration, Superplant, real-time operational visibility and overall throughput enhancement, APS is becoming a top choice for manufacturing operations and supply chains around the globe. These attributes are allowing production facilities to be able to efficiently optimize production and enhance their operation thoroughly. Various other benefits of advanced planning &amp; scheduling software include:\r\n<ul><li> Improved delivery performance</li><li>Boosts in Profit</li><li>Reduction in inventory and cost</li><li>Six-month ROI</li></ul>\r\nImplementation of an advanced planning and scheduling system (APS) will take you and your manufacturing operation toward the next step of production efficiency and allow you to separate yourself from the competition and to widely increase capacity.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/APS_-_Advanced_Planning_and_Scheduling.png","alias":"aps-advanced-planning-and-scheduling"},"188":{"id":188,"title":"EDI - Electronic Data Interchange","description":"Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the electronic interchange of business information using a standardized format; a process which allows one company to send information to another company electronically rather than with paper. Business entities conducting business electronically are called trading partners.\r\nMany business documents can be exchanged using EDI, but the two most common are purchase orders and invoices. At a minimum, EDI replaces the mail preparation and handling associated with traditional business communication. However, the real power of EDI is that it standardizes the information communicated in business documents, which makes possible a &quot;paperless&quot; exchange.\r\nThe traditional invoice illustrates what this can mean. Most companies create invoices using a computer system, print a paper copy of the invoice and mail it to the customer. Upon receipt, the customer frequently marks up the invoice and enters it into its own computer system. The entire process is nothing more than the transfer of information from the seller's computer to the customer's computer. EDI makes it possible to minimize or even eliminate the manual steps involved in this transfer.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What does Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) mean?</span>\r\nElectronic data interchange (EDI) is the electronic transmission of structured data by agreed message standards from one computer system to another without human intervention. It is a system for exchanging business documents with external entities.\r\nEDI refers to a family of standards and does not specify transmission methods, which are freely agreed upon by the trading partners.\r\nThe wide adoption of EDI in the business world facilitates efficiency and cost reduction. EDI is used in such diverse business-to-business relationships as:\r\n<ul><li>Interchanges between health care providers and insurers</li><li>Travel and hotel bookings</li><li>Education</li><li>Supply chain management</li><li>Administration</li><li>Tax reporting</li></ul>\r\nEDI is a sequence of messages between two trading partners, either of which may serve as the originator or recipient. The messages are transmitted and received without human intervention. Each message is composed according to a standardized syntax from a sequence of standardized data elements. It is this standardization that makes message assembling, disassembling and processing by the computer possible.\r\nEDI is considered to be a technical representation of a business conversation between two entities, either internal or external. The EDI standards were designed to be independent of communication and software technologies. EDI can be transmitted using any methodology agreed to by the sender and recipient. ","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/EDI__-_Electronic_Data_Interchange.png","alias":"edi-electronic-data-interchange"},"217":{"id":217,"title":"Business-to-Business Middleware","description":" Middleware is a very broad term that can be defined as a translation layer between different applications and encompasses a number of different technologies, such as message-oriented middleware and database middleware. B2B middleware though has a narrower definition and is concerned first and foremost with routing data from a firm’s business applications to the applications of business partners such as customer, suppliers or banks.\r\nData must be extracted from the source system, which might be an ERP system or securities trading platform or an HR system whether it is an installed system or, as is increasingly the case, a cloud-based system. Data can be extracted using an API or specialized middleware supplied by the enterprise application.\r\nOnce the data has been extracted, it must be correctly formatted so that it can be shared by a completely different system. Typical standard formats are EDI or XML. However, each of these formats has specific variants specific to particular vertical industries. When the data has been formatted, it must then be transmitted to the business partner and, once again, there are a number of different network protocols such as HTTP-baaed AS1 and AS2, or FTP to support B2B integration.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Middleware?</span>\r\nMiddleware is the software that connects network-based requests generated by a client to the back-end data the client is requesting. It is a general term for software that serves to &quot;glue together&quot; separate, often complex and already existing programs.\r\nMiddleware programs come in on-premises software and cloud services, and they can be used independently or together, depending upon the use case. While cloud providers bundle middleware into cloud services suites, such as middleware as a service (MWaaS) or integration PaaS (iPaaS), industry researchers note that many businesses still choose independent middleware products that fit their specific needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">How middleware works</span>\r\nAll network-based requests are essentially attempts to interact with back-end data. That data might be something as simple as an image to display or a video to play, or it could be as complex as a history of banking transactions.\r\nThe requested data can take on many different forms&nbsp; and may be stored in a variety of ways, such as coming from a file server, fetched from a message queue or persisted in a database. The role of middleware is to enable and ease access to those back-end resources.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Middleware categories</span>\r\nIn general, IT industry analysts -- such as Gartner Inc. and Forrester Research -- put middleware into two categories: enterprise integration middleware and platform middleware.\r\n<ul><li>Enterprise application integration middleware enables programmers to create business applications without having to custom-craft integrations for each new application. Here, middleware helps software and services components work together, providing a layer of functionality for data consistency and multi-enterprise or B2B integration. Typically, integration middleware provides messaging services, so different applications can communicate using messaging frameworks like Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), web services, Representational State Transfer (REST) or JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). Other middleware technologies used in this category include Object Request Brokers (ORBs), data representation technologies like XML and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), and more.</li></ul>\r\nBusinesses can purchase individual middleware products or on-premises or cloud-based application integration suites.\r\n<ul><li>Platform middleware supports software development and delivery by providing a runtime hosting environment, such as a container, for application program logic. Its primary components are in-memory and enterprise application servers, as well as web servers and content management. Middleware includes web servers, application servers, content management systems and similar tools that support application development and delivery. Generally, embedded or external communications middleware allows different communications tools to work together. These communications tools enable application and service interaction. Resource management services, such as Microsoft Azure Resource Manager, host application program logic at runtime, another key function in platform middleware. Other components include Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) and in-memory data grids (IMDGs).</li></ul>\r\nPlatform middleware products are also available as specific on-premises or cloud service tools, as well&nbsp; as multitool suites. On a cloud suite site, middleware as a service offers an integrated set of platform tools and the runtime environment.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Business-to-Business_Middleware.png","alias":"business-to-business-middleware"},"219":{"id":219,"title":"Event-Driven Middleware","description":" Event management software is the generic term for a wide range of software products that are used in the management of professional and academic conferences, trade exhibitions, conventions and smaller events such as Continuing Professional Development (CPD) meetings.\r\nThe most common event management applications are:\r\n<ul><li>Event schedule planning</li><li>Customized event website creation</li><li>Online event registration, ticketing and delegate management including online payment</li><li>Event budgeting</li><li>Lead retrieval</li><li>Venue selection</li><li>Event Marketing</li><li>Event Networking for attendee engagement</li><li>Procurement, sourcing and RFPs</li><li>Content management including abstract and/or paper management, reviewing, programme development and publishing</li><li>Exhibition management including floor planning, booking and billing</li><li>On-site operations including registration, badges and networking</li><li>Audience response solutions, live slide sharing and second screen tools as live polls, Q+A, etc.</li></ul>","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the event-driven architecture?</span>\r\nThe event-driven architecture is a software architecture and model for application design. With an event-driven system, the capture, communication, processing, and persistence of events are the core structure of the solution. This differs from a traditional request-driven model.\r\nAn event is any significant occurrence or change in state for system hardware or software. An event is not the same as an event notification, which is a message or notification sent by the system to notify another part of the system that an event has taken place. \r\nThe source of an event can be from internal or external inputs. Events can generate from a user, like a mouse click or keystroke, an external source, such as a sensor output, or come from the system, like loading a program.\r\nMany modern application designs are event-driven. Event-driven apps can be created in any programming language because event-driven is a programming approach, not a language. The event-driven architecture enables minimal coupling, which makes it a good option for modern, distributed application architectures.\r\nAn event-driven architecture is loosely coupled because event producers don’t know which event consumers are listening for an event, and the event doesn’t know what the consequences are of its occurrence.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How does event-driven architecture work?</span>\r\nThe event-driven architecture is made up of event producers and event consumers. An event producer detects or senses an event and represents the event as a message. It does not know the consumer of the event or the outcome of an event.\r\nAfter an event has been detected, it is transmitted from the event producer to the event consumers through event channels, where an event processing platform processes the event asynchronously. Event consumers need to be informed when an event has occurred. They might process the event or may only be impacted by it.\r\nThe event processing platform will execute the correct response to an event and send the activity downstream to the right consumers. This downstream activity is where the outcome of an event is seen.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the benefits of event-driven architecture?</span>\r\nAn event-driven architecture can help organizations achieve a flexible system that can adapt to changes and make decisions in real-time. Real-time situational awareness means that business decisions, whether manual or automated, can be made using all of the available data that reflects the current state of your systems.\r\nEvents are captured as they occur from event sources such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, applications, and networks, allowing event producers and event consumers to share status and response information in real-time.\r\nOrganizations can add event-driven architecture to their systems and applications to improve the scalability and responsiveness of applications and access to the data and context needed for better business decisions.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Event-Driven_Middleware.png","alias":"event-driven-middleware"},"221":{"id":221,"title":"Process Automation Middleware","description":" At the current level of development, process automation is one of the approaches to process management based on the use of information technology. This approach allows the management of operations, data, information and resources through the use of computers and software that reduce the degree of human participation in the process, or completely eliminate it.\r\nThe main goal of automation is to improve the quality of the process. An automated process has more stable characteristics than a manual process. In many cases, process automation can increase productivity, reduce process execution time, reduce cost, increase accuracy and stability of operations.\r\nTo date, process automation has covered many industries and areas of activity: from manufacturing processes to shopping in stores. Regardless of the size and scope of the organization, almost every company has automated processes. The process approach provides for all processes the same principles of automation.\r\nDespite the fact that process automation can be performed at various levels, the principles of automation for all levels and all types of processes will remain the same. These are general principles that set the conditions for the efficient execution of processes in automatic mode and establish rules for automatic process control.\r\nThe basic principles of process automation are: the principle of consistency, the principle of integration, the principle of independence of execution. These general principles are detailed depending on the level of automation under consideration and specific processes. For example, automation of production processes includes principles such as the principle of specialization, the principle of proportionality, the principle of continuity, etc.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the levels of process automation?</span>\r\nProcess automation is needed to support management at all levels of the company hierarchy. In this regard, the levels of automation are determined depending on the level of control at which the automation of processes is performed.\r\nManagement levels are usually divided into operational, tactical and strategic.\r\nIn accordance with these levels, automation levels are also distinguished:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Lower level of automation or level of performers.</span></span> At this level, automation of regularly running processes is carried out. Automation of processes is aimed at performing operational tasks (for example, executing a production process), maintaining established parameters (for example, autopilot operation), and maintaining certain operating modes (for example, temperature conditions in a gas boiler).</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production management level or tactical level.</span></span> Automation of processes of this level ensures the distribution of tasks between various processes of the lower level. Examples of such processes are production management processes (production planning, service planning), processes of managing resources, documents, etc.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Enterprise management level or strategic level.</span></span> Automation of the processes of the enterprise management level provides the solution of analytical and forecast tasks. This level of automation is necessary to support the work of top management of the organization. It is aimed at financial, economic and strategic management.</li></ul>\r\nAutomation of processes at each of these levels is provided through the use of various automation systems (CRM systems, ERP systems, OLAP systems, etc.). All automation systems can be divided into three basic types.\r\nTypes of automation systems include:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">immutable systems.</span></span> These are systems in which the sequence of actions is determined by the configuration of the equipment or process conditions and cannot be changed during the process.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">programmable systems.</span></span> These are systems in which the sequence of actions may vary depending on a given program and process configuration. The selection of the necessary sequence of actions is carried out through a set of instructions that can be read and interpreted by the system.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">flexible (self-adjusting) systems.</span></span> These are systems that are able to carry out the selection of necessary actions in the process of work. Changing the configuration of the process (sequence and conditions of operations) is based on information about the process.</li></ul>\r\nThese types of systems can be applied at all levels of process automation individually or as part of a combined system.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the types of automated processes?</span>\r\nIn each sector of the economy, there are enterprises and organizations that produce products or provide services. All these enterprises can be divided into three groups, depending on their “remoteness” in the natural resource processing chain.\r\nThe first group of enterprises is enterprises that extract or produce natural resources. Such enterprises include, for example, agricultural producers, oil and gas companies.\r\nThe second group of enterprises is enterprises that process natural raw materials. They make products from raw materials mined or produced by enterprises of the first group. Such enterprises include, for example, automobile industry enterprises, steel enterprises, electronic industry enterprises, power plants, etc.\r\nThe third group is service enterprises. Such organizations include, for example, banks, educational institutions, medical institutions, restaurants, etc.\r\nFor all enterprises, we can distinguish common groups of processes associated with the production of products or the provision of services.\r\nThese processes include:\r\n<ul><li>business processes;</li><li>design and development processes;</li><li>production processes;</li><li>control and analysis processes.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the benefits of process automation?</span>\r\nProcess automation can significantly improve the quality of management and product quality. With the implementation of the QMS, automation gives a significant effect and enables the organization to significantly improve its work. However, before deciding on process automation, it is necessary to evaluate the benefits of running processes in an automatic mode.\r\nTypically, process automation provides the following benefits:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">the speed of completing repetitive tasks increases.</span></span> Due to the automatic mode, the same tasks can be completed faster because automated systems are more accurate in operations and are not prone to a decrease in performance from the time of work.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">quality of work increases.</span></span> The exclusion of the human factor significantly reduces variations in the execution of the process, which leads to a decrease in the number of errors and, accordingly, increases the stability and quality of the process.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">increases control accuracy.</span></span> Due to the use of information technology in automated systems, it becomes possible to save and take into account a greater amount of process data than with manual control.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">parallel tasks.</span></span> Automated systems allow you to perform several actions at the same time without loss of quality and accuracy. This speeds up the process and improves the quality of the results.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">quick decision making in typical situations.</span></span> In automated systems, decisions related to typical situations are made much faster than with manual control. This improves the performance of the process and avoids inconsistencies in subsequent stages.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Process_Automation_Middleware.png","alias":"process-automation-middleware"},"225":{"id":225,"title":"End-User Query, Reporting, and Analysis","description":" Class systems of Query &amp; Reporting are designed to form queries to information systems in user terms, as well as their execution, integration of data from different sources, viewing data with the possibilities of detailing and summarizing and building full-fledged reports, both on-screen and printed. Visualization of query results can be presented to the user in various forms - flat or multidimensional tables, graphs, charts, various specialized interfaces.\r\nEnd-user tools for querying and building reports are delivered in two ways:\r\n<ul><li>as part of OLAP-systems</li><li>in the form of specialized Query &amp; Reporting</li></ul>\r\nVirtually every OLAP class system is equipped with Query &amp; Reporting. These funds can be either embedded in the main product or separated into a separate product.\r\nThere are also specialized systems for generating and distributing reports. At the same time, these systems incorporate their own OLAP-means. Therefore, to draw a clear line between OLAP-systems and systems of class Query &amp; Reporting is almost impossible.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the reporting tools?</span>\r\nReporting tools are widely used to support decision making and to measure organizational and team performance. Companies use them for financial consolidation, for evaluation of strategies and policies and often just for plain reporting. Today most of these tools are integrated with Business Intelligence tools.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the advantages of these tools for your organization?</span>\r\nReporting tools allow companies to create attractive reports easily. In tabular or graphical format. With data from Excel, a data warehouse or the organization’s ERP system. With the reports containing the right information, people are able to manage and improve the business processes more easily.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Which reporting tools are available in the market?</span>\r\nThere are many Business Intelligence Reporting tools in the market available. This list of reporting tools shows you a complete overview of all the major tools currently available and thoroughly studied by our industry analysts. To name a few: Cognos Query and reporting, Oracle Enterprise Reporting, Crystal Reports, Microsoft Reporting Services (SSRS), etc.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Is there a difference between reporting tools and BI tools?</span>\r\nAlmost every company, large or small, needs a reporting tool or they have already one in place. But, what is the difference between reporting software and Business Intelligence tools? They are not the same. In general reporting tools tell us where we have been but are not very good at analyzing data (at real time) and telling us where we are going (predictive).\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the difference between a query and a report?</span>\r\nA query is a way to create a list of accounts or journal entries that match your criteria. Requests serve as an advanced search engine that finds and groups accounts or journal entries and can only create a list.\r\nA report is a detailed report of a group of accounts or journal entries. Reports analyze data and are designed to calculate and present data in a more formal form.\r\nTypically, a query finds information in the database for you, and a report is a more powerful way to display and analyze information about the accounts or log entries you want to view.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/End-User_Query__Reporting__and_Analysis.png","alias":"end-user-query-reporting-and-analysis"},"227":{"id":227,"title":"Advanced Analytics Software","description":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Advanced analytics</span> is a part of data science that uses high-level methods and tools to focus on projecting future trends, events, and behaviors. This gives organizations the ability to perform advanced statistical models such as ‘what-if’ calculations, as well as future-proof various aspects of their operations.\r\nThe term is an umbrella for several sub-fields of analytics that work together in their predictive capabilities.\r\nThe major areas that make up advanced analytics are predictive data analytics, big data, and data mining. The process of advanced analytics includes all three areas at various times.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Data mining</span> is a key aspect of advanced analytics, providing the raw data that will be used by both big data and predictive analytics. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Big data analytics</span> are useful in finding existing insights and creating connections between data points and sets, as well as cleaning data.\r\nFinally, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">predictive analytics</span> can use these clean sets and existing insights to extrapolate and make predictions and projections about future activity, trends, and consumer behaviors.\r\nAdvanced analytics also include newer technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, semantic analysis, visualizations, and even neural networks. Taken together, they help advanced analytics software create an accurate enough canvas to make reliable predictions and generate actionable BI insights on a deeper level.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">A list of tips on how to manage the process of building an advanced analytics program</h1>\r\n<ul><li>Start with a proof-of-concept project to demonstrate the potential business value of analytics applications.</li><li>Take training seriously. New data management and analytics skills likely will be needed, especially if big data platforms and tools like SAS advanced analytics tools are involved.</li><li>Develop processes to ensure that business units are ready to act on analytical findings so the work of data scientists and other analysts doesn't go to waste.</li><li>Monitor and assess advanced and predictive analytics software on a regular basis to make sure the data being analyzed is still relevant and the analytical models being run against it are still valid.</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Advanced analytics tools</h1>\r\nThere are a variety of advanced analytics tools to choose from that offer different advantages based on the use case. They generally break down into two categories: open source and proprietary.\r\nOpen source tools have become a go-to option for many data scientists doing machine learning and prescriptive analytics. They include programming languages, as well as computing environments, including Hadoop and Spark. Users typically say they like open source advanced analytics tools because they are generally inexpensive to operate, offer strong functionality and are backed by a user community that continually innovates the tools.\r\nOn the proprietary side, vendors including Microsoft, IBM and the SAS Institute all offer advanced analytics tools. Most require a deep technical background and understanding of mathematical techniques.\r\nIn recent years, however, a crop of self-service analytics tools has matured to make functionality more accessible to business users. Tableau, in particular, has become a common tool. While its functionality is more limited than deeper technical tools, it does enable users to conduct cluster analyses and other advanced analyses.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Advanced_Analytics_Software.png","alias":"advanced-analytics-software"},"229":{"id":229,"title":"Spatial Information Management Software","description":" A spatial database is a database that is optimized for storing and querying data that represents objects defined in a geometric space. Most spatial databases allow the representation of simple geometric objects such as points, lines and polygons. Some spatial databases handle more complex structures such as 3D objects, topological coverages, linear networks, and TINs. While typical databases have developed to manage various numeric and character types of data, such databases require additional functionality to process spatial data types efficiently, and developers have often added geometry or feature data types. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) developed the Simple Features specification (first released in 1997) and sets standards for adding spatial functionality to database systems. The SQL/MM Spatial ISO/IEC standard is a part the SQL/MM multimedia standard and extends the Simple Features standard with data types that support circular interpolations.\r\nA geodatabase (also geographical database and geospatial database) is a database of geographic data, such as countries, administrative divisions, cities, and related information. Such databases can be useful for websites that wish to identify the locations of their visitors for customization purposes.\r\nDatabase systems use indexes to quickly look up values; however, this way of indexing data is not optimal for spatial queries. Instead, spatial databases use a spatial index to speed up database operations.\r\nIn addition to typical SQL queries such as SELECT statements, spatial databases can perform a wide variety of spatial operations. The following operations and many more are specified by the Open Geospatial Consortium standard:\r\n<ul><li>Spatial Measurements: Computes line length, polygon area, the distance between geometries, etc.</li><li>Spatial Functions: Modify existing features to create new ones, for example by providing a buffer around them, intersecting features, etc.</li><li>Spatial Predicates: Allows true/false queries about spatial relationships between geometries. Examples include &quot;do two polygons overlap&quot; or 'is there a residence located within a mile of the area we are planning to build the landfill?'</li><li>Geometry Constructors: Creates new geometries, usually by specifying the vertices (points or nodes) which define the shape.</li><li>Observer Functions: Queries which return specific information about a feature such as the location of the center of a circle.</li></ul>\r\nSome databases support only simplified or modified sets of these operations, especially in cases of NoSQL systems like MongoDB and CouchDB.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the spatial index?</span>\r\nSpatial indices are used by spatial databases (databases which store information related to objects in space) to optimize spatial queries. Conventional index types do not efficiently handle spatial queries such as how far two points differ, or whether points fall within a spatial area of interest. Common spatial index methods include:\r\n<ul><li>Geohash</li><li>HHCode</li><li>Grid (spatial index)</li><li>Z-order (curve)</li><li>Quadtree</li><li>Octree</li><li>UB-tree</li><li>R-tree: Typically the preferred method for indexing spatial data.[citation needed] Objects (shapes, lines and points) are grouped using the minimum bounding rectangle (MBR). Objects are added to an MBR within the index that will lead to the smallest increase in its size.</li><li>R+ tree</li><li>R* tree</li><li>Hilbert R-tree</li><li>X-tree</li><li>kd-tree</li><li>m-tree – an m-tree index can be used for the efficient resolution of similarity queries on complex objects as compared using an arbitrary metric.</li><li>Binary space partitioning (BSP-Tree): Subdividing space by hyperplanes.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Spatial_Information_Management_Software.png","alias":"spatial-information-management-software"},"231":{"id":231,"title":"Deployment-Centric Application Platforms","description":" Deployment-centric application platforms are driving benefits for organizations embarking on their digital transformation journey.\r\nAs demand for applications increases, businesses need to make sure they have an effective application development platform in place to help them continue to capitalize on the benefits they can provide and meet customer demand. This platform has an integrated development environment that provides tools that allow the developer to program, test and implement applications.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is software deployment?</span>\r\nSoftware deployment is all of the activities that make a software system available for use.\r\nThe general deployment process consists of several interrelated activities with possible transitions between them. These activities can occur at the producer side or on the consumer side or both. Because every software system is unique, the precise processes or procedures within each activity can hardly be defined. Therefore, &quot;deployment&quot; should be interpreted as a general process that has to be customized according to specific requirements or characteristics.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Deployment-Centric_Application_Platforms.png","alias":"deployment-centric-application-platforms"},"233":{"id":233,"title":"Transaction Processing Monitors","description":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">A transaction processing monitor (TPM)</span> is a program that monitors transactions from one stage to the next, ensuring that each one completes successfully; if not, or if an error occurs, the TM Monitor takes the appropriate action. A transaction processing monitor’s main purpose/objective is to allow resource sharing and assure optimal use of the resources by applications. This term is sometimes shortened to TP monitor.\r\nA transaction processing monitor is critical in multi-tier architectures. With processes running on different platforms, a given transaction may be forwarded to any one of several servers. Generally, the TP monitor handles all load balancing. After completing each transaction, the TPM can process another transaction without being influenced by the prior transaction. In other words the TPM model essentially is stateless.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Transaction Processing Monitor architecture</span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">In the TP Monitor Architecture, ACID transactions are initiated by a Begin-Transaction call and terminated by either a Commit-Transaction or an Abort-Transaction call. When initiated, each transaction is assigned a unique identiier and entered into a transaction table managed by the Transaction Manager. Each entry in the transaction table contains the transaction identiier (TRID), the transaction status, and other information. When a transaction calls a transaction control operation, such as Commit-Transaction, the Transaction Manager is responsible for carrying out the execution of the command and recording information in the transaction table. </p>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Process per client model</span> - instead of individual login session per terminal, server process communicates with the terminal, handles authentication, and executes actions.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Single process model</span> - all remote terminals connect to a single server process. Used in client-server environments.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Many-server single-router model</span> - multiple&nbsp; application server processes access a common database; clients communicate with the application through a single communication process that routes requests.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Many server many-router model</span> - multiple processes communicate with clients.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">In general, a TPM provides the following functionality:</span></p>\r\n<ul><li>Coordinating resources</li><li>Balancing loads</li><li>Creating new processes as/when needed</li><li>Providing secure access to services</li><li>Routing services</li><li>Wrapping data messages into messages</li><li>Unwrapping messages into data packets/structures</li><li>Monitoring operations/transactions</li><li>Managing queues</li><li>Handling errors through such actions as process restarting</li><li>Hiding interprocess communications details from programmers</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br /><br />\r\n\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">Advantages of TP Monitors </h1>\r\nComplex applications are often built on top of several resource managers (such as DBMSs, operating systems, user interfaces, and messaging software). A TPM is a middleware component that provides access to the services of a number of resource managers and provides a uniform interface for programmers who are developing transactional software. \r\n<ul><li>Transaction routing the TP Monitor can increase scalability by directing transactions to specific DBMSs.&nbsp;</li><li> Managing distributed transactions the TP Monitor can manage transactions that require access to data held in multiple, possibly heterogeneous, DBMSs. For example, a transaction my require to update data items held in an Oracle DBMS at site 1, an Informix DBMS at site 2,and an IMS DBMS at site 3. TP Monitors normally control transactions using the X/Open Distributed Transactions Processing (DTP) standard. A DBMS that supports this standard can function as a resource manager under the control of a TP Monitor acting as a transaction manager.</li><li> Load balancing the TP Monitor can balance client requests across multiple DBMSs on one or more computers by directing client service calls to the least loaded server. In addition, it can dynamically bring in additional DBMSs as required to provide the necessary performance.</li><li>Funnelling in environments with a large number of users, it may sometimes be difficult for all users to be logged on simultaneously to the DBMS. In many cases, we would find that users generally do not need continuous access to the DBMS. Instead of each user connecting to the DBMS, the TP Monitor can establish connections with the DBMSs as and when required, and can funnel user requests through these connections. This allows a larger number of users to access the available DBMSs with a potentially much smaller number of connections, which in turn would mean less resource usage.&nbsp;</li><li> Increased reliability the TP Monitor acts as a transaction manager, performing the necessary actions to maintain the consistency of the database, with the DBMS acting as a resource manager. If the DBMS fails, the TP Monitor may be able to resubmit the transaction to another DBMS or can hold the transaction until the DBMS becomes available again.</li></ul>\r\nTP Monitors are typically used in environments with a very high volume of transactions, where the TP Monitor can be used to offload processes from the DBMS server. Prominent examples of TP Monitors include CICS and Encina from IBM (which are primarily used on IBM AIX or Windows NT and bundled now in the IBM TXSeries) and Tuxedo from BEA Systems.\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Transaction_Processing_Monitors.png","alias":"transaction-processing-monitors"},"239":{"id":239,"title":"Relational Database Management Systems","description":" Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) is a DBMS designed specifically for relational databases. Therefore, RDBMSes are a subset of DBMSes.\r\nA relational database refers to a database that stores data in a structured format, using rows and columns. This makes it easy to locate and access specific values within the database. It is &quot;relational&quot; because the values within each table are related to each other. Tables may also be related to other tables. The relational structure makes it possible to run queries across multiple tables at once.\r\nWhile a relational database describes the type of database an RDMBS manages, the RDBMS refers to the database program itself. It is the software that executes queries on the data, including adding, updating, and searching for values.\r\nAn RDBMS may also provide a visual representation of the data. For example, it may display data in a tables like a spreadsheet, allowing you to view and even edit individual values in the table. Some relational database softwareallow you to create forms that can streamline entering, editing, and deleting data.\r\nMost well known DBMS applications fall into the RDBMS category. Examples include Oracle Database, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM DB2. Some of these programs support non-relational databases, but they are primarily used for relational database management.\r\nExamples of non-relational databases include Apache HBase, IBM Domino, and Oracle NoSQL Database. These type of databases are managed by other DMBS programs that support NoSQL, which do not fall into the RDBMS category.\r\nElements of the relational DBMS that overarch the basic relational database are so intrinsic to operations that it is hard to dissociate the two in practice.\r\nThe most basic features of RDBMS are related to create, read, update and delete operations, collectively known as CRUD. They form the foundation of a well-organized system that promotes consistent treatment of data.\r\nThe RDBMS typically provides data dictionaries and metadata collections useful in data handling. These programmatically support well-defined data structures and relationships. Data storage management is a common capability of the RDBMS, and this has come to be defined by data objects that range from binary large object (blob) strings to stored procedures. Data objects like this extend the scope of basic relational database operations and can be handled in a variety of ways in different RDBMSes.\r\nThe most common means of data access for the RDBMS is via SQL. Its main language components comprise data manipulation language (DML) and data definition language (DDL) statements. Extensions are available for development efforts that pair SQL use with common programming languages, such as COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language), Java and .NET.\r\nRDBMSes use complex algorithms that support multiple concurrent user access to the database, while maintaining data integrity. Security management, which enforces policy-based access, is yet another overlay service that the RDBMS provides for the basic database as it is used in enterprise settings.\r\nRDBMSes support the work of database administrators (DBAs) who must manage and monitor database activity. Utilities help automate data loading and database backup. RDBMS systems manage log files that track system performance based on selected operational parameters. This enables measurement of database usage, capacity and performance, particularly query performance. RDBMSes provide graphical interfaces that help DBAs visualize database activity.\r\nRelational database management systems are central to key applications, such as banking ledgers, travel reservation systems and online retailing. As RDBMSes have matured, they have achieved increasingly higher levels of query optimization, and they have become key parts of reporting, analytics and data warehousing applications for businesses as well. \r\nRDBMSes are intrinsic to operations of a variety of enterprise applications and are at the center of most master data management (MDM) systems.<br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> <span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the advantages of a Relational Database Management System?</span></h1>\r\nA Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) is a software system that provides access to a relational database. The software system is a collection of software applications that can be used to create, maintain, manage and use the database. A &quot;relational database&quot; is a database structured on the &quot;relational&quot; model. Data are stored and presented in a tabular format, organized in rows and columns with one record per row.\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Data Structure.</span> The table format is simple and easy for database users to understand and use. Relational database management software provide data access using a natural structure and organization of the data. Database queries can search any column for matching entries.</li></ul>\r\n<dl></dl>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Multi-User Access.</span> RDBMS database program allow multiple database users to access a database simultaneously. Built-in locking and transactions management functionality allow users to access data as it is being changed, prevents collisions between two users updating the data, and keeps users from accessing partially updated records.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Privileges. </span>Authorization and privilege control features in an RDBMS allow the database administrator to restrict access to authorized users, and grant privileges to individual users based on the types of database tasks they need to perform. Authorization can be defined based on the remote client IP address in combination with user authorization, restricting access to specific external computer systems.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Network Access.</span> RDBMSs provide access to the database through a server daemon, a specialized software program that listens for requests on a network, and allows database clients to connect to and use the database. Users do not need to be able to log in to the physical computer system to use the database, providing convenience for the users and a layer of security for the database. Network access allows developers to build desktop tools and Web applications to interact with databases.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Speed.</span> The relational database model is not the fastest data structure. RDBMS software advantages, such as simplicity, make the slower speed a fair trade-off. Optimizations built into an RDBMS, and the design of the databases, enhance performance, allowing RDBMSs to perform more than fast enough for most applications and data sets. Improvements in technology, increasing processor speeds and decreasing memory and storage costs allow systems administrators to build incredibly fast systems that can overcome any database performance shortcomings.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Maintenance. </span>RDBMSs feature maintenance utilities that provide database administrators with tools to easily maintain, test, repair and back up the databases housed in the system. Many of the functions can be automated using built-in automation in the RDBMS, or automation tools available on the operating system.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Language.</span> RDBMSs support a generic language called &quot;Structured Query Language&quot; (SQL). The SQL syntax is simple, and the language uses standard English language keywords and phrasing, making it fairly intuitive and easy to learn. Many RDBMSs add non-SQL, database-specific keywords, functions and features to the SQL language.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Relational_Database_Management_Systems.png","alias":"relational-database-management-systems"},"240":{"id":240,"title":"Non-relational Database Management Systems","description":" A non-relational database is a database that does not incorporate the table/key model that relational database management systems (RDBMS) promote. These kinds of databases require data manipulation techniques and processes designed to provide solutions to big data problems that big companies face. The most popular emerging non-relational database is called NoSQL (Not Only SQL).\r\nMost non-relational databases are incorporated into websites such as Google, Yahoo!, Amazon and Facebook. These websites introduce a slew of new applications every single day with millions and millions of users, so they would not be able to handle large traffic spikes with existing RDBMS solutions. Since RDBMS cannot handle the problem, they’ve switched to a new kind of DBMS that is capable of handling Web-scale data in a non-relational way.<br /><br />An interesting aspect of a non-relational database such as NoSQL is scalability. NoSQL uses the BASE system (basically available, soft-state, eventually consistent). Non-relational databases forgo the table form of rows and columns relational databases use in favor of specialized frameworks to store data, which can be accessed by special query APIs. Persistence is an important element in these databases. To enable fast throughput of vast amounts of data the best option for performance is &quot;in memory,&quot; rather than reading and writing from disks.<br /><br />Relational databases use the ACID system, which ensures consistency of data in all situations of data management but obviously takes longer to process because of all those relations and its branching nature. However, the BASE system loosened up the requirements on consistency to achieve better availability and partitioning for better scalability.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are NoSQL databases?</span>\r\nNoSQL databases are purpose built for specific data models and have flexible schemas for building modern applications. NoSQL databases are widely recognized for their ease of development, functionality, and performance at scale. They use a variety of data models, including document, graph, key-value, in-memory, and search. This page includes resources to help you better understand NoSQL databases and to get started.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">How Does a NoSQL (nonrelational) Database Work?</span>\r\nNoSQL databases use a variety of data models for accessing and managing data, such as document, graph, key-value, in-memory, and search. These types of databases are optimized specifically for applications that require large data volume, low latency, and flexible data models, which are achieved by relaxing some of the data consistency restrictions of other databases.\r\nConsider the example of modeling the schema for a simple book database:\r\n<ul><li>In a relational database, a book record is often dissembled (or “normalized”) and stored in separate tables, and relationships are defined by primary and foreign key constraints. In this example, the Books table has columns for ISBN, Book Title, and Edition Number, the Authors table has columns for AuthorID and Author Name, and finally the Author-ISBN table has columns for AuthorID and ISBN. The relational model is designed to enable the database to enforce referential integrity between tables in the database, normalized to reduce the redundancy, and generally optimized for storage.</li><li>In a NoSQL database, a book record is usually stored as a JSON document. For each book, the item, ISBN, Book Title, Edition Number, Author Name, and AuthorID are stored as attributes in a single document. In this model, data is optimized for intuitive development and horizontal scalability.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Why should you use a NoSQL database?</span>\r\nNoSQL databases are a great fit for many modern applications such as mobile, web, and gaming that require flexible, scalable, high-performance, and highly functional databases to provide great user experiences.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Flexibility:</span> NoSQL databases generally provide flexible schemas that enable faster and more iterative development. The flexible data model makes NoSQL databases ideal for semi-structured and unstructured data.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Scalability:</span> NoSQL databases are generally designed to scale out by using distributed clusters of hardware instead of scaling up by adding expensive and robust servers. Some cloud providers handle these operations behind-the-scenes as a fully managed service.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">High-performance:</span> NoSQL database are optimized for specific data models (such as document, key-value, and graph) and access patterns that enable higher performance than trying to accomplish similar functionality with relational databases.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Highly functional:</span> NoSQL databases provide highly functional APIs and data types that are purpose built for each of their respective data models.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the types of NoSQL Databases?</span>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Key-value:</span> Key-value databases are highly partitionable and allow horizontal scaling at scales that other types of databases cannot achieve. Use cases such as gaming, ad tech, and IoT lend themselves particularly well to the key-value data model.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Document:</span> In application code, data is represented often as an object or JSON-like document because it is an efficient and intuitive data model for developers. Document databases make it easier for developers to store and query data in a database by using the same document model format that they use in their application code. The flexible, semistructured, and hierarchical nature of documents and document databases allows them to evolve with applications’ needs. The document model works well with catalogs, user profiles, and content management systems where each document is unique and evolves over time.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Graph:</span> A graph database’s purpose is to make it easy to build and run applications that work with highly connected datasets. Typical use cases for a graph database include social networking, recommendation engines, fraud detection, and knowledge graphs.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">In-memory:</span> Gaming and ad-tech applications have use cases such as leaderboards, session stores, and real-time analytics that require microsecond response times and can have large spikes in traffic coming at any time. Amazon ElastiCache offers Memcached and Redis, to serve low-latency, high-throughput workloads, such as McDonald’s, that cannot be served with disk-based data stores.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Search:</span> Many applications output logs to help developers troubleshoot issues.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Nonrelational_Database_Management_Systems1.png","alias":"non-relational-database-management-systems"},"243":{"id":243,"title":"Database Development and Management Tools","description":" Many companies create various multi-functional applications to facilitate the management, development and administration of databases.\r\nMost relational databases consist of two separate components: a “back-end” where data is stored and a “front-end” —a user interface for interacting with data. This type of design is smart enough, as it parallels a two-level programming model that separates the data layer from the user interface and allows you to concentrate the software market directly on improving its products. This model opens doors for third parties who create their own applications for interacting with various databases.\r\nDatabase development tools can be used to create varieties of the following programs:\r\n<ul><li>client programs;</li><li>database servers and their individual components;</li><li>custom applications.</li></ul>\r\nThe programs of the first and second types are rather small since they are intended mainly for system programmers. The third type packages are much larger, but smaller than full-featured DBMS.\r\nThe development tools for custom applications include programming systems, various program libraries for various programming languages, and development automation packages (including client-server systems).<br />Database management system, abbr. DBMS (Eng. Database Management System, abbr. DBMS) - a set of software and linguistic tools for general or special purposes, providing management of the creation and use of databases.\r\nDBMS - a set of programs that allow you to create a database (DB) and manipulate data (insert, update, delete and select). The system ensures the safety, reliability of storage and data integrity, as well as provides the means to administer the database.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The main functions of the DBMS:</span>\r\n<ul><li>data management in external memory (on disk);</li><li>data management in RAM using disk cache;</li><li>change logging, backup and recovery of databases after failures;</li><li>support for database languages ​​(data definition language, data manipulation language).</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">The composition of the DBMS:</span>\r\nUsually, a modern DBMS contains the following components:\r\n<ul><li>the core, which is responsible for managing data in external and RAM and logging;</li><li>database language processor, which provides the optimization of requests for the extraction and modification of data and the creation, as a rule, of a machine-independent executable internal code;</li><li>a run-time support subsystem that interprets data manipulation programs that create a user interface with a DBMS;<br />service programs (external utilities) that provide a number of additional capabilities for maintaining an information system.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Database_Development_and_Management_Tools.png","alias":"database-development-and-management-tools"},"245":{"id":245,"title":"Data Integration and Access Software","description":" Data integration involves combining data residing in different sources and providing users with a unified view of them. This process becomes significant in a variety of situations, which include both commercial (such as when two similar companies need to merge their databases) and scientific (combining research results from different bioinformatics repositories, for example) domains. Data integration appears with increasing frequency as the volume (that is, big data) and the need to share existing data explodes. It has become the focus of extensive theoretical work, and numerous open problems remain unsolved. Data integration encourages collaboration between internal as well as external users.\r\nData integration is the process of combining data from different sources into a single, unified view. Integration begins with the ingestion process, and includes steps such as cleansing, ETL mapping, and transformation. Data integration ultimately enables analytics tools to produce effective, actionable business intelligence.\r\nThere is no universal approach to data integration. However, data integration solutions typically involve a few common elements, including a network of data sources, a master server, and clients accessing data from the master server.\r\nIn a typical data integration process, the client sends a request to the master server for data. The master server then intakes the needed data from internal and external sources. The data is extracted from the sources, then consolidated into a single, cohesive data set. This is served back to the client for use.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integration helps businesses succeed</span>\r\nEven if a company is receiving all the data it needs, that data often resides in a number of separate data sources. For example, for a typical customer 360 view use case, the data that must be combined may include data from their CRM systems, web traffic, marketing operations software, customer — facing applications, sales and customer success systems, and even partner data, just to name a few. Information from all of those different sources often needs to be pulled together for analytical needs or operational actions, and that can be no small task for data engineers or developers to bring them all together.\r\nLet’s take a look at a typical analytical use case. Without unified data, a single report typically involves logging into multiple accounts, on multiple sites, accessing data within native apps, copying over the data, reformatting, and cleansing, all before analysis can happen.\r\nConducting all these operations as efficiently as possible highlights the importance of data integration. It also showcases the major benefits of a well thought-out approach to data integration:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Improves collaboration and unification of systems</span></span>\r\nEmployees in every department — and sometimes in disparate physical locations — increasingly need access to the company's data for shared and individual projects. IT needs a secure solution for delivering data via self-service access across all lines of business.\r\nAdditionally, employees in almost every department are generating and improving data that the rest of the business needs. Data integration needs to be collaborative and unified in order to improve collaboration and unification across the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Saves time and boosts efficiency</span></span>\r\nWhen a company takes measures to integrate its data properly, it cuts down significantly on the time it takes to prepare and analyze that data. The automation of unified views cuts out the need for manually gathering data, and employees no longer need to build connections from scratch whenever they need to run a report or build an application.\r\nAdditionally, using the right tools, rather than hand-coding the integration, returns even more time (and resources overall) to the dev team.\r\nAll the time saved on these tasks can be put to other, better uses, with more hours earmarked for analysis and execution to make an organization more productive and competitive.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reduces errors (and rework)</span></span>\r\nThere’s a lot to keep up with when it comes to a company’s data resources. To manually gather data, employees must know every location and account that they might need to explore — and have all necessary software installed before they begin — to ensure their data sets will be complete and accurate. If a data repository is added, and that employee is unaware, they will have an incomplete data set.\r\nAdditionally, without a data integration solution that synchronizes data, reporting must be periodically redone to account for any changes. With automated updates, however, reports can be run easily in real time, whenever they’re needed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Delivers more valuable data</span></span>\r\nData integration efforts actually improve the value of a business’ data over time. As data is integrated into a centralized system, quality issues are identified and necessary improvements are implemented, which ultimately results in more accurate data — the foundation for quality analysis.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Data_Integration_and_Access_Software.png","alias":"data-integration-and-access-software"},"249":{"id":249,"title":"Development Languages, Environments, and Tools","description":" Free software development environments have different purposes: educational, developmental, educational, and the like. Their students can be schoolchildren, students, novice programmers.\r\nScientists propose the following classification of free software development environments:\r\n<ul><li>Environments that support one programming language;</li><li>Environments with support for multiple programming languages;</li><li>Development environments for web systems and applications;</li><li>Environments aimed at a children's audience.</li></ul>\r\nOf the free environments focused on a single programming language, the following tools should be highlighted: Lazarus, PyScripter, DrPython, Wing IDE.\r\nAmong the free software development tools designed for several programming languages, the following should be noted: CodeLite, Dev-C, Anjuta, Eric, Eclipse, HiAsm, Kylix, MonoDevelop, NetBeans, SharpDevelop, Xcode, etc.\r\nFrom the list of free environments for creating web applications, you can select the following: AJAX.OOP, MooTools Code :: Blocks, Codelobster PHP Edition, Geany, Ultimate, Symfony, Grails. With their help, experts also produce the creation of websites and Internet interfaces.\r\nAmong the development tools intended for children's audiences, the following environments can be singled out: Algo, Alice, EToys, Scratch, Squeak, etc. The main purpose of their use is to encourage children to learn to program.\r\nAn integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools, and a debugger. Some IDEs, such as NetBeans and Eclipse, contain the necessary compiler, interpreter, or both; others, such as SharpDevelop and Lazarus, do not.\r\nThe boundary between an IDE and other parts of the broader software development environment is not well-defined; sometimes a version control system or various tools to simplify the construction of a graphical user interface (GUI) are integrated. Many modern IDEs also have a class browser, an object browser, and a class hierarchy diagram for use in object-oriented software development.\r\nIntegrated development environments are designed to maximize programmer productivity by providing tight-knit components with similar user interfaces. IDEs present a single program in which all development is done. This program typically provides many features for authoring, modifying, compiling, deploying and debugging software. This contrasts with software development using unrelated tools, such as vi, GCC or make.\r\nOne aim of the IDE is to reduce the configuration necessary to piece together multiple development utilities, instead it provides the same set of capabilities as one cohesive unit. Reducing setup time can increase developer productivity, especially in cases where learning to use the IDE is faster than manually integrating and learning all of the individual tools. Tighter integration of all development tasks has the potential to improve overall productivity beyond just helping with setup tasks. For example, code can be continuously parsed while it is being edited, providing instant feedback when syntax errors are introduced. Allowing developers to debug code much faster and easier with an IDE.\r\nSome IDEs are dedicated to a specific programming language, allowing a feature set that most closely matches the programming paradigms of the language. However, there are many multiple-language IDEs.\r\nWhile most modern IDEs are graphical, text-based IDEs such as Turbo Pascal were in popular use before the widespread availability of windowing systems like Microsoft Windows and the X Window System (X11). They commonly use function keys or hotkeys to execute frequently used commands or macros.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is &quot;software development tools&quot;?</span>\r\nSoftware development tools - a set of techniques, methods, techniques, as well as a set of tool programs (compilers, application/system libraries, etc.) used by the developer to create program code for the program that meets the specified requirements.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What does &quot;program development&quot; mean?</span>\r\nProgram development is a complex process, the main purpose of which is to create and maintain a program code that provides the necessary level of reliability and quality. To achieve the main goal of software development, software development tools are used.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Development_Languages_Environments_and_Tools.png","alias":"development-languages-environments-and-tools"},"251":{"id":251,"title":"Software Construction Components","description":" The software construction components market, which is ruled by client experience and representation software components, is relied upon to keep on growing. Software construction components allude to the inexactly coupled individual components which are merged into a bigger software framework. As far as engineering disciplines, software construction with the divided components is known as component-based software engineering (CBSE). These components might be as a software bundle, a web administration, asset or a module that contains related information or capacities.\r\nComponents from a pre-built software are autonomously removed and sold independently by the software designers themselves or through outsiders to help in building another software framework. The primary reason for component-based software construction is re ease of use in other software frameworks for construction and redesigning of existing software frameworks.\r\nSoftware Construction Components Market is rendered by expanding interest for new applications with enlarged highlights and customization capacities. The requirement for decreasing many-sided quality and expanding efficiency is fortifying the development of the software construction components market. The coming of the internet of things (IoT) has made software advancement a bigger and complex process.\r\nThe consequence of data analytics to the operation and functioning of a business has risen to a large extent in the last few years. With the rising spread of the internet, huge volumes of data are being generated on a regular basis, which creates the need for advanced tools for data management. With the increasing popularity of smart technology these days, global Software Construction Components Market has thus become prominent creators of digital information. These systems let users collate, collect, and analyze the generated data, which subsequently has triggered the rapid development of the global market in the last few years.","materialsDescription":" \r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is software construction?</span>\r\nSoftware construction is a software engineering discipline. It is the detailed creation of working meaningful software through a combination of coding, verification, unit testing, integration testing, and debugging. It is linked to all the other software engineering disciplines, most strongly to software design and software testing.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Software construction fundamentals</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Minimizing complexity</span></span>\r\nThe need to reduce complexity is mainly driven by limited ability of most people to hold complex structures and information in their working memories. Reduced complexity is achieved through emphasizing the creation of code that is simple and readable rather than clever. Minimizing complexity is accomplished through making use of standards, and through numerous specific techniques in coding. It is also supported by the construction-focused quality techniques.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Anticipating change</span></span>\r\nAnticipating change helps software engineers build extensible software, which means they can enhance a software product without disrupting the underlying structure. Research over 25 years showed that the cost of rework can be 10 to 100 times (5 to 10 times for smaller projects) more expensive than getting the requirements right the first time. Given that 25% of the requirements change during development on average project, the need to reduce the cost of rework elucidates the need for anticipating change.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Constructing for verification</span></span>\r\nConstructing for verification means building software in such a way that faults can be ferreted out readily by the software engineers writing the software, as well as during independent testing and operational activities. Specific techniques that support constructing for verification include following coding standards to support code reviews, unit testing, organizing code to support automated testing, and restricted use of complex or hard-to-understand language structures, among others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reuse</span></span>\r\nSystematic reuse can enable significant software productivity, quality, and cost improvements. Reuse has two closely related facets:\r\n<ul><li>Construction for reuse: Create reusable software assets.</li><li>Construction with reuse: Reuse software assets in the construction of a new solution.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Standards in construction</span></span>\r\nStandards, whether external (created by international organizations) or internal (created at the corporate level), that directly affect construction issues include:\r\n<ul><li>Communication methods: Such as standards for document formats and contents.</li><li>Programming languages</li><li>Coding standards</li><li>Platforms</li><li>Tools: Such as diagrammatic standards for notations like UML.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Software_Construction_Components.png","alias":"software-construction-components"},"255":{"id":255,"title":"Modeling and Architecture Tools","description":" Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a discipline that has gained and will continue to gain huge importance to master enterprise organization and its IT support.\r\nEnterprise Architecture is a complete expression of the enterprise, a master plan which “acts as a collaboration force” between aspects of business planning (such as goals, visions, strategies and governance principles), aspects of business operations (such as business terms, organization structures, processes, and data), aspects of automation (such as information systems and databases) and the enabling technological infrastructure of the business (such as computers, operating systems, and networks).\r\nEnterprise architects use various business methods, analytical techniques and conceptual tools to understand and document the structure and dynamics of an enterprise. In doing so, they produce lists, drawings, documents, and models, together called &quot;artifacts&quot;. These artifacts describe the logical organization of business functions, business capabilities, business processes, people, information resources, business systems, software applications, computing capabilities, information exchange and communications infrastructure within the enterprise.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is enterprise architecture?</span>\r\nEnterprise architecture (EA) is &quot;a well-defined practice for conducting enterprise analysis, design, planning, and implementation, using a comprehensive approach at all times, for the successful development and execution of strategy. Enterprise architecture applies architecture principles and practices to guide organizations through the business, information, process, and technology changes necessary to execute their strategies. These practices utilize the various aspects of an enterprise to identify, motivate, and achieve these changes.&quot;\r\nPractitioners of enterprise architecture, enterprise architects, are responsible for performing the analysis of business structure and processes and are often called upon to draw conclusions from the information collected to address the goals of enterprise architecture: effectiveness, efficiency, agility, and continuity of complex business operations.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the terms &quot;enterprise&quot; and &quot;architecture&quot;?</span>\r\nThe term enterprise can be defined as describing an organizational unit, organization, or collection of organizations that share a set of common goals and collaborate to provide specific products or services to customers.\r\nIn that sense, the term enterprise covers various types of organizations, regardless of their size, ownership model, operational model, or geographical distribution. It includes those organizations' complete socio-technical systems, including people, information, processes, and technologies.\r\nThe term architecture refers to fundamental concepts or properties of a system in its environment, embodied in its elements, relationships, and in the principles of its design and evolution.\r\nUnderstood as a socio-technical system, the term enterprise defines the scope of enterprise architecture.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the benefits?</span>\r\nThe benefits of enterprise architecture are achieved through its direct and indirect contributions to organizational goals. It has been found that the most notable benefits of enterprise architecture can be observed in the following areas:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Organizational design</span> - Enterprise architecture provides support in the areas related to design and re-design of the organizational structures during mergers, acquisitions or during general organizational change.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Organizational processes and process standards</span> - Enterprise architecture helps enforce discipline and standardization of business processes, and enable process consolidation, reuse, and integration.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Project portfolio management</span> - Enterprise architecture supports investment decision-making and work prioritization.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Project management</span> - Enterprise architecture enhances the collaboration and communication between project stakeholders. Enterprise architecture contributes to efficient project scoping and defining more complete and consistent project deliverables.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Requirements Engineering</span> - Enterprise architecture increases the speed of requirement elicitation and the accuracy of requirement definitions, through the publishing of the enterprise architecture documentation.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">System development</span> - Enterprise architecture contributes to optimal system designs and efficient resource allocation during system development and testing.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">IT management and decision making</span> - Enterprise architecture is found to help enforce discipline and standardization of IT planning activities and to contribute to a reduction in time for technology-related decision making.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">IT value</span> - Enterprise architecture helps reduce the system's implementation and operational costs and minimize the replication of IT infrastructure services across business units.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">IT complexity</span> - Enterprise architecture contributes to a reduction in IT complexity, consolidation of data and applications, and to better interoperability of the systems.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">IT openness</span> - Enterprise architecture contributes to more open and responsive IT as reflected through increased accessibility of data for regulatory compliance, and increased transparency of infrastructure changes.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">IT risk management</span> - Enterprise architecture contributes to the reduction of business risks from system failures and security breaches. Enterprise architecture helps reduce risks of project delivery.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Modeling_and_Architecture_Tools.png","alias":"modeling-and-architecture-tools"},"257":{"id":257,"title":"Web Design and Development Tools","description":" If your business is not active on the internet, then you can miss the great opportunity to get the various benefits. A website of a business is a must for gaining popularity and profits. Through a business website, you can easily sell your products and services. In the present, every single person is active on the internet and searches the services through the internet or Google search engine. If you would like to build a website, then you have to hire the best web design and development services. Web design is collecting ideas and implementing them, guided by certain principles for specific purposes. Web design contains various parameters such as layout, color, graphics, fonts, and contents.\r\nWeb development is different than web design, but the main task of web development is maintaining and building the website. It gives actual life to design files. If you want to get the best web design and development services to create the perfect and unique website of your business, then you have to hire a professional company. If you don’t want to hire a professional, then you can get the help of tools. On the internet, several web design and development tools are available which helps to build your effective business website at a reasonable cost. With the help of the designing tool, you can easily save your money and time.\r\nWeb designers use a variety of different tools depending on what part of the production process they are involved in. These tools are updated over time by newer standards and software but the principles behind them remain the same. Web designers use both vector and raster graphics editors to create web-formatted imagery or design prototypes. Technologies used to create websites include W3C standards like HTML and CSS, which can be hand-coded or generated by WYSIWYG editing software. Other tools web designers might use include mark up validators and other testing tools for usability and accessibility to ensure their websites meet web accessibility guidelines.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> What is included in a creation of website design?</span>\r\nWeb design has very big differences from ordinary printing design. Creating a website design is usually a certain process, which takes into account various requirements of not only artistic but also technical nature. Such a process may include several stages:\r\n<ul><li>development of an attractive, easily perceived design of the start page, as well as other sections and subsequent levels (including various forms of registrations, baskets, etc.);</li><li>development and coordination of a well-designed structure of the entire site;</li><li>designing a convenient, fairly simple site navigation;</li><li>correctly positioned text on the pages;</li><li>availability of opportunities for simple support and expansion of the site.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What design to choose when creating a site?</span>\r\nWhen creating a website design, you must take into account its theme.\r\nSo, a commercial website should attract visitors with its memorable look and corporate identity that is specific to your company. And, at the same time, be convenient and contain all the information necessary for the user about you and your goods, services. Not to mention the fact that various forms of receiving on-line consultations, placing orders, etc. are welcome on such a site. The presence of such functions and their intuitiveness and accessibility for the site user significantly increases what is commonly called the &quot;site conversion&quot;. Those. how much your site will be &quot;selling&quot;, and whether it can not only be an analogue of your company's business card on the Internet, but also attract new, by no means virtual clients for your business. Therefore, the creation of a website design of this kind should be carried out very carefully in order to fully reflect the individuality of the image of the company.\r\nSometimes it is recommended to adhere to a concise style, which is able to emphasize your uniqueness and stability as a company. In other cases (for example, if we are talking about the sites of wedding agencies), a certain tone is considered to be a certain romance and tenderness of the color scheme, combined with joyful, bright elements. And sites that appeal to potential customers with unusual requests are simply obliged to have a unique, sometimes very extravagant design (while maintaining, however, the basic principles of good usability - the simplicity and convenience of using your Internet resource).\r\nIf you plan, for example, to launch an information site, then its design should be designed in a strict style, without flashy colors, since in this case it is the content that is more important than the design.\r\nHowever, the last statement is true for any site. Indeed, sometimes it doesn’t matter how beautiful the wrapper is, if instead of candy inside the user finds a dummy. The content of the site, its content and how convenient it is for the user to receive the information he needs on your site is the most important thing! Alas, in the Russian Internet zone, so far, 9 out of 10 sites (even with an excellent initial design) are simply “killed” by inappropriate or uninteresting user content. And then, simply, its absence.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Web design when creating sites: beauty or functionality?</span>\r\nWhen creating the design of the future site, it is important to remember, first of all, the functionality and the tasks that the future site will have to solve. And, therefore, remember about those for whom you are creating it - about future users. An overly elaborate design or an inconvenient menu, the difficulty of finding the necessary information on the site - this can lead to the fact that your visitor will go to other sites. Those. to your competitors.\r\nThe user of the Internet network often does not care about designer delights or the “coolness” of a programmer who has implemented non-standard site navigation, which you can’t even figure out without additional instructions. A site visitor came to you for information. And it is important, first of all, how quickly he found her, how much she met his needs, how much she helped in solving him, the user of the problem.\r\nThen the site will be remembered, and the visitor will not only return to you himself, but also, perhaps, will bring friends.\r\nA good web designer is not only, and not so much an artist, as a very thoughtful and experienced Internet resource designer who will attract attention, while remaining convenient and in demand within the framework of your marketing policy.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Web_Design_and_Development_Tools.png","alias":"web-design-and-development-tools"},"261":{"id":261,"title":"Automated Software Quality Tools","description":" Some software testing tasks, such as extensive low-level interface regression testing, can be laborious and time-consuming to do manually. In addition, a manual approach might not always be effective in finding certain classes of defects. Test automation offers a possibility to perform these types of testing effectively. Once automated tests have been developed, they can be run quickly and repeatedly. Many times, this can be a cost-effective method for regression testing of software products that have a long maintenance life. Even minor patches over the lifetime of the application can cause existing features to break which were working at an earlier point in time.\r\nThere are many approaches to test automation, however below are the general approaches used widely:\r\n<ul><li>Graphical user interface testing. A testing framework that generates user interface events such as keystrokes and mouse clicks, and observes the changes that result in the user interface, to validate that the observable behavior of the program is correct.</li><li>API driven testing. A testing framework that uses a programming interface to the application to validate the behaviour under test. Typically API driven testing bypasses application user interface altogether. It can also be testing public (usually) interfaces to classes, modules or libraries are tested with a variety of input arguments to validate that the results that are returned are correct.</li></ul>\r\nTest automation tools can be expensive, and are usually employed in combination with manual testing. Test automation can be made cost-effective in the long term, especially when used repeatedly in regression testing. A good candidate for test automation is a test case for common flow of an application, as it is required to be executed (regression testing) every time an enhancement is made in the application. Test automation reduces the effort associated with manual testing. Manual effort is needed to develop and maintain automated checks, as well as reviewing test results.\r\nIn automated testing the test engineer or software quality assurance person must have software coding ability, since the test cases are written in the form of source code which, when run, produce output according to the assertions that are a part of it. Some test automation tools allow for test authoring to be done by keywords instead of coding, which do not require programming.\r\nOne way to generate test cases automatically is model-based testing through use of a model of the system for test case generation, but research continues into a variety of alternative methodologies for doing so. In some cases, the model-based approach enables non-technical users to create automated business test cases in plain English so that no programming of any kind is needed in order to configure them for multiple operating systems, browsers, and smart devices.\r\nWhat to automate, when to automate, or even whether one really needs automation are crucial decisions which the testing (or development) team must make. A multi-vocal literature review of 52 practitioner and 26 academic sources found that five main factors to consider in test automation decision are: 1) System Under Test (SUT), 2) the types and numbers of tests, 3) test-tool, 4) human and organizational topics, and 5) cross-cutting factors. The most frequent individual factors identified in the study were: need for regression testing, economic factors, and maturity of SUT.","materialsDescription":"&nbsp;<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Unit testing</span>\r\nA growing trend in software development is the use of unit testing frameworks such as the xUnit frameworks (for example, JUnit and NUnit) that allow the execution of unit tests to determine whether various sections of the code are acting as expected under various circumstances. Test cases describe tests that need to be run on the program to verify that the program runs as expected.\r\nTest automation mostly using unit testing is a key feature of extreme programming and agile software development, where it is known as test-driven development (TDD) or test-first development. Unit tests can be written to define the functionality before the code is written. However, these unit tests evolve and are extended as coding progresses, issues are discovered and the code is subjected to refactoring. Only when all the tests for all the demanded features pass is the code considered complete. Proponents argue that it produces software that is both more reliable and less costly than code that is tested by manual exploration. It is considered more reliable because the code coverage is better, and because it is run constantly during development rather than once at the end of a waterfall development cycle. The developer discovers defects immediately upon making a change, when it is least expensive to fix. Finally, code refactoring is safer when unit testing is used; transforming the code into a simpler form with less code duplication, but equivalent behavior, is much less likely to introduce new defects when the refactored code is covered by unit tests.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Graphical User Interface (GUI) testing</span>\r\nMany test automation tools provide record and playback features that allow users to interactively record user actions and replay them back any number of times, comparing actual results to those expected. The advantage of this approach is that it requires little or no software development. This approach can be applied to any application that has a graphical user interface. However, reliance on these features poses major reliability and maintainability problems. Relabelling a button or moving it to another part of the window may require the test to be re-recorded. Record and playback also often adds irrelevant activities or incorrectly records some activities.\r\nA variation on this type of tool is for testing of web sites. Here, the &quot;interface&quot; is the web page. However, such a framework utilizes entirely different techniques because it is rendering HTML and listening to DOM Events instead of operating system events. Headless browsers or solutions based on Selenium Web Driver are normally used for this purpose.\r\nAnother variation of this type of test automation tool is for testing mobile applications. This is very useful given the number of different sizes, resolutions, and operating systems used on mobile phones. For this variation, a framework is used in order to instantiate actions on the mobile device and to gather results of the actions.\r\nAnother variation is script-less test automation that does not use record and playback, but instead builds a model of the application and then enables the tester to create test cases by simply inserting test parameters and conditions, which requires no scripting skills.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">API driven testing</span>\r\nAPI testing is also being widely used by software testers due to the difficulty of creating and maintaining GUI-based automation testing. It involves directly testing APIs as part of integration testing, to determine if they meet expectations for functionality, reliability, performance, and security. Since APIs lack a GUI, API testing is performed at the message layer. API testing is considered critical when an API serves as the primary interface to application logic since GUI tests can be difficult to maintain with the short release cycles and frequent changes commonly used with agile software development and DevOps.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Continuous testing</span>\r\nContinuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate. For Continuous Testing, the scope of testing extends from validating bottom-up requirements or user stories to assessing the system requirements associated with overarching business goals.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Automated_Software_Quality_Tools1.png","alias":"automated-software-quality-tools"},"263":{"id":263,"title":"Software Configuration Management Tools","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Software configuration management</span> (SCM) is a set of processes, policies, and tools that organizes the development process. It simultaneously maintains the current state of the software (called the “baseline”), while enabling developers to work on new versions for features or fixes.\r\nIn software engineering, <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">software configuration management process</span> is the task of tracking and controlling changes in the software, part of the larger cross-disciplinary field of configuration management. SCM practices include revision control and the establishment of baselines. If something goes wrong, SCM can determine what was changed and who changed it. If a configuration is working well, SCM can determine how to replicate it across many hosts. \r\nThe acronym &quot;SCM&quot; is also expanded as <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">source configuration management process</span> and <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">software change and configuration management.</span> However, &quot;configuration&quot; is generally understood to cover changes typically made by a system administrator. \r\nSoftware configuration control usually includes the updates and the versions that have been applied to software packages, as well as locations and network addresses of hardware devices. When a system needs a software or hardware upgrade, the user can access the configuration management program and database to see what is currently installed and then make a more informed decision about the upgradation needed. Configuration management tools list have been divided into three categories: <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">tracking</span>, <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">version management</span>, and r<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">elease tools.</span>\r\nThe SCM configuration management traces changes and verifies that the software has all of the planned changes that are supposed to be included in a new release. It includes four procedures that should be defined for each software project to ensure that a reliable software configuration management process is utilized. The four procedures typically found in a reliable system configuration management tools are:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Configuration identification. </span>It is the procedure by which attributes are identified that defines all the properties of a configuration item. A configuration item referred to as an object is a product (hardware and/or software) that supports use by an end user. These attributes are recorded in configuration documents or database tables and baselined. A baseline is an approved configuration object, such as a project plan, that has been authorized for implementation.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Configuration control.</span> It is a set of processes and approval stages required to change a configuration object’s attributes and to rebaseline them.<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"><br /></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Configuration status documentation. </span>Configuration status accounting is the ability to record and report on the configuration baselines associated with each configuration object at any point in time.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Configuration audits. </span>Configuration audits are divided into functional and physical configuration audits. An audit occurs at the time of delivery of a project or at the time a change is made. A functional configuration audit is intended to make sure that functional and performance attributes of a configuration object are achieved. A physical configuration audit attempts to ensure that a configuration object is installed based on the requirements of its design specifications.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The advantages of software configuration management system are:</span>\r\n<ul><li>It reduces redundant work</li><li>It effectively manages simultaneous updates</li><li>It avoids configuration related problems</li><li>It simplifies coordination between team members</li><li>It is helpful in tracking defects</li></ul>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> What are the outcomes of well-implemented configuration management?</h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Disaster Recovery<br /></span></li></ul>\r\nIf the worst does happen, automated configuration management tools ensures that our assets are easily recoverable. The same applies to rollbacks. Configuration management makes it so that when we’ve put out bad code, we can go back to the state of our software before the change.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Uptime and Site Reliability</span></li></ul>\r\nThe term “site reliability” refers to how often your service is up. A frequent cause of downtime is bad deployments, which can be caused by differences in running production servers to test servers. With our configuration managed properly, our test environments can mimic production, so there’s less chance of a nasty surprise.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Easier Scaling</span></li></ul>\r\nProvisioning is the act of adding more resources (usually servers) to our running application. Сonfiguration automation tools ensure that we know what a good state of our service is. That way, when we want to increase the number of servers that we run, it’s simply a case of clicking a button or running a script. The goal is really to make provisioning a non-event.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/Software_Configuration_Management_Tools.png","alias":"software-configuration-management-tools"},"337":{"id":337,"title":"Sales","description":" Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.\r\nThe seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in response to an acquisition, appropriation, requisition, or a direct interaction with the buyer at the point of sale. There is a passing of title (property or ownership) of the item, and the settlement of a price, in which agreement is reached on a price for which transfer of ownership of the item will occur. The seller, not the purchaser, typically executes the sale and it may be completed prior to the obligation of payment. In the case of indirect interaction, a person who sells goods or service on behalf of the owner is known as a salesman or saleswoman or salesperson, but this often refers to someone selling goods in a store/shop, in which case other terms are also common, including salesclerk, shop assistant, and retail clerk.\r\nIn common law countries, sales are governed generally by the common law and commercial codes. In the United States, the laws governing sales of goods are somewhat uniform to the extent that most jurisdictions have adopted Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code, albeit with some non-uniform variations.\r\nA person or organization expressing an interest in acquiring the offered item of value is referred to as a potential buyer, prospective customer, or prospect. Buying and selling are understood to be two sides of the same &quot;coin&quot; or transaction. Both seller and buyer engage in a process of negotiation to consummate the exchange of values. The exchange, or selling, process has implied rules and identifiable stages. It is implied that the selling process will proceed fairly and ethically so that the parties end up nearly equally rewarded. The stages of selling, and buying, involve getting acquainted, assessing each party's need for the other's item of value, and determining if the values to be exchanged are equivalent or nearly so, or, in buyer's terms, &quot;worth the price&quot;. Sometimes, sellers have to use their own experiences when selling products with appropriate discounts.\r\nAlthough the skills required are different, from a management viewpoint, sales is a part of marketing. Sales often form a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespersons (singular: salesperson). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading &quot;art&quot;. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What's the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?</span>\r\nSales and Marketing: two terms we often hear together when working with mid-size companies. In some ways, this is logical because the two need to work together. But in fact, Sales and Marketing are two very different functions and require very different skills.\r\nBusiness leaders know what Operations are; they make stuff. They know what Accounting is; they record and control the money. And they know what Sales do; they sell stuff. So if you are not making stuff, selling stuff, or recording the money—what is marketing and why do you need it?\r\nWhat's the difference between Sales and Marketing? To answer this question, let's define what Sales and Marketing are separately and how they support one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Marketing? Aligning with Customers, Now and for the Future</span></span>\r\nA key job of Marketing is to understand the marketplace from the perspective of the customer looking back towards the company and helping lead the company where it should be in the future. Marketing’s job is to direct the organization toward the segments, or groups of customers and channels where the company can profitably compete. It should help the organization see how it needs to modify its product offerings, pricing, and communication so that it meets the needs of the distribution channel or end customers.\r\nMarketing also needs to convert the market understanding into tools and tactics to attract the market, build (often digital) relationships, and develop leads. Without Sales, Marketing efforts run short. Marketing directs Sales as to where they should be hunting and what ammo to use. Note, however, that if Marketing becomes a sales support function focused only on the now, the future can become lost.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Without Marketing, Sales Suffers</span></span>\r\nNot even the best hunter can bring home dinner if they are shooting blanks at decoys. Markets are constantly changing. The job of marketing is to stay ahead of the changes and help the hunters see where they should be hunting and provide them with the right ammunition. If Marketing is only focused on delivering the ammunition for today, nobody will see where the industry is moving or where the company needs to hunt next. This limits growth not only for Sales and Marketing but also for your entire organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can You be Both Sales and Marketing?</span></span>\r\nIn all my years, working for companies that ranged from Fortune 100 to mid-size companies I have never met anyone who was really good at both sales and marketing. I have held the title of VP of Sales and Marketing, managing a 500 person sales and merchandising force. I was really a marketing person with sales authority. The skills required to focus on the now and the push of sales are different. In many ways, they are contrary to the skills of looking to the future and the customer perspective of marketing.\r\nEvery Sales organization feels they have a good understanding of their customers. But every Sales conversation with a customer has a sales transaction lurking in the background. Therefore, customers can never be completely open about their needs and want when talking to a sales person.\r\nFor a company to really grow, someone must have the job of looking out the window towards where the company needs to go in the future. For many companies, this is the job of the CEO and Sales hires someone to do some sales support and gives them a marketing title. But as companies grow, the job of CEO starts to become a full-time job in itself and the strategic role of Marketing gets short-changed. A study of mid-size companies by the University of Texas showed that companies that separated the roles of Marketing and Sales were much more likely to grow faster than the industry average.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Sales and Marketing: Today and the Future</span></span>\r\nSales need to be focused on the now. You can’t run a company unless your sales team is focused on bringing in today’s business. But you can’t really ask your Sales leaders where the company should go next and to develop the 18-month plan to get there without losing focus on today’s revenue. Besides, if your sales executive was really good at developing future-focused business strategies and tying that strategy to the plans and tools of marketing to make it happen, they would be a marketing person and not a now-focused sales person.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sales.png","alias":"sales"},"339":{"id":339,"title":"Marketing","description":" Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. It is the business process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers. Because marketing is used to attract customers, it is one of the primary components of business management and commerce. Marketers can direct product to other businesses (B2B marketing) or directly to consumers (B2C marketing).\r\nRegardless of who is being marketed to, several factors, including the perspective the marketers will use. These market orientations determine how marketers will approach the planning stage of marketing. This leads into the marketing mix, which outlines the specifics of the product and how it will be sold. This can in turn, be affected by the environment surrounding the product, the results of marketing research and market research, and the characteristics of the product's target market.\r\nOnce these factors are determined, marketers must then decide what methods will be used to market the product. This decision is based on the factors analyzed in the planning stage as well as where the product is in the product life cycle.\r\nMarketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as &quot;the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large&quot;. The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market with goods for sale. From a sales process engineering perspective, marketing is &quot;a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions of a business aimed at achieving customer interest and satisfaction&quot;.\r\nPhilip Kotler defined marketing as &quot;Satisfying needs and wants through an exchange process&quot;, and a decade later defines it as “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others.”\r\nThe Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as &quot;the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably&quot;. A similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. In this context, marketing can be defined as &quot;the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage&quot;.\r\nIn the past, marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programs.\r\nThe process of marketing is that of bringing a product to market, which includes these steps: broad market research; market targeting and market segmentation; determining distribution, pricing and promotion strategies; developing a communications strategy; budgeting; and visioning long-term market development goals. Many parts of the marketing process (e.g. product design, art director, brand management, advertising, inbound marketing, copywriting etc.) involve use of the creative arts.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What the differences between B2B and B2C Marketing?</span>\r\nThe different goals of B2B and B2C marketing lead to differences in the B2B and B2C markets. The main differences in these markets are demand, purchasing volume, amount of customers, customer concentration, distribution, buying nature, buying influences, negotiations, reciprocity, leasing and promotional methods.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Demand:</span> B2B demand is derived because businesses buy products based on how much demand there is for the final consumer product. Businesses buy products based on customer's wants and needs. B2C demand is primarily because customers buy products based on their own wants and needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Purchasing Volume:</span> Businesses buy products in large volumes to distribute to consumers. Consumers buy products in smaller volumes suitable for personal use.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Amount of Customers:</span> There are relatively fewer businesses to market to than direct consumers.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer Concentration:</span> Businesses that specialize in a particular market tend to be geographically concentrated while customers that buy products from these businesses are not concentrated.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Distribution:</span> B2B products pass directly from the producer of the product to the business while B2C products must additionally go through a wholesaler or retailer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Nature:</span> B2B purchasing is a formal process done by professional buyers and sellers while B2C purchasing is informal.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Buying Influences:</span> B2B purchasing is influenced by multiple people in various departments such as quality control, accounting, and logistics while B2C marketing is only influenced by the person making the purchase and possibly a few others.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Negotiations:</span> In B2B marketing, negotiating for lower prices or added benefits is commonly accepted while in B2C marketing (particularly in Western cultures) prices are fixed.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Reciprocity:</span> Businesses tend to buy from businesses they sell to. For example, a business that sells printer ink is more likely to buy office chairs from a supplier that buys the business's printer ink. In B2C marketing, this does not occur because consumers are not also selling products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Leasing:</span> Businesses tend to lease expensive items while consumers tend to save up to buy expensive items.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Promotional Methods:</span> In B2B marketing, the most common promotional method is personal selling. B2C marketing mostly uses sales promotion, public relations, advertising, and social media.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are marketing orientations?</span>\r\nA marketing orientation has been defined as a &quot;philosophy of business management.&quot; or &quot;a corporate state of mind&quot; or as an &quot;organization[al] culture&quot;. Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Product</span></span>\r\nA firm employing a product orientation is mainly concerned with the quality of its product. A product orientation is based on the assumption that all things being equal, consumers will purchase products of superior quality. The approach is most effective when the firm has deep insights into customer needs and desires as derived from research and/or intuition and understands consumer's quality expectations and price consumers are willing to pay. Although the product orientation has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, firms practicing a product orientation can still be found in haute couture and arts marketing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Sales</span></span>\r\nA sales orientation focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants. This orientation seeks to attain the highest possible sales through promotion and direct sales techniques. The sales orientation &quot;is typically practiced with unsought goods.&quot; One study found that industrial companies are more likely to hold a sales orientation than consumer goods companies. The approach may also suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand.\r\nA 2011 meta-analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales-related knowledge (knowledge of market segments, sales presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness (changing behavior based on the aforementioned knowledge), role clarity (salesperson's role is to expressly to sell), cognitive aptitude (intelligence) and work engagement (motivation and interest in a sales role).\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production</span></span>\r\nA firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with certainty that consumer tastes and preferences remain relatively constant (similar to the sales orientation). The so-called production era is thought to have dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, but other theorists argue that evidence of the production orientation can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is &quot;one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations.&quot;\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Marketing</span></span>\r\nThe marketing orientation is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It is a customer-centric approach that involves a firm basing its marketing program around products that suit new consumer tastes. Firms adopting a marketing orientation typically engage in extensive market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&amp;D (Research &amp; Development) to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure consumers are aware of the product's existence and the benefits it can deliver. Scales designed to measure a firm's overall market orientation have been developed and found to be robust in a variety of contexts.\r\nThe marketing orientation has three prime facets, which are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Customer orientation:</span> A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Organizational orientation:</span> The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments.\r\nAs an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&amp;D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.\r\nThe production department would then start to manufacture the product, while the marketing department would focus on the promotion, distribution, pricing, etc. of the product. Additionally, a firm's finance department would be consulted, with respect to securing appropriate funding for the development, production, and promotion of the product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Mutually beneficial exchange:</span> In a transaction in the market economy, a firm gains revenue, which thus leads to more profits, market shares, and/or sales. A consumer, on the other hand, gains the satisfaction of a need/want, utility, reliability and value for money from the purchase of a product or service.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Societal marketing</span></span>\r\nA number of scholars and practitioners have argued that marketers have a greater social responsibility than simply satisfying customers and providing them with superior value. Marketing organizations that have embraced the societal marketing concept typically identify key stakeholder groups such as employees, customers, and local communities. Companies that adopt a societal marketing perspective typically practice triple bottom line reporting whereby they publish social impact and environmental impact reports alongside financial performance reports. Sustainable marketing or green marketing is an extension of societal marketing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Marketing.png","alias":"marketing"},"341":{"id":341,"title":"Customer Service","description":" Customer service is the process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means.\r\nCustomer service is an important part of maintaining ongoing client relationships, which is key to continuing revenue. For this reason, many companies have worked hard to increase their customer satisfaction levels.\r\nMost successful businesses recognize the importance of providing outstanding customer service. Courteous and empathetic interaction with a trained customer service representative can mean the difference between losing or retaining a customer.\r\nWhen problems arise, customers should receive timely attention to the issue. Prompt attention to emails and phone calls is critical to maintaining good relations. Requiring customers to stand in long lines or sit on hold can sour an interaction before it begins.\r\nIdeally, customer service should be a one-stop endeavor for the consumer. For example, if a customer calls a helpline regarding a problem with a product, the customer service representative should follow through with the customer until the issue is fully resolved.\r\nThis may entail scheduling appointments with in-person repair personnel if the problem cannot be resolved on the phone, or transferring a call to skilled technicians in another department. Proactively following up with the customer to ensure that he or she is fully satisfied is another smart move.","materialsDescription":" What are customer service standards?\r\nCustomer service standards are an internal corporate set of rules governing the company's customer service activities, an algorithm for communicating with customers, and general standards for responding to unusual situations. The standard of customer service is an integral part of the corporate standard of the company.\r\nFunctions of customer service standards:\r\n<ol><li>To order. The client does not encounter problems, does not see them, which means that he is confident that all the staff without exception are professionals who know their business.</li><li>To control. It is difficult to assess and monitor the work of each manager if there are no clear criteria for evaluation. At the same time, the implementation of the sales plan cannot be the only parameter of the assessment; you need to know whether the manager of customer service standards adopted in this company adheres.</li><li>To adapt. Among other things, the availability of customer service standards simplifies the procedure.</li></ol>\r\nCustomer service standards are effective if the customer does not see the difference between the work of two (or more) managers, and sees only “proprietary” service, always the same, regardless of any external factors or circumstances. The customer service standard, which has been tested in practice, backed up by experience (perhaps even someone else's), created on the basis of analytical studies and recognized methods, can be called &quot;gold&quot;. It allows you to increase profits, improve the image of the company, attract new customers.\r\nCustomer service standards are an important part of the company's brand. But, in addition, the standards are necessary and other units, in particular, the department to work with staff. Therefore, their development must take into account the needs of all interested services of the company.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the purpose of introducing customer service standards in the company?</span>\r\nThe objectives of implementing the standards are as follows:\r\n<ul><li>For employees with experience: minimize the number of erroneous and unnecessary actions. The result of this will be saving time of each employee (no errors - no need to spend time correcting them). And, as a result, increased productivity.</li><li>For novice employees: customer service standards allow you to transfer the necessary knowledge in the most concise manner and in a short time.</li><li>For the company: the abolition of dependence on the old-timers. Not all employees who have worked in the company for many years (or even since the day of foundation) are able to resist the so-called star disease. Having knowledge and experience, a person loses the ability to objectively evaluate his work, he begins to think that he is the best manager in the company. It can end very badly - in the event of dismissal, such an employee will take the base, and turn clients against the company. Standards for customer service are needed to ensure that all employees can be assessed on a single scale, based on the actual benefits they bring to the company, as well as the attitude of the employee to the company.</li><li>For the company: the uniformity of control activities of managers. Standards are unequivocal, exclude double interpretations, and therefore cannot cause controversy about the rightness of an employee or employer.</li><li>For managers: the standards of uniform customer service are the same for all managers, and this makes it possible to make the pay of each manager absolutely transparent and intelligible. Realizing that there will be no double interpretations, the manager may not be afraid that he will be paid less than expected - all his mistakes and achievements are immediately visible and understandable.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The application of service standards allows you:</span>\r\n<ul><li>to develop a company style in dealing with clients;</li><li>to increase the effectiveness of the work of managers with new customers;</li><li>to bring the quality of communication with customers to a higher level;</li><li>to create a positive opinion of the company about the company, so that it can be recommended to its acquaintances, thus increasing the number of potential and then real customers;</li><li>to minimize conflicts between the manager and the customer;</li><li>to develop a technology for training newcomers;</li><li>to transfer the assessment of the work of the manager from the subjective to the objective, transparent and understandable to everyone;</li><li>to establish a procedure for controlling the work of personnel;</li><li>to increase the motivation of managers to work.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of applying service standards</span>\r\n<ul><li>The accumulation of experience: the entire base focuses on the company, and not on the hands of managers, &quot;old-timers.&quot; Thus, the departure of one or several “old” employees does not become a “natural disaster” for the company.</li><li>Motivation, analysis and control: customer service standards make it possible to develop a transparent scheme of managers' motivation based on a clear, almost mathematical analysis of their work. The sales process is optimized.</li><li>Setting goals. With the help of standards, the company has the ability to set clear, reasonable plans. This allows you to keep the atmosphere in the team friendly and stable, and the lack of &quot;muffled&quot; tasks - to increase the loyalty of managers to the company.</li><li>Standards of customer service is a fairly mobile system that allows you to immediately detect errors in working with clients and quickly eliminate them. In addition, at any stage of working with a client, the head of the sales department can intervene in the process, noticing an error in the work of the manager, and even be proactive in order to prevent an error to which the manager is heading.</li><li>Quick and easy start for beginners. Customer service standards are actually a knowledge base, collected, analyzed, and streamlined. Such information is easily transmitted and assimilated by beginners, which means that the beginner quickly gets to work and starts to make a profit. In addition, a newbie will not spoil relations with a client by awkward actions, since he already knows what to do in any conflict and problem situations.</li><li>Customer confidence. Customer service standards allow the latter to feel confident in the company - no matter where the customer is, he will always easily recognize “his” company by brand features and can be absolutely sure that in a small town they will be served as qualitatively as in a million-plus city, because that the company is well aware of their work. So, such a company can be trusted.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Customer_Service.png","alias":"customer-service"},"347":{"id":347,"title":"Production Planning","description":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production planning</span> is the planning of production and manufacturing modules in a company or industry. It utilizes the resource allocation of activities of employees, materials and production capacity, in order to serve different customers.<br />Different types of production methods, such as single item manufacturing, batch production, mass production, continuous production etc. have their own type of production planning. Production planning can be combined with production control into production planning and control, or it can be combined with <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">enterprise resource planning (ERP)</span>. \r\nProduction planning can help in efficient manufacturing or setting up of a production site by facilitating required needs.A production plan is made periodically for a specific time period, called the <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">planning horizon.</span>\r\nIn order to develop production plans, the <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">production planner</span> or <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">production planning department</span> needs to work closely together with the marketing department and sales department. They can provide sales forecasts, or a listing of customer orders.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Production scheduling</span> is the process of syncing and planning the steps in the manufacturing process to ensure that production runs smoothly and customers receive what they ordered on schedule.\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Areas of production scheduling</span></p>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Procurement</span>: Production can't proceed if you don't have the materials necessary for manufacturing. Procurement scheduling is an art and a science that involves keeping enough on hand without carrying a bloated inventory. You can tighten procurement systems by using digital or manual spreadsheets to track inventory and by developing relationships with suppliers who can get you what you need consistently and quickly.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Personnel</span>: Planning and scheduling employee time is critical to developing a successful production work flow plan. There should be enough workers on hand to finish projects within the promised time frame but not enough to bloat your payroll or create inefficiencies by crowding your work space. It helps to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each staff member so you can leverage employee skills and circumvent potential difficulties.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Machinery</span>: Like your employees, your equipment has a limited number of capacity hours that should be scheduled thoughtfully. Machines should be well maintained according to a schedule that doesn't take them out of production any longer than necessary.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Tools for Scheduling Production </span></p>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Software</span>: Once the logistics of your production schedule become complex enough to bog you down, there is a range of software options available to help you manage the details. Programs help you to set priorities, coordinate processes and manage staffing.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Written documents</span>: If your production processes are relatively simple, you may be able to effectively create useful and meaningful lists so team members and managers have a clear idea of what needs to happen and in what order.&nbsp; Timelines and flow charts can help to provide useful visuals to help staff understand how processes interface.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Custom spreadsheet</span>s: You can also design your own spreadsheets to plan and communicate work flow. Custom spreadsheets offer the advantage of being tailored specifically to your company and your processes. They pose the disadvantage of potentially being less robust or nimble than a software system designed by professionals drawing on a deeper and broader database of scheduling tools and knowledge.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><br /><br /></p>","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> <span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What is production planning?</span></h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Production planning</span> – a systematic approach, which helps to calculate and estimate goals and stages of manufacturing process during the constant changes of multiple factors. Some of these factors might include an increase of product range, introduction of new manufacturing equipment, changing inventory stock and others.<br /><br />For a manufacturers it is very important to be able to make calculations and estimates of these factors as precisely, as possible. As a result they want to be able to answer all of the following questions:\r\n<ul><li>What are we planning to produce?</li><li>What do we need for that?</li><li>What do we have?</li><li>What else is needed?</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the types of&nbsp; production planning software?</span></h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">The development of technology has made production-planning process very easy to perform. While there are still manufacturing companies, utilizing pen and paper, when doing their MRP estimates, most manufacturing companies using one or the other type of software solution.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Spreadsheet based software </span>– Excel, Open Office or Google Documents. For example Microsoft Excel comes with a standard Microsoft Office package already preinstalled on every Windows PC, thus baring no additional expenses for business.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">In addition, Excel is a very easy tool to work with, it has a big user database worldwide, so any question that might occur will be answered.&nbsp; However, no matter how good of a tool Excel is, it has its limitations. One of these limitations is speed – the more different tables and individual files are being interlinked between each other, the slower is the performance of an Excel work file.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Custom made planning software </span>– this includes solutions done in-house. Companies that decide to go this route, most often than not have experience working with Excel or similar spreadsheet based software. By creating solution in-house manufacturer is thinking of increasing the productivity and reliability of its planning department.&nbsp; While idea of using some sort of software instead of a complex spreadsheet is a good one, creating a totally new planning software from scratch could be very challenging. <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Specialized production planning software</span> – a professionally developed production planning software for small business offers the best of two worlds – it provides all the production planning features that a small business needs and unlike spreadsheet software it is fast and reliable.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What is project management software?</span></h1>\r\nProject management software is a suite of tools that helps improve production teams’ efficiency. They usually come as cloud-based, multi-user platforms that host features such project planning and scheduling, collaboration, advanced reporting, and project budgeting, among many others. They are meant to ensure that all project stakeholders are constantly in the know and that every project is delivered on time.<br /> \r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What does project management software do?</span></h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">Some of the best features revolve around the generation of repetitive and unique tasks and projects, team collaboration, project completion, proper tracking for the purposes of budgeting and due diligence, and effective documentation. But that’s par for the course for most applications in the market. </p>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Project tracking.</span> This is the most basic function of a project management software: tracking your projects. This includes being able to track who worked on which task last, the general overview of the entire project, identifying bottlenecks, and identifying performers.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span></li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Easier collaboration.</span> It makes it easier for coworkers to check on the latest changes to a project, pick up where they left off, or pick up from where their colleagues left off.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span></li></ul>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Better communication. </span>Part of the collaborative effort involves better communication, and the best project management software should make person-to-person and department-to-department communication easier and more efficient.<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"></span></li></ul>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Documentation. </span>Since tracking a project involves documenting the knowledge gained throughout the entire endeavor, proper documentation is key. This means your app should be able to help you and your team simplify the process of documenting changes, technology, project updates, and new intelligence.</li></ul>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Accurate dashboards for reporting. </span>This is an important purpose of productivity planner app and software. Accurate reporting is a key component of identifying your company’s KPI, and project management software should help you in generating the best reports for your business. </li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the factors to consider when getting a project management software?</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Task and project creation.</span> Most of the time, you’ll be using your project management software as a task calendar to create cyclical, templated projects. But once in a while, you’ll want to create unique tasks and projects for your company’s needs. The flexibility between creating unique tasks and projects and setting up templated ones is integral in ensuring that you are able to tackle projects of different shapes and sizes.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Simple and efficient reporting.</span> If you’re going to be working with a project management system, you’ll need accurate report creation powers. This feature is found in all of the best organiser apps in the market. And for good reason: when you’re working on a project that blew up in terms of man-hours and budget, you will want to be able to pinpoint just how much you spent on the project, and what caused the problem. A good reporting feature in a productivity calendar will go a long way in helping with this.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">File sharing options</span>. It’s always awesome whenever a project management solution offers decent storage space for all the files you’ll be sharing. But sometimes, having the option to use a third-party storage solution like Box or Dropbox can be helpful too, especially if you’re more familiar with another cloud storage provider.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Intuitive and clean UI. </span>A good user interface can make or break a good project management team. Sometimes, having an easy time using the application can be more important than what the application can do.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reliable support.</span> Who are you going to call when something breaks in your project management software? Knowing that you’re working with people who are willing and able to help you come up with a solution to your app’s issues is a treasure</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Production_Planning.png","alias":"production-planning"},"355":{"id":355,"title":"Payroll Accounting","description":"The accounting for payroll involves all aspects of paying compensation and benefits to employees. The outcome of this process is precise records regarding the expenses associated with all types of compensation, as well as timely payments to employees.\r\nThough some systems that incorporate more or less automatic payroll systems may not include all of these steps, the general process flow will apply to most payroll systems:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Set up new employees.</span> Have new employees fill out payroll-specific information as part of the hiring process, such as the W-4 form and medical insurance forms that may require payroll deductions. Set aside copies of this information in order to include it in the next payroll.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Collect timecard information.</span> Salaried employees require no change in wages paid for each payroll, but you must collect and summarize information about the hours worked by non-exempt employees. This may involve having employees scan a badge through a computerized time clock.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Verify timecard information.</span> Summarize the payroll information just collected and have supervisors verify that employees have correctly recorded their time.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Summarize wages due.</span> Multiply the number of hours worked by the pay rate for each employee, also factoring in any overtime or shift differentials.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Enter employee changes.</span> Employees may ask to have changes made to their paychecks, usually to the number of tax exemptions or pension withholdings. You may need to record much of this prior to calculating taxes, since it impacts the amount of wages to which taxes are applied.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Calculate taxes.</span> Use tax tables to determine the amount of taxes to be withheld from employee gross pay.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Calculate wage deductions.</span> There may be a number of additional deductions to take away from employee net income, including deductions for medical insurance, life insurance, garnishments, and union dues. You must also track the goal amounts for these deductions, so that you stop deducting once the goal totals are reached.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deduct manual payments.</span> If manual payments have already been made to employees, such as advances, then deduct these amounts from the remaining net pay.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Create a payroll register. </span>Summarize the wage and deduction information for each employee in a payroll register, which you can then summarize to also create a journal entry to record the payroll. This document is automatically created by all payroll software packages.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Print paychecks.</span> Print employee paychecks using the information in the payroll register. You normally itemize gross wages, deductions, and net pay in a remittance advice that accompanies the paycheck.\r\n <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Pay by direct deposit.</span> Notify your direct deposit processor of the amount of any direct deposit payments, and issue remittance advices to employees for these payments.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Issue paychecks.</span> Have a paymaster issue paychecks to employees, requiring employee identification if there are a large number of employees.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Deposit withheld taxes.</span> Deposit all withheld payroll taxes and employer matched taxes at a bank that is authorized to handle these transactions.\r\nPayroll administration is one of the most important business processes your company performs, yet one of the most cumbersome and time-consuming daily activities. It doesn’t generate direct revenues, so keeping this process to a bare minimum in time and cost means savings and more efficiency to your business. This is why you need <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">payroll software</span>, so you can focus on income-generating strategies and daily core tasks.\r\nPayroll management software can be classified by: deployment (cloud vs. enterprise), business size (small business vs. enterprise) and target market (general vs. industry-specific). There is another way to distinctly classify payroll software, one that may impact on your workflows.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integrated payroll management system.</span> Payroll, accounting and HRM have overlapping processes.; thus, often, payroll management is integrated as a module in accounting software, HRM or an organization-wide business system like ERP. It can be a standard feature or separately charged as an add-on. Integrated payroll management covers the core tasks like payroll processing, income tax calculations and paycheck printing.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Dedicated payroll management.</span> These are standalone apps that go beyond core features of payroll and tax software with specialized functions as time-tracking &amp; attendance,&nbsp; customized reporting, benefits management and even a tax planner. A good dedicated payroll application should easily integrate with other HRM and accounting systems. This type of payroll system is popular among payroll services and small businesses.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> <span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the must have features for a payroll software?</span></h1>\r\nThe essential part of any organisation is payroll. Every worker’s salary compensation is based on the payroll system. Now the features of payroll software are used to streamline and handle the payments of the employees. From automating several tasks such as depositing the salaries, to taking care of taxes, a payroll management software is highly helpful. \r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Integrated Accounting.</span> The human resources team and the accounting department can save time for managing every payroll detail manually. Thus, payroll programs can eliminate the scope of miscalculation and placement of the critical data in a wrong file. </li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Recording Files and Payslips.</span> The software can generate reports including leave summary, salary benefits, and salary statements. By using the digital platform, the software can print payslip. Moreover, you can even download and print the regulatory payroll.&nbsp; Acting as the sole repository of employment record and document, this software can be handy for any business. This software includes essential features like experience letter, organisational chart, employees profile, occupational safety and tax, and offer letter.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reporting in Payroll Processing Software. </span>Through the software, you can customise the report criteria and follow the reporting tasks taken care of:<br /><ul><li>Timesheet reports</li><li>Balancing audit reports</li><li>Wage and liability audit-related reports</li><li>Unemployment wage reports</li></ul>Several reports and inquiry output formats which include email, XML, text file and printed report. As different teams use the reports, the software can restrict the allocation of essential resources. The features make the best out of the reporting operation. Before purchasing the software, you need to make sure that the essential reporting functions are available in your software.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Keeping Track of Earning.</span> One of the best payroll software features is that it manages the earnings of the employees. </li></ul>\r\n<br /> \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Tax Management Done Easily.</span> The features of the payroll software solutions&nbsp; execute the task of tax filing and computing. With the features the employee taxes are filed within the deadline. This way, the chances of facing penalties are avoided.&nbsp; The payroll program software stores pay calculating records every hour. It also pays attention to tax benefit purposes.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Depositing Directly to Account.</span> One of the best features of payroll soft is that the payroll is deposited to the bank account directly. The software saves huge expense on the annual supplies and processing. It can also take care of any fraudulent activities related to the employee’s salary. The funds are transferred within no time directly from the company account to the employee account.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customisation at its best.</span> Among all the key features personalisation plays an integral role. Through customising every check and form, the whole system of payroll software is managed. You can customise the tables and menus here. You can also customise the reports, screens, and fields to offer the best kind of service. The software can print logos of the organisation for attaching them to the reports and checks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">High Level of Security.</span> The primary security feature required in the software is that the database encryption. For restricting the highly valued resources like the tax files, employee personal details, and payroll information, the software has password protection. With the comprehensive audit trails, the security feature also focuses on the control access. This takes care of sensitive information to the highest degree. The addition of record level security can save the company form fraud cases at an optimal level.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Know about Streamlining.</span> The worker can get access to the records or printed pay stubs through the automatic generation of the payroll system. There is an option for getting in touch with the third-party administrator and track in-house bookkeeping.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Zero Error, High Level of Accuracy.</span> The best thing about payroll automation software is that every work is carried out by following a high level of skill. By installing the latest updates on the application, the features of payroll software remain upgraded. And the system does not have to pay the price of manual error. With the help of soft, there is less chance of human error. Also, the tax forms are pre-filled following the worker’s payroll details. The unbiased third-party app can keep the records up-to-date every hour even if you outsource the operations.</li></ul>\r\n<br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Payroll_Accounting.png","alias":"payroll-accounting"},"359":{"id":359,"title":"Order Management","description":" Order management is the administration of business processes related to orders for goods or services. Order management is the order-to-cash sales process that sits at the heart of any goods-based B2C and B2B company. Put simply, it’s the end-to-end cycle of receiving and processing a customer order through to fulfillment. \r\nOrder management is not conducted in isolation; it relies upon almost every department in a company: from a customer service team to the warehouse staff, the accounting department through to delivery partners. When mastered effectively, order management ensures a business’s workflow runs smoothly by establishing efficient processes to keep it moving forward; maintaining customer satisfaction and protecting a company’s reputation.\r\nOrder management involves a series of interconnected touchpoints and stakeholders who work collaboratively together to enable customers to order the right products, for the right price and receive them at the right time. The order fulfillment system (as it is also known) not only secures that order-to-cash (O2C) processes run smoothly, but also gives businesses the opportunity to build customer profiles and keep track of inventory volume and sales records.\r\nWhen scaling your business, it’s important to automate and streamline this process — otherwise, you’ll eventually be overwhelmed by the sheer number of orders coming in. An ordering system gives you a one-stop shop to view and manage all customer orders in one place.\r\nSome systems offer a two-way sync that makes sure order information is passed between your order management system and your ecommerce platform while providing you with visibility into the entire process. This can help automate the flow of sales order information to every piece of the supply chain. That means you can track the entire journey of a customer order, from the “Buy” button to delivery — and even returns.\r\nOrder processing is the process or work flow from order placement to delivery. This is a key element of order fulfillment, where reliability and accuracy lead to customer satisfaction. Steps in order processing include picking, sorting, tracking and shipping. Order processing can range from manual (hand written on an order log sheet) to highly technological and data driven (through online orders and order processing software) depending on the operation.\r\nIn order to establish a fast-moving, cost-effective and accurate order management cycle, both B2C and B2B companies are choosing to use an integrated and responsive order management system (OMS). The OMS integrates directly with a business’s ERP and is set up to work alongside the human workforce in order to obtain the most productive and profitable order management cycle possible.\r\nAn integrated order management system may encompass these modules:\r\n<ul><li>Product information (descriptions, attributes, locations, quantities)</li><li>Inventory available to promise (ATP) and sourcing</li><li>Vendors, purchasing, and receiving</li><li>Marketing (catalogs, promotions, pricing)</li><li>Customers and prospects</li><li>Order entry and customer service (including returns and refunds)</li><li>Financial processing (credit cards, billing, payment on account)</li><li>Order processing (selection, printing, picking, packing, shipping) </li></ul>","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> <span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What is OMS software?</span></h1>\r\nAn order management system is a software system that facilitates and manages the execution of trade orders. An order management system is any tool or platform that tracks sales, orders, inventory, and fulfillment as well as enables the people, processes, and partnerships necessary for products to find their way to the customers who bought them. \r\nAn order processing system software should provide one centralized place to manage orders from all sales channels. Centralizing this in one system is critical to delivering a superior customer experience by providing order status, on-time deliveries and meeting customer expectations for buy, fulfill and return anywhere. \r\nThe right solution gives you a foundation for consistent and seamless execution across all customer, financial, inventory and supply chain touch points that drives customer satisfaction, repeat business and long-term loyalty. Additionally, order management systems can improve sales visibility and reduce delays and back orders by giving you a single view of demand, inventory and supply.\r\nAn effective order management system software lets you seamlessly orchestrate the fulfillment of products and services across virtually all your customer touch points. Without a centralized order management system, realizing a comprehensive view of demand, transactions and customers across all channels and fulfillment locations can be extremely difficult.\r\nOrder management software equips you to think beyond the inventory on hand to focus on what's available to promise to your customers. It eliminates costly and rigid inventory segmentation across channels and business units with a single, real-time, consolidated view of inventory across the enterprise, from your suppliers and manufacturing facilities to your warehouse and stores.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">How to choose the right OMS software?</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Define your system objectives and priorities of each.</span> By doing so and discussing with your internal stakeholders, you’ll clearly understand features that are “absolute requirements” vs. ones that are “nice to have.” Don’t forget to factor in scalability and future thinking.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Draft a request for proposal (RFP)</span>. This will help your team get organized and both you and the vendor(s) understand the technical requirements and limitations of the system you’re hoping to implement. Don’t forget to include order volumes, number of SKUs, current vendor landscape, existing software, hardware, and networks, a timeline for the systems acquisition process, and details on training &amp; enablement.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Research systems options</span>. It’s unlikely that you’ll find an ideal fit for your business with your first contact (but how amazing would that be), so compile a list of 4-6 vendors to evaluate and reach out to for demos or trails. </li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Review trade-offs.</span> It’s unlikely you’ll find a vendor that is a 100% fit and your final selection will be based on a number of trade-off criteria. Feature &amp; function alone shouldn’t be your sole selection criteria as you’ll want to take into account the entirety of the business relationship you’re getting into.</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">How do your customers benefit from an online order management system?</span></h1>\r\nAn online ordering software doesn’t just benefit you, though. It also benefits your customers. The system will give them a quick, convenient, and 24/7 way to place orders without having to call or email your staff, or fill out old-fashioned Excel or Word order forms. They'll have instant, online updates on the status of their orders, and they’ll have greater confidence that their orders will arrive on-time and with the correct items. An online order management system also makes your company look more professional in the eyes of your customers.Here are three ways they benefit:\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">They can place orders on their schedule.</span> Between managing employees, servicing customers, and marketing their business, most business owners are working on a very tight schedule. Taking the time to call or email your sales staff or meet with a sales rep can be challenging. Using an online product ordering system that allows customers to log on at their convenience and quickly choose the items they want to order goes a long way for customer service. If they place the same order on a regular basis, they can use a reorder feature which duplicates previous orders. The whole process takes a matter of seconds. So alleviate this challenge by implementing a system that allows your customers to place an order anytime.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">They can check their order status at any time.</span> One of the biggest challenges a business faces is managing their inventory. On one hand, they want to have enough inventory available to service their customers. On the other hand, they don’t want to have inventory piling up on their shelves. There’s a critical need to know with confidence when inventory will arrive.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n<ul><li> <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">They have a higher probability of receiving the correct order in a timely manner. </span>Nothing will erode your customers' trust more than making errors on their shipments and invoices. If it happens once, that may be forgiven as a simple mistake. However, if it happens repeatedly, your customer is likely to start looking for alternative options. An online order management system with warehouse integration can send the order directly to your third party warehouse. This reduces the probability that an error will be made. The less people who handle the order information, the lower the likelihood for human error.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Order_Management.png","alias":"order-management"},"361":{"id":361,"title":"Financial Performance and Strategy Management Applications","description":" Strategic financial management means not only managing a company's finances but managing them with the intention to succeed—that is, to attain the company's goals and objectives and maximize shareholder value over time. However, before a company can manage itself strategically, it first needs to define its objectives precisely, identify and quantify its available and potential resources, and devise a specific plan to use its finances and other capital resources toward achieving its goals.\r\nStrategic financial management is about creating profit for the business and ensuring an acceptable return on investment (ROI). Financial management is accomplished through business financial plans, setting up financial controls, and financial decision making.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is financial performance management?</span>\r\nAlso known as corporate performance management, financial performance management refers to the ways that a company manages and monitors financial results across an organization. The primary purpose of financial performance management is to compare actual results to budgets and forecasts and make adjustments accordingly. The result? Companies are better equipped to meet their business goals.\r\nVentana Research describes financial performance management as a specific set of capabilities that includes &quot;defining their company's key performance indicators, formulating strategic plans and forecasts, handling performance reporting, and increasing finance operational efficiency and execution company-wide.”\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is financial performance management software?</span>\r\nFinancial performance management software, also known as corporate performance management software, streamlines financial management processes. This software connects budgeting, planning, close, consolidation, reporting, and disclosure to a single data source. It enables users to complete these tasks in one software system, as opposed to many separate systems.\r\nIn essence, financial performance management software consolidates information, formats it to meet compliance requirements, and provides automated tools that enable finance to create regulatory reports and disclosures. In addition to a central data repository and workflow tools, financial performance management software has features to create, manage, validate, and publish financial statements and reports. Best-in-class financial performance management software even has a robust suite of communication tools that foster collaboration and improve audit controls.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the benefits of corporate performance management?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Corporate performance management helps companies become more agile when faced with unexpected business events.</span> With features like KPI dashboards, real-time data, and responsive plans that change as actuals do, CFOs and finance executives can understand what’s happening and take action faster.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Corporate performance management helps companies make better decisions.</span> CPM systems often have automated features like scenario modeling, rolling forecasts, and what-if scenarios analysis. Using these in combination with a single version of automated data, executives can better analyze performance, respond to change, and make more informed decisions.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Corporate performance management helps companies focus on analysis.</span> Using corporate performance software, users spend less time on manual tasks like data collection and data entry. Instead, they can focus their time on value-added activities like analyzing profitability, reducing costs, business partnering with executive decision-makers, and developing a strategy.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Corporate performance management helps companies interpret large amounts of data quickly.</span> CPM as we know it is evolving. Once CPM was purely financial management. Today, organizations are sitting on a treasure trove of information, that if adequately managed, could provide telling insights about the state of business and the direction decision-makers should take next. Modernized CPM solutions help financial users identify these underlying trends, unearth insights, and interpret large amounts of data quickly.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Corporate performance management aligns the entire organization, from corporate to subsidiaries to divisions to LoBs, departments, and individual contributors all in a single solution.</span> CPM software aligns every part of the organization to a central data source, so collaborators make all decisions, create reports, and perform analysis with financial truth top of mind and with finance at the heart of every decision.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Financial_Performance_and_Strategy_Management_Applications.png","alias":"financial-performance-and-strategy-management-applications"},"371":{"id":371,"title":"Compensation Management","description":" Compensation management is a critical part of talent management and employee retention. It uses financial and nonmonetary benefits to attract recruits, reduce turnover, spur performance and boost employee engagement. It is responsible for ensuring that salary and bonuses remain competitive and benefit programs change with the needs of the workforce. The people in this role not only work with data but are also keen to understand the complexity of benefits administration.\r\nCompensation management software is standard in human capital management software suites. It is used to budget employee salaries and provides information about how salary changes with a job role. Although HR has charge of compensation management systems, it can be accessed by managers in a firm.\r\nThe software is typically configured to give supervisors a departmental view of the employee data they need to make salary offers, the issue raises and grant bonuses. An employee's performance management data may be displayed along with compensation information.\r\nEnsuring that salaries are competitive is a major benefit of compensation management systems. Compensation data that's in tune with the market gives hiring managers critical data they need when making an offer to a candidate. This applies as well to raises and bonuses to the incumbent workforce. Employees today have opportunities to find out about their peers' salaries and benefits. A good compensation management system is alert to the market, and this can help motivate employees and reduce turnover.\r\nCompensation management requires the use of external data. Managers gather salary market data by industry, company size, job role and geography. They can use government data, information from publicly available sites that gather user reported salary data, as well as purchase data from third-party firms that conduct ongoing surveys of salary and benefits.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Why is Compensation Management so important?</span>\r\n<ol><li>Compensation management makes a company vigilant. It drives managers to be on the lookout for star performers who must be given rewards for their efforts, which ultimately decreases the risk of losing a valuable employee.</li><li>It is positive reinforcement. Yes, money doesn’t make the world go round and if line managers are not friendly, helpful and supportive retention is difficult. But cash prizes and consistent monetary perks in conjunction with a great work environment allow companies to grow by leaps and bounds through motivated, hard-working employees.</li><li>Compensation management enhances the company’s reputation. When workers are satisfied with their monetary and intangible rewards, they attract better prospects for vacant positions, bringing new, fresh talent to the organization.</li></ol>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Benefits of Compensation Management for your Organization</span>\r\n<ul><li>One of the most significant benefits associated with compensation management is that it helps the organization achieve employee satisfaction. A happy employee will be more productive while contributing to the overall profit of the business. This makes employees realize that they are getting equal returns for the time and effort they are dedicating to the organization. The practice of compensation management exerts a positive impact on the employees by influencing them to perform better and increasing their overall efficiency.</li><li>This stabilizes the labor turnover rate as employees get compensated for their work at a competitive market rate.&nbsp; They do not feel the need of leaving the organization. It can then be concluded that compensation management helps to increase the loyalty of the employees towards the organization.</li><li>Compensation management is an important aspect of the job evaluation process. It augments the whole process by setting up standards for the company that are realistic as well as achievable, as far as the compensation practices of the organization are concerned.</li><li>It is a practice which helps to improve the relationship of the company with the labor union, as it allows the compliance of different labor laws and acts. If the organization is following the compensation practices same as that of the market, there will be no dispute to settle between them and the labor union.</li><li>It helps the professional growth of employees, as their efficiency increases, when there is a reward present for achieving a certain level of production. This also means that the deserving employees are fairly compensated for the efforts they are putting into their work, thus helping the organization to retain the best talent.</li><li>Compensation Management is the practice that if followed properly, will turn the organization into a hub of talent. This means that more human capital will get attracted to the company when they will view the compensation package that it will be offering. Also, the organization must keep in mind that monetary rewards are not something that only derives the motivation of the workforce. The overall compensation package must also include the non-monetary rewards, where the employees should be appreciated for the effort they are putting in their work. Therefore, the organization must ensure that its compensation package is based on monetary as well as non-monetary rewards.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How to Manage Compensation</span>\r\nVery small businesses may use multiple spreadsheets to track and calculate different aspects of their employees’ compensation. This isn’t an efficient system, but when you only have a few employees, it may suit your needs. However, as your business grows and you hire more staff, your old spreadsheets just won’t do the job anymore.\r\nSpreadsheets take a lot of time to update. For a growing workforce, they can become unmanageable. When employee data is spread between multiple sheets, finding and tracking information is time-consuming and you could misplace important data.\r\nIn some cases, the compensation data that gets misplaced can have serious, negative impacts on your business. For example, if your new employee is mistakenly not added to your benefits plan and then they become seriously injured, they won’t have any coverage. This is devastating for the affected employee and can damage morale for the rest of the team.\r\nThis is why businesses turn to compensation management software as they grow. With this software, all the information your HR department needs are in one place. Since the information is in one place, you can quickly and efficiently analyze your employees’ compensation and make any necessary changes.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Compensation_Management.png","alias":"compensation-management"},"373":{"id":373,"title":"Workforce Management","description":"","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Workforce_Management.png","alias":"workforce-management"},"385":{"id":385,"title":"Model-Driven Application Platforms","description":"A model-driven application is a software application that the functions or behaviors are based on, or in control of, some evolutionary applied models of the target things to the application. The applied models are served as a part of the application system in which it can be changed at runtime. The target things are what the application deals with, such as the objects and affairs in business for a business application. Follows the definition of application in TOGAF, a model-driven business application could be described as an IT system that supports business functions and services running on the models of the (things in) business.\r\nThe ideal of the architecture for a model-driven application was first put forward by Tong-Ying Yu on the Enterprise Engineering Forum in 1999, which have been studied and spread through some internet media for a long time. It had influence on the field of enterprise application development in China; there were successful cases of commercial development of enterprise/business applications in the architectural style of a model-driven application. Gartner Group carried out some studies into the subject in 2008; they defined the model-driven packaged applications as &quot;enterprise applications that have explicit metadata-driven models of the supported processes, data and relationships, and that generate runtime components through metadata models, either dynamically interpreted or compiled, rather than hardcoded.&quot; The model-driven application architecture is one of few technology trends to driven the next generation of application modernization, that claimed by some industrial researchers in 2012.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Model-driven development?</span>\r\nModel-driven development (MDD) is a format to write and implement software quickly, effectively and at minimum cost. The methodology is also known as model-driven software development (MDSD), model-driven engineering (MDE) and model-driven architecture (MDA).\r\nThe MDD approach focuses on the construction of a software model. The model is a diagram that specifies how the software system should work before the code is generated. Once the software is created, it can be tested using model-based testing (MBT) and then deployed.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the benefits of model-driven development?</span>\r\nThe MDD approach provides advantages in productivity over other development methods because the model simplifies the engineering process. It represents the intended behaviors or actions of a software product before coding begins.\r\nThe individuals and teams that work on the software construct models collaboratively. Communication between developers and a product manager, for example, provides clear definitions of what the software is and how it works. Tests, rebuilds and redeployments can be faster when developing multiple applications with MDD than with traditional development.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the core concepts of model-driven development?</span>\r\nModel-driven development is more in-depth than just having a model of the software in development, which makes it different from model-based development. Abstraction and automation are key concepts of MDD. Abstraction means to organize complex software systems. In MDD, complex software gets abstracted, which then extracts the easy-to-define code.\r\nOnce developers transform the abstraction, a working version of the software model gets automated. This automation stage uses a domain-specific language (DSL), such as HTML, and scripting languages, like ColdFusion, which can integrate other programming languages and services -- .NET, C++, FTP and more -- for use in websites. DSL is a language specialized to an application domain. A model is written in a DSL language and is utilized for transformation in coding language from the model to working software.\r\nAgile software development methods are often paired with MDD. The Agile development approach enables short sprints where the project scope can change. Agile model-driven development (AMDD) establishes short development iterations, while changes can be redesigned and shown on the model. In AMDD, design efforts are split between modeling in both sprints and coding.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Model_Driven_Application_Platforms.png","alias":"model-driven-application-platforms"},"387":{"id":387,"title":"Managed File Transfer Software, MFT","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Managed file transfer (MFT)</span> is a technology platform that allows organizations to reliably exchange electronic data between systems and people in a secure way to meet compliance needs. These data movements can be both internal and external to an enterprise and include various types, including sensitive, compliance-protected or high-volume data. It can be offered as software or as a service and may include a single pane for visibility and governance.\r\nManaged file transfer software is a more reliable and efficient means for secure data and file transfer, outpacing and outperforming applications such as file transfer protocol (FTP), hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) and other methods.\r\nOrganizations increasingly rely on managed file transfer tools to support their business needs and goals in a way that FTP cannot. FTP presents many challenges(PDF, 571 KB) such as data security gaps, lack of visibility when a problem occurs, timely manual recovery from failures and costly SLA fees due to poor performance.\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Key capabilities of effective managed file transfer</span></p>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Security.</span> Encrypt internal and external transfers, in motion and at rest. Secure file transfers with advanced capabilities like session breaks and protocol inspection maximize the protection of sensitive data at multiple layers.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Simplified file transfer.</span> Offers timely and flexible data transfer across a range of file transfer activities and support for multiple file types, including multimedia, PDFs, email, XML, EDI and more.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Full visibility.</span> Provides a 360-degree view in near-real time. Companies can see who is transferring files, what is being shared and the volume passing through the system. Potential issues like delays and failed transfers are visible before they impact downstream business processes or become missed SLAs.</li><li> <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Compliance standards.</span> Strong encryption helps companies avoid compliance failures which can lead to hefty fines. Thorough audit trails confirm regulatory compliance.</li></ul>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\">&nbsp;</p>","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">What are the benefits of managed file transfer?</h1>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Data security.</span> High-profile data breaches and failed transfers can drastically impact a company’s bottom line and reputation. MFT offers a preemptive security strategy with real-time monitoring, and validation security policies and controls to protect data in transit or at rest.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Data growth.</span> Data is everywhere, and companies face larger and more varied files than in the past. The number of users sharing files has grown as have the number of end-points and devices. And as files get larger, the time to move them over global distances becomes longer. MFT brings reliable, automated governance to the movement of files inside and outside the business and can accelerate big data movements around the globe.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Regulatory compliance.</span> Legislative and industry requirements such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), Basel II, Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and others — typically have stringent data security standards. Using a properly-configured MFT system to encrypt, transmit, monitor and store sensitive data empowers organizations to meet security mandates.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Technology megatrends.</span> Moving files has become more complex with the adoption of transformational technologies. The growth of big data, cloud applications, artificial intelligence, data analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) place a premium on the speed and bulk of file transfers. MFT offers advanced capabilities and support for multiple platforms, mobile devices, applications and other existing IT infrastructure.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Visibility.</span> Companies need to anticipate risk factors to mitigate damages. Operational visibility over file movements leads to proactive issue resolution, like failed transfers and improved compliance with SLA commitments.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Secure File Transfer vs Managed File Transfer software comparison</h1>\r\nMFT is a platform. This may make it seem more advanced than other protocols, and arguably it is. It offers administration capabilities coupled with automation and popular security protocols like HTTPS, SFTP, and FTPS. Often, the interface of MFT is designed for transparency and visibility. Generally, it’s a more secure transfer protocol than most others.\r\nMFT beats secure file transfers in complexity and nuance and crushes the competition when it comes to security. If we had to find some drawbacks to implementing a MFT strategy, it’s complexity may mean a learning curve is required for some users. Also, managed file transfer implies management is required. The introduction of visibility and transparency of the process offers no benefit if the processes aren’t being monitored.\r\nFTP (File Transfer Protocol) and SFT (Secure File Transfer) are both network protocols for “put” and “get” functions. With regards to billing data, data recovery files and other sensitive information that enterprise businesses need to hold and share, SFT offers encryption, whereas FTP does not. SFT was designed for the purposes of securely transmitting data.\r\nTo that point, SFT uses Secure Shell or SSH network protocol to transfer data across a channel. Data is protected as long as it’s in moving across the channel. Once it hits a secured server, it’s no longer protected. For additional encryption, senders would need to ensure encryption occurs in advance of sending.\r\nThe main benefit of Secure File Transfer is it is enhanced with encryption during the sending process, whereas regular FTP does not have such protection. It’s still second to an MFT platform, but SFT could be a less expensive alternative, depending on how much impact data transfer has on your business.\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Managed_File_Transfer_Software.png","alias":"managed-file-transfer-software-mft"},"391":{"id":391,"title":"Cloud Testing/ASQ PaaS","description":" With the growing technological advancements, there is a requirement of continuous testing of an application. The conventional mode of application testing is very time consuming, and cost associated with such kind of testing solution is also high. That is why demand for a solution to test application on the cloud and for the cloud is rising significantly as high quality, well-performing software across platforms drive business innovation and competitive positioning. Software vendors across the globe are investing a huge amount of money in research and development of software that can provide more software-centric IT infrastructure to their customer. These software vendors are looking for automated software testing (ASQ), software as a Service (SaaS) and adaptive infrastructure support in the cloud.\r\nCloud testing and ASQ software facilitates quick access to both superiority solution and support infrastructure to sustain complex software sourcing and dynamic development. Cloud testing solutions require fewer resources and less infrastructure investment than on-premise ASQ solutions.\r\nThe continuous development in cloud computing space is driving the growth of the global cloud testing and ASQ software market. Cloud computing is creating a new shift in IT model. Cloud computing facilitates organizations to adopt software as a Service at a very low cost. Software as a Service providers business organization a more agile framework and increase their efficiency, at the same time, software as a service is a complex phenomenon and requires continuous monitoring. As an organization is deploying more enterprise mobility solution and mobile application, cloud testing and ASQ software vendors are seeing a huge opportunity in the market.\r\nHowever, business organizations’ software needs are changing very frequently, and to cope with these rapidly changing software advancements is very difficult for cloud testing ASQ software vendors, and this is the biggest challenge cloud testing and ASQ software market is facing.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Cloud testing?</span>\r\nCloud testing is a form of software testing in which web applications use cloud computing environments (a &quot;cloud&quot;) to simulate real-world user traffic.\r\nCloud testing uses cloud infrastructure for software testing. Organizations pursuing testing in general and load, performance testing and production service monitoring, in particular, are challenged by several problems like limited test budget, meeting deadlines, high costs per test, a large number of test cases, and little or no reuse of tests and geographical distribution of users add to the challenges. Moreover, ensuring high-quality service delivery and avoiding outages requires testing in one's datacenter, outside the data-center, or both. Cloud Testing is the solution to all these problems. Effective unlimited storage, quick availability of the infrastructure with scalability, flexibility and availability of a distributed testing environment reduce the execution time of testing of large applications and lead to cost-effective solutions.\r\nTraditional approaches to test a software incurs a high cost to simulate user activity from different geographic locations. Testing firewalls and load balancers involve expenditure on hardware, software and its maintenance. In the case of applications where the rate of increase in a number of users is unpredictable or there is variation in deployment environment depending on client requirements, cloud testing is more effective.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the types of testing?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Stress</span></span>\r\nStress Test is used to determine the ability of the application to maintain a certain level of effectiveness beyond the breaking point. It is essential for any application to work even under excessive stress and maintain stability. Stress testing assures this by creating peak loads using simulators. But the cost of creating such scenarios is enormous. Instead of investing capital in building on-premises testing environments, cloud testing offers an affordable and scalable alternative.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Load</span></span>\r\nLoad testing of an application involves the creation of heavy user traffic and measuring its response. There is also a need to tune the performance of any application to meet certain standards. However, a number of tools are available for that purpose.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Performance</span></span>\r\nFinding out thresholds, bottlenecks &amp; limitations is a part of performance testing. For this, testing performance under a particular workload is necessary. By using cloud testing, it is easy to create such an environment and vary the nature of traffic on-demand. This effectively reduces cost and time by simulating thousands of geographically targeted users.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Functional</span></span>\r\nFunctional testing of both internet and non-internet applications can be performed using cloud testing. The process of verification against specifications or system requirements is carried out in the cloud instead of on-site software testing.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Compatibility</span></span>\r\nUsing a cloud environment, instances of different Operating Systems can be created on demand, making compatibility testing effortless.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Browser performance</span></span>\r\nTo verify the application's support for various browser types and performance in each type can be accomplished with ease. Various tools enable automated website testing from the cloud.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Latency</span></span>\r\nCloud testing is utilized to measure the latency between the action and the corresponding response for any application after deploying it on the cloud.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the keys to successful testing?</span>\r\n<ol><li>Understanding a platform provider's elasticity model/dynamic configuration method</li><li>Staying abreast of the provider's evolving monitoring services and Service Level Agreements (SLAs)</li><li>Potentially engaging the service provider as an ongoing operations partner if producing commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software</li><li>Being willing to be used as a case study by the cloud service provider. The latter may lead to cost reductions.</li></ol>\r\nCloud testing is often seen as only performance or load tests, however, as discussed earlier it covers many other types of testing. Cloud computing itself is often referred to as the marriage of software as a service (SaaS) and utility computing. In regard to test execution, the software offered as a service may be a transaction generator and the cloud provider's infrastructure software, or may just be the latter. Distributed Systems and Parallel Systems mainly use this approach for testing, because of their inherent complex nature. D-Cloud is an example of such a software testing environment.\r\nFor testing non-internet applications, virtual instances of testing environment can be quickly set up to do automated testing of the application. The cloud testing service providers provide an essential testing environment as per the requirement of the application under test. The actual testing of applications is performed by the testing team of the organization which owns the application or third-party testing vendors.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the benefits?</span>\r\nThe ability and cost to simulate web traffic for software testing purposes have been an inhibitor to overall web reliability. The low cost and accessibility of the cloud's extremely large computing resources provide the ability to replicate real-world usage of these systems by geographically distributed users, executing wide varieties of user scenarios, at scales previously unattainable in traditional testing environments. Minimal start-up time along with quality assurance can be achieved by cloud testing.\r\nFollowing are some of the key benefits:\r\n<ul><li>Reduction in capital expenditure</li><li>Highly scalable</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the issues?</span>\r\nThe initial setup cost for migrating testing to a cloud is very high as it involves modifying some of the test cases to suit the cloud environment. This makes the decision of migration crucial. Therefore, cloud testing is not necessarily the best solution to all testing problems.\r\nLegacy systems &amp; services need to be modified in order to be tested on the cloud. Usage of robust interfaces with these legacy systems may solve this problem. Also like any other cloud services, cloud testing is vulnerable to security issues.\r\nThe test results may not be accurate due to the varying performance of the service providers’ network and the internet. In many cases, service virtualization can be applied to simulate the specific performance and behaviors required for accurate and thorough testing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Cloud_Testing.png","alias":"cloud-testingasq-paas"},"393":{"id":393,"title":"Embedded Database Management Systems","description":" An embedded database is a database technology in which database management solutions are built into an application rather than provided as standalone tools. In many cases, this effectively &quot;hides&quot; the database management tools from the end user.\r\nAn embedded database system can be set up in many ways. It can include traditional relational database designs or other kinds of storage formats. It can utilize different solutions as well; for example, a popular type of embedded architecture uses MS Access for storage and relies on VBA forms to handle data requests. Many of these systems also use various APIs and SQL tools to perform data-related tasks.\r\nEmbedded database designs are used for various purposes. Embedded database tools, for example, can be used for email archive searches, for presentation of gaming statistics or other stored game data, and for industry-specific tools like tax-preparation software packages.\r\nIT professionals also sometimes use the term embedded database to refer to database solutions that run on mobile devices.","materialsDescription":"&nbsp;<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What do &quot;Embedded Database Management Systems&quot; mean?</span>\r\nAn embedded database system is a database management system (DBMS) which is tightly integrated with an application software that requires access to stored data, such that the database system is &quot;hidden&quot; from the application’s end-user and requires little or no ongoing maintenance.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What does it include?</span>\r\nIt is actually a broad technology category that includes\r\n<ul><li>database systems with differing application programming interfaces (SQL as well as proprietary, native APIs),</li><li>database architectures (client-server and in-process),</li><li>storage modes (on-disk, in-memory, and combined),</li><li>database models (relational, object-oriented, entity–attribute–value model, network/CODASYL),</li><li>target markets.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Embedded_Database_Management_Systems.png","alias":"embedded-database-management-systems"},"395":{"id":395,"title":"Agile Application Life-Cycle Management Software","description":" Agile software development is an approach to software development under which requirements and solutions evolve through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams and their customer(s)/end user(s). It advocates adaptive planning, evolutionary development, empirical knowledge, and continual improvement, and it encourages rapid and flexible response to change.\r\nThe term agile (sometimes written Agile) was popularized, in this context, by the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. The values and principles espoused in this manifesto were derived from and underpin a broad range of software development frameworks, including Scrum and Kanban.\r\nThere is significant anecdotal evidence that adopting agile practices and values improves the agility of software professionals, teams and organizations; however, some empirical studies have found no scientific evidence.\r\nAgile application lifecycle management (Agile ALM) is all the tools and processes that are used to manage software development projects based on flexible methodology. The traditional cascade design model uses a phase approach to the development life cycle. This approach means that no project phase starts earlier than the previous one ends. For example, the design does not begin before the collection of requirements ends. Development does not begin until the design is completed. Testing does not begin until development is fully completed. There are many tools to manage what is in the input and output of each phase.","materialsDescription":" Agile ALM brings together two seemingly contradictory development strategies. Agile promotes flexibility, rapid release cycles and quick response to change. Application lifecycle management (ALM) emphasizes tracking and documenting changes in an application -- from inception to retirement. Its processes are more controlled and less adaptive than the Agile methodology. That said, when put together, Agile and ALM act as complements, rending ALM more flexible and Agile more disciplined.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Agile ALM?</span>\r\nDevelopment expert Yvette Francino described Agile ALM as ALM tools and processes that are used to manage Agile software development projects. For example, rather than using Waterfall's phased approach, Agile ALM offers an approach to software development in which design, code and requirements are all handled by the same team.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How do you integrate Agile into an ALM framework?</span>\r\nAccording to Gerie Owen's article on Agile and ALM, adopting Agile means both a change to the ALM approach and a change to an organization's mind-set. An Agile ALM strategy will focus on the customer and will have the ability to adapt to shifting requirements -- from project planning to release management. For example, instead of just implementing controls to force early feedback from testers and business analysts, an organization would also foster a culture of collaboration.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Are there tools that can help me achieve this?</span>\r\nALM tools are widely available but must be chosen with care, according to Yvette Francino, SearchSoftwareQuality contributor. Organizations should look for tools that facilitate the process without impeding acceptance of changing requirements. They would also need to integrate throughout the application lifecycle and be easy to maintain. In other words, the tool should manage the development process in an Agile way. In an article for SearchSoftwareQuality.com, Amy Reichert provides a list of Agile ALM tools and identifies their strengths and weaknesses. Rally Software, for example, offers a product that works well with Agile but, according to Reichert, does not provide an intuitive workflow. VersionOne, on the other hand, offers a tool that is more user-friendly but less compatible with Agile. Which one is best will depend on the company's needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Are there challenges to Agile ALM that I should be aware of?</span>\r\nThe primary challenge to Agile ALM is in finding a balance between the two methodologies. A common pitfall is to over-ALM the development process. In other words, when developers and testers start to find workarounds to the software rules -- as they often do -- some react by creating more rules in order to more strictly enforce them. Meanwhile, processes lose their agility.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How can I overcome these challenges?</span>\r\nTesting expert Amy Reichert cautions development teams to keep track of how many rules they add and how those rules are communicated. She also suggests having a discussion with the team, asking them why they are circumventing the process. Once everyone's role has been clarified, project managers can then decide which rules, if any, to add.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Is Agile ALM a good approach for mobile development?</span>\r\nMobile development is faster and more competitive than traditional software development. It has newer technologies and higher-speed application cycles. These qualities could make mobile an excellent candidate for Agile ALM, but only if the methodology is amended to accommodate the challenges inherent in a more restrictive development process. In an article on mobile ALM, site editor James Denman suggested an ALM approach that focuses on smaller pieces of software and authenticates results as each part is finished. That way, teams can quickly discern whether the app will effectively serve its purpose or if it needs to be taken in a different direction.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Agile_Application_Life_Cycle_Management_Software.png","alias":"agile-application-life-cycle-management-software"},"397":{"id":397,"title":"Mobile Testing","description":" Mobile application testing is the process through which applications are tested for required quality, functionality, compatibility, usability, performance and other characteristics.\r\nIt includes a broad range of application testing and evaluation techniques that encompasses both standard software testing and mobile-platform-specific testing procedures.\r\nMobile application testing is typically performed by mobile application developers after a mobile application is developed or before it is released to consumers. Typically, the key objectives of mobile application testing are:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Hardware compatibility and functionality</span> - The mobile application’s response to a mobile device's physical input and interaction with components. This includes a touch screen, keyboard, display, sensors, network and more.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">OS compatibility</span> - Evaluates and ensures that the application is completely compatible with different OS platforms.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Source code evaluation</span> - Identifies and resolves any code errors and bugs within the application.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Usability and Functionality</span> - The application is easy to use and provides all desired functionalities.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How is mobile application testing different from mobile testing?</span>\r\nWhen you are asked to do mobile testing, you must test the mobile phone itself. It may include protocol testing, battery testing, network connectivity testing, software compatibility testing and more.\r\nOn the other hand, mobile application testing is to test applications and software built for mobile phones. In this case, the application needs to be tested to verify whether it meets the specified functional and non-functional requirements.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the different types of mobile application testing?</span>\r\n<ol><li>Functional Testing</li><li>User Interface Testing</li><li>Usability Testing</li><li>Performance Testing</li><li>Stress Testing</li><li>Compatibility Testing</li><li>Interruption Testing</li></ol>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the most important type of mobile application testing?</span>\r\nWhile you cannot neglect any of the above testing types; some of them definitely deserve more attention than the others. For example, user interface testing must be done extensively to make sure that the application’s color schemes, consistency, menu styles, navigation, etc. are perfect.\r\nApart from the listed ones, it is also important to carry out monkey testing of the application to examine the stability of application when continuous invalid user inputs are provided.\r\nAnother important aspect of mobile application testing is to examine how the application reacts when there is no or little network coverage.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the best ways to carry out mobile application testing?</span>\r\nMobile application testing is not just about writing test cases and executing them. Below are some pointers that can help a tester test mobile applications in the most effective manner.\r\n<ul><li>Explore and learn about mobile phones and their attributes. Domain knowledge will really help you see beyond the obvious.</li><li>Understand when, how and where the application will be used and then create test cases.</li><li>Study the mobile phones on which the applications will run and write appropriate test cases.</li><li>Use simulators as often as possible to execute the test cases.</li><li>Use remote device services (RDA) as well.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Can mobile application testing be automated?</span>\r\nYes, it can. The fact that mobile application testing is gradually grasping the attention of the IT industry may be the reason why mobile test automation tools are being released into the market. It is best to keep your options open and explore all forms of mobile application testing and choose the ones that best suit your needs.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Mobile_Testing.png","alias":"mobile-testing"},"399":{"id":399,"title":"Requirements Visualization, Definition, and Management","description":" Requirements management is the process of documenting, analyzing, tracing, prioritizing and agreeing on requirements and then controlling change and communicating to relevant stakeholders. It is a continuous process throughout a project. A requirement is a capability to which a project outcome (product or service) should conform.\r\nThe purpose of requirements management is to ensure that an organization documents, verifies, and meets the needs and expectations of its customers and internal or external stakeholders. Requirements management begins with the analysis and elicitation of the objectives and constraints of the organization. Requirements management further includes supporting planning for requirements, integrating requirements and the organization for working with them (attributes for requirements), as well as relationships with other information delivering against requirements, and changes for these.\r\nThe traceability thus established is used in managing requirements to report back fulfilment of company and stakeholder interests in terms of compliance, completeness, coverage, and consistency. Traceabilities also support change management as part of requirements management in understanding the impacts of changes through requirements or other related elements (e.g., functional impacts through relations to functional architecture), and facilitating introducing these changes.\r\nRequirements management involves communication between the project team members and stakeholders, and adjustment to requirements changes throughout the course of the project. To prevent one class of requirements from overriding another, constant communication among members of the development team is critical. For example, in software development for internal applications, the business has such strong needs that it may ignore user requirements, or believe that in creating use cases, the user requirements are being taken care of.\r\nRequirements traceability is concerned with documenting the life of a requirement. It should be possible to trace back to the origin of each requirement and every change made to the requirement should therefore be documented in order to achieve traceability. Even the use of the requirement after the implemented features have been deployed and used should be traceable.\r\nRequirements come from different sources, like the business person ordering the product, the marketing manager and the actual user. These people all have different requirements for the product. Using requirements traceability, an implemented feature can be traced back to the person or group that wanted it during the requirements elicitation. This can, for example, be used during the development process to prioritize the requirement, determining how valuable the requirement is to a specific user. It can also be used after the deployment when user studies show that a feature is not used, to see why it was required in the first place.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Requirements activities</span>\r\nAt each stage in a development process, there are key requirements management activities and methods. To illustrate, consider a standard five-phase development process with Investigation, Feasibility, Design, Construction, and Test, and Release stages.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Investigation</span></span>\r\nIn Investigation, the first three classes of requirements are gathered from the users, from the business, and from the development team. In each area, similar questions are asked; what are the goals, what are the constraints, what are the current tools or processes in place, and so on. Only when these requirements are well understood can functional requirements be developed.\r\nIn the common case, requirements cannot be fully defined at the beginning of the project. Some requirements will change, either because they simply weren’t extracted, or because internal or external forces at work affect the project in mid-cycle.\r\nThe deliverable from the Investigation stage is a requirements document that has been approved by all members of the team. Later, in the thick of development, this document will be critical in preventing scope creep or unnecessary changes. As the system develops, each new feature opens a world of new possibilities, so the requirements specification anchors the team to the original vision and permits a controlled discussion of scope change.\r\nWhile many organizations still use only documents to manage requirements, others manage their requirements baselines using software tools. These tools allow requirements to be managed in a database, and usually have functions to automate traceability (e.g., by allowing electronic links to be created between parent and child requirements, or between test cases and requirements), electronic baseline creation, version control, and change management. Usually, such tools contain an export function that allows a specification document to be created by exporting the requirements data into a standard document application.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Feasibility</span></span>\r\nIn the Feasibility stage, the costs of the requirements are determined. For user requirements, the current cost of work is compared to the future projected costs once the new system is in place. Questions such as these are asked: “What are data entry errors costing us now?” Or “What is the cost of scrap due to operator error with the current interface?” Actually, the need for the new tool is often recognized as these questions come to the attention of financial people in the organization.\r\nBusiness costs would include, “What department has the budget for this?” “What is the expected rate of return on the new product in the marketplace?” “What’s the internal rate of return in reducing the costs of training and support if we make a new, easier-to-use system?”\r\nTechnical costs are related to software development costs and hardware costs. “Do we have the right people to create the tool?” “Do we need new equipment to support expanded software roles?” This last question is an important type. The team must inquire into whether the newest automated tools will add sufficient processing power to shift some of the burdens from the user to the system in order to save people time.\r\nThe question also points out a fundamental point about requirements management. A human and a tool form a system, and this realization is especially important if the tool is a computer or a new application on a computer. The human mind excels in parallel processing and interpretation of trends with insufficient data. The CPU excels in serial processing and accurate mathematical computation. The overarching goal of the requirements management effort for a software project would thus be to make sure the work being automated gets assigned to the proper processor. For instance, “Don’t make the human remember where she is in the interface. Make the interface report the human’s location in the system at all times.” Or “Don’t make the human enter the same data in two screens. Make the system store the data and fill in the second screen as needed.”\r\nThe deliverable from the Feasibility stage is the budget and schedule for the project.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Design</span></span>\r\nAssuming that costs are accurately determined and benefits to be gained are sufficiently large, the project can proceed to the Design stage. In Design, the main requirements management activity is comparing the results of the design against the requirements document to make sure that work is staying in scope.\r\nAgain, flexibility is paramount to success. Here’s a classic story of scope change in mid-stream that actually worked well. Ford auto designers in the early ‘80s were expecting gasoline prices to hit $3.18 per gallon by the end of the decade. Midway through the design of the Ford Taurus, prices had centered to around $1.50 a gallon. The design team decided they could build a larger, more comfortable, and more powerful car if the gas prices stayed low, so they redesigned the car. The Taurus launch set nationwide sales records when the new car came out, primarily because it was so roomy and comfortable to drive.\r\nIn most cases, however, departing from the original requirements to that degree does not work. So the requirements document becomes a critical tool that helps the team make decisions about design changes.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Construction and test</span></span>\r\nIn the construction and testing stage, the main activity of requirements management is to make sure that work and cost stay within schedule and budget, and that the emerging tool does, in fact, meet requirements. A main tool used in this stage is prototype construction and iterative testing. For a software application, the user interface can be created on paper and tested with potential users while the framework of the software is being built. The results of these tests are recorded in a user interface design guide and handed off to the design team when they are ready to develop the interface. This saves time and makes their jobs much easier.\r\nVerification: This effort verifies that the requirement has been implemented correctly. There are 4 methods of verification: analysis, inspection, testing, and demonstration. Numerical software execution results or through-put on a network test, for example, provides analytical evidence that the requirement has been met. Inspection of vendor documentation or spec sheets also verifies requirements. Actually testing or demonstrating the software in a lab environment also verifies the requirements: a test type of verification will occur when test equipment not normally part of the lab (or system under test) is used. Comprehensive test procedures which outline the steps and their expected results clearly identify what is to be seen as a result of performing the step. After the step or set of steps is completed the last step's expected result will call out what has been seen and then identify what requirements or requirements have been verified (identified by number). The requirement number, title, and verbiage are tied together in another location in the test document.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Requirements change management</span></span>\r\nHardly would any software development project be completed without some changes being asked of the project. The changes can stem from changes in the environment in which the finished product is envisaged to be used, business changes, regulation changes, errors in the original definition of requirements, limitations in technology, changes in the security environment and so on. The activities of requirements change management include receiving the change requests from the stakeholders, recording the received change requests, analyzing and determining the desirability and process of implementation, implementation of the change request, quality assurance for the implementation and closing the change request. Then the data of change requests be compiled, analyzed and appropriate metrics are derived and dovetailed into the organizational knowledge repository.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Release</span></span>\r\nRequirements management does not end with product release. From that point on, the data coming in about the application’s acceptability is gathered and fed into the Investigation phase of the next generation or release. Thus the process begins again.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Requirements_Visualization.png","alias":"requirements-visualization-definition-and-management"},"401":{"id":401,"title":"Service-Oriented Architecture and Web Services","description":" Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a style of software design where services are provided to the other components by application components, through a communication protocol over a network. An SOA service is a discrete unit of functionality that can be accessed remotely and acted upon and updated independently, such as retrieving a credit card statement online. SOA is also intended to be independent of vendors, products and technologies.\r\nA service has four properties according to one of many definitions of SOA:\r\n<ul><li>It logically represents a business activity with a specified outcome.</li><li>It is self-contained.</li><li>It is a black box for its consumers, meaning the consumer does not have to be aware of the service's inner workings.</li><li>It may consist of other underlying services.</li></ul>\r\nDifferent services can be used in conjunction to provide the functionality of a large software application,[4] a principle SOA shares with modular programming. Service-oriented architecture integrates distributed, separately maintained and deployed software components. It is enabled by technologies and standards that facilitate components' communication and cooperation over a network, especially over an IP network.\r\nSOA is related to the idea of an application programming interface (API), an interface or communication protocol between different parts of a computer program intended to simplify the implementation and maintenance of software. An API can be thought of as the service, and the SOA the architecture that allows the service to operate.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Service-Oriented Architecture?</span>\r\nService-oriented architecture (SOA) is a software architecture style that supports and distributes application components that incorporates discovery, data mapping, security and more. Service-oriented architecture has two main functions:\r\n<ol><li>Create an architectural model that defines goals of applications and methods that will help achieve those goals.</li><li>Define implementations specifications linked through WSDL (Web Services Description Language) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) specifications.</li></ol>\r\nService-oriented architecture principles are made up of nine main elements:\r\n<ol><li>Standardized Service Contract where services are defined making it easier for client applications to understand the purpose of the service.</li><li>Loose Coupling is a way to interconnecting components within the system or network so that the components can depend on one another to the least extent acceptable. When a service functionality or setting changes there is no downtime or breakage of the application running.</li><li>Service Abstraction hides the logic behind what the application is doing. It only relays to the client application what it is doing, not how it executes the action.</li><li>Service Reusability divides the services with the intent of reusing as much as possible to avoid spending resources on building the same code and configurations.</li><li>Service Autonomy ensures the logic of a task or a request is completed within the code.</li><li>Service Statelessness whereby services do not withhold information from one state to another in the client application.</li><li>Service Discoverability allows services to be discovered via a service registry.</li><li>Service Composability breaks down larger problems into smaller elements, segmenting the service into modules, making it more manageable.</li><li>Service Interoperability governs the use of standards (e.g. XML) to ensure larger usability and compatibility.</li></ol>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How Does Service-Oriented Architecture Work?</span>\r\nA service-oriented architecture (SOA) works as a components provider of application services to other components over a network. Service-oriented architecture makes it easier for software components to work with each other over multiple networks.\r\nA service-oriented architecture is implemented with web services (based on WSDL and SOAP), to be more accessible over standard internet protocols that are on independent platforms and programming languages.\r\nService-oriented architecture has 3 major objectives all of which focus on parts of the application cycle:\r\n<ol><li>Structure process and software components as services – making it easier for software developers to create applications in a consistent way.</li><li>Provide a way to publish available services (functionality and input/output requirements) – allowing developers to easily incorporate them into applications.</li><li>Control the usage of these services for security purposes – mainly around the components within the architecture, and securing the connections between those components.</li></ol>\r\nMicroservices architecture software is largely an updated implementation of service-oriented architecture (SOA). The software components are created as services to be used via APIs ensuring security and best practices, just as in traditional service-oriented architectures.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the benefits of Service-Oriented Architecture?</span>\r\nThe main benefits of service-oriented architecture solutions are:\r\n<ul><li>Extensibility – easily able to expand or add to it.</li><li>Reusability – opportunity to reuse multi-purpose logic.</li><li>Maintainability – the ability to keep it up to date without having to remake and build the architecture again with the same configurations.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Service_Oriented_Architecture_and_Web_Services.png","alias":"service-oriented-architecture-and-web-services"},"403":{"id":403,"title":"Software Quality Analysis and Measurement","description":" Software quality measures whether the software satisfies its requirements. Software requirements are classified as either functional or non-functional.\r\nFunctional requirements specify what the software should do. Functional requirements could be calculations, technical details, data manipulation, and processing, or any other specific function that defines what an application is meant to accomplish.\r\nNon-functional requirements specify how the system should work. Also known as “quality attributes” non-functional requirements include things like disaster recovery, portability, privacy, security, supportability, and usability.\r\nNote that most factors indicating software quality fit into the non-functional requirements category. And, while it’s obviously important that software does what it’s built to do, this is the bare minimum you would expect from any application.\r\nBelow are some examples of test metrics and methods for measuring the important aspects of software quality. Efficient measuring and testing of your software for quality is the only way to maximize the chances of releasing high-quality software in today’s fast-paced development environments.\r\nYou can measure reliability by counting the number of high priority bugs found in production. You can also use load testing, which assesses how well the software functions under ordinary conditions of use. It’s important to note that “ordinary conditions of use” can vary between low loads and high loads—the point is that such environments are expected.\r\nLoad testing is also useful for measuring performance efficiency. Stress testing is an important variation on load testing used to determine the maximum operating capacity of an application.\r\nStress testing is conducted by inundating software with requests far exceeding its normal and expected patterns of use to determine how far a system can be pushed before it breaks. With stress testing, you get insight into the recoverability of the software when it breaks—ideally, a system that fails should have a smooth recovery.\r\nYou can measure security by assessing how long it takes to patch or fix software vulnerabilities. You can also check actual security incidents from previous software versions, including whether the system was breached and if any breaches caused downtime for users. All previous security issues should, of course, be addressed in future releases.\r\nCounting the number of lines of code is a simple measure of maintainability—software with more lines of code is harder to maintain, meaning changes are more likely to lead to errors.\r\nThere are several detailed test metrics used to check the complexity of code, such as cyclomatic complexity, which counts the amount of linearly independent paths through a program’s source code.\r\nYou can check the rate of delivery by counting the number of software releases. Another measure is the number of “stories” or user requirements shipped to the user.\r\nYou can test the GUI to make sure it’s simple and not frustrating for end-users. The problem is that GUI testing is complex and time-consuming – there are many possible GUI operations and sequences that require testing in most software. And that means it takes a long time to design test cases.\r\nThe complexity of GUI testing competes with the objective of releasing software quickly, which has necessitated the implementation of automated testing. Several test suites that completely simulate user behavior are available.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Software Quality Metrics?</span>\r\nThe word 'metrics' refers to standards for measurements. Software Quality Metrics means a measurement of attributes, pertaining to software quality along with its process of development.\r\nThe term &quot;software quality metrics&quot; illustrate the picture of measuring the software qualities by recording the number of defects or security loopholes present in the software. However, quality measurement is not restricted to the counting defects or vulnerabilities but also covers other aspects of qualities such as maintainability, reliability, integrity, usability, customer satisfaction, etc.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why Software Quality Metrics?</span>\r\n<ol><li>To define and categorize elements in order to have a better understanding of each and every process and attribute.</li><li>To evaluate and assess each of these processes and attribute against the given requirements and specifications.</li><li>Predicting and planning the next move w.r.t software and business requirements.</li><li>Improving the Overall quality of the process and product, and subsequently of project.</li></ol>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Software Quality Metrics: a sub-category of Software Metrics</span>\r\nIt is basically, a subclass of software metrics that mainly emphasizes on quality assets of the software product, process and project. A software metric is a broader concept that incorporates software quality metrics in it, and mainly consists of three types of metrics:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Product Metrics:</span> it includes size, design, complexity, performance and other parameters that are associated with the product's quality.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Process Metrics:</span> it involves parameters like time-duration in locating and removing defects, response time for resolving issues, etc.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Project Metrics:</span> it may include a number of teams, developers involved, cost and duration for the project, etc.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Features of good Software Quality Metrics:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Should be specific to measure the particular attribute or an attribute of greater importance.</li><li>Comprehensive for a wide variety of scenarios.</li><li>Should not consider attributes that have already been measured by some other metric.</li><li>Reliable to work similarly in all conditions.</li><li>Should be easy and simple to understand and operate.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Software_Quality_Analysis_and_Measurement.png","alias":"software-quality-analysis-and-measurement"},"405":{"id":405,"title":"Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms","description":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">A mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP)</span> is a development environment that provides tools and middleware to develop, test, deploy and manage corporate software running on mobile devices.\r\nEnterprise mobile application development addresses the difficulties of developing mobile software by managing the diversity of devices, networks and user groups at the time of deployment and throughout the mobile computing technology lifecycle. Unlike standalone apps, an enterprise mobile app development services a comprehensive, long-term approach to deploying mobility. Cross-platform considerations are one big driver behind using MEAPs. For example, a company can use an enterprise mobile app development to develop the mobile application once and deploy it to a variety of mobile devices (including smart phones, tablets, notebooks and ruggedized handhelds) with no changes to the underlying business logic.\r\nPlatform applications are best for companies that wish to deploy multiple applications on a single infrastructure, scaled to the size of their current mobile field force and available in an online and offline mode. Enterprise mobile app platform provides higher level languages and easy development templates to simplify and speed the mobile application development timeframe, requiring less programming knowledge for mobile business application deployment.\r\nThere are many advantages associated with enterprise mobile application development platform. First of all, it can be run on the cloud. Without maintaining separate sets of code, mobile enterprise application platforms can support multiple types of operating systems and mobile devices. This means a company can deploy a mobile application to different mobile devices with the help of mobile enterprise application platforms without having to worry about compatibility. As most enterprise mobile development platforms have a tool set for modifications, creation of custom app extensions is quite easy and convenient. Enterprise mobile application platforms can centrally manage mobile applications and can also help in integration with multiple server data sources.","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">What are the benefits of enterprise mobile app platform? </h1>\r\n<ul><li>Create apps and complex forms for any type of mobile device and OS without having to maintain separate sets of code.</li><li>Create tailor-made apps for specific user groups, giving them exactly what they need; usually, a mash-up of reading/writing access to your backend systems, publicly available web services and device features such as camera, GPS, sign-on screen, etc.</li><li>Requires basic and limited coding skills e.g. HTML and CSS.</li><li>Allows a high degree of re-use of the code and interactions developed.</li><li>Provide the offline capability for mobile users in areas without WiFi or cellular coverage.</li><li>Once the platform is integrated into the important back-end systems, creating new apps and forms can be done in hours rather than weeks or months.</li><li>Enterprise mobile application development services can be run on the cloud and purchased on a subscription basis.</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Pros and cons of MEAP</h1>\r\nAlong with the benefits described above, a mobile enterprise application platform extends beyond fourth-generation language (4GL) tools for app development to use a graphical environment and dedicated script language. The tool makes business apps accessible to users from any location at any time. For ease of IT management, some MEAP products can run as a cloud service.\r\nA MEAP, like any technology, comes with challenges. The initial investment is high - it's expensive to begin with, though the total cost of ownership (TCO) goes down with use over time - and it requires IT to perform additional tasks such as updating content, securing data, maintaining applications with updates and managing user authentication.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Important features</h1>\r\nIn general, a MEAP has two important features:\r\n<ul><li>A mobile application development environment and back-end web services to manage those mobile applications and link them to enterprise applications and databases.</li><li>A centralized management component that enables an administrator to control which users can access an application and what enterprise databases that application can pull data from.</li></ul>\r\nSometimes, organizations will use a mobile enterprise application platform in conjunction with enterprise mobility management (EMM) or mobile device management (MDM). MDM manages mobile devices, while MEAP products manage the enterprise applications running on those devices - although there is sometimes overlap between the functionalities of these two technologies.\r\n<br /><br /> ","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Mobile_Enterprise_Application_Platforms.png","alias":"mobile-enterprise-application-platforms"},"415":{"id":415,"title":"Mobile Enterprise Applications","description":"The term <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">enterprise mobile application</span> is used in context of mobile apps created/brought by individual organizations for their workers to carry out functions required to run the organization.\r\nAn enterprise mobile app belonging to an organization is expected to be used by only the workers of that organization. The definition of enterprise mobility apps do not include the mobile apps that an organization create for its customers or consumers of the products or services generated by the organization. \r\nProviders of mobile enterprise application solutions create and develop apps for individual organizations that can buy instead of creating the apps themselves. Reasons for Organizations buying the apps include time and cost savings, technical expertise. Today Enterprise Mobility is playing track role for enterprise transformation.\r\nCompanies are rapidly incorporating mobile applications into their larger IT strategies, allowing them to grow their mobile presence further. Big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), and machine learning are all propelling this growth.\r\nNeed for enterprise mobility applications arose with mobile devices becoming essential in the day to day life and with employees using mobile devices for business purposes. This lead companies to adapt to either Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled (COPE) approach for Enterprise Mobility. BYOD is making significant progress in the business world, with employees using their own technology at work.\r\nOrganizations having their internal mobile teams develop the apps internally and deploy them. However, some organizations go for enterprise mobile app development company with wide experience in creating Mobile strategies and deploying the apps for Medium to Large Scale Enterprises. These companies provide options for Pre built and custom built turn-key suite of apps. ","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are corporate mobile apps?</span></h1>\r\nConventionally, corporate mobile applications can be divided into several groups.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The first group</span></span> is applications designed only for work. Their main goal is to reduce company costs, optimize business processes, and, as a result, increase profits. Another option is an application to increase the efficiency of the analytical department, giving its users the opportunity to improve monitoring of the market, competitors, quickly collect and process data on prices, points of sale of goods, etc.</li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The second group</span></span> is applications that integrate work and communication. These include corporate social networks, so popular recently. Created in the image and likeness of social networks familiar to everyone, they successfully combine work functionality and allow employees to communicate with each other, create personal pages, workgroups, communities, keep blogs, receive news about the company, share important files, create a common information base and use it at any time. </li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The third group</span></span> is applications for monitoring remote employees. Office workers are easy to control: most of the day they are at their workplace, and if necessary, you can organize a system of electronic passes. Remote employees are left to their own devices - it’s very difficult to check whether they arrived at the site on time and reached at all, how many points they visited in a day, and whether they used company materials and equipment to fulfill “left” orders. </li><li><span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">The fourth group</span></span> is Service Desk and Help Desk, designed to automate the processing of client requests while providing technical support to users of IT departments. Most of these systems are online, because it is important for the user to solve the problem as quickly as possible. With their help, you can provide customer support directly from your mobile device. Applications provide an opportunity in the background to access the list of applications, view in detail individual applications, make changes to them, respond and work with comments.</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Top 5 enterprise mobility app features you must know</h1>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Centrally Moderated and Strongly Secured Data Infrastructure.</span> Security must never be at bay when it comes to enterprise mobility apps. In the age of information, data is undoubtedly the most valuable commodity, losing which can result in a massive loss for business enterprises. Data sharing done via enterprise mobility apps or solutions need to be monitored. Construct a centrally moderated and highly secure (multi-level security) infrastructure for enterprise mobility solutions. This approach enhances trust and ensures that critical business data remains safe always.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Automation of Processes.</span> Automation is the main factor behind the adoption of enterprise mobility in the core business processes by the organizations. Businesses aim to streamline their operations with minimal human intervention and cut back on time/cost. The number of device usage in the enterprise domain is increasing year-after-year. The growth showcases the seriousness of organizations to adopt top enterprise mobile apps for enhancing automation and processes for better efficiency. </p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Real-Time Analytics and Connectivity.</span> The integration of enterprise mobility applications in the existing system leverages the technology benefits for seeking better insights into the ongoing processes. Every enterprise app must have cognitive analytical capabilities to succeed. Modern organizations have to manage thousands of procedures, offerings and deal with hundreds of stakeholders at any point in time. In case of such massive data overloads, every enterprise aims to have a real-time data analysis to make better decisions for growth in the future.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Incredible User Experience.&nbsp; </span>An enterprise mobility app must deliver an intuitive user experience. Not only should it focus on making the functionality better, but also on offering the best experience to the users. This step, in turn, will boost app adoption within the enterprise, fulfilling the organization’s aim for automation. The app must contain futuristic features such as in-app notifications, multi-platform support, offline functionality, etc., to offer an incredible user experience. <br /><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Event-Driven Approach. </span>Event-driven approach and architecture is the main differentiator, which fuels digital business transformation. This approach mainly revolves around the delivery of solutions that fulfill organizational objectives by offering rapid response to specific events. Moreover, the event-driven approach aims to transform the task flow based on particular circumstances. Businesses would be able to leverage dynamic opportunities to the maximum potential and provide real-time solutions by choosing the event-driven approach for their enterprise mobility applications. </p>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Mobile_Enterprise_Applications.jpg","alias":"mobile-enterprise-applications"},"417":{"id":417,"title":"Product Life-Cycle Management Applications","description":"","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Product_Life_Cycle_Management_Applications.png","alias":"product-life-cycle-management-applications"},"419":{"id":419,"title":"Services Resource Planning Applications","description":" The world economy has become service- and project-driven. Global businesses have realized the new playing field is not based solely on competing with products and price, but rather through client-driven projects that require unique consulting knowledge, skills and experience.\r\nThis project-driven service economy depends on accurately capturing knowledge-worker productivity—how much time, skill, materials, and intellectual property are required to produce favorable client outcomes? New cloud-based services resource planning (SRP) applications have emerged to manage the entire project lifecycle from requirements to quoting, time and expense capture and billing.\r\nSRP provides the systems basis for the initiation, planning, resource management, execution, close and control of projects and services. An SRP solution combines the best elements of previous standalone business applications for accounting (ERP), client relationship management (CRM) and professional services automation (PSA) to support the entire bid-to-bill lifecycle of a project- and service-driven organizations.\r\nA complete SRP solution provides all aspects of project-based finance and accounting to generate invoices based on a variety of methods (time and materials, milestone-based, fixed price, etc.), ensuring accurate invoicing, timely cash collection and revenue recognition.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Six Reasons Services Resource Planning is a Game-Changer for Services Organizations</span>\r\nIn the 1970s and ‘80s, materials requirements planning helped to transform the manufacturing industry.\r\nNow, three decades later, Services resource planning (SRP) is poised to be just as transformative for software and professional services. SRP provides a consistent and comprehensive platform for services organizations to manage the entire client lifecycle, from lead to project to cash. Simply put, services organizations can't afford to ignore the potential of Service Resource Planning. Here are six reasons why:\r\n<ol><li>Integration -- Integrating project management, resource optimization, project accounting, and client management is an idea whose time has come. It is virtually impossible to provide real-time insights to all stakeholders when dozens or even hundreds of simultaneous projects are being managed on spreadsheets, email, and stand-alone systems.</li><li>Decision making -- Until accounting, sales, human resources, project management and field professionals all speak the same languages of planning and execution, it is impossible to make coordinated decisions that lead to better client outcomes and increased efficiencies.</li><li>Globalization -- MRP brought centralized and consistent controls to every step of the manufacturing process at a time when globalization was shrinking the industrial world. American, Asian and European businesses vied with one another for the same customers with the same product lines. MRP sorted the winners from the losers by giving the winners tremendous cost and efficiency advantages. This should sound familiar. The market for professional services and other knowledge-based businesses has become global, and competitive pressures are coming from all corners of the world. SRP delivers the same edge to services businesses today that manufacturers needed in order to succeed three decades ago.</li><li>Coordination -- In the past, it was possible for many organizations to use professional services as a loss-leader to secure a larger piece of business, such as a long-term software contract. Now that the market for professional services is so competitive, this loss-leader mentality is a business-killing dead end. Becoming a profit center requires coordination, and that means SRP.</li><li>Growth -- Accounting and sales departments need to understand future revenue and profit opportunities, which is difficult to do when information about professional services projects and resource utilization is not readily available. SRP gives sales the information they need to understand resource availability when pitching new business, and provides accounting with the insight they need to produce more accurate forecasts and timely invoices.</li><li>Profitability -- The disciplines of Services Resource Planning expose the profitability of every resource and every project. That's the kind of granularity professional services organizations need in order to make competitive strategic decisions in the face of global competition.</li></ol>\r\nSoftware, consulting, advertising and accounting service organizations are already transforming their business with cloud SRP solutions. Here are some of the SRP success stories and take the first steps towards modernizing your own practice.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Services_Resource_Planning_Applications.png","alias":"services-resource-planning-applications"},"421":{"id":421,"title":"Digital Commerce Applications","description":"E-commerce is the activity of buying or selling products on online services or over the Internet. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.\r\nModern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one part of the transaction's life cycle although it may also use other technologies such as e-mail. Typical e-commerce transactions include the purchase of online books (such as Amazon) and music purchases (music download in the form of digital distribution such as iTunes Store), and to a less extent, customized/personalized online liquor store inventory services. There are three areas of e-commerce: online retailing, electric markets, and online auctions. E-commerce is supported by electronic business.\r\nE-commerce businesses may also employ some or all of the followings:\r\n<ul><li>Online shopping for retail sales direct to consumers via Web sites and mobile apps, and conversational commerce via live chat, chatbots, and voice assistants;</li><li>Providing or participating in online marketplaces, which process third-party business-to-consumer or consumer-to-consumer sales;</li><li>Business-to-business buying and selling;</li><li>Gathering and using demographic data through web contacts and social media;</li><li>Business-to-business (B2B) electronic data interchange;</li><li>Marketing to prospective and established customers by e-mail or fax (for example, with newsletters);</li><li>Engaging in pre-retail for launching new products and services;</li><li>Online financial exchanges for currency exchanges or trading purposes.</li></ul>","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">5 Reasons Why E-commerce Is So Important For Your Business</span>\r\nFrom startups to small businesses right through to huge brands, there are a huge number of companies that can benefit from their own e-commerce website, where they can sell their own products or services. In today's competitive and convenience-focused society, no longer do consumers want to venture to the high street in order to buy items, instead, consumers want to shop from their own homes, making e-commerce a flexible solution for both businesses and buyers.\r\nIf you’re still on the fence about launching an e-commerce store then look no further, here are the top 5 reasons e-commerce is so important for your business and just how you can benefit from moving online this year!\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Can Broaden Your Brand</span>\r\nE-commerce is an ideal way you can take your brand from a traditional brick and mortar store to an innovative, well-loved brand. By offering great products 24 hours a day along with online customer service, blogs and social media, no longer is your business one singular store, with an online presence your business can be the home of your products and the general home of your business, allowing you to fully expand your product ranges without having to worry about moving locations or worrying about not being able to expand your business.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">It’s More Convenient</span>\r\nAn online store is available all day, every day meaning your customers can visit your store at all times, no matter what their schedule might be. These days people don’t always have the time to physically go shopping, instead more and more people are choosing to shop online to find the items they want or need and if your business can offer this for your customers there’s no you shouldn't appeal to a wider range of customers all looking for a convenient and flexible experience.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Increase Your Reach</span>\r\nDue to the internet’s accessibility, millions of people across the world can view your website at any time, meaning that for those looking to expand their businesses and reach out to a larger audience, you have many more opportunities to do so. Compare the number of people you can reach through a website to the amount you can reach through a high street store or local advertising, there’s no reason you shouldn’t look at taking your business online if you’re looking to improve your reach.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Gives You Marketing Opportunities</span>\r\nYour website is one of the best marketing tools your business has, not only can the use of SEO when building your site lead to more chances of your business getting found in search engines, but a huge number of marketing techniques can also work alongside your website, including pay per click advertising, your social media marketing, and your email marketing, all of which can include links back to your website.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Scalable</span>\r\nAs your business grows it’s very likely you’ll want to grow your product range and your target audience, as well as develop your business for customer requirements and consumer demand. An e-commerce site lets you scale your business accordingly, allowing you to add more lines, add more payment options and even grow when you choose to ship to, without having to worry about changing your location or moving to larger premises as you might with a brick and mortar store.\r\nE-commerce offers the business a whole range of opportunities, from marketing opportunities to increase your products ranges to generating more sales and with an optimized and well-developed website, you can not only achieve these goals but also offer your customers around the clock, convenient service, that can boost your business.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Digital_Commerce_Applications.png","alias":"digital-commerce-applications"},"492":{"id":492,"title":"Enterprise Service Bus Middleware","description":" An enterprise service bus (ESB) implements a communication system between mutually interacting software applications in a service-oriented architecture (SOA). It represents a software architecture for distributed computing, and is a special variant of the more general client-server model, wherein any application may behave as server or client. ESB promotes agility and flexibility with regard to high-level protocol communication between applications. Its primary use is in enterprise application integration (EAI) of heterogeneous and complex service landscapes.\r\nThe concept of the enterprise service bus is analogous to the bus concept found in computer hardware architecture combined with the modular and concurrent design of high-performance computer operating systems. The motivation for the development of the architecture was to find a standard, structured, and general purpose concept for describing implementation of loosely coupled software components (called services) that are expected to be independently deployed, running, heterogeneous, and disparate within a network. ESB is also a common implementation pattern for service-oriented architecture, including the intrinsically adopted network design of the World Wide Web.\r\nNo global standards exist for enterprise service bus concepts or implementations. Most providers of message-oriented middleware have adopted the enterprise service bus concept as de facto standard for a service-oriented architecture. The implementations of ESB use event-driven and standards-based message-oriented middleware in combination with message queues as technology frameworks. However, some software manufacturers relabel existing middleware and communication solutions as ESB without adopting the crucial aspect of a bus concept.\r\nThe ESB is implemented in software that operates between the business applications, and enables communication among them. Ideally, the ESB should be able to replace all direct contact with the applications on the bus, so that all communication takes place via the ESB. To achieve this objective, the ESB must encapsulate the functionality offered by its component applications in a meaningful way. This typically occurs through the use of an enterprise message model. The message model defines a standard set of messages that the ESB transmits and receives. When the ESB receives a message, it routes the message to the appropriate application. Often, because that application evolved without the same message model, the ESB has to transform the message into a format that the application can interpret. A software adapter fulfills the task of effecting these transformations, analogously to a physical adapter.\r\nESBs rely on accurately constructing the enterprise message model and properly designing the functionality offered by applications. If the message model does not completely encapsulate the application functionality, then other applications that desire that functionality may have to bypass the bus, and invoke the mismatched applications directly. Doing so violates the principles of the ESB model, and negates many of the advantages of using this architecture.\r\nThe beauty of the ESB lies in its platform-agnostic nature and the ability to integrate with anything at any condition. It is important that Application Lifecycle Management vendors truly apply all the ESB capabilities in their integration products while adopting SOA. Therefore, the challenges and opportunities for EAI vendors are to provide an integration solution that is low-cost, easily configurable, intuitive, user-friendly, and open to any tools customers choose.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)?</span>\r\nAn Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is a type of software platform known as middleware, which works behind the scenes to aid application-to-application communication. Think of an ESB as a “bus” that picks up information from one system and delivers it to another.\r\nThe term ESB first appeared in 2002, but the technology continues to evolve, driven by the need for ever-emerging internet applications to communicate and interact with one another.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why would I want an ESB?</span>\r\nImagine that there are two systems in an organization that needs to exchange data. The technical teams that represent each system plan and implement a solution that allows these systems to communicate. A year or two later, the organization deploys several more systems that need to interact with each other as well as the existing two systems. How can all teams develop and reach an agreement on the best solution?\r\nIt becomes very complicated to manage and maintain one solution as an organization’s IT systems expand. With just 10 systems, there could be 100 different interfaces and scores of disparate technical requirements.\r\nAn ESB provides a secure, scalable and cost-effective infrastructure that enables real-time data exchange among many systems. Data from one system, known as a service provider, can be put on the enterprise service bus as a message, which is sent immediately to a service consumer of the data. If a new system wants to consume this same data, all it has to do is plug into the bus in the same manner.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Enterprise_Service_Bus_Middleware.png","alias":"enterprise-service-bus-middleware"},"569":{"id":569,"title":"Website Design","description":" Web design is the process of creating websites. It encompasses several different aspects, including webpage layout, content production, and graphic design. While the terms web design and web development are often used interchangeably, web design is technically a subset of the broader category of web development.\r\nWebsites are created using a markup language called HTML. Web designers build webpages using HTML tags that define the content and metadata of each page. The layout and appearance of the elements within a webpage are typically defined using CSS, or cascading style sheets. Therefore, most websites include a combination of HTML and CSS that defines how each page will appear in a browser.\r\nSome web designers prefer to hand code pages (typing HTML and CSS from scratch), while others use a &quot;WYSIWYG&quot; editor like Adobe Dreamweaver. This type of editor provides a visual interface for designing the webpage layout and the software automatically generates the corresponding HTML and CSS code. Another popular way to design websites is with a content management system like WordPress or Joomla. These services provide different website templates that can be used as a starting point for a new website. Webmasters can then add content and customize the layout using a web-based interface.\r\nWhile HTML and CSS are used to design the look and feel of a website, images must be created separately. Therefore, graphic design may overlap with web design, since graphic designers often create images for use on the Web. Some graphics programs like Adobe Photoshop even include a &quot;Save for Web…&quot; option that provides an easy way to export images in a format optimized for web publishing.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is Web Design Important?</span>\r\nIt can be difficult to understand why most businesses are willing to pay top dollar for web design work. After all, having a functional website matters more than how it looks, right? Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Today, the most important aspect of an online business presence in web design.\r\nThis means that businesses should always try to find the best web styles that work for their businesses. Although there are several people who can create websites, it takes a skilled person to design a website that looks polished and functional. Here are some more reasons why web design is important to good business.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">A Good Site Increases Customer Conversion</span>\r\nWhen a business has a well-designed website, it becomes easier to get more customer conversions. This is because a well-designed website uses its elements to lead customers directly to what they need without distractions.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">A Responsive Website Helps Business Reach More Clients</span>\r\nAccording to recent research by Pew Research Center, it was discovered that more and more users are using their mobile phones to do business. This means that businesses need to take advantage of this new set of customers by creating websites that can get clients who are away from their computers.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Websites Help in Business Branding</span>\r\nA poor looking website will damage the brand of any company while a scummy-looking website drives customers away. However, an elegant website will help people to connect with a business’s branding. A website with a user-friendly page tends to attract clients more to businesses.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Website_Design.png","alias":"website-design"},"595":{"id":595,"title":"iOS Software Development","description":"iOS is Apple’s mobile OS that runs on an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch hardware. Apple provides tools and resources for creating iOS apps and accessories for these devices. As an iOS developer, you can program in native languages such as Swift or Objective-C or build cross-platform native applications using React Native (JavaScript) or Xamarin (C# &amp; F#).<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Developer Requirements.</span> To develop iOS apps, you need a Mac computer running the latest version of Xcode. Xcode is Apple’s IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for both Mac and iOS apps. Xcode is the graphical interface you'll use to write iOS apps. Xcode includes the iOS SDK, tools, compilers, and frameworks you need specifically to design, develop, write code, and debug an app for iOS. For native mobile app development on iOS, Apple suggests using the modern Swift programming language. It is important to note that Xcode only runs on Mac OS X and the only supported way to develop iOS apps. Like desktop software, iOS development software are designed using a range of programming languages and frameworks.<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"></span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">iOS software development kit. </span>Mobile iOS app creation software requires access to software development kits (SDKs) that provide an environment through which programmers can design and test code in a simulated mobile environment. Some iOS SDK essentials are the Cocoa Touch frameworks that include the UIKit, GameKit, PushKit, Foundation Kit, and MapKit. These frameworks and others allow you manipulate the iPhone or iPad camera, add voice interaction using SiriKit, explore music with MusicKit, expand viewing and listening via AirPlay 2, and even add iMessage Business Chat to your application. iOS 11 added the power of machine learning with Core ML and augmented reality (AR) experiences with ARKit.\r\n<p id=\"Beta_Testing\" style=\" color:#232f3e; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Beta Testing.</span> <span style=\"font-weight: normal; \">Once you have built and tested (using XCTest framework or iOS Unit test) your app, you can invite users to your apps and collect feedback using TestFlight prior to deploying to the App Store. This is a good time for testing Push Notifications, data storage using Core Data, and making network calls to 3rd party APIs. To get going, you simply upload a beta build of your app, and use iTunes Connect to add the name and email of testers. <br /></span></p>\r\n<p id=\"Beta_Testing\" style=\" color:#232f3e; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Cloud Testing.</span><span style=\"font-weight: normal; \">Testing your iOS app on real devices is critically important since the performance of the real device, different operating system versions, modifications made by manufacturer and carriers firmware may lead to unexpected issues with your app. Testing on real device gives you a more accurate understanding of how your users interact with your app. On the other hand, obtaining physical devices for testing is a logistical challenge. This is where cloud testing comes into play. With cloud testing, you can test your application on real devices that are accessible on the cloud. <br /></span></p>\r\n<p id=\"Beta_Testing\" style=\" color:#232f3e; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Deployment.</span> <span style=\"font-weight: normal; \">Once you have built, tested, and beta tested your iOS app, you can deploy to the App Store. At this point, you must join the Apple Developer Program. As a member, you’ll get access to beta iOS app development software, advanced app capabilities, extensive beta testing tools, and app analytics.</span></p>\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the advantages of iOS App Development?</span></h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">iOS is easy to use interface.</span> Apple’s iPhone becomes the dream of many smartphone users, providing high customer service and become a market leader for offering unmatched devices. You can attract your Apple users easily if an application will be created on a synchronized environment Apple’s platform. These special flexible User Interface of the features of the iOS app can make your business application more desirable and boost up their sales and earn maximum benefits.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">iOS has more security.</span> iOS platform offers its users stay safe from external threats which is the best part and advantage of this platform. While developing an app for the business, providing a powerful shield against malware, virus and other internet threats for app development of a business. iOS applications are secured applications, allows effortless transaction facilities app without spending more time on testing different devices.</li><li>For <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">business</span>, there are multiple options available in the highly popular iOS app making software market, this is because important to attract new customers to increase sales and chance to empower your business in the global market. The web is not a safe place for so thanks to a well-developed iPhone app Development Company can increase their availability and protect your customer’s information. With an iOS mobile app, always been an attractive device to the public with constant acknowledgment from App Store and business can flourish on a regular basis.</li><li>iOS users are usually <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">happy users,</span> an efficiently developed iOS app helps to promote your brand or your organization to enhance productivity with profitability services to reach your targeted audience. iOS application builds a strong relationship with customers and clients, and the great audience to deliver your product and solutions to achieve their goals. Better the application is, strong would be the relationship with the superior brand in consumer electronics.</li><li>iOS applications are <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">innovation </span>and the latest technology used globally and this can help your business to expand the most secure way. With best iOS app development software is accepted globally, you may transforming traditional business processes in a modern way and find customers from every part of the world.</li></ul>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">What is IDE?</h1>\r\nIDE is the acronym for Integrated Development Environment. This contains a set of tools, resources and programming essentials within itself. It helps software/web/ mobile app developers to create new programs. This is a comprehensive solution for creating software or mobile app independently. These resources make development, deployment and debugging processes very simple. Choosing an IDE for iPhone app development is dependent on the budget, kind of programming language you prefer, etc. There are so many functionalities in an IDE that gives you a lot of benefits for app development.\r\nThe IDE makes strategies and streamlines the development phase for your entire team. It has many tools for automation, programming, debugging, compiling and for interpretation. There are three general types of IDE available. They are cloud-based, software as a service (SaaS) type and installing on the server type. IDE for iOS application development software is preferred bycompanies to reduce development time and costs. It helps in accurate testing and easy coding. Integration is also possible with these IDEs. It is as simple as a word processing program used by developers to create robust mobile applications.<br /> ","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_iOS_Software_Development.png","alias":"ios-software-development"},"597":{"id":597,"title":"Android Software Application","description":" Android software development is the process by which new applications are created for devices running the Android operating system. Google states that &quot;Android apps can be written using Kotlin, Java, and C++ languages&quot; using the Android software development kit (SDK), while using other languages is also possible. All non-JVM languages, such as Go, JavaScript, C, C++ or assembly, need the help of JVM language code, that may be supplied by tools, likely with restricted API support. Some languages/programming tools allow cross-platform app support, i.e. for both Android and iOS. Third party tools, development environments and language support have also continued to evolve and expand since the initial SDK was released in 2008. In addition, with major business entities like Walmart, Amazon, Bank of America etc. eyeing to engage and sell through mobiles, mobile application development is witnessing a transformation.\r\nAndroid was created by the Open Handset Alliance, which is led by Google. The early feedback on developing applications for the Android platform was mixed. Issues cited include bugs, lack of documentation, inadequate QA infrastructure, and no public issue-tracking system. In December 2007, MergeLab mobile startup founder Adam MacBeth stated, &quot;Functionality is not there, is poorly documented or just doesn't work... It's clearly not ready for prime time.&quot; Despite this, Android-targeted applications began to appear the week after the platform was announced. The first publicly available application was the Snake game.\r\nA preview release of the Android SDK was released on November 12, 2007. On July 15, 2008, the Android Developer Challenge Team accidentally sent an email to all entrants in the Android Developer Challenge announcing that a new release of the SDK was available in a &quot;private&quot; download area. The email was intended for winners of the first round of the Android Developer Challenge. The revelation that Google was supplying new SDK releases to some developers and not others (and keeping this arrangement private) led to widely reported frustration within the Android developer community at the time.\r\nOn August 18, 2008, the Android 0.9 SDK beta was released. This release provided an updated and extended API, improved development tools and an updated design for the home screen. Detailed instructions for upgrading are available to those already working with an earlier release. On September 23, 2008, the Android 1.0 SDK (Release 1) was released. According to the release notes, it included &quot;mainly bug fixes, although some smaller features were added.&quot; It also included several API changes from the 0.9 version. Multiple versions have been released since it was developed.\r\nOn December 5, 2008, Google announced the first Android Dev Phone, a SIM-unlocked and hardware-unlocked device that is designed for advanced developers. It was a modified version of HTC's Dream phone. While developers can use regular consumer devices to test and use their applications, some developers may choose a dedicated unlocked or no-contract device.\r\nAs of July 2013, more than one million applications have been developed for Android, with over 25 billion downloads. A June 2011 research indicated that over 67% of mobile developers used the platform, at the time of publication. Android smartphone shipments are forecast to exceed 1.2 billion units in 2018 with an 85% market share.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Where does Android come from?</span>\r\nIt comes from Google, who actually acquired Android in 2005 (no, Google didn't invent it). The search giant performs regular updates along with an annual major update.\r\nThe operating system is based on the Linux kernel – if you have friends who work in IT, you may have heard of it. This is the GNU / Linux operating system based structure, which is a unix type system (portable operating system, multitasking and multi-user). The Linux kernel is one of the most prominent examples of free software.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why does Android look different on each phone?</span>\r\nAndroid doesn't look different on every device, but it does have a number of different versions. Android is open-source, which means that manufacturers are free to customize the software and make it their own.\r\nThe 'purest' version of Android is often referred to as 'stock Android' and it's often preferred by the Android community: it's the original software as Google intended.\r\nOther user interfaces (UI) include Samsung's TouchWiz, Sony's Xperia, and Huawei's Emotion. See what they all look like in our Android UI comparison.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the advantages of Android?</span>\r\nChoice. For example, if you want iOS, you have a choice of iPhone, iPhone or iPhone. If you go for Android there are stacks of great devices to choose from, from cheap and cheerful handsets to really impressive flagships. Those flagships are often cheaper than the equivalent Apple devices, too.\r\nAndroid’s choice isn’t just about hardware. It’s about everything else too. Android is incredibly easy to customize, both in terms of how it looks and how it works, and the various app stores aren’t as tightly controlled as its rivals’ stores, like Apple.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What’s with the candy names?</span>\r\nEach new version of Android gets a code name based on consecutive letters of the alphabet. The most recent version is known as Marshmallow because it is the Android M release. Previous versions have included Lollipop, KitKat, Jelly Bean and Gingerbread.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What’s the best thing about Android?</span>\r\nOptions, many options. With Android, you have hundreds of gadgets at your disposal, the cheapest, the most expensive and innovative market. Android is also incredibly customizable, both in their roles, as in his appearance. You can really make a unique mobile experience for yourself with this OS.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What’s the worst thing about Android?</span>\r\nGetting updates. In many cases, manufacturers don’t seem to care about providing software updates for devices they’ve already sold you. Even when they do provide updates they take their sweet time about it. That’s why some consider rooting: you can download the updates yourself and apply them instead of waiting for the manufacturer to get around to it.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Android_Software_Application.png","alias":"android-software-application"},"598":{"id":598,"title":"Mobile Website Development","description":" Today, virtually no company can effectively conduct its business without having its own website. A site is not just the face of the company, which should be nice to look at, not an attribute of doing business, but an urgent need. If the company has its own website, then it:\r\n<ul><li>facilitates potential customers and partners access to information about themselves;</li><li>attracts the target audience from the Internet;</li><li>significantly increases market coverage;</li><li>increases brand awareness;</li><li>facilitates communication both with partners and with the target audience;</li><li>improves customer feedback;</li><li>increases customer loyalty.</li></ul>\r\nHowever, the main advantage of owning a website, of course, is that it helps to significantly increase sales, and, consequently, profit. In general, now having a website is almost a prerequisite for successful business development.\r\nComputers, smartphones, tablets, other mobile devices, and the Internet have penetrated all spheres of our lives. A variety of mobile devices are especially popular, and that is why it is no longer possible to limit oneself to a PC version of a site. The website version for the PC is bad for mobile devices, and this, as you might guess, negatively affects sales and profits. If the site is uncomfortable to use, then the potential client will not rack their brains, but simply use the services of competitors. The vast majority will not even try to find something on the site if it is not adapted for mobile devices.\r\nA separate mobile version of the site is a site specifically designed for mobile users. As a rule, a mobile version of a site is hosted on a dedicated subdomain.\r\nThe mobile version of the site, in most cases, is simply a greatly reduced version of the site for the PC. Only those functions that, according to the developers, maybe needed by those users who access the site with a smartphone or tablets, are left on the mobile site.\r\nThe mobile version of the site is good in that it does not depend on the main one, can be easily changed and edited, loads quickly is quite convenient for users, and also has the option of switching to the main version of the site.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What’s a mobile website?</span>\r\nMobile devices have transformed the way we live, putting the digital world at our fingertips 24 hours a day, wherever we are.\r\nThis means establishing your mobile presence is more important now than ever as you have the opportunity to put your business in the pockets of your consumers and create more meaningful interactions with your users. Almost 80% of people use smartphones to search the internet, so if your business is lacking a mobile website or app, you are missing out on a huge market opportunity.\r\nThere are two types of mobile development – responsive mobile sites and mobile applications. We build easy to use, intuitive and responsive mobile apps and websites, designed for optimization across all devices to keep you ahead of your competitors.\r\nA mobile website is a website with a responsive, fluid design, that is user-friendly on multiple devices and web browsers. A study conducted by Google and Galaxy in June 2015 found that 74% of Australians rely on their phones at least as much as they rely on desktops when searching for information, ideas or advice. This is when responsive design plays a huge role.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why do I need a mobile website?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Mobile traffic has taken over</span></span>\r\nAs mobile traffic has taken over desktop traffic in 2015, more and more people only browse the internet on mobile phones. This means that businesses now need to adopt a mobile-first approach to their online strategies.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Search engines are pushing for better UX</span></span>\r\nMobile users tend to have poor experiences on desktop websites. This is something that search engines such as Google have understood, and are putting initiatives in place to improve mobile web experiences. For example, Google released its mobile-friendly update in 2015 and is switching its search index to mobile-first.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Competitive advantage</span></span>\r\nWebsite owners now need to provide compelling experiences to their mobile users. This is something that is now vital in order to reach business goals and lead users to conversion. As a result, the fast adoption of a mobile strategy is a competitive advantage.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Mobile_Website_development.png","alias":"mobile-website-development"},"603":{"id":603,"title":"MacOS Development","description":" The key to great app development lies in having a solid foundation, ideally laid in having a good operating system, to begin with on which your app will stand on and initiate all its operations. For a long time, Windows was the dominating operating system of the nineties.\r\nWhy Should You Use Mac OS X in App Development? A reason for this system’s stagnation in progress is the brand’s fear in offending its corporate clients; therefore every tech change has to be introduced painfully slowly so as to be assimilated by its clients.\r\nApple, on the other hand, has slowly crept up and overtaken Windows and other operating systems primarily because they are not afraid of taking giant leaps. Their “it’s our way or the high way” approach to their operating system has enabled them to make significant improvements in their software, which other operating systems are almost incapable of attaining.\r\nMAC OS X software is essentially a two-layered system. Its impressive GUI sits on top of a UNIX core, and UNIX is notorious for its impressive security features. UNIX makes it’s nearly impossible to install a Trojan or a virus to the system unless the user gives it root access to the system by essentially typing in the admin password into the system.\r\nThe beauty of MAC OS X built-in firewall is that it operates out the box, while at the same time being highly flexible. While MAC users should ideally remain vigilant about foreign files and consequentially never allow them into the system by giving them an admin pass, they then do not need special software to block out these viruses.\r\nMAC OS interface is simple, you can pin as many apps as possible to dock at the bottom of your screen, plus they are always available to you. Besides this, you can run multiple desktops, make use of your iCloud chain to decipher your credit card information, share various files wirelessly through Airdrop, and still monitor the operating system via a set of in-built high-grade utility tools.\r\nThe system also has a rapid start-up resume time. All this is essentially made possible by MAC OS powerful stability. Even though systemic degradation is expected over time, as is the case with just about every operating system, the rate is significantly reduced on MAC products and freezing and crashing are not a common everyday occurrence as is the case with a few operating systems.\r\nMAC’s impressive reliability can be primarily attributed to the fact that the operating system was built from the ground up. Apple essentially controls the production of its software and hardware products from start to finish, and so every part of the system is designed and tested out to work cohesively together.\r\nThose who complain that Apple forces its consumers to use its proprietary software couldn’t be more misguided. MAC OS automatically recognizes and works well with other Apple products including iPads, iPhones, etc.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Mac OS X?</span>\r\nMac OS X is an operating system created by Apple for Mac computers (the first version was introduced in 2001), which replaced the then outdated Mac OS 9.\r\nThis is a POSIX-compatible system, that is, all Unix operations can be performed in it. Built on the basis of the XNU core with the Aqua graphical interface.\r\nStarting with version 10.8 it is called OS X.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the advantages of macOS?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Fewer virus attacks:</span>\r\nAs macOS is the second most used operating system and has fewer active users so it has fewer virus attacks also. The other reason for virus safety is its UNIX relationship which is more secure than Windows OS.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Good customer support:</span>\r\nMac users get a good response from their support team as compared to other operating systems. Apple has skilled engineers which help the user in fixing the issues in their hardware and software.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Similar GUI for all the products:</span>\r\nmacOS has the same graphical user interface (GUI) as found in other Apple products like iPhone and tablets. Users feel comfortable in using macOS if they shifted from other Apple products.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Performance and long life:</span>\r\nAs Apple makes both hardware and software so it’s hardware communication is very efficient and it improves performance. The operating system and hardware work great. Apple computer has a longer life than other computers. The battery timing of mac laptops is also longer.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Default apps:</span>\r\nIf you install Windows then it comes with pre-installed apps that slow down your computer e.g. Onedrive slows your computer. But this is not the case with macOS, it comes with powerful apps which don’t affect the performance of your system. Some of the pre-installed apps of macOS are iPhoto and iMovie.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Support NTFS and FAT:</span>\r\nmacOS support Windows file system formats including both NTFS and FAT.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Can run Windows:</span>\r\nYou can run the Windows operating system if you have macOS installed by using Bootcamp or parallels software.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the disadvantages of macOS?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Expensive:</span>\r\nThe minimum cost of a Mac PC is higher than $1000. You can get a good Windows PC at $1000 with more hardware specifications.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Fewer games and software:</span>\r\nMost game developers prefer to make games for the Windows OS because they have more percentages of users. Mac users have fewer games available. Also, mac computers have low graphics capability to run high graphics games. There is some software that is available for Windows and not available for mac users e.g. adobe premiere pro etc.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">No hardware customization:</span>\r\nIf you buy any Mac computer/laptop then you cannot change its hardware parts like processor, graphics card, etc. For some mac computers, you can change hardware and RAM but it is not for all mac computers. It is also not possible to change other hardware accessories like internal computer parts, the only choice you have is to buy a new mac computer. On every major release of your operating system you have to change your computer else 50% of your operating system features not work.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Windows cannot read the macOS file system:</span>\r\nmacOS can read NTFS and FAT Windows format but Windows cannot read the macOS file system. You need to install 3rd party software in Windows to do so. Some other software like footnotes has compatibility issues while moving files from macOS to Windows.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">Less hardware used:</span>\r\nThe new version of macOS computer supports fewer USB ports and they also not shipped with CD/DVD writer.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_MacOS_Development.png","alias":"macos-development"},"605":{"id":605,"title":"Java Development","description":" Java is a general-purpose programming language that is class-based, object-oriented, and designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is intended to let application developers write once, run anywhere (WORA), meaning that compiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need for recompilation. Java applications are typically compiled to bytecode that can run on any Java virtual machine (JVM) regardless of the underlying computer architecture. The syntax of Java is similar to C and C++, but it has fewer low-level facilities than either of them. As of 2019, Java was one of the most popular programming languages in use according to GitHub, particularly for client-server web applications, with a reported 9 million developers.\r\nJava was originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems (which has since been acquired by Oracle) and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The original and reference implementation Java compilers, virtual machines, and class libraries were originally released by Sun under proprietary licenses. As of May 2007, in compliance with the specifications of the Java Community Process, Sun had relicensed most of its Java technologies under the GNU General Public License. Meanwhile, others have developed alternative implementations of these Sun technologies, such as the GNU Compiler for Java (bytecode compiler), GNU Classpath (standard libraries), and IcedTea-Web (browser plugin for applets).\r\nThe latest versions are Java 13, released in September 2019, and Java 11, a currently supported long-term support (LTS) version, released on September 25, 2018; Oracle released for the legacy Java 8 LTS the last free public update in January 2019 for commercial use, while it will otherwise still support Java 8 with public updates for personal use up to at least December 2020. Oracle (and others) highly recommend uninstalling older versions of Java because of serious risks due to unresolved security issues. Since Java 9 (and 10 and 12) is no longer supported, Oracle advises its users to immediately transition to the latest version (currently Java 13) or an LTS release.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Java technology and what is its application?</span>\r\nJava is a programming language and computing platform that was first launched by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are many applications and websites that do not work when Java is not installed, and the number of such websites and applications is increasing every day. Java is fast, highly secure, and reliable. From laptops to data centers, from game consoles to supercomputers used for scientific research, from cell phones to the Internet - Java is everywhere!\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the performance of Java?</span>\r\nPrograms written in Java have a reputation for being slower and taking up more RAM than those written in C. Nevertheless, the speed of execution of programs written in Java has been significantly improved with the release of the so-called JIT compiler in 1997-1998. in version 1.1, in addition to other language features to support better code analysis (such as inner classes, StringBuffer class, simplified logic calculations, and so on). In addition, the Java virtual machine was optimized - since 2000, the HotSpot virtual machine has been used for this. As of February 2012, Java 7 code is approximately 1.8 times slower than C code.\r\nSome platforms offer hardware runtime support for Java. For example, microcontrollers that run Java code on hardware instead of software JVMs, as well as ARM-based processors that support Java bytecode through the Jazelle option.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the main features of Java?</span>\r\n<ul><li>Automatic memory management.</li><li>Advanced exception handling capabilities.</li><li>A rich set of I/O filtering tools.</li><li>A set of standard collections: array, list, stack, etc.</li><li>The presence of simple tools for creating network applications (including using the RMI protocol).</li><li>The presence of classes that allow you to perform HTTP requests and process responses.</li><li>Built-in language tools for creating multi-threaded applications, which were then ported to many languages ​​(for example, Python).</li><li>Unified access to databases: at the level of individual SQL queries - based on JDBC, SQLJ; at the level of the concept of objects with the ability to store in the database - based on Java Data Objects (English) and Java Persistence API.</li><li>Generalization support (since version 1.5).</li><li>Support for lambdas, closures, built-in functional programming features.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Java_Development.png","alias":"java-development"},"607":{"id":607,"title":"C/C++ Development","description":" C++ is a general-purpose object-oriented programming (OOP) language, developed by Bjarne Stroustrup, and is an extension of the C language. It is therefore possible to code C++ in a &quot;C style&quot; or &quot;object-oriented style.&quot; In certain scenarios, it can be coded in either way and is thus an effective example of a hybrid language.\r\nC++ is considered to be an intermediate-level language, as it encapsulates both high- and low-level language features. Initially, the language was called &quot;C with classes&quot; as it had all the properties of the C language with an additional concept of &quot;classes.&quot; However, it was renamed C++ in 1983.\r\nC++ is one of the most popular languages primarily utilized with system/application software, drivers, client-server applications and embedded firmware.\r\nThe main highlight of C++ is a collection of predefined classes, which are data types that can be instantiated multiple times. The language also facilitates declaration of user-defined classes. Classes can further accommodate member functions to implement specific functionality. Multiple objects of a particular class can be defined to implement the functions within the class. Objects can be defined as instances created at run time. These classes can also be inherited by other new classes which take in the public and protected functionalities by default.\r\nC++ includes several operators such as comparison, arithmetic, bit manipulation and logical operators. One of the most attractive features of C++ is that it enables the overloading of certain operators such as addition.\r\nA few of the essential concepts within the C++ programming language include polymorphism, virtual and friend functions, templates, namespaces and pointers.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \"> Bjarne Stroustrup's FAQ</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">C is better than C++ for small projects, right?</span>\r\nNot in my opinion. I never saw a project for which C was better than C++ for any reason but the lack of a good C++ compiler.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Is C a subset of C++?</span>\r\nIn the strict mathematical sense, C isn't a subset of C++. There are programs that are valid C but not valid C++ and even a few ways of writing code that has a different meaning in C and C++. However, C++ supports every programming technique supported by C. Every C program can be written in essentially the same way in C++ with the same run-time and space efficiency. It is not uncommon to be able to convert tens of thousands of lines of ANSI C to C-style C++ in a few hours. Thus, C++ is as much a superset of ANSI C as ANSI C is a superset of K&amp;R C and much as ISO C++ is a superset of C++ as it existed in 1985.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the difference between C and C++?</span>\r\nC++ is a direct descendant of C that retains almost all of C as a subset. C++ provides stronger type checking than C and directly supports a wider range of programming styles than C. C++ is &quot;a better C&quot; in the sense that it supports the styles of programming done using C with better type checking and more notational support (without loss of efficiency). In the same sense, ANSI C is a better C than K&amp;R C. In addition, C++ supports data abstraction, object-oriented programming, and generic programming (see my books).\r\nI have never seen a program that could be expressed better in C than in C++ (and I don't think such a program could exist - every construct in C has an obvious C++ equivalent). However, there still exist a few environments where the support for C++ is so weak that there is an advantage to using C instead.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Do you really think that C and C++ could be merged into a single language?</span>\r\nI think that it would be a very good thing for the C/C++ community if they were. That is, if the C/C++ incompatibilities were systematically and completely eliminated and that future evolution was organized so as to prevent new incompatibilities from emerging. Whether that's possible is another matter.\r\nMy basic point is that the current C/C++ incompatibilities are &quot;accidents of history&quot; that have no fundamental reasons behind them (though they all &quot;looked like a good idea at the time&quot; to some competent and well-meaning people). The C/C++ incompatibilities provide no benefits to the community at large, cause serious problems to a large section of the C/C++ community, and could - with great difficulty - be eliminated.\r\nFor a far more detailed presentation of my views on C/C++ compatibility, see the series of papers I wrote about this:\r\n<ul><li>B. Stroustrup: C and C++: Case Studies in Compatibility. The C/C++ Users Journal. September 2002.</li><li>B. Stroustrup: C and C++: A Case for Compatibility. The C/C++ Users Journal. August 2002.</li><li>B. Stroustrup: C and C++: Siblings. The C/C++ Users Journal. July 2002.</li><li>B. Stroustrup: Sibling rivalry: C and C++. AT&amp;T Labs - Research Technical Report. TD-54MQZY. January 2002. </li></ul>\r\nI imagine that if incompatibilities were eliminated (by making changes to both C and C++), there would still be entities called C and C++, but then C really would be defined as a subset of C++.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Why did you make C++ (almost) compatible with C?</span>\r\nI wanted C++ to be compatible with a complete language with sufficient performance and flexibility for even the most demanding systems programming.\r\nAt the time, I considered C the best systems programming language available. That was not as obvious then (1979) as it later became, but I had experts such as Dennis Ritchie, Steve Johnson, Sandy Fraser, Greg Chesson, Doug McIlroy, and Brian Kernighan down the corridor from whom I could learn and get feedback. Without their help and advice, and without C, C++ would have been stillborn.\r\nContrary to repeated rumors, I was never told that I had to use C; nor was I ever told not to use C. In fact, the first C++ manual grew from troff source of the C manual that Dennis gave me. Many new languages were designed at Bell labs; in &quot;Research&quot; at least, there were no rules enforcing language bigotry.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What do you think of C/C++?</span>\r\nNo that's not really a question I often get. In that sense, it is the only &quot;fake FAQ&quot; in this FAQ. However, it ought to be a FAQ because people use &quot;C/C++&quot; as if it meant something specific and as if they knew what it meant, leading to much confusion and misery. People should ask &quot;What is C/C++?&quot; and then on reflection stop using the term. It does harm.\r\nThere is no language called &quot;C/C++&quot;. The phrase is usually used by people who don't have a clue about programming (e.g. HR personnel and poor managers). Alternatively, it's used by people who simple do not know C++ (and often not C either). When used by programmers, it typically indicates a &quot;C++ is C with a few useful and a lot of useless complicated features added&quot; attitude. Often, that is the point of view of people who like to write their own strings and hash tables with little knowledge of the standard library beyond printf and memcpy. There are people who stick to a restricted subset of C++ for perfectly good reasons, but they (as far as I have noticed) are not the people who say &quot;C/C++&quot;.\r\nI use C/C++ only in phrases such as &quot;C/C++ compatibility&quot; and &quot;C/C++ community&quot;.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">When was C++ invented?</span>\r\nI started work on what became C++ in 1979. The initial version was called &quot;C with Classes&quot;. The first version of C++ was used internally in AT&amp;T in August 1983. The name &quot;C++&quot; was used late that year. The first commercial implementation was released October 1985 at the same time as the publication of the 1st edition of The C++ Programming Language. Templates and exception handling were included later in the 1980's and documented in The Annotated C++ Reference Manual and The C++ Programming Language (2rd Edition). The first ISO C++ standard was C++98 as described in The C++ Programming Language (3rd Edition).\r\nThe current definition of C++ The 2011 ISO C++ Standard described in The C++ Programming Language (4th Edition).\r\nYou can find a more complete timeline and more detailed explanations in The Design and Evolution of C++ and A History of C++: 1979-1991 and Evolving a language in and for the real world: C++ 19.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_C_C_Development.png","alias":"cc-development"},"609":{"id":609,"title":".Net Development","description":" .NET Framework is a software framework developed by Microsoft that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large class library named Framework Class Library (FCL) and provides language interoperability (each language can use code written in other languages) across several programming languages. Programs written for .NET Framework execute in a software environment (in contrast to a hardware environment) named Common Language Runtime (CLR), an application virtual machine that provides services such as security, memory management, and exception handling. As such, computer code written using .NET Framework is called &quot;managed code&quot;. FCL and CLR together constitute the .NET Framework.\r\nFCL provides user interface, data access, database connectivity, cryptography, web application development, numeric algorithms, and network communications. Programmers produce software by combining their source code with .NET Framework and other libraries. The framework is intended to be used by most new applications created for the Windows platform. Microsoft also produces an integrated development environment largely for .NET software called Visual Studio.\r\n.NET Framework began as proprietary software, although the firm worked to standardize the software stack almost immediately, even before its first release. Despite the standardization efforts, developers, mainly those in the free and open-source software communities, expressed their unease with the selected terms and the prospects of any free and open-source implementation, especially regarding software patents. Since then, Microsoft has changed .NET development to more closely follow a contemporary model of a community-developed software project, including issuing an update to its patent promising to address the concerns.\r\n.NET Framework led to a family of .NET platforms targeting mobile computing, embedded devices, alternative operating systems, and web browser plug-ins. A reduced version of the framework, .NET Compact Framework, is available on Windows CE platforms, including Windows Mobile devices such as smartphones. .NET Micro Framework is targeted at very resource-constrained embedded devices. Silverlight was available as a web browser plugin. Mono is available for many operating systems and is customized into popular smartphone operating systems (Android and iOS) and game engines. .NET Core targets the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), and cross-platform and cloud computing workloads.","materialsDescription":"When Microsoft formally introduced its .NET strategy in mid-2000, analysts were confused about how the company would pull off such a massive platform shift. Over two years later, they're still wondering. But .NET isn't vaporware, and it's not a pipe dream. In fact, .NET is happening today.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is .NET?</span>\r\nActually, .NET is many things, but primarily it's a marketing term for a set of products and technologies that Microsoft is creating to move personal and enterprise computing beyond the PC desktop and into a distributed Internet-based environment. So .NET--which was originally called Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS)--is also a platform, one that Microsoft sees as the successor to Windows. The .NET platform is based on Web services which are, in turn, defined by a language called XML.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is XML?</span>\r\nXML--the eXtensible Markup Language--is a self-descriptive, data definition language. It's structure is similar to HTML, the language of the Web, but it's far more powerful because it's not limited to a static list of language constructs (&quot;tags&quot;) that the language's authors supply. Instead, XML is extensible and dynamic: Programmers can define new types of data using XML and then describe that data so that others will know how to use it.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are Web services?</span>\r\nWeb services are functions exposed by server-side applications. They are programmable units that other applications (and Web services) can access over the Internet.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Does .NET require Windows?</span>\r\nTechnically, no, but realistically, yes. It's possible the .NET platform could be ported to other operating systems, such as Linux, FreeBSD, the Macintosh, or whatever, and indeed, some work is being done now in this area. However, .NET very much requires Windows today, on both the server and the client. One might say that .NET and Windows have a symbiotic relationship going forward.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Is .NET is being ported to Linux?</span>\r\nYes. A company called Ximian is porting the standards-based parts of .NET to Linux as you read this, and the work is amazingly far along. Code-named Mono, this project seeks to bring the C# programming language, the Common Language Runtime (CLR, see below), and other .NET features to Linux.\r\nOn a related note, Microsoft has contracted Corel (makers of CorelDRAW and Word Perfect) to port .NET to FreeBSD.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Isn't .NET just another name for COM, COM+, Windows DNA, or some other previous Windows technology?</span>\r\nActually, no. Microsoft spent considerable time and effort developing and promoting a set of Windows technologies that was at various times called OLE, COM, COM+, and Windows DNA (Distributed InterNet Architecture) but .NET is not the next iteration. Windows DNA, which was the final umbrella term for this set of technologies, was based around a concept where Windows-based software components could expose their services for other local and remote Windows software components. But though this sounds passingly similar to .NET, Windows DNA is very much based on proprietary Windows technologies. By comparison, .NET is based on open standards (XML and various related technologies), so it will be much easier for other vendors to adopt the platform and write compatible software. So we can eventually expect to see .NET clients and servers on platforms other than Windows.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">So what technologies are part of .NET?</span>\r\n.NET is comprised of several related technologies, including:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">.NET Framework</span></span> - A runtime environment and set of standard services which .NET capable applications and services can utilize. Implemented as a code library, the .NET Framework includes the Common Language Runtime (CLR), the .NET run-time environment; ASP .NET, a Web applications platform; and ADO .NET, for data store access.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">.NET Compact Framework</span></span> - A subset of the .NET Framework designed for Pocket PCs, Microsoft Smart Phones, and other Windows CE .NET-based mobile devices.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">MSN consumer services</span></span> - Microsoft will use its consumer-oriented MSN online service to expose Web services to individuals. The current version, MSN 8, includes the .NET Passport's authentication services, email, address book, calendaring and tasks, and other similar services.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">.NET Enterprise Servers</span></span> - An extensive set of Microsoft server software that runs on Windows servers, including Application Server, BizTalk Server, Exchange Server, Host Integration Server, Internet Security and Acceleration Server, SQL Server, and many others. Microsoft is currently shipping many such server products, but they are all based on Windows DNA currently, not .NET. Future server products--beginning with Windows .NET Server 2003, due in April 2003--will actually be based on .NET technologies for the first time.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Visual Studio .NET</span></span> - Microsoft's .NET development environment, with support for languages such as Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++ .NET, Visual C# .NET, and Visual J#, which all target the .NET Framework. Other vendors can add other language capabilities to Visual Studio .NET, and the suite can be used to target a wide range of applications and services, including .NET Web services, Windows applications, and Web applications. Note that Visual Studio .NET is not required to create .NET applications and services: Developers can download the .NET Framework for free; this download includes compilers for Visual Basic .NET, Visual C++ .NET and Visual C# .NET.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">OK, so what's the point? How does this make my life better?</span>\r\nWith apologies to Microsoft for stealing the term, .NET enables a better PC ecosystem. That is, by making life easier for everyone involved with PCs, the benefits are cross-pollinated. Here's how .NET makes life easier on various groups:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Programmers</span></span> - Because developers now have a consistent, language-neutral programming environment, they can create better applications and services more quickly. And because .NET encompasses such a wider range of functionality, those applications and services can be connected to back-end services via the Internet, offering better, and more exciting functionality.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">IT administrators</span></span> - Because .NET applications and services do away with the &quot;DLL Hell&quot; found in previous Windows applications, they are amazingly easy to distribute and install.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">End users</span></span> - For the reasons listed above, and many others, a new generation of .NET applications and services will provide new types of connected functionality. Access your email from anywhere. Pay for products online without typing in your credit card information. Access weather, traffic, music, and other personal information from a variety of devices, from anywhere in the world. The future is all connected, and .NET will get us there.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Net_Development.png","alias":"net-development"},"611":{"id":611,"title":"ObjectiveC Development","description":"Objective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language. It was the main programming language supported by Apple for the macOS, iOS and iPadOS operating systems, and their respective application programming interfaces (APIs) Cocoa and Cocoa Touch until the introduction of Swift in 2014.\r\nThe language was originally developed in the early 1980s. It was later selected as the main language used by NeXT for its NeXTSTEP operating system, from which macOS and iOS are derived. Portable Objective-C programs that do not use Apple libraries, or those using parts that may be ported or reimplemented for other systems, can also be compiled for any system supported by GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) or Clang.\r\nObjective-C source code 'implementation' program files usually have .m filename extensions, while Objective-C 'header/interface' files have .h extensions, the same as C header files. Objective-C++ files are denoted with a .mm file extension.\r\nObjective-C was invented in the early 1980s as a means to add Object-Oriented programming capabilities to C. The inventors, Brad Cox and Tom Love, thought that Smalltalk (an early OO language) could provide the tools needed for truly re-usable code and for creating development environments for systems developers.\r\nCox began by writing a pre-processor for C that allowed for the inclusion of Smalltalk-like code, which would then be rendered into compilable C. This turned into a fully-Object-Oriented C extension.\r\nObjective-C was eventually fully defined and described in the book Object-Oriented Programming: An Evolutionary Approach.\r\nNeXT licensed Objective-C in 1988 and developed several tools based on it. These tools eventually became (after several intermediate steps) the Cocoa development environment, which is used by several Apple systems: Mac OS X, iOS, Apple WatchOS.\r\nFor several years now, apps are written for one of these Apple operating systems needed to be written (or compiled to, or run on top of) Objective-C. That situation is changing now as Apple moves its platform to Swift.\r\nIn addition to Cocoa, Objective-C is also used in the GNUstep platform, which can run on Linux, Unix, BSD, and Windows environment, and which closely mirrors Cocoa.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Objective-C?</span>\r\nObjective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language. This is the main programming language used by Apple for the OS X and iOS operating systems and their respective APIs, Cocoa and Cocoa Touch. This reference will take you through a simple and practical approach while learning Objective-C Programming language.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is OOP?</span>\r\nOOP means Object Oriented Programming; it is a type of programming technique that helps to manage a set of objects in a system.&nbsp; With the help of various programming languages, this method helps to develop several computer programs and applications.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Objective-C program consists of?</span>\r\nThe objective-c program basically consists of:\r\n<ul><li>Preprocessor commands</li><li>Interface</li><li>Implementation</li><li>Method</li><li>Variables</li><li>Statements &amp; Expressions</li><li>Comments</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_ObjectiveC_Development.png","alias":"objectivec-development"},"613":{"id":613,"title":"C# Development","description":" C#, (C-Sharp) is a programming language that combines object-oriented and aspect-oriented concepts. Developed in 1998–2001 by a group of engineers under the leadership of Anders Hejlsberg at Microsoft as the main language for developing applications for the Microsoft .NET platform. The compiler with C# is included in the standard installation of the .NET itself, so programs on it can be created and compiled even without tools like Visual Studio.\r\nC# refers to a family of languages ​​with a C-like syntax, of which its syntax is closest to C++ and Java. The language has strict static typing, supports polymorphism, operator overloading, pointers to member functions of classes, attributes, events, properties, exceptions, comments in XML format. Having taken a lot from their predecessors - C++, Java, Delphi, Modula and Smalltalk - C#, based on the practice of using them, excludes some models that have proven to be problematic when developing software systems: thus, C # does not support multiple class inheritance (unlike C ++).\r\nC# was developed as an application level programming language for the CLR and, as such, depends primarily on the capabilities of the CLR itself. This concerns, first of all, the C # type system, which reflects FCL. The presence or absence of certain expressive features of the language is dictated by whether a particular language feature can be translated into the corresponding CLR constructs. So, with the development of the CLR from version 1.1 to 2.0, C # itself was significantly enriched; similar interaction should be expected in the future. (However, this pattern was broken with the release of C # 3.0, which are language extensions that do not rely on .NET platform extensions.) The CLR provides C #, like all other .NET-oriented languages, many of the features that the “classical” programming languages ​​lack. For example, garbage collection is not implemented in C # itself, but the CLR is done for programs written in C # just like it is done for programs on VB.NET, J #, and others.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"> Why is it necessary to study the C# programming language?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reason # 1. Language program C# develops.</span>\r\nNew programming languages ​​appear annually. And the main demand is expanding and progressing. Since the C# programming language was created and accompanied by Microsoft, this technological “hippopotamus” periodically makes improvable with the addition of useful functions in C #, and you can be sure that it will perform many, many iterations ... Also, billions of lines of code are written all over the world not only under Microsoft, so the work is foreseen to everyone who wants to learn the C # programming language.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reason # 2. Your bright future with C#.</span>\r\nThis item smoothly continues the previous one. According to the ratings of the domestic DOU, it is clear that the C# programming language in Ukraine is in 3rd place in 2018 among programming languages. And in the world charts on the 4th place by PYPL PopularitY of Programming Language is a rating using Google Trends.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reason # 3. The possibility of greater profits.</span>\r\nOf course, this statement should be evaluated relatively by comparison. Today they like to say: “A programmer’s working time is more expensive than additional memory or a more powerful computer processor. It is recommended to choose more modern tools that don’t over-brain a programmer.”\r\nOn the other hand, when they talk about C#, they always mean speed and large, valuable, serious projects, even Megaprojects. For example, in C#, the Linux kernel, Unix, libraries, environment, interpreters of many modern programming languages ​​are written.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reason # 4. C# has a huge set of use cases.</span>\r\n<ul><li>The C # programming language is mainly used to create corporate software, financial projects, for example, for banks and stock exchanges, in particular, mobile applications, cloud services.</li><li>Compared to Java, C# interacts more easily with code written in other languages. And it is precisely in C# that extensions are often written for other programming languages ​​used as a layer between the C # library and the language, the possibilities of which are planned to be extended for specific purposes.</li><li>A pretty popular blockchain in C#.</li><li>C# is widely used in developing games on Unity. Have you ever heard of Unity? Unity is a popular game engine. This means that hundreds of thousands of games, including the most popular, were created using C#.</li><li>C# is good for working with iron, the so-called embedded. Asking what is embedded technology? Embedded system - a specialized computer system or computing device designed to perform a limited number of functions, from Wikipedia: traffic lights, cash registers, vending machines, set-top boxes, test equipment, etc.</li><li>The popular C# programming language is equally good for IoT. Again, what is IoT? IoT (Internet of Things) is a concept of a comprehensive Internet, Internet connection of refrigerators, air conditioners, cars and even sneakers with the aim of providing its owner with greater comfort, and on the other hand increasing their retailers' profits, calculating the amount of what, how much and when availability in warehouses, obtaining certain information about a person and his habits, about the environment.</li><li>Science and its application, for example, conducting complex experimental calculations, cryptography, pattern recognition, and the like.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reason # 5. C# is strongly typed, so it is easier for them to master beginners</span>\r\nAs for the comparison of programming languages, it should be noted that the C# programming language is multi-level. This means that it is somewhat similar to English. The C# programming language has strong static typing, supports polymorphism, operator overloading, pointers to member functions of classes, attributes, events, properties, exceptions, comments in XML format. Having adopted a lot from their predecessors - C++, Delphi, Modula, Smalltalk - in C #, relying on the practice of using them, deliberately excluded some models that proved to be problematic when developing software systems in the above-mentioned programming languages.\r\nThe syntax is quite minimalistic - with manual memory management. This is inconvenient for many, but tracking the correctness of functions, understanding the transmission of arguments is closely related to the study of the C# programming language.\r\nSince the syntax of C# is close to C, C++ and Java, then, fluent in C #, you can later learn them in one breath.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_C_Development.png","alias":"c-development"},"617":{"id":617,"title":"Joomla Development","description":"Joomla is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) for publishing web content, developed by Open Source Matters, Inc. It is built on a model–view–controller web application framework that can be used independently of the CMS.\r\nJoomla is written in PHP, uses object-oriented programming techniques (since version 1.5) and software design patterns, stores data in a MySQL, MS SQL (since version 2.5), or PostgreSQL (since version 3.0) database, and includes features such as page caching, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, search, and support for language internationalization.\r\nOver 8,000 free and commercial extensions are available from the official Joomla Extensions Directory, and more are available from other sources. As of 2019, it was estimated to be the fourth most used content management system on the Internet, after WordPress and Drupal.\r\nJoomla has thousands of verified third party extensions which can be found on the Joomla Extensions Directory - extensions.joomla.org. There are also thousands of high end templates available, many of which are free. Paid templates are also available and come with support. Many templates provide a graphical user interface which allow you to change colors, fonts, layouts and features. Joomla has SEO tools built in. Includes Metadata and Keywords, Mod_rewrite support for SEF URLs and Menu creation for clear and consistent sitemaps.\r\n<ul><li>Multilingual: Offering over 75 languages.</li><li>Search Engine Optimization: Out of the box SEO &amp; SEF.</li><li>Flexible: Make a blog, business website, intranet, community website… From the simplest to the most complex website.</li><li>Free: Joomla is free to use under GPL.</li><li>Extendable: Extensions are available to extend website functionality.</li><li>User Management: Access Control Lists allow management of the users of a website, and different groups.</li><li>Menu management: Create as many menus and menu items as you need.</li><li>Cache management: Caching for performance.</li></ul>","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is Joomla?</span>\r\nJoomla has been on the web since 2005 and has gained a massive number of users; over 50 million downloads according to www.joomla.org. It makes this CMS (content management system) the second most popular after WordPress.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What are the key features of Joomla?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Responsive.</span></span> Responsiveness is a “must have” for any up-to-date website. You, as well as almost every other Internet user today, expect the website to scale gracefully to any screen resolution and that is what Joomla is totally capable of doing.\r\nMobile devices, desktops, tablets - your website is not going to look “broken” on any of them.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Multilingual.</span></span> Do you operate in a non-English market? No problemo. Localizing the Joomla engine to your language is easier than it is with most of its competitors in the CMS world.\r\nThere are almost 70 language packs in Joomla which are just several clicks away from being installed and used.\r\nEven if a theme you use has some words that aren’t translatable with the language pack, you can translate the rest of them in a language override tool. This is great because in some other popular CMSs you’d need to go to your server and operate in the theme’s files directly.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Easy to update.</span></span> Joomla is one of the most frequently updated engines and that’s a good thing because the Joomla developer’s team brings us new features and new useful functions each time.\r\nWhat is even better, you can apply the update in two-three clicks from your admin panel. I can’t stress this point enough!\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Well Supported.</span></span> Joomla is an open-source platform, which enables anyone to contribute on a volunteer basis.\r\nThe downside to it is the fact that you can’t get on live chat or call someone from Joomla to get a free consultation for your site.\r\nLuckily, the Joomla team developed very detailed Joomla Documentation. If you’re more of a social type, you’ll enjoy Joomla User Forum.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What makes Joomla stand out?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Joomla Media Manager</span></span>\r\nJoomla Media Manager is a tool that allows you to operate your media files in your Joomla admin panel. Media Manager in Joomla is one of the most intuitive and easy to use among similar tools.\r\nUnlike other CMS systems, you can easily create new folders on your server and upload files there. It would require going to FTP or Cpanel in most other CMSs.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Joomla Contact Manager</span></span>\r\nJoomla is well prepared for being a corporate site that has numerous users with different roles and capabilities. Joomla contact manager enables you to create users in different departments and categories.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Joomla Content Management</span></span>\r\nEven though I’ve heard customers saying Joomla has a longer learning curve, compared to WordPress, it’s so worth it, because with Joomla comes greater flexibility and content combining possibilities.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Joomla Extensions (8000+)</span></span>\r\nJoomla has one of the most powerful extension databases among both CMS and eCommerce platforms.<br />You can find a plugin or module to do almost anything. What is remarkable regarding Joomla extensions - a lot of great plugins and modules are free, while most paid ones come with a free lite version and there is the possibility to upgrade to a premium version whenever you decide to do so.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Front-end Editing</span></span>\r\nI left it till the very end of the guide as it’s my favorite one. That’s what bugs me about WordPress and what cheers me up when working with Joomla - there is no need to go to the admin panel to edit some piece of content.\r\nIf you enabled front-end editing of your site, there will be a gear wheel next to any module and by clicking on it you’ll be able to make changes on the go. It’s a thrill in this bustling world in which we live.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Joomla_Development.png","alias":"joomla-development"},"619":{"id":619,"title":"Drupal Development","description":" Drupal is a content management software. It's used to make many of the websites and applications you use every day. Drupal has great standard features, like easy content authoring, reliable performance, and excellent security. But what sets it apart is its flexibility; modularity is one of its core principles. Its tools help you build the versatile, structured content that dynamic web experiences need.\r\nIt's also a great choice for creating integrated digital frameworks. You can extend it with anyone, or many, of thousands of add-ons. Modules expand Drupal's functionality. Themes let you customize your content's presentation. Distributions are packaged Drupal bundles you can use as starter-kits. Mix and match these components to enhance Drupal's core abilities. Or, integrate Drupal with external services and other applications in your infrastructure. No other content management software is this powerful and scalable.\r\nThe Drupal project is open source software. Anyone can download, use, work on, and share it with others. It's built on principles like collaboration, globalism, and innovation. It's distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). There are no licensing fees, ever. Drupal will always be free.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What can Drupal do? And why is it different from other CMS?</span>\r\nThere are many reasons why Drupal is the top three most used CMS, and why tons of small to big complex systems have made it their options. Here are those:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Reliability.</span> Drupal is one of the top three most popular content management systems in the world. It has a longstanding history. Though Drupal is a work in progress, it has been stable along the way. We have Drupal 7 now while Drupal 8 is going to be released. But you can be assured that you will be supported for Drupal previous version at least 5 years. Meanwhile, the resources will stay there for goods.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Available resources.</span> Nearly anything you want to do with the system has been priorly created and done absolutely well by other people. Other great news is nearly all of the most useful modules (Drupal add-ons) are contributed to the Drupal community. This is invaluable because, in many CMS, you have to pay for important features. As a user, you have benefited greatly from someone’s efforts, and experience.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">A huge dedicated community.</span> The Drupal community is large, dynamic and has functioned well since 2001. As a newbie or a senior developer, Drupal.org is a must-have resource where you dig in for learning material, upcoming news, or ask for support from contributors, and specialists.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Robust and convenience.</span> Be assured that the source code for building your Drupal sites has been precisely written, and designed by Drupal experts. When you have an intention to do more complex and advanced work, you will find it easy and convenient to modify the system. This grants users a great advantage over other CMS.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Flexibility.</span> It’s not a chance that Drupal is considered the most flexible CMS. We have always thought that if you have an idea about any functions, contents, you can certainly create it with Drupal. Seriously. You can create any content on site. You can customize anything to fit your taste. You can create any website type that you want.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Scalability.</span> By scalability, we mean that you can extend your Drupal core to a higher level with a variety of contributed Drupal modules. What’s great with the Drupal modules is that they integrate perfectly well with Drupal core. They also connect absolutely efficiently with the modules. This is regardless of the fact many modules are totally different. It is due to the natural structure &amp; built-in system of Drupal. This thereby enhances the power of extending your Drupal website. It is also a core strength of Drupal compared with other CMS. Meanwhile, Drupal is an open source. So suppose the modules you want don’t exist, you can create one, edit an existing module, or hire someone to do the job.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Security.</span> Drupal has been meticulously tested up to strict security rules by Drupal experts and contributors. Its built-in security is strong. Drupal will lock down whatever directory installed, rendering important data, configuration files unable to be accessed directly. No wonder that many big sites with extreme security are using Drupal, namely - whitehouse.org, commerce.gov, weforum.org,...</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the uses of Drupal?</span>\r\nAs stated, due to its flexibility and extensibility, Drupal is not limited to any kind. Browse these lists to see the wide range of things that Drupal can build:\r\n<ul><li>Personal or corporate Web sites</li><li>Community portal sites</li><li>Intranet/Corporate sites</li><li>Blogs, art, portfolio, music, multimedia sites</li><li>Forums</li><li>International sites (websites with multi languages)</li><li>E-commerce sites</li><li>Resource directories</li><li>Social networking sites</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">When Drupal isn't right?</span>\r\nIf it is necessary to know about a system before we set our foot on, it’s never been less important to explore its cons. Here we bring some of our caveats for the system:\r\n<ul><li>There’s a little learning curve. You will not learn and work with Drupal in a few days. Accept this fact. It’s harder to start compared with other CMS like Wordpress. But once you learn some basic things, it’s easy, and the flow is smoother.</li><li>It is not for those who have insufficient time to educate themselves about this system, or little money to pay a Drupal developer to carry out the work.</li><li>Finding a good Drupal developer is harder to find than that of Wordpress or other systems. It’s not hard to guess this considering the number of Wordpress developers compared with Drupal.</li></ul>\r\nIt always takes some investments to learn about something. For a new user, it would be a huge opportunity cost - what you will gain and lose working with one system and leave others behind.\r\nBut after all the choice is always yours.We expect it would be worth. The CMS you will spend thousands hours working. The system through this you make a living. The option that yields energy and satisfaction.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Drupal_Development__1_.png","alias":"drupal-development"},"621":{"id":621,"title":"WordPress","description":"","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_WordPress.png","alias":"wordpress"},"623":{"id":623,"title":"Magento Development","description":" Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform written in PHP. It is one of the most popular open e-commerce systems in the network. This software is created using the Zend Framework. Magento source code is distributed under an Open Source Initiative (OSI) approved by the Open Software License (OSL) v3.0, which is similar to the AGPL but not GPL compliant.\r\nThe software was originally developed by Varien, Inc, a US private company headquartered in Culver City, California, with assistance from volunteers.\r\nMore than 100,000 online stores have been created on this platform. The platform code has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times, and $155 billion worth of goods have been sold through Magento-based systems in 2019. Two years ago, Magento accounted for about 30% of the total market share.\r\nVarien published the first general-availability release of the software on March 31, 2008. Roy Rubin, the former CEO of Varien, later sold a share of the company to eBay, which eventually completely acquired and then sold the company to Permira; Permira later sold it to Adobe.\r\nOn November 17, 2015, Magento 2.0 was released. Among the features changed in V2 are the following: reduced table locking issues, improved page caching, enterprise-grade scalability, inbuilt rich snippets for structured data, new file structure with easier customization, CSS Preprocessing using LESS &amp; CSS URL resolver, improved performance and a more structured code base. Magento employs the MySQL or MariaDB relational database management system, the PHP programming language, and elements of the Zend Framework. It applies the conventions of object-oriented programming and model–view–controller architecture. Magento also uses the entity–attribute–value model to store data. On top of that, Magento 2 introduced the Model-View-ViewModel pattern to its front-end code using the JavaScript library Knockout.js.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Magento? What is the benefit of choosing an Open Source platform?</span>\r\nMagento is an open-source eCommerce platform that enables the online business owners to control their online store and add powerful and flexible tools for marketing, catalog management, and search engine optimization.\r\nThe open-source platform offers much more innovation, customization, quality, support and agility at a very low cost. It enables the users to share and access the platform, add rich features according to the needs, thereby making changes more effective and easier.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How can my Magento site be at par with the latest mobile trends and activities?</span>\r\nResponsive designs, device-specific applications have brought a great change in the business world over the past few years. Magento’s latest version includes a responsive template, and it offers great features that meet the needs of the mobile world both for the B2B and the B2C businesses.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What should be included in my eCommerce Magento strategy?</span>\r\nBefore you plan to start with your Magento project, it is very important to write down the business goals of your website. This will help you to measure success. Once you are done with this, you can plan for the remaining strategies that include target audience, personalization, content plan, mobile strategy, third party add-ons and support services that you would require to keep your site running and performing.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Magento_Development.png","alias":"magento-development"},"625":{"id":625,"title":"Typo3 Development","description":" TYPO3 is a free and open-source Web content management system written in PHP. It is released under the GNU General Public License. It can run on several web servers, such as Apache or IIS, on top of many operating systems, among them Linux, Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, macOS and OS/2.\r\nTYPO3 is, along with Drupal, Joomla! and WordPress, among the most popular content management systems worldwide, however it is more widespread in Europe than in other regions. The biggest market share can be found in German-speaking countries.\r\nTYPO3 is credited to be highly flexible, as code and content are operated separately. It can be extended by new functions without writing any program code. Also, the software is available in more than 50 languages and has a built-in localization system, therefore supports publishing content in multiple languages. Due to its features like editorial workplace and workflow, advanced frontend editing, scalability and maturity, TYPO3 is used to build and manage websites of different types and size ranges, from small sites for individuals or nonprofit organizations to multilingual enterprise solutions for large corporations. According to the ability to support a corporate environment, it classifies itself as an enterprise level content management system.\r\nTYPO3 was initially authored by the Dane Kasper Skårhøj in 1997. It is now developed by over 300 contributors under the lead of Benjamin Mack (Core team leader) and Mathias Schreiber (Product Owner).\r\nCalculations from the TYPO3 Association show that it is currently used in more than 500,000 installations. The number of installations detected by the public website &quot;CMS Crawler&quot; was around 384,000 by February 2017.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the official site of TYPO3?</span>\r\nhttps://typo3.org/ :: TYPO3 — the Professional, Flexible Content Management System. TYPO3 CMS is an Open Source Enterprise Content Management System with a large global community, backed by the approximately 900 members of the TYPO3 Association.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Where did the name TYPO3 come from?</span>\r\nTYPO3 creator Kasper Skårhøj remembers it something like this:\r\nBack in the late 1990s, while still working on the initial version of his new CMS, he was looking for a name for the new software. At the time, the name “freestyle” appealed to him, but it posed some problems through its over-association with certain activities, products and trademarks. So the issue of naming stayed on the back burner for want of a better idea.\r\nThen, one Friday evening while he was alone in the office after hours coding, Kasper inadvertently typed an error into the command line of his Linux server and accidentally deleted a whole week work. He recalls that feeling you get of a cold rush through the body, when you realize something dreadful has happened. Slowly he got up, walked to the other end of the room and sat down in the couch looking back across the office at the laptop on his desk.\r\nHe stayed like this for a while, just staring out into the room. Then, after the initial shock had subsided, he walked back, sat down, and began to recreate the lost code. This went surprisingly quickly; as such things do when you have them fully worked out in your head. And it was during this new rush of adrenaline and the satisfaction that all was not actually lost, that he began to put the incident into perspective. The recreated programming was going smoothly and cleanly, which made him wonder how ironic it would be if a typo ended up actually improving the product! It was this thought that first brought up the expression “typo” as a possible name. It seemed to fit especially well because\r\n<ul><li>“typo”, as in typography, had something to do with layout and content and</li><li>“typo”, as in a typing mistake, now had a quirky share in the product’s history.</li></ul>\r\nThe newborn child now had a name.\r\nOriginally there were Typo versions 1, 2 and 2.5. But with the success of version 3, which had branded itself more or less by default, a “3” was eventually appended to the product title itself. Since the launch of “TYPO3 version 4”, TYPO3 has remained as the product name for all future versions. So, TYPO3 it is called … and TYPO3 it will continue to be.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is TYPO3?</span>\r\nTYPO3 is a free and open-source Web content management system written in PHP. It is released under the GNU General Public License. It can run on several web servers, such as Apache or IIS, on top of many operating systems, among them Linux, Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, macOS and OS/2.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Why use TYPO3?</span>\r\nBecause TYPO3 is the CMS for you! TYPO3 is an Enterprise Content Management System. If you need to create, manage and output any kind of digital content, TYPO3 is the right tool for you. You can start small and grow fast, but while your business case might change - you'll never need to change the Content Management System since TYPO3 adapts to your needs.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the system requirements?</span>\r\n<ul><li>Operating System: Linux, Windows or Mac, or common cloud infrastructure setups</li><li>Webserver: Apache httpd, Nginx, Microsoft IIS, Caddy Server</li><li>PHP: PHP &gt;= 7.2</li><li>Database: PostgreSQL //Microsoft SQL Server //MariaDB(&gt;= 10.2) //MySQL(&gt;= 5) //SQLite</li><li>Hardware: RAM &gt;= 256 MB</li><li>Supported Browsers: Chrome (latest) //Firefox (latest) //Safari (latest) //Edge (latest) //Internet Explorer (&gt;= 11)</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Typo3_Development.png","alias":"typo3-development"},"627":{"id":627,"title":"CSS Development","description":" Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language like HTML. CSS is a cornerstone technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and JavaScript.\r\nCSS is designed to enable the separation of presentation and content, including layout, colors, and fonts. This separation can improve content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in the specification of presentation characteristics, enable multiple web pages to share formatting by specifying the relevant CSS in a separate .css file, and reduce complexity and repetition in the structural content.\r\nSeparation of formatting and content also makes it feasible to present the same markup page in different styles for different rendering methods, such as on-screen, in print, by voice (via speech-based browser or screen reader), and on Braille-based tactile devices. CSS also has rules for alternate formatting if the content is accessed on a mobile device.\r\nThe name cascading comes from the specified priority scheme to determine which style rule applies if more than one rule matches a particular element. This cascading priority scheme is predictable.\r\nThe CSS specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Internet media type (MIME type) text/css is registered for use with CSS by RFC 2318 (March 1998). The W3C operates a free CSS validation service for CSS documents.\r\nIn addition to HTML, other markup languages support the use of CSS including XHTML, plain XML, SVG, and XUL.\r\nBefore CSS, nearly all presentational attributes of HTML documents were contained within the HTML markup. All font colors, background styles, element alignments, borders and sizes had to be explicitly described, often repeatedly, within the HTML. CSS lets authors move much of that information to another file, the style sheet, resulting in considerably simpler HTML.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Which is better: plain HTML or HTML with CSS?</span>\r\nMany site developers wonder why you need CSS if you can use plain HTML. Most likely, they only know the development of the site and have a number of gaps in knowledge. The bottom line is that HTML is used to structure the content of a page. And CSS allows you to format this content, make it more attractive to users.\r\nWhen the World Wide Web was created, the developers used only one language - HTML. It was used as a means of outputting structured text. The author had scant functional at his disposal. The maximum that could be done - to designate the title, select the paragraph. Tags were not enough.\r\nIn connection with the development of the Internet, the base of HTML language tags was expanded to allow the appearance of documents to be adjusted. At the same time, the structure remained unchanged.\r\nStructuring tags, for example &lt;table&gt;, began to spread. It was they who were more often chosen to design the pages instead of the structure itself. Some browsers offered their own tags, which only they could reproduce.\r\nThus, users often stumbled upon the message: &quot;To view a page, you need to use browser XXX.&quot;\r\nTo correct the situation and create a single database of tags for formatting was created CSS. He allowed refusing to bind tags to browsers.\r\nUsing HTML with CSS is more convenient than using plain HTML. CSS provides the following benefits:\r\n<ul><li>Designed to the smallest detail.</li><li>Using a single table, you can manage various documents.</li><li>You can customize the page display options for different devices: computer screen, smartphone screen, etc.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Website Promotion with CSS</span>\r\nThe emergence and development of CSS have made the development of web resources more efficient and effective. Now it’s much easier and more convenient to control the design. Also, using CSS, we managed to reduce the code of the pages, their size. This had a positive impact on the download speed, the indexing also began to pass faster. The use of an adaptive approach allowed us to make a breakthrough in the field of mobile versions of Internet resources.\r\nTo improve the website promotion, experts recommend placing the CSS style sheets in a separate document so as not to increase the amount of code. You can create one or more such files.\r\nPreviously, search engines could not read style sheets, which made it possible to use them in black SEO, for example, to create invisible texts. Now it is better to abandon the use of CSS for other purposes.\r\nCSS has several advantages and allows you to improve the site, making it more attractive to visitors. However, it is important to correctly register all the elements.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_CSS_Development.png","alias":"css-development"},"629":{"id":629,"title":"PHP Development","description":"PHP is a general-purpose programming language originally designed for web development. It was originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994; the PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group. PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page, but it now stands for the recursive initialism PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.\r\nPHP code may be executed with a command line interface (CLI), embedded into HTML code, or used in combination with various web template systems, web content management systems, and web frameworks. PHP code is usually processed by a PHP interpreter implemented as a module in a web server or as a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) executable. The web server outputs the results of the interpreted and executed PHP code, which may be any type of data, such as generated HTML code or binary image data. PHP can be used for many programming tasks outside of the web context, such as standalone graphical applications and robotic drone control.\r\nThe standard PHP interpreter, powered by the Zend Engine, is free software released under the PHP License. PHP has been widely ported and can be deployed on most web servers on almost every operating system and platform, free of charge.\r\nThe PHP language evolved without a written formal specification or standard until 2014, with the original implementation acting as the de facto standard which other implementations aimed to follow. Since 2014, work has gone on to create a formal PHP specification.\r\nAs of September 2019, over 60% of sites on the web using PHP are still on discontinued/&quot;EOLed&quot; version 5.6 or older; versions prior to 7.2 are no longer officially supported by The PHP Development Team, but security support is provided by third parties, such as Debian.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is PHP?</span>\r\nPHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. It is an open-source server-side scripting language that is widely used for web development. It supports many databases like MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, generic ODBC, etc.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is PEAR in PHP?</span>\r\nPEAR is a framework and repository for reusable PHP components. PEAR stands for PHP Extension and Application Repository. It contains all types of PHP code snippets and libraries. It also provides a command-line interface to install &quot;packages&quot; automatically.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Who is known as the father of PHP?</span>\r\nRasmus Lerdorf.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What was the old name of PHP?</span>\r\nThe old name of PHP was Personal Home Page.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Explain the difference b/w static and dynamic websites?</span>\r\nIn static websites, content can't be changed after running the script. You can't change anything on the site. It is predefined.\r\nIn dynamic websites, the content of a script can be changed at the run time. Its content is regenerated every time a user visits or reload. Google, yahoo and every search engine is an example of a dynamic website.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is the name of the scripting engine in PHP?</span>\r\nThe scripting engine that powers PHP is called Zend Engine 2.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_PHP_Development.png","alias":"php-development"},"631":{"id":631,"title":"CakePHP Development","description":" CakePHP is an open-source web framework. It follows the model–view–controller (MVC) approach and is written in PHP, modeled after the concepts of Ruby on Rails, and distributed under the MIT License.\r\nCakePHP uses well-known software engineering concepts and software design patterns, such as convention over configuration, model–view–controller, active record, association data mapping, and front controller.\r\nCakePHP started in April 2005, when a Polish programmer Michal Tatarynowicz wrote a minimal version of a rapid application development in PHP, dubbing it Cake. He published the framework under the MIT license, and opened it up to the online community of developers. In December 2005, L. Masters and G. J. Woodworth founded the Cake Software Foundation to promote development related to CakePHP. Version 1.0 was released on May 2006.\r\nOne of the project's inspirations was Ruby on Rails, using many of its concepts. The community has since grown and spawned several sub-projects.\r\nIn October 2009, project manager Woodworth and developer N. Abele resigned from the project to focus on their own projects, including the Lithium web framework (previously part of the CakePHP project). The remaining development team continued to focus on the original roadmap that was previously defined.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is CakePHP? Why it’s Useful?</span>\r\nCakePHP is a free, open-source, rapid development framework for PHP. It’s a fundamental framework for developers to produce web applications.\r\nCakePHP has an active developer team and also the community, bringing terrific worth to the job. Along with maintaining you from wheel-reinventing, utilizing CakePHP suggests your application’s core is well examined as well as is being continuously boosted.\r\nBelow’s a quick listing of functions you’ll delight in when using CakePHP:\r\n<ul><li>Active, friendly community</li><li>Flexible licensing</li><li>Suitable with variations 4 and also 5 of PHP</li><li>Integrated CRUD for database Interaction</li><li>Application scaffolding</li><li>Code generation</li><li>MVC architecture</li><li>Request dispatcher with clean, customized URLs as well as routes</li><li>Integrated validation</li><li>Fast and also adaptable template (PHP phrase framework, with helpers)</li><li>Look for Helpers for AJAX, JavaScript, HTML Forms as well as a lot more</li><li>Email, Cookie, Security, Session, and also Request Handling Components</li><li>Flexible ACL</li><li>Data Sanitization</li><li>Flexible Caching</li><li>Localization</li><li>Works from any kind of web site directory site, with little to no Apache setup involved</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_CakePHP_Development.png","alias":"cakephp-development"},"633":{"id":633,"title":"Ruby on Rails Development","description":" Ruby on Rails, or Rails, is a server-side web application framework written in Ruby under the MIT License. Rails is a model–view–controller (MVC) framework, providing default structures for a database, a web service, and web pages. It encourages and facilitates the use of web standards such as JSON or XML for data transfer, HTML, CSS and JavaScript for user interfacing. In addition to MVC, Rails emphasizes the use of other well-known software engineering patterns and paradigms, including convention over configuration (CoC), don't repeat yourself (DRY), and the active record pattern.\r\nRuby on Rails' emergence in the 2000s greatly influenced web app development, through innovative features such as seamless database table creations, migrations, and scaffolding of views to enable rapid application development. Ruby on Rails' influence on other web frameworks remains apparent today, with many frameworks in other languages borrowing its ideas, including Django in Python, Catalyst in Perl, Laravel and CakePHP in PHP, Phoenix in Elixir, Play in Scala, and Sails.js in Node.js.\r\nRuby on Rails is intended to emphasize Convention over Configuration (CoC), and the Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle.\r\n&quot;Convention over Configuration&quot; means a developer only needs to specify unconventional aspects of the application. For example, if there is a class Sale in the model, the corresponding table in the database is called sales by default. It is only if one deviates from this convention, such as calling the table &quot;products sold&quot;, that the developer needs to write code regarding these names. Generally, Ruby on Rails conventions lead to less code and less repetition.\r\n&quot;Don't repeat yourself&quot; means that information is located in a single, unambiguous place. For example, using the ActiveRecord module of Rails, the developer does not need to specify database column names in class definitions. Instead, Ruby on Rails can retrieve this information from the database based on the class name.\r\n&quot;Fat models, skinny controllers&quot; means that most of the application logic should be placed within the model while leaving the controller as light as possible.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Ruby on Rails?</span>\r\nRails is a development tool that gives web developers a framework, providing structure for all the code they write. The Rails framework helps developers to build websites and applications because it abstracts and simplifies common repetitive tasks.\r\nRails are written in Ruby, the programming language which is also used alongside Rails. Ruby is to Rails as PHP is to Symfony and Zend, or as Python is to Django. The appeal of Ruby to developers lies in the elegance and terseness of the language.\r\nOne of the key principles of Ruby on Rails development (henceforth ‘Rails’) is convention over configuration. This means that the programmer does not have to spend a lot of time configuring files in order to get set up, Rails comes with a set of conventions which help speed up development.\r\nAnother characteristic of Rails is the emphasis on RESTful application design. REST (Representational State Transfer) is a style of software architecture based around the client-server relationship. It encourages a logical structure within applications, which means they can easily be exposed as an API (Application Programming Interface).\r\nFrom a project management point of view, the Ruby on Rails community advocate Agile web development – an iterative development method, that encourages collaborative and flexible approach, which is particularly well-suited for web application development with fast-changing requirements.\r\nOver the last few years Ruby on Rails has gained a large and enthusiastic following, but let’s consider the main arguments for and against Rails.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is it necessary to use Ruby on Rails?</span>\r\n<ul><li>The process of programming is much faster than with other frameworks and languages, partly because of the object-oriented nature of Ruby and the vast collection of open source code available within the Rails community.</li><li>The Rails conventions also make it easy for developers to move between different Rails projects, as each project will tend to follow the same structure and coding practices.</li><li>Rails are good for rapid application development (RAD), as the framework makes it easy to accommodate changes.</li><li>Ruby code is very readable and mostly self-documenting. This increases productivity, as there is less need to write out separate documentation, making it easier for other developers to pick up existing projects.</li><li>Rails have developed a strong focus on testing and have good testing frameworks.</li><li>Rails and most of its libraries are open sources, so unlike other commercial development frameworks, there are no licensing costs involved.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Potential Rails problems and limitations and how to overcome them:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Not all website hosts can support Rails</li><li>Java and PHP are more widely used, and there are more developers in these languages</li><li>Performance and Scalability</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Ruby_on_Rails_Development.png","alias":"ruby-on-rails-development"},"635":{"id":635,"title":"Python Development","description":" Python is an interpreted, high-level, general-purpose programming language. Created by Guido van Rossum and first released in 1991, Python's design philosophy emphasizes code readability with its notable use of significant whitespace. Its language constructs and object-oriented approach aim to help programmers write clear, logical code for small and large-scale projects.\r\nPython is dynamically typed and garbage-collected. It supports multiple programming paradigms, including procedural, object-oriented, and functional programming. Python is often described as a &quot;batteries included&quot; language due to its comprehensive standard library.\r\nPython was conceived in the late 1980s as a successor to the ABC language. Python 2.0, released in 2000, introduced features like list comprehensions and a garbage collection system capable of collecting reference cycles. Python 3.0, released in 2008, was a major revision of the language that is not completely backward-compatible, and much Python 2 code does not run unmodified on Python 3.\r\nThe Python 2 language, i.e. Python 2.7.x, was officially discontinued on 1 January 2020 (first planned for 2015) after which security patches and other improvements will not be released for it. With Python 2's end-of-life, only Python 3.5.x and later are supported.\r\nPython interpreters are available for many operating systems. A global community of programmers develops and maintains CPython, an open source reference implementation. A non-profit organization, the Python Software Foundation, manages and directs resources for Python and CPython development.\r\nPython is a multi-paradigm programming language. Object-oriented programming and structured programming are fully supported, and many of its features support functional programming and aspect-oriented programming (including by metaprogramming and metaobjects (magic methods)). Many other paradigms are supported via extensions, including design by contract and logic programming.\r\nPython uses dynamic typing and a combination of reference counting and a cycle-detecting garbage collector for memory management. It also features dynamic name resolution (late binding), which binds method and variable names during program execution.\r\nPython's design offers some support for functional programming in the Lisp tradition. It has filter, map, and reduce functions; list comprehensions, dictionaries, sets, and generator expressions. The standard library has two modules (itertools and functools) that implement functional tools borrowed from Haskell and Standard ML.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Python?</span>\r\nPython is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language. It incorporates modules, exceptions, dynamic typing, very high level dynamic data types, and classes. Python combines remarkable power with very clear syntax. It has interfaces to many system calls and libraries, as well as to various window systems, and is extensible in C or C++. It is also usable as an extension language for applications that need a programmable interface. Finally, Python is portable: it runs on many Unix variants, on the Mac, and on Windows 2000 and later.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the Python Software Foundation?</span>\r\nThe Python Software Foundation is an independent non-profit organization that holds the copyright on Python versions 2.1 and newer. The PSF’s mission is to advance open source technology related to the Python programming language and to publicize the use of Python. The PSF’s home page is at <link https://www.python.org/psf/.>https://www.python.org/psf/.</link>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Are there copyright restrictions on the use of Python?</span>\r\nYou can do anything you want with the source, as long as you leave the copyrights in and display those copyrights in any documentation about Python that you produce. If you honor the copyright rules, it’s OK to use Python for commercial use, to sell copies of Python in source or binary form (modified or unmodified), or to sell products that incorporate Python in some form. We would still like to know about all commercial use of Python, of course.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Python good for?</span>\r\nPython is a high-level general-purpose programming language that can be applied to many different classes of problems.\r\nThe language comes with a large standard library that covers areas such as string processing (regular expressions, Unicode, calculating differences between files), Internet protocols (HTTP, FTP, SMTP, XML-RPC, POP, IMAP, CGI programming), software engineering (unit testing, logging, profiling, parsing Python code), and operating system interfaces (system calls, filesystems, TCP/IP sockets). Look at the table of contents for The Python Standard Library to get an idea of what’s available. A wide variety of third-party extensions are also available. Consult the Python Package Index to find packages of interest to you.<br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Python_Development.png","alias":"python-development"},"637":{"id":637,"title":"eCommerce development","description":" Electronic commerce is an online transaction of buying and selling products through World Wide Web-based websites and mobile applications. The examples of eCommerce business include supply chain, funds transfer, banking and electronic data interchange (EDI) and others. The electronic transactions are carried out through many eCommerce software platforms and eCommerce applications that are integrated with online websites with the help of eCommerce developers. The eCommerce applications are linked with the payment gateways for a smooth transfer of credit from one entity to another one.\r\nAn eCommerce developer is a very important role in eCommerce app development and web services to realize the power of online sales and marketing in all domains of businesses. The eCommerce developers are normally the web developers with additional exposure to the eCommerce tools and platforms commonly used in online businesses. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, PHP, Ruby on Rail and related technologies are the fundamental components of eCommerce developer skills. In addition to those skills, the knowledge of eCommerce software platforms and API integration is very important for a good eCommerce developer resume.\r\nA good eCommerce website should be highly professional looking with great features and intuitive interface for the checkout process. This is only possible with the help of professional eCommerce developers. You need to evaluate a lot of things before you decide to hire eCommerce developers such as the backend technologies of your website, type of eCommerce, a domain of business, type of database and many others. Once you have decided about all these things, you need to match the eCommerce web developer resume, which is under consideration, with those factors to find a good eCommerce developer.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is it important for business owners to create an eСommerce site?</span>\r\nToday, people have very less time to purchase items, by going to physical stores. They prefer to browse their mobile devices or PC and shop online. Having an e-commerce site for your business will help you to capture this market base and keep your customers informed about all your latest products and services.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How can I choose the best platform for my eСommerce business website?</span>\r\nBefore getting started with your eСommerce web development, consider the few fundamentals that can help to choose the best platform. Always consider the items that you are selling. Some eСommerce platforms can handle inventory tracking and multiple product options while some others will not. Consider the design options, payment gateways, the security of the site, integration with other tools, features and pricing before finalizing on the platform.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How should I promote my eСommerce site?</span>\r\nThere are various ways to do this and the first thing to do is to promote the site to all the customers. This will help to increase your customer base. Your website address should be present in every advertisement that your company invests in. Register with the search engines and optimize your website as this will affect the traffic of your site.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the important things that can turn browsers into buyers?</span>\r\nCreate your site so that it is much more oriented towards sales rather than marketing. Let your visitors see your products immediately instead of hiding them behind lots of marketing copy. Make a page that reads the terms and conditions as it will offer a professional look. Provide your contact details and explain your return policies, security, encryption methods, and payment options.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How to create an impressive website?</span>\r\nThe beauty of a site lies in the way it operates and how user-friendly it is.&nbsp; Ensure that your site is fast, easy to use, professional and attractive. Also, make sure that you are able to fulfill the orders very promptly without any delay. In case you are unable to offer the service, make sure that your customer is informed about it via email.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the security risks that are involved with eСommerce sites?</span>\r\neCommerce website owners should always keep in mind the three dimensions of security - confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Business owners should develop a good strategy that can help to make the site and transactions secured. To avoid any hackers gain access to important confidential data, include encryption methods for any data transactions.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Is there any limit on the size of my product or customer database?</span>\r\nNo, as such there are no limits on the size. The biggest benefit of having an online store is that you can add unlimited products and catalogs and at the same time you can grow your customer base as you require.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_eCommerce_development.png","alias":"ecommerce-development"},"639":{"id":639,"title":"HTML Development","description":" Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScript.\r\nWeb browsers receive HTML documents from a web server or from local storage and render the documents into multimedia web pages. HTML describes the structure of a web page semantically and originally included cues for the appearance of the document.\r\nHTML elements are the building blocks of HTML pages. With HTML constructs, images and other objects such as interactive forms may be embedded into the rendered page. HTML provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists, links, quotes and other items. HTML elements are delineated by tags, written using angle brackets. Tags such as &lt;img /&gt; and &lt;input /&gt; directly introduce content into the page. Other tags such as &lt;p&gt; surround and provide information about document text and may include other tags as sub-elements. Browsers do not display the HTML tags, but use them to interpret the content of the page.\r\nHTML can embed programs written in a scripting language such as JavaScript, which affects the behavior and content of web pages. Inclusion of CSS defines the look and layout of content. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), former maintainer of the HTML and current maintainer of the CSS standards, has encouraged the use of CSS over explicit presentational HTML since 1997.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is HTML5?</span>\r\nHTML5 contains powerful capabilities for Web-based applications with more powerful interaction, video support, graphics, more styling effects, and a full set of APIs. HTML5 adapts to any device, whether desktop, mobile, tablet, or television. HTML5 is an open platform developed under royalty-free licensing terms.\r\nPeople use the term HTML5 in two ways:\r\n<ul><li>to refer to a set of technologies that together form the future Open Web Platform. These technologies include HTML5 specification, CSS3, SVG, MathML, Geolocation, XmlHttpRequest, Context 2D, Web Fonts (WOFF) and others. The boundary of this set of technologies is informal and changes over time;</li><li>to refer to the HTML5 specification, which is, of course, also part of the Open Web Platform.</li></ul>\r\nAlthough it would be great if people used one term to refer to the specification and another term to refer to a set of specifications, in practice people use the term both ways.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">HTML5 has been cited by many thought leaders as the future of the Web. Why is HTML5 generating this excitement?</span>\r\nThere is huge demand for open standards that allow the creation of rich internet applications. Watching videos, finding the nearest restaurant, accessing emails while being offline are just some of the powerful new capabilities enabled by the set of specifications in development at W3C.\r\nOne aspect that interests W3C, in particular, is enabling people to combine different technologies. W3C works to ensure not just interoperable support in the software of a single specification, but compatibility among specifications.\r\nEven though HTML5 is still a draft, browser vendors are deploying features and generating a lot of excitement in the IT industry. This experience, in turn, allows W3C to revise its drafts. In this way, the final standard can transparently inform implementers where they need to pay close attention to security and privacy issues.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">When can I use HTML5?</span>\r\nPeople can already use parts of the platform that interoperate, but W3C's mission is global interoperable, to ensure that the web is available to all. Not all elements are fully implemented yet and some of them provide builtin fallback mechanisms, such as &lt;video&gt; or &lt;input&gt;. One can use HTML5 today, knowing the existing limitations and ensuring proper fallbacks.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Which Web Browsers support HTML5?</span>\r\nW3C encourages implementation and testing long before a specification becomes a standard to ensure that two people can read a specification independently and write interoperable software. Early adopters provide implementers and W3C with tremendously valuable feedback because they help identify where interoperability issues exist.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Do you think that the benefits of HTML5, such as its neutrality, rich graphics, no need plug-ins, outweigh the security risk it carries?</span>\r\nNow entering its third decade, the Web has evolved from a Web of documents into a formidable platform for networked applications that let us share information and services over the Internet. In this highly connected environment, it is important that powerful Web applications be designed with sensitivity to user privacy and security needs. The risks associated with modern Web applications are familiar to the HTML5 community.\r\nHTML5 and related specifications are being developed in W3C's open standards process. This process allows an expert review of features along with their security and privacy implications. Rich functionality that was previously available only through proprietary plugins is now documented in an open specification for all experts to review and improve. We're pleased to see the HTML5 specifications subject to rigorous public review since that helps make the Web a more secure environment.\r\nSome security issues are not confined to HTML5. W3C and IETF are working closely to specify technologies and protocol extensions to mitigate some issues (such as cross-site request forgery and cross-site scripting).\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Will there be an HTML6?</span>\r\nNo work is currently happening on HTML6 but feature requests that are not planned to be addressed in HTML5 are available at listed under HTML.next.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_HTML_Development.png","alias":"html-development"},"641":{"id":641,"title":"XML Development","description":"","materialsDescription":"","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_XML_Development.png","alias":"xml-development"},"643":{"id":643,"title":"AJAX Development","description":" Ajax (also AJAX; short for asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a set of web development techniques using many web technologies on the client side to create asynchronous web applications. With Ajax, web applications can send and retrieve data from a server asynchronously (in the background) without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page. By decoupling the data interchange layer from the presentation layer, Ajax allows web pages and, by extension, web applications, to change content dynamically without the need to reload the entire page. In practice, modern implementations commonly utilize JSON instead of XML.\r\nAjax is not a single technology, but rather a group of technologies. HTML and CSS can be used in combination to mark up and style information. The webpage can then be modified by JavaScript to dynamically display—and allow the user to interact with—the new information. The built-in XMLHttpRequest object within JavaScript is commonly used to execute Ajax on webpages allowing websites to load content onto the screen without refreshing the page. Ajax is not a new technology, or different language, just existing technologies used in new ways.\r\nThe term Ajax has come to represent a broad group of Web technologies that can be used to implement a Web application that communicates with a server in the background, without interfering with the current state of the page. In the article that coined the term Ajax, Jesse James Garrett explained that the following technologies are incorporated:\r\n<ul><li>HTML (or XHTML) and CSS for presentation</li><li>The Document Object Model (DOM) for dynamic display of and interaction with data</li><li>JSON or XML for the interchange of data, and XSLT for its manipulation</li><li>The XMLHttpRequest object for asynchronous communication</li><li>JavaScript to bring these technologies together</li></ul>\r\nSince then, however, there have been a number of developments in the technologies used in an Ajax application, and in the definition of the term Ajax itself. XML is no longer required for data interchange and, therefore, XSLT is no longer required for the manipulation of data. JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is often used as an alternative format for data interchange, although other formats such as preformatted HTML or plain text can also be used. A variety of popular JavaScript libraries, including JQuery, include abstractions to assist in executing Ajax requests.\r\nAsynchronous HTML and HTTP (AHAH) involves using XMLHTTPRequest to retrieve (X)HTML fragments, which are then inserted directly into the Web page.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What Is AJAX?</span>\r\nAJAX is an acronym that stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, and it describes a set of development techniques used for building websites and web applications. According to web developer and Skillcrush WordPress instructor Ann Cascarano, the best way to understand AJAX is to start with identifying its specific purpose in the web development process. AJAX’s core function is to update web content asynchronously (the “A” of AJAX), meaning a user’s web browser doesn’t need to reload an entire web page when only a small portion of content on the page needs to change.\r\nOne of the most ubiquitous examples of asynchronous updating is Google’s “Google Suggest” feature. When you enter a search query into Google’s search bar and the Google website automatically begins offering auto-complete options while you type, that’s AJAX in action. The content on the page changes (in this case, the auto-complete options in the search bar) without having to manually refresh the page (something that would make Google Suggest impractical to use). Features like Google Suggest are a fundamental part of contemporary web browsing, which points to how essential AJAX is in web development. In addition to Google Suggest, Cascarano says that AJAX is commonly used to update features like status and notification bars, online forms, comments sections, and surveys and polls. But what exactly are the “J” and “X” of AJAX and how do they make asynchronous updating possible?\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">JavaScript and XML</span>\r\nAs mentioned above, the “J” in AJAX stands for JavaScript. JavaScript is a type of scripting language—coding languages used to automate website processes so web developers don’t have to individually program each instance of the process that appears on a page. In JavaScript’s case, it’s used specifically to create, add, and manage dynamic website content. In other words, after markup languages like HTML and CSS are used to build and display static web features (headers, fonts, paragraphs, etc.), JavaScript is then used to control features that require real time updates while a visitor is viewing a page (think interactive maps, animated graphics, scrolling video, jukeboxes, etc). Since JavaScript is in the business of updating page content without requiring viewers to manually reload entire pages, it’s a critical component for AJAX’s asynchronous updating.\r\nThe “X” in AJAX is XML (Extensible Markup Language). As its name suggests, XML is a markup language, which means it’s in the same family as languages like HTML and CSS. Markup languages are coding languages used to annotate parts of a web document that are intended to give web browsers instructions about how to understand, process, and display a web page, versus the actual text intended to be displayed on the page. While HTML and CSS focus on instructing how page content is displayed (paragraphs, headers, fonts, colors, etc.), XML is used to transfer data stored on the page to the browsers that view it. Individual computer systems are often incompatible with one another and can’t understand or interact with data formatted by a different system. XML allows developers to bypass this obstacle by storing data in plain text format between XML tags. By doing this, XML offers a way of storing, moving, and sharing data that isn’t dependent on a particular software or hardware system (something that’s crucial for the internet, where data needs to be available and understandable across all software and hardware platforms). RSS feeds—subscription web feeds that allow users to access content from blogs and news sources as they are updated in real time—are built with XML and are an example of the language’s practical data-sharing capabilities. But how does XML combine with JavaScript to form AJAX?\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How Does AJAX Work?</span>\r\nAccording to Cascarano, JavaScript and XML combine to make asynchronous updating happen through the use of something called an XMLHttpRequest object. When a user visits a web page designed to make use of AJAX and a prescribed event occurs (the user loads the page, clicks a button, fills out a form, etc.) JavaScript creates an XMLHttpRequest object, which then transfers data in an XML format between a web browser (the program being used to view the website) and a web server (the software or hardware where a website’s data is stored). The XMLHttpRequest object sends a request for updated page data to the web server, the server process the request, a response is created server-side and sent back to the browser, which then uses JavaScript to process the response and display it on the screen as updated content.\r\nTo recap: JavaScript automates the updating process, the request for updated content is formatted in XML to make it universally understandable, and JavaScript again kicks in to refresh the relevant content for the user viewing the page. Cascarano notes that the AJAX technique ignores extraneous page data and only handles requests for updated information and the updated information itself. This is really the heart of AJAX’s effectiveness, making websites and applications that use AJAX faster and more responsive for users.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_AJAX_Development.png","alias":"ajax-development"},"645":{"id":645,"title":"JavaScript development","description":" JavaScript, often abbreviated as JS, is a high-level, just-in-time compiled, object-oriented programming language that conforms to the ECMAScript specification. JavaScript has curly-bracket syntax, dynamic typing, prototype-based object-orientation, and first-class functions.\r\nAlongside HTML and CSS, JavaScript is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web. JavaScript enables interactive web pages and is an essential part of web applications. The vast majority of websites use it, and major web browsers have a dedicated JavaScript engine to execute it.\r\nAs a multi-paradigm language, JavaScript supports event-driven, functional, and imperative (including object-oriented and prototype-based) programming styles. It has APIs for working with text, arrays, dates, regular expressions, and the DOM, but the language itself does not include any I/O, such as networking, storage, or graphics facilities. It relies upon the host environment in which it is embedded to provide these features.\r\nInitially only implemented client-side in web browsers, JavaScript engines are now embedded in many other types of host software, including server-side in web servers and databases, and in non-web programs such as word processors and PDF software, and in runtime environments that make JavaScript available for writing mobile and desktop applications, including desktop widgets.\r\nThe terms Vanilla JavaScript and Vanilla JS refer to JavaScript not extended by any frameworks or additional libraries. Scripts written in Vanilla JS are plain JavaScript code.\r\nAlthough there are similarities between JavaScript and Java, including language name, syntax, and respective standard libraries, the two languages are distinct and differ greatly in design. JavaScript was influenced by programming languages such as Self and Scheme. The JSON serialization format, used to store data structures in files or transmit them across networks, is based on JavaScript.\r\n&quot;JavaScript&quot; is a trademark of Oracle Corporation in the United States. It is used under license for technology invented and implemented by Netscape Communications and current entities such as the Mozilla Foundation.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is JavaScript?</span>\r\nJavaScript is a client-side as well as a server-side scripting language that can be inserted into HTML pages and is understood by web browsers. JavaScript is also an Object-based Programming language.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the differences between Java and JavaScript?</span>\r\nJava is a complete programming language. In contrast, JavaScript is a coded program that can be introduced to HTML pages. These two languages are not at all inter-dependent and are designed for different intent. Java is an object-oriented programming (OOPS) or structured programming languages like C++ or C whereas JavaScript is a client-side scripting language.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Do I have to buy JavaScript?</span>\r\nNo--there is nothing to buy. The JavaScript interpreter is included in all major Internet Browsers--so as long as you have an Internet Browser, you're all set. JavaScript source files are written using an ordinary text editor, such as Notepad.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is JScript?</span>\r\nJScript is Microsoft's version of Netscape's JavaScript. Each Internet Browser vendor creates their own version of what is collectively known as JavaScript---however, the latest versions of these browsers are moving towards the ECMA Script standard.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Who 'owns' JavaScript?</span>\r\nECMA governs the standard features of JavaScript---however, each vendor writes the code for their own versions of JavaScript.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the features of JavaScript?</span>\r\n<ul><li>JavaScript is a lightweight, interpreted programming language.</li><li>JavaScript is designed for creating network-centric applications.</li><li>JavaScript is complementary to and integrated with Java.</li><li>JavaScript is complementary to and integrated with HTML.</li><li>JavaScript is open and cross-platform.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_JavaScript_development.png","alias":"javascript-development"},"649":{"id":649,"title":"QA - Quality assurance","description":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Quality Assurance (QA)</span> is defined as an activity to ensure that an organization is providing the best possible product or service to customers. QA focuses on improving the processes to deliver Quality Products to the customer. An organization has to ensure, that processes are efficient and effective as per the quality standards defined for software products. Quality Assurance is popularly known as <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">QA Testing. </span>\r\nQA establishes and maintains set requirements for developing or manufacturing reliable products. A quality assurance system is meant to increase customer confidence and a company's credibility, while also improving work processes and efficiency, and it enables a company to better compete with others.\r\nQuality assurance helps a company create products and services that meet the needs, expectations and requirements of customers. It yields high-quality product offerings that build trust and loyalty with customers. The standards and procedures defined by a quality assurance program help prevent product defects before they arise.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Quality assurance utilizes one of three methods:</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Failure testing, </span>which continually tests a product to determine if it breaks or fails. For physical products that need to withstand stress, this could involve testing the product under heat, pressure or vibration. For software products, failure testing might involve placing the software under high usage or load conditions.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Statistical process control (SPC),</span> a methodology based on objective data and analysis and developed by Walter Shewhart at Western Electric Company and Bell Telephone Laboratories in the 1920's and 1930's. This methodology uses statistical methods to manage and control the production of products.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Total quality management (TQM),</span> which applies quantitative methods as the basis for continuous improvement. TQM relies on facts, data and analysis to support product planning and performance reviews.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Quality assurance in software.</span> Software quality assurance&nbsp; management (SQA) systematically finds patterns and the actions needed to improve development cycles. Finding and fixing coding errors can carry unintended consequences; it is possible to fix one thing, yet break other features and functionality at the same time.\r\nSQA software has become important for developers as a means of avoiding errors before they occur, saving development time and expenses. Even with SQA processes in place, an update to software can break other features and cause defects - commonly known as bugs.\r\n\r\n","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"> Differences between Software testing and SQA services</h1>\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">SQA tools</span></li></ul>\r\n- Is about engineering process that ensures quality\r\n- Involve activities related to the implementation of processes, procedures, and standards.\r\n- Process focused \r\n- Preventive technique\r\n- Proactive measure\r\n- The scope of software quality testing tools applied to all products that will be created by the organization\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Software Testing</span></li></ul>\r\n- Software Testing is to test a product for problems before the product goes live\r\n- Involves actives concerning verification of product Example - Review Testing\r\n- Product focused\r\n - Corrective technique\r\n- Reactive measure\r\n- The scope of Software Testing applies to a particular product being tested\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">Manual QA testing services Vs Automated Quality Assurance Testing</h1>\r\nSoftware testing is a huge domain, but it can be broadly categorized into two areas: manual testing and automated testing. Both of them can be used to achieve the best results, but it is always worth knowing the difference between the two. Each testing type – manual and automated – comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. \r\nYou can choose between manual and quality assurance testing services based on a variety of factors. These include:\r\n- Project requirements\r\n- Timeline\r\n- Budget\r\n- Expertise\r\n- Suitability<br /> \r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Manual Testing &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Exploratory Testing:</span> This scenario requires a tester’s expertise, creativity, knowledge, analytical and logical reasoning skills. With poorly written specifications and short execution time, human skills are a must to test in this scenario.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Ad-Hoc Testing:</span> It is an unplanned method of testing where the biggest difference maker is a tester’s insight that can work without a specific approach.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Usability Testing:</span> Here you need to check the level of user-friendliness and check the software for convenience. Human observation is a must to make the end user’s experience convenient.\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Quality Assurance automation tools</span></li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Repeated Execution:</span> When you need to execute a use case repeatedly, automated testing is a better option.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Regression Testing:</span> Automated automated QA software is better here because the code changes frequently and the regressions can be run in a timely manner\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Performance:</span> You need an automated QA testing software when thousands of concurrent users are simulated at the same time. Additionally, it is a better solution for load testing.\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Quality_assurance.png","alias":"qa-quality-assurance"},"651":{"id":651,"title":"Interface Testing","description":"When an application or a software or a website is developed, then there are several components of it. Those components can be server, database etc. The connection which integrates and facilitates the communication between these components is termed as an <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Interface</span>.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Interface Testing</span> is performed to evaluate whether systems or components pass data and control correctly to one another. It is to verify if all the interactions between these modules are working properly and errors are handled properly.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Interface Testing - Checklist</span>\r\n<ul><li>Verify that communication between the systems are done correctly</li><li>Verify if all supported hardware/software has been tested</li><li>Verify if all linked documents be supported/opened on all platforms</li><li>Verify the security requirements or encryption while communication happens between systems</li><li>Check if a Solution can handle network failures between Web site and application server</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Phases of Interface Testing. </span>\r\nThere are 2 components involved in Interface testing: 1) web server and application server interface and 2) web server and database server interface.\r\nBasically, 3 phases are involved in the Interface testing which is mentioned below:\r\n<b>Configuration and Development. </b>After the configuration of the interface and the development initialization, the configuration is needed to be verified as per the requirement. In simple words, verification takes place.\r\n<p style=\" text-align: justify; \"><b>Validation. </b>After the configuration and development stage, validation of the interface is necessary.</p>\r\n<p style=\" text-align: justify; \"><b>Maintenance.</b> After the completion of the project, when the project reaches it’s working stage, the interface is set to be monitored for its performance.</p>\r\n<p style=\" text-align: justify; \"></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify; \"><a name=\"StepsinvolvedinInterfaceTesting\"></a></p>","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\">Types of Interface Testing </h1>\r\nDuring Interface Testing various types of testing done on the interface which may include:\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Workflow:</span> It ensures that the interface engine handles your standard workflows as expected.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Edge cases -unexpected values:</span> This is considered when testing include date, month and day reversed.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Performance, load, and network testing:</span> A high-volume interface may require more Load Testing than a low-volume interface, depending on the interface engine and connectivity infrastructure.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Individual system interface testing:</span> This includes testing each system individually. For example, billing system and inventory management system for the retail store should be able to operate separately.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">What is Graphic User Interface (GUI) Testing?</h1>\r\nGraphic User Interface Testing (GUI) testing is the process of ensuring proper functionality of the graphical user interface (GUI) for a specific application. This involves making sure it behaves in accordance with its requirements and works as expected across the range of supported platforms and devices.\r\n<p class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">GUI Testing Approaches</span></p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Manual Based Testing: </span>Under this approach, the screens of the application are checked manually by testers. They are being confirmed with the requirements that are stated in the business requirements. The UI is also matched with the designs that are provided during the documentation phase of the application.</p>\r\n<p class=\"align-left\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">Automation Based Testing:</span> Automated user interface testing approach is performed in 2 steps i.e, record and play. While doing this, the steps are captured/recorded with the help of the automation tool while performing the first round of testing. And during playback, that recorded steps script is run when the application is under test. If the position of any button or image changes that during the playback, it does not get tracked and the test fails.</p>\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\">What Features Should I Look for in a GUI Testing Tool?</h1>\r\nObviously the first answer is to choose a tool that can automate the specific technologies you’re testing, otherwise your automation is doomed to fail. Secondly you should choose a tool that has some of the following characteristics:\r\n<ul><li>Good interface testing software that makes it easy for your automation engineers to write tests, make changes, find issues and be able to deploy the tests on all the environments you need to test.</li><li>A tool that is well supported by the manufacturer and is keeping up to date with new web browsers, operating systems and technologies that you will need to test in the future. </li><li>An object abstraction layer so that your test analysts can write the tests in the way most natural for them and your automation engineers can create objects that point to physical items in the application that will be robust and not change every time you resort a grid or add data to the system.</li><li>Support for data-driven testing since as we have discussed, one of the big benefits of automation is the ability to run the same test thousands of times with different sets of data.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Interface_Testing.png","alias":"interface-testing"},"655":{"id":655,"title":"Perl Development","description":" Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. &quot;Perl&quot; refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned &quot;sister language&quot;, Perl 6, before the latter's name was officially changed to Raku in October 2019.\r\nThough Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including &quot;Practical Extraction and Reporting Language&quot;. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions. Raku, which began as a redesign of Perl 5 in 2000, eventually evolved into a separate language. Both languages continue to be developed independently by different development teams and liberally borrow ideas from one another.\r\nThe Perl languages borrow features from other programming languages including C, shell script (sh), AWK, and sed; Wall also alludes to BASIC and Lisp in the introduction to Learning Perl (Schwartz &amp; Christiansen) and so on. They provide text processing facilities without the arbitrary data-length limits of many contemporary Unix command line tools, facilitating manipulation of text files. Perl 5 gained widespread popularity in the late 1990s as a CGI scripting language, in part due to its unsurpassed regular expression and string parsing abilities.\r\nIn addition to CGI, Perl 5 is used for system administration, network programming, finance, bioinformatics, and other applications, such as for GUIs. It has been nicknamed &quot;the Swiss Army chainsaw of scripting languages&quot; because of its flexibility and power, and also its ugliness. In 1998, it was also referred to as the &quot;duct tape that holds the Internet together,&quot; in reference to both its ubiquitous use as a glue language and its perceived inelegance.\r\nAccording to Wall, Perl has two slogans. The first is &quot;There's more than one way to do it,&quot; commonly known as TMTOWTDI. The second slogan is &quot;Easy things should be easy and hard things should be possible&quot;.\r\nThe overall structure of Perl derives broadly from C. Perl is procedural in nature, with variables, expressions, assignment statements, brace-delimited blocks, control structures, and subroutines.\r\nPerl also takes features from shell programming. All variables are marked with leading sigils, which allow variables to be interpolated directly into strings. However, unlike the shell, Perl uses sigils on all accesses to variables, and unlike most other programming languages that use sigils, the sigil doesn't denote the type of the variable but the type of the expression. So for example, to access a list of values in a hash, the sigil for an array (&quot;@&quot;) is used, not the sigil for a hash (&quot;%&quot;). Perl also has many built-in functions that provide tools often used in shell programming (although many of these tools are implemented by programs external to the shell) such as sorting, and calling operating system facilities.\r\nPerl takes lists from Lisp, hashes (&quot;associative arrays&quot;) from AWK, and regular expressions from sed. These simplify and facilitate many parsing, text-handling, and data-management tasks. Also shared with Lisp are the implicit return of the last value in a block, and the fact that all statements have a value, and thus are also expressions and can be used in larger expressions themselves.\r\nAll versions of Perl do automatic data-typing and automatic memory management. The interpreter knows the type and storage requirements of every data object in the program; it allocates and frees storage for them as necessary using reference counting (so it cannot deallocate circular data structures without manual intervention). Legal type conversions — for example, conversions from number to string — are done automatically at run time; illegal type conversions are fatal errors.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Perl?</span>\r\n<ul><li>Perl is a stable, cross-platform programming language.</li><li>Though Perl is not officially an acronym few people used it as <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Practical Extraction and Report Language</span>.</li><li>It is used for mission-critical projects in the public and private sectors.</li><li>Perl is an Open Source software, licensed under its Artistic License, or the <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">GNU General Public License (GPL)</span>.</li><li>Perl was created by Larry Wall.</li><li>Perl 1.0 was released to Usenet's alt.comp.sources in 1987.</li><li>Perl is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the features of Perl programming?</span>\r\n<ul><li>Perl takes the best features from other languages, such as C, awk, sed, sh, and BASIC, among others.</li><li>Perl's database integration interface DBI supports third-party databases including Oracle, Sybase, Postgres, MySQL, and others.</li><li>Perl works with HTML, XML, and other mark-up languages.</li><li>Perl supports Unicode.</li><li>Perl is Y2K compliant.</li><li>Perl supports both procedural and object-oriented programming.</li><li>Perl interfaces with external C/C++ libraries through XS or SWIG.</li><li>Perl is extensible. There are over 20,000 third party modules available from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN).</li><li>The Perl interpreter can be embedded into other systems.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the benefits of Perl programming in using it in web-based applications?</span>\r\n<ul><li>Perl used to be the most popular web programming language due to its text manipulation capabilities and rapid development cycle.</li><li>Perl is widely known as &quot; the duct-tape of the Internet&quot;.</li><li>Perl can handle encrypted Web data, including e-commerce transactions.</li><li>Perl can be embedded into web servers to speed up processing by as much as 2000%.</li><li>Perl's mod_perl allows the Apache web server to embed a Perl interpreter.</li><li>Perl's DBI package makes web-database integration easy.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Is Perl a case sensitive language?</span>\r\nYes. Perl is a case sensitive programming language.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Perl_Development.png","alias":"perl-development"},"657":{"id":657,"title":"Oracle Applications Development","description":" Oracle Applications comprise the applications software or business software of the Oracle Corporation. The term refers to the non-database and non-middleware parts.\r\nOracle sells many functional modules that use the Oracle RDBMS as a back-end, notably Oracle Financials, Oracle HRMS, Oracle SCM, Oracle Projects, Oracle CRM and Oracle Procurement.\r\nOracle initially launched its application suite with financial software in the late 1980s. The offering as of 2009 extends to supply-chain management, human resource management, warehouse-management, customer-relationship management, call-center services, product lifecycle management, and many other areas. Both in-house expansion and the acquisition of other companies have vastly expanded Oracle's application software business.\r\nOracle released Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS/e-BS) Release 12 (R12) – a bundling of several Oracle Applications&nbsp; – in February 2007. The release date coincided with new releases of other Oracle-owned products: JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Siebel Systems and PeopleSoft.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Oracle E-Business Suite?</span>\r\nOracle E-Business Suite is a replicated integrated application software package manufactured by Oracle, which includes functional blocks ERP, CRM, PLM. Designed to automate the main activities of enterprises, including finance, production, personnel management, logistics, marketing, sales and sales, customer service, relationships with suppliers and customers, and others.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Oracle_Applicatons_Development.png","alias":"oracle-applications-development"},"659":{"id":659,"title":"SAP Applications Development","description":" ABAP is the SAP programming language. The syntax of the programming language is similar to COBOL, but it is very different from languages such as Java, C, or Python. Since ABAP is a non-standardized programming language, it is only used in connection with SAP programs. However, ABAP has powerful concepts for developing business applications in this environment. Since 1990, ABAP has also been a so-called object-oriented programming language.\r\nAs an SAP developer, you work closely with other software engineers. Together, you will develop, implement and maintain the modules and features of the software that works for your customer or employer. Specifically, these can be architectures, applications, and specific solutions.\r\nABAP is one of the many application-specific fourth-generation languages (4GLs) first developed in the 1980s. It was originally the report language for SAP R/2, a platform that enabled large corporations to build mainframe business applications for materials management and financial and management accounting. ABAP establish integration between independent software.\r\nABAP used to be an abbreviation of Allgemeiner Berichts-Aufbereitungs-Prozessor, German for &quot;generic report preparation processor&quot;, but was later renamed to the English Advanced Business Application Programming. ABAP was one of the first languages to include the concept of Logical Databases (LDBs), which provides a high level of abstraction from the basic database level(s),which supports every platform, language and units.\r\nThe ABAP language was originally used by developers to develop the SAP R/3 platform. It was also intended to be used by SAP customers to enhance SAP applications – customers can develop custom reports and interfaces with ABAP programming. The language was geared towards more technical customers with programming experience.\r\nABAP remains as the language for creating programs for the client-server R/3 system, which SAP first released in 1992. As computer hardware evolved through the 1990s, more and more of SAP's applications and systems were written in ABAP. By 2001, all but the most basic functions were written in ABAP. In 1999, SAP released an object-oriented extension to ABAP called ABAP Objects, along with R/3 release 4.6.\r\nSAP's current development platform NetWeaver supports both ABAP and Java.\r\nABAP has an abstraction between the business applications, the operating system and database. This ensures that applications do not depend directly upon a specific server or database platform and can easily be ported from one platform to another.\r\nSAP Netweaver currently runs on UNIX (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Linux), Microsoft Windows, i5/OS on IBM System i (formerly iSeries, AS/400), and z/OS on IBM System z (formerly zSeries, S/390). Supported databases are HANA, SAP ASE (formerly Sybase), IBM DB2, Informix, MaxDB, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server (support for Informix was discontinued in SAP Basis release 7.00).","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a SAP Developer?</span>\r\nSAP is the #1 creator of business software solutions. It's the fourth largest software company globally -- just a couple notches behind Microsoft. What this means is that there's a huge market for developers who are knowledgeable of SAP solutions -- outside of the parent company and outside of Germany. Among these solutions are SAP Business Warehouse, SAP Business Objects, and Sybase mobile.\r\nSAP has contributed to one thing that most software companies haven’t – its own computer language. One possible role for a SAP developer is to write programs using Advanced Business Application Programming (ABAP). Some SAP projects are also developed in Java.\r\nMany U.S. companies use SAP technologies. By perusing job posting, you may find some big names: Costco, REI, Nike, even Raytheon.\r\nThere are a lot of different roles from SAP systems analyst to SAP architect. It can be surprising just how much know-how and education these positions require.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Education</span>\r\nThe bachelor’s degree is the typical entry point for a career in software development. Industry-specific knowledge can be important – in the case of a SAP developer, it is often finance or business.\r\nMany nationally advertised SAP positions favor candidates with master’s degrees; depending on the position, the master’s maybe in business administration or a more technical field.\r\nHigher-level software development positions typically ask for experience taking a software product through the lifecycle. They may ask for knowledge of specific models -- e.g. the Full Lifecycle Model.\r\nThose with SAP expertise often go on to work as consultants. There are two types: functional consultant and technical consultant. The functional consultant is focused on meeting business needs and the technical consultant, well you can guess what their focus is.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">SAP Certification</span>\r\nLike its &quot;big brothers&quot; Microsoft and Oracle, SAP offers a host of certifications. They are available in technology, development, and application.\r\nIt is possible to simultaneously earn a master's degree and SAP certification. The masters may be in any of several fields, including business engineering and computer science.\r\nJob advancement takes more than just technical skills. A 2012 survey of SAP professionals asked what skills were most important for advancement and raises. Project management topped the list. Business skills and communication skills were also seen as important.\r\nDevelopers can find lots of resources on the site of the SAP Community Network.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_SAP_Applications_Development.png","alias":"sap-applications-development"},"661":{"id":661,"title":"Sharepoint Development","description":" SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that integrates with Microsoft Office. Launched in 2001, SharePoint is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, but the product is highly configurable and usage varies substantially among organizations.\r\nSharePoint infuses AI into the mobile app experience to keep you focused and productive while on the go. AI builds an understanding of what you work on, how you work, and how your colleagues' work relates to you. When you need expertise, content, or resources when you're on the go, SharePoint is a great place to start looking.\r\nSharePoint is comprised of a multipurpose set of technologies that has tight integration with Office 365 as well as handy document management capabilities.\r\nAccording to Microsoft, SharePoint is used by 78% of Fortune 500 companies. Between 2006 and 2011, Microsoft sold over 36.5 million user licenses.\r\nSharePoint is a collection of software products and components that includes:\r\n<ul><li>a set of web applications for organizing collaboration;</li><li>functionality for creating web portals;</li><li>module for searching information in documents and information systems;</li><li>workflow management functionality and enterprise-wide content management system;</li><li>module for creating forms for entering information;</li><li>functionality for business analysis.</li></ul>\r\nMicrosoft states that SharePoint has 190 million users across 200,000 customer organizations.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is Microsoft SharePoint important?</span>\r\nSharePoint’s core functions are\r\n<ul><li>a) to store documents in a more effective format than a regular folder system, and</li><li>b) bring an organization together so that everyone receives critical information that’s relevant to them.</li></ul>\r\nHere are some benefits your organization can get from using SharePoint:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Context around documents and folders</span></span>\r\nA traditional document storage facility is usually a folder on a server somewhere. The reason why SharePoint is more effective than the traditional method is that it brings context around the folder itself by tracking versions of the document. For example, in a traditional folder setup, you can’t have a running version history for each document or see any changes to the file name. Whereas with SharePoint, there’s more information provided about the file. It’s not just some file sitting in a folder; it’s an evolving piece of information that has a history as well as context.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Enable constant communication with all staff</span></span>\r\nIn the past, you might send a group email and copy everyone. The problem with that approach is a lot of information gets ignored or even lost, so some people might not get the information they need. For example, maybe you lost a company document and you missed an important discussion. Or maybe you did read it but afterward, it was very difficult to find and reference that information. SharePoint brings collaboration to the table so that all staff can see the important information and communication accordingly.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Store all information in a central location</span></span>\r\nThis can range from things such as updates from the CEO to important meetings or events. SharePoint brings all the information to one internal place so staff can quickly find the information they need. Other use cases might be general warnings about particular customers or even incidents that everyone needs to be aware of. With SharePoint, simply post the message and everyone can access it from there. Forget email or announcement boards; simply post it on SharePoint.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Encourage collaboration</span></span>\r\nSharePoint is really designed around getting the organization into a central point where they can collaborate. This is particularly important for organizations that are not geographically connected. With some branches working in a very isolated format, SharePoint provides staff with the ability to connect with each other via a portal. Where in the past some staff might only interact with the company during a company meeting, SharePoint brings those people together so everyone can work together, all the time. Collaboration fosters innovation and builds a company culture that spawns creative ideas.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the challenges of Microsoft SharePoint?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Support for certain industry standards.</span> SharePoint's records-management capabilities give it the ability to save documents for legal or historical reasons. This can be a challenge in some industries (medical and financial) where there are complex regulatory requirements for record-keeping. In those cases, you should consult a professional about an industry-specific solution.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Customize out of the box with third-party solutions.</span> Some organizations won’t find what they need out of the box. A third-party solution can help you build something you want. This can be easily achieved if you work with an IT service provider that has SharePoint experience. ","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Sharepoint_Development.png","alias":"sharepoint-development"},"665":{"id":665,"title":"User Interface Development","description":" User interface design (UI) or user interface engineering is the design of user interfaces for machines and software, such as computers, home appliances, mobile devices, and other electronic devices, with the focus on maximizing usability and the user experience. The goal of user interface design is to make the user's interaction as simple and efficient as possible, in terms of accomplishing user goals (user-centered design).\r\nGood user interface design facilitates finishing the task at hand without drawing unnecessary attention to itself. Graphic design and typography are utilized to support its usability, influencing how the user performs certain interactions and improving the aesthetic appeal of the design; design aesthetics may enhance or detract from the ability of users to use the functions of the interface. The design process must balance technical functionality and visual elements (e.g., mental model) to create a system that is not only operational but also usable and adaptable to changing user needs.\r\nInterface design is involved in a wide range of projects from computer systems, to cars, to commercial planes; all of these projects involve much of the same basic human interactions yet also require some unique skills and knowledge. As a result, designers tend to specialize in certain types of projects and have skills centered on their expertise, whether it is a software design, user research, web design, or industrial design.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a Graphical User Interface?</span>\r\nThe graphical user interface, developed in the late 1970s by the Xerox Palo Alto research laboratory and deployed commercially in Apple’s Macintosh and Microsoft’s Windows operating systems, was designed as a response to the problem of inefficient usability in early, text-based command-line interfaces for the average user.\r\nGraphical user interfaces would become the standard of user-centered design in software application programming, providing users the capability to intuitively operate computers and other electronic devices through the direct manipulation of graphical icons such as buttons, scroll bars, windows, tabs, menus, cursors, and the mouse pointing device. Many modern graphical user interfaces feature touchscreen and voice-command interaction capabilities.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How Does a Graphical User Interface Work?</span>\r\nGraphical user interface design principles conform to the model–view–controller software pattern, which separates internal representations of information from the manner in which information is presented to the user, resulting in a platform where users are shown which functions are possible rather than requiring the input of command codes. Users interact with information by manipulating visual widgets, which are designed to respond in accordance with the type of data they hold and support the actions necessary to complete the user’s task.\r\nThe appearance, or “skin,” of an operating system or application software may be redesigned at will due to the nature of graphical user interfaces being independent from application functions. Applications typically implement their own unique graphical user interface display elements in addition to graphical user interface elements already present on the existing operating system. A typical graphical user interface also includes standard formats for representing graphics and text, making it possible to share data between applications running under common graphical user interface design software.\r\nGraphical user interface testing refers to the systematic process of generating test cases in order to evaluate the functionality of the system and its design elements. Graphical user interface testing tools, which are either manual or automated and typically implemented by third-party operators, are available under a variety of licenses and are supported by a variety of platforms. Popular examples include: Tricentis Tosca, Squish GUI Tester, Unified Functional Testing (UFT), Maveryx, Appium, and eggPlant Functional.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Graphical User Interface Examples</span>\r\nSketchpad, believed to be the first graphical computer-aided design program, was developed in 1962 by Ivan Sutherland while he was at MIT, and consisted of a light pen that enabled users to create and manipulate objects in engineering drawings in real-time with coordinated graphics.\r\nModern operating systems and graphical user interfaces are incorporated into nearly every interactive application, such as ATMs, self-service checkouts, airline self-ticketing and check-in, video games, smartphones, and desktops. Some popular, modern graphical user interface examples include Microsoft Windows, macOS, Ubuntu Unity, and GNOME Shell for desktop environments, and Android, Apple's iOS, BlackBerry OS, Windows 10 Mobile, Palm OS-WebOS, and Firefox OS for smartphones.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Advantages of Graphical User Interfaces</span>\r\nThe advantage of a graphical user interface is a stark improvement in useability for the average person. The features of a graphical user interface leverage familiar metaphors, such as drag-and-drop for transferring files, and use familiar icons, such as a trash bin for deleted files, creating an environment in which computer operations are intuitive and easily mastered without any prior practice or knowledge of computing machinery or languages. Graphical user interface applications are self descriptive, feedback is typically immediate, and visual cues encourage and steer discoverability.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_User_Interface_Development.png","alias":"user-interface-development"},"669":{"id":669,"title":"MySQL Development","description":" MySQL is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of &quot;My&quot;, the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter, and &quot;SQL&quot;, the abbreviation for Structured Query Language.\r\nMySQL is free and open-source software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, and is also available under a variety of proprietary licenses. MySQL was owned and sponsored by the Swedish company MySQL AB, which was bought by Sun Microsystems (now Oracle Corporation). In 2010, when Oracle acquired Sun, Widenius forked the open-source MySQL project to create MariaDB.\r\nMySQL is a component of the LAMP web application software stack (and others), which is an acronym for Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python. MySQL is used by many database-driven web applications, including Drupal, Joomla, phpBB, and WordPress. MySQL is also used by many popular websites, including Facebook, Flickr, MediaWiki, Twitter, and YouTube.\r\nMySQL is written in C and C++. Its SQL parser is written in yacc, but it uses a home-brewed lexical analyzer. MySQL works on many system platforms, including AIX, BSDi, FreeBSD, HP-UX, eComStation, i5/OS, IRIX, Linux, macOS, Microsoft Windows, NetBSD, Novell NetWare, OpenBSD, OpenSolaris, OS/2 Warp, QNX, Oracle Solaris, Symbian, SunOS, SCO OpenServer, SCO UnixWare, Sanos and Tru64. A port of MySQL to OpenVMS also exists.\r\nThe MySQL server software itself and the client libraries use dual-licensing distribution. They are offered under GPL version 2, or a proprietary license.\r\nSupport can be obtained from the official manual. Free support additionally is available in different IRC channels and forums. Oracle offers paid support via its MySQL Enterprise products. They differ in the scope of services and in price. Additionally, a number of third party organisations exist to provide support and services, including MariaDB and Percona.\r\nMySQL has received positive reviews, and reviewers noticed it &quot;performs extremely well in the average case&quot; and that the &quot;developer interfaces are there, and the documentation (not to mention feedback in the real world via Web sites and the like) is very, very good&quot;. It has also been tested to be a &quot;fast, stable and true multi-user, multi-threaded sql database server&quot;.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold; \">What is MySQL?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">MySQL is a database management system.</span>\r\nA database is a structured collection of data. It may be anything from a simple shopping list or a picture gallery or the vast amounts of information in a corporate network. To add, access, and process data stored in a computer database, you need a database management system such as MySQL Server. Since computers are very good at handling large amounts of data, database management plays a central role in computing, as stand-alone utilities, or as parts of other applications.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic; \">MySQL is a relational database management system.</span>\r\nA relational database stores data in separate tables rather than putting all the data in one big storeroom. This adds speed and flexibility. The tables are linked by defined relations making it possible to combine data from several tables on request. The SQL part of &quot;MySQL&quot; stands for &quot;Structured Query Language&quot; the most common standardised language used to access databases.\r\nMySQL, the most popular Open Source SQL database, is developed and provided by MySQL AB. The MySQL web site ( http://www.mysql.com ) provides the latest information about MySQL software and MySQL AB.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why do I need MySQL?</span>\r\nIf you have any information such as products, dates, customers, pictures, or any data that is not static, a database is an efficient way to manage that information. Sites that contain message boards, guest books, dynamic galleries, contact lists, or online product information can greatly benefit by storing their information on our fast, reliable and secure database server.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_MySQL_Development.png","alias":"mysql-development"},"671":{"id":671,"title":"Oracle Database Development","description":" Oracle Database (commonly referred to as Oracle RDBMS or simply as Oracle) is a proprietary multi-model database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation.\r\nIt is a database commonly used for running online transaction processing (OLTP), data warehousing (DW) and mixed (OLTP &amp; DW) database workloads. The latest generation, Oracle Database 19c, is available on-prem, on-cloud, or in a hybrid-Cloud environment. 19c may also be deployed on Oracle Engineered Systems (e.g. Exadata) on-prem, on Oracle (public) cloud or (private) cloud at a customer. At Openworld 2017 in San Francisco, Executive Chairman of the Board and CTO, Larry Ellison announced the next database generation, Oracle Autonomous Database.\r\nA 2016 Gartner report claimed to show Oracle holding #1 RDBMS market share worldwide based on the revenue share ahead of its four closest competitors – Microsoft, IBM, SAP, and Teradata.\r\nIn the market for relational databases, Oracle Database competes against commercial products such as IBM's DB2 UDB and Microsoft SQL Server. Oracle and IBM tend to battle for the mid-range database market on Unix and Linux platforms, while Microsoft dominates the mid-range database market on Microsoft Windows platforms. However, since they share many of the same customers, Oracle and IBM tend to support each other's products in many middleware and application categories (for example WebSphere, PeopleSoft, and Siebel Systems CRM), and IBM's hardware divisions work closely with Oracle on performance-optimizing server-technologies (for example, Linux on IBM Z). Niche commercial competitors include Teradata (in data warehousing and business intelligence), Software AG's ADABAS, Sybase, and IBM's Informix, among many others.\r\nIncreasingly, the Oracle database products compete against such open-source software relational and non-relational database systems like PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Couchbase, Neo4j, and others. Oracle acquired Innobase, supplier of the InnoDB codebase to MySQL, in part to compete better against open source alternatives, and acquired Sun Microsystems, owner of MySQL, in 2010. Database products licensed as open-source are, by the legal terms of the Open Source Definition, free to distribute and free of royalty or other licensing fees. ","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is Oracle Such a Popular Relational Database?</span>\r\nIn the Oracle Bigdata base, a collection of data is treated as one. The purpose of a database is to store and retrieve organized information. In general, an Oracle server manages a huge amount of data in a multiuser environment so that many users can concurrently access the same data and all this is delivered with high performance. Prevention of unauthorized access and efficient solutions for failure recovery is also provided by the Oracle server.\r\nThe most flexible and cost-effective way to manage information and applications is offered by Oracle Database and is the first database designed for enterprise grid computing. Enterprise grid computing enables the creation of a large pool of industry-standard, modular storage, and servers.\r\nThis architecture enables every new system to be quickly provisioned from the collection or pool of components. Peak workloads are not required since capacity can easily be added or reallocated from the resource pool as required.\r\nThe database has logical and physical structures. Because the physical and logical structures are separate, the physical storage of data can be managed without affecting the access to logical storage structures.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Oracle Database Features</span>\r\nFollowing are the features of Oracle Database:\r\n<ul><li>Scalability and Performance;</li><li>Manageability;</li><li>Database Backup and Recovery;</li><li>High Availability;</li><li>Business Intelligence;</li><li>Content Management;</li><li>Security;</li><li>Data Integrity and Triggers;</li><li>Information Integration.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Oracle Database Application Development</span>\r\nOracle Database is a simple, widely understood, unified data model. It is used as a standalone in many applications, but it is also invoked directly from Java (JDBC), Oracle Call Interface (OCI), Oracle C++ Call Interface (OCCI), or XSU (XML SQL Utility). Stored packages, procedures, and triggers can all be written in PL/SQL or in Java.\r\nSQL and PL/SQL are the core of Oracle’s application development stack. Most enterprises run SQL in back-ends and Web applications accessing databases do so by utilizing SQL (wrapped by Java classes as JDBC). Enterprise Application Integration applications generate XML from SQL queries, and content repositories are built on top of SQL tables.\r\nOracle server covers the following:\r\n<ul><li> Oracle SQL;</li><li>PL/SQL;</li><li>Application Programming Languages (APIs);</li><li>Transactions;</li><li>Datatypes;</li><li>Globalization.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Oracle_Datase_Development.png","alias":"oracle-database-development"},"673":{"id":673,"title":"MS SQL Development","description":" Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system, or RDBMS, that supports a wide variety of transaction processing, business intelligence and analytics applications in corporate IT environments. It's one of the three market-leading database technologies, along with Oracle Database and IBM's DB2.\r\nLike other RDBMS technologies, SQL Server is primarily built around a row-based table structure that connects related data elements in different tables to one another, avoiding the need to redundantly store data in multiple places within a database. The relational model also provides referential integrity and other integrity constraints to maintain data accuracy; those checks are part of a broader adherence to the principles of atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability - collectively known as the ACID properties and designed to guarantee that database transactions are processed reliably.\r\nThe advanced security features supported in all editions of Microsoft SQL Server starting with SQL Server 2016 SP1 include three technologies added to the 2016 release: Always Encrypted, which lets user update encrypted data without having to decrypt it first; row-level security, which enables data access to be controlled at the row level in database tables; and dynamic data masking, which automatically hides elements of sensitive data from users without full access privileges.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is MS SQL?</span>\r\nMS SQL is short for Microsoft SQL Server. It is a relational web hosting database that is used to store web site information like blog posts or user information. MS SQL is the most popular type of database on Windows servers. It is not free but it has many advanced features that make it suitable for businesses.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the features of MS SQL?</span>\r\nIn basic terms, an MS SQL database is capable of storing any type of data that you want. It will let you quickly store and retrieve information and multiple web site visitors can use it at one time. You will use SQL statements to accomplish all of this. In more technical terms, most versions of MS SQL have the following features:\r\n<ul><li>Buffer management</li><li>Logging and Transaction</li><li>Concurrency and locking</li><li>Replication services</li><li>Analysis services</li><li>Notification services</li><li>Integration services</li><li>Full-text search service</li><li>Stored procedures</li><li>Triggers</li><li>Views</li><li>Sub-SELECTs (i.e. nested SELECTs)</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is MS SQL used for?</span>\r\nMS SQL is the database of choice for web applications on a Windows platform (using .NET or ASP). These languages make is extremely easy to connect to the MS SQL database. It is also used for many popular content management systems and other scripts.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_MS_SQL_Development.png","alias":"ms-sql-development"},"675":{"id":675,"title":"MariaDB Development","description":" MariaDB is a community-developed, commercially supported fork of the MySQL relational database management system (RDBMS), intended to remain free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License. Development is led by some of the original developers of MySQL, who forked it due to concerns over its acquisition by Oracle Corporation in 2009.\r\nMariaDB intended to maintain high compatibility with MySQL, ensuring a drop-in replacement capability with library binary parity and exact matching with MySQL APIs and commands. However, new features diverge more. It includes new storage engines like Aria, ColumnStore, and MyRocks.\r\nIts lead developer/CTO is Michael &quot;Monty&quot; Widenius, one of the founders of MySQL AB and the founder of Monty Program AB. On 16 January 2008, MySQL AB announced that it had agreed to be acquired by Sun Microsystems for approximately $1 billion. The acquisition completed on 26 February 2008. MariaDB is named after Monty's younger daughter, Maria. (MySQL is named after his other daughter, My.)","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is MariaDB?</span>\r\nMariaDB is a backward compatible, drop-in replacement of the MySQL® Database Server. It includes all major open source storage engines.\r\nThe source code for MariaDB is publically available on GitHub. Binaries and packages are also available.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is MariaDB's Release Policy and Schedule?</span>\r\nThe <link https://mariadb.com/kb/en/plans/ - external-link-new-window \"Opens internal link in current window\">MariaDB Development Plans</link> page links to plans for future versions of MariaDB.\r\nThe release schedule for upcoming MariaDB releases can be found on the <link https://jira.mariadb.org/projects/MDEV?selectedItem=com.atlassian.jira.jira-projects-plugin:release-page - external-link-new-window \"Opens internal link in current window\">MariaDB Jira release page</link>.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_MariaDB_Development.png","alias":"mariadb-development"},"676":{"id":676,"title":"PostgreSQL Development","description":" PostgreSQL, also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and technical standards compliance. It is designed to handle a range of workloads, from single machines to data warehouses or Web services with many concurrent users. It is the default database for macOS Server, and is also available for Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Windows.\r\nPostgreSQL features transactions with Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability (ACID) properties, automatically updatable views, materialized views, triggers, foreign keys, and stored procedures. PostgreSQL is developed by the PostgreSQL Global Development Group, a diverse group of many companies and individual contributors.\r\nPostgreSQL's developers pronounce PostgreSQL as /ˈpoʊstɡrɛs ˌkjuː ˈɛl/. It is abbreviated as Postgres because of ubiquitous support for the SQL standard among relational databases. Originally named POSTGRES, the name (Post Ingres) refers to the project's origins in that RDBMS that originated at University of California, Berkeley. After a review the PostgreSQL Core Team announced in 2007 that the product would continue to use the name PostgreSQL.\r\nPostgreSQL manages concurrency through multiversion concurrency control (MVCC), which gives each transaction a &quot;snapshot&quot; of the database, allowing changes to be made without affecting other transactions. This largely eliminates the need for read locks, and ensures the database maintains ACID principles. PostgreSQL offers three levels of transaction isolation: Read Committed, Repeatable Read and Serializable. Because PostgreSQL is immune to dirty reads, requesting a Read Uncommitted transaction isolation level provides read committed instead. PostgreSQL supports full serializability via the serializable snapshot isolation (SSI) method.\r\nPostgreSQL is available for the following operating systems: Linux (all recent distributions), 64-bit installers available for macOS (OS X) version 10.6 and newer – Windows (with installers available for 64-bit version; tested on latest versions and back to Windows 2012 R2, while for PostgreSQL version 10 and older a 32-bit installer is available and tested down to 32-bit Windows 2008 R1; compilable by e.g. Visual Studio, version 2013 up up to most recent 2019 version) – FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, and UnixWare; and not officially tested: DragonFly BSD, BSD/OS, IRIX, OpenIndiana, OpenSolaris, OpenServer, and Tru64 UNIX. Most other Unix-like systems could also work; most modern do support.\r\nPostgreSQL works on any of the following instruction set architectures: x86 and x86-64 on Windows and other operating systems; these are supported on other than Windows: IA-64 Itanium (external support for HP-UX), PowerPC, PowerPC 64, S/390, S/390x, SPARC, SPARC 64, ARMv8-A (64-bit) and older ARM (32-bit, including older such as ARMv6 in Raspberry Pi), MIPS, MIPSel, and PA-RISC. It was also known to work, but not tested in a while, on Alpha (dropped in 9.5), M68k, M32R, NS32k, and VAX. Beyond these, it is possible to build PostgreSQL for an unsupported CPU by disabling spinlocks.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is PostgreSQL? How is it pronounced? What is Postgres?</span>\r\nPostgreSQL is pronounced Post-Gres-Q-L.\r\nPostgreSQL is an object-relational database system that has the features of traditional proprietary database systems with enhancements to be found in next-generation DBMS systems. PostgreSQL is free and the complete source code is available.\r\nPostgreSQL development is performed by a team of mostly volunteer developers spread throughout the world and communicating via the Internet. It is a community project and is not controlled by any company.\r\nPostgres is a widely-used nickname for PostgreSQL. It was the original name of the project at Berkeley and is strongly preferred over other nicknames. If you find 'PostgreSQL' hard to pronounce, call it 'Postgres' instead.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Who controls PostgreSQL?</span>\r\nIf you are looking for a PostgreSQL gatekeeper, central committee, or controlling company, give up --- there isn't one. We do have a core committee and git committers, but these groups are more for administrative purposes than control. The project is directed by the community of developers and users, which anyone can join. All you need to do is subscribe to the mailing lists and participate in the discussions.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Who is the PostgreSQL Global Development Group?</span>\r\nThe &quot;PGDG&quot; is an international, unincorporated association of individuals and companies who have contributed to the PostgreSQL project. The PostgreSQL Core Team generally act as spokespeople for the PGDG.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Who is the PostgreSQL Core Team?</span>\r\nA committee of five to seven (currently six) senior contributors to PostgreSQL who do the following for the project: (a) set release dates, (b) handle confidential matters for the project, (c) act as spokespeople for the PGDG when required, and (d) arbitrate community decisions which are not settled by consensus. The current Core Team is listed on top of the contributor's page.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What about the various PostgreSQL foundations?</span>\r\nWhile the PostgreSQL project utilizes non-profit corporations in the USA, Europe, Brazil, and Japan for fundraising and project coordination, these entities do not own the PostgreSQL code.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is the license of PostgreSQL?</span>\r\nPostgreSQL is distributed under a license similar to BSD and MIT. Basically, it allows users to do anything they want with the code, including reselling binaries without the source code. The only restriction is that you not hold us legally liable for problems with the software. There is also the requirement that this copyright appears in all copies of the software.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_PostgesSQL_Development.png","alias":"postgresql-development"},"806":{"id":806,"title":"Functional testing tools","description":"Functional testing is the stage of product development when software is tested for compliance. Functional testing can be manual or automatic. Functional testing software usually provides some input so that you can evaluate the output to see how the software works.\r\nFunctional testing is one of the types of testing aimed at checking the compliance of the functional requirements of the software with its actual characteristics. The main objective of functional testing is to confirm that the developed software product has all the functionality required by the customer.\r\nDepending on the purpose, functional testing may be conducted:\r\nBased on the functional requirements specified in the requirements specification. At the same time, test cases are created for testing (test cases), the compilation of which takes into account the priority of software functions that must be covered by tests. Thus, we can make sure that all the functions of the developed product work correctly with different types of input data, their combinations, quantities, etc.\r\nBased on the business processes that the application must provide. In this case, we are not interested in the performance of individual software functions, as we are the correctness of the operations performed, in terms of system usage scenarios. Thus, testing in this case will be based on options for using the system (use cases).\r\nThe aspects described above are implemented using the following types and levels of testing:\r\n<ul><li>Modular (component).</li><li>Integration.</li><li>Systemic.</li><li>Regression.</li><li>Acceptance.</li></ul>\r\nAss well, there are many other types that provide complete and comprehensive testing of functional requirements for software.\r\nChoosing the right functional testing tool for projects is key. Highly qualified testing professionals constantly update the set of tools used, as well as develop their own.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is functional testing?</span>\r\nFunctional testing is a segment of security testing. The security mechanisms of the system are tested, under operational conditions, for correct operation.\r\nFunctional testing verifies that the end user gets what they want from the application. It involves testing to ensure that the tasks or the steps required for complete functionality work well. Functional testing involves testing of functional requirements as per the specification.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the differences between system and functional testing?</span>\r\nSystem testing has classifications like functional and non-functional testing. Hence the functional testing is a part of system testing.\r\nSystem testing allows the testers to test the typical end product. Every single module, interface and every minute detail are needed to be tested in system testing.\r\nFunctional testing is aimed at testing the functionalities of the product being tested. These functionalities include volume, stress, load, security, scalability, performance, etc. Hardware and software are not concerned with functional testing.\r\nFunctional testing involves testing of functional requirements as per the specification. On the other hand, system testing involves testing the system as a whole. This may involve testing of proper installation and uninstalling of the application. System testing tests for all internal and external components that make the system.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_functional_testing_tools.png","alias":"functional-testing-tools"},"808":{"id":808,"title":"Bug tracking systems","description":" A bug tracking system or defect tracking system is a software application that keeps track of reported software bugs in software development projects. It may be regarded as a type of issue tracking system.\r\nMany bug tracking systems, such as those used by most open-source software projects, allow end-users to enter bug reports directly. Other systems are used only internally in a company or organization doing software development. Typically bug tracking systems are integrated with other project management software.\r\nA bug tracking system is usually a necessary component of a good software development infrastructure, and consistent use of a bug or issue tracking system is considered one of the &quot;hallmarks of a good software team&quot;.\r\nA major component of a bug tracking system is a database that records facts about known bugs. Facts may include the time a bug was reported, its severity, the erroneous program behavior, and details on how to reproduce the bug; as well as the identity of the person who reported it and any programmers who may be working on fixing it.\r\nTypical bug tracking systems support the concept of the life cycle for a bug which is tracked through the status assigned to the bug. A bug tracking system should allow administrators to configure permissions based on status, move the bug to another status, or delete the bug. The system should also allow administrators to configure the bug statuses and to what extent a bug in a particular status can be moved. Some systems will e-mail interested parties, such as the submitter and assigned programmers, when new records are added or the status changes.\r\nThe main benefit of a bug-tracking system is to provide a clear centralized overview of development requests (including both bugs and improvements, the boundary is often fuzzy), and their state. The prioritized list of pending items (often called backlog) provides valuable input when defining the product road map, or maybe just &quot;the next release&quot;.\r\nIn a corporate environment, a bug-tracking system may be used to generate reports on the productivity of programmers at fixing bugs. However, this may sometimes yield inaccurate results because different bugs may have different levels of severity and complexity. The severity of a bug may not be directly related to the complexity of fixing the bug. There may be different opinions among the managers and architects.\r\nA local bug tracker (LBT) is usually a computer program used by a team of application support professionals (often a help desk) to keep track of issues communicated to software developers. Using an LBT allows support professionals to track bugs in their &quot;own language&quot; and not the &quot;language of the developers.&quot; In addition, an LBT allows a team of support professionals to track specific information about users who have called to complain — this information may not always be needed in the actual development queue. Thus, there are two tracking systems when an LBT is in place.","materialsDescription":" <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What does Bug Tracking mean?</span>\r\nBug tracking is a process used by quality assurance personnel and programmers to keep track of software problems and resolutions. A bug tracking system is normally put in place to store information about reported bugs. This type of issue-tracking system provides a clear, centralized overview of development requests and their corresponding states.\r\nBug tracking enables users to enter bug reports directly into a system that logs and tracks them. Diligent use of a bug tracking system provides a record of a software team's effectiveness. Local bug trackers are often used by teams of application support professionals to keep track of issues communicated to software developers.\r\nBug tracking systems include a database, which keeps track of facts pertaining to each bug. These facts might include the time a bug was reported, its severity, incorrect program behavior, details on how to recreate the bug,who reported the bug and what the programmers did to fix it. Bug tracking systems are associated with a bug's life cycle, which is tracked through the status assigned to each bug. This allows administrators to set permissions based on a bug's status, move bugs to other statuses or delete them.<br /><br />","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon-bug-tracking-systems.png","alias":"bug-tracking-systems"},"842":{"id":842,"title":"Chatbot Development","description":"A chatbot is a piece of software that conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods. Such programs are often designed to convincingly simulate how a human would behave as a conversational partner, although as of 2019, they are far short of being able to pass the Turing test. Chatbots are typically used in dialog systems for various practical purposes including customer service or information acquisition. Some chatbots use sophisticated natural language processing systems, but many simpler ones scan for keywords within the input, then pull a reply with the most matching keywords, or the most similar wording pattern, from a database.\r\nThe term &quot;ChatterBot&quot; was originally coined by Michael Mauldin (creator of the first Verbot, Julia) in 1994 to describe these conversational programs. Today, most chatbots are accessed via virtual assistants such as Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, via messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger or WeChat, or via individual organizations' apps and websites. Chatbots can be classified into usage categories such as conversational commerce (e-commerce via chat), analytics, communication, customer support, design, developer tools, education, entertainment, finance, food, games, health, HR, marketing, news, personal, productivity, shopping, social, sports, travel and utilities.\r\nBeyond chatbots, Conversational AI refers to the use of messaging apps, speech-based assistants and chatbots to automate communication and create personalized customer experiences at scale.\r\nThe process of building, testing and deploying chatbots can be done on cloud-based chatbot development platforms offered by cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS) providers such as Oracle Cloud Platform SnatchBot and IBM Watson. These cloud platforms provide Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence and Mobile Backend as a Service for chatbot development.\r\nSome Companies like Microsoft Azure and AARC are currently providing their Bot Engines through which chatbot Platforms or Software can be developed.","materialsDescription":"New tools designed to simplify the interaction between humans and computers have hit the market: Chatbots or Virtual Assistants. In banking, chatbots and virtual assistants are some of the industry’s newest tools designed to simplify the interaction between humans and computers.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a chatbot?</span>\r\nA chatbot is artificial intelligence (AI) software that can simulate a conversation (or a chat) with a user in natural language through messaging applications, websites, mobile apps or through the telephone.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why are chatbots important?</span>\r\nA chatbot is often described as one of the most advanced and promising expressions of interaction between humans and machines. However, from a technological point of view, a chatbot only represents the natural evolution of a Question-Answering system leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP). Formulating responses to questions in natural language is one of the most typical examples of Natural Language Processing applied in various enterprises’ end-use applications.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How does a chatbot work?</span>\r\nThere are two different tasks at the core of a chatbot:\r\n<ol><li>user request analysis</li><li>returning the response</li></ol>\r\nUser request analysis: this is the first task that a chatbot performs. It analyzes the user’s request to identify the user intent and to extract relevant entities.\r\nThe ability to identify the user’s intent and extract data and relevant entities contained in the user’s request is the first condition and the most relevant step at the core of a chatbot: If you are not able to correctly understand the user’s request, you won’t be able to provide the correct answer.\r\nReturning the response: once the user’s intent has been identified, the chatbot must provide the most appropriate response for the user’s request. The answer may be:\r\n<ul><li>a generic and predefined text;</li><li>a text retrieved from a knowledge base that contains different answers;</li><li>a contextualized piece of information based on data the user has provided;</li><li>data stored in enterprise systems;</li><li>the result of an action that the chatbot performed by interacting with one or more backend application;</li><li>a disambiguating question that helps the chatbot to correctly understand the user’s request.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">In what is the benefit of chatbots?</span>\r\nChatbot applications streamline interactions between people and services, enhancing the customer experience. At the same time, they offer companies new opportunities to improve the customer's engagement process and operational efficiency by reducing the typical cost of customer service.\r\nTo be successful, a chatbot solution should be able to effectively perform both of these tasks. Human support plays a key role here: Regardless of the kind of approach and the platform, human intervention is crucial in configuring, training and optimizing the chatbot system.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Which chatbot application is right for you?</span>\r\nThere are different approaches and tools that you can use to develop a chatbot. Depending on the use case you want to address, some chatbot technologies are more appropriate than others. In order to achieve the desired results, the combination of different AI forms such as natural language processing, machine learning, and semantic understanding may be the best option.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Chatbot_Development.png","alias":"chatbot-development"},"844":{"id":844,"title":"Data access","description":"Data access is a generic term referring to a process which has both an IT-specific meaning and other connotations involving access rights in a broader legal and/or political sense. Two fundamental categories of data access exist:\r\n<ul><li>sequential access (as in magnetic tape, for example)</li><li>random access (as in indexed media)</li></ul>\r\nThe <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">sequential method</span> requires information to be moved within the disk using a seek operation until the data is located. Each segment of data has to be read one after another until the requested data is found. Reading data <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">randomly </span>allows users to store or retrieve data anywhere on the disk, and the data is accessed in constant time.\r\nOftentimes when using random access, the data is split into multiple parts or pieces and located anywhere randomly on a disk. Sequential files are usually faster to load and retrieve because they require fewer seek operations.\r\nAccess data management crucially involves authorization to access different data repositories. Data access solutions can help distinguish the abilities of administrators and users. For example, administrators may have the ability to remove, edit and add data, while general users may not even have &quot;read&quot; rights if they lack access to particular information.\r\nA <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">data access right</span> (DAR) is a permission that has been granted that allows a person or computer program to locate and read digital information at rest. Digital access rights play and important role in information security and compliance.\r\nIn compliance, DARs are often granted to data subjects by law. For example, under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, a data subject has the right to access their own personal data and request a correction or erasure.\r\nTo avoid losing or corrupting corporate data, organizations should grant only the necessary required access to each user, a concept known as the <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">principle of least privilege</span> (POLP). To ensure confidentiality, information should be used by authorized personnel only. To maintain data integrity, data should not be modified accidentally or voluntarily. Additionally, to provide data availability, the system should operate within the required levels of service.\r\nHistorically, each repository (including each different database, file system, etc.), might require the use of different methods and languages, and many of these repositories stored their content in different and incompatible formats.\r\nOver the years standardized languages, methods, and formats, have developed to serve as interfaces between the often proprietary, and always idiosyncratic, specific languages and methods. Such standards include SQL (1974- ), ODBC (ca 1990- ), JDBC, XQJ, ADO.NET, XML, XQuery, XPath (1999- ), and Web Services.\r\nSome of these standards enable translation of data from unstructured (such as HTML or free-text files) to structured (such as XML or SQL). Structures such as connection strings and DBURLs can attempt to standardise methods of connecting to databases.<br /><br /><br />","materialsDescription":"<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What is a database?</span></h1>\r\nA database is a collection of related data which represents some aspect of the real world. A database system is designed to be built and populated with data for a certain task.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What is DBMS?</span></h1>\r\nDatabase Management System (also known as DBMS) is a access database software for storing and retrieving users' data by considering appropriate security measures. It allows users to create their own databases as per their requirement.\r\nIt consists of a group of programs which manipulate the database and provide an interface between the database. It includes the user of the database and other application programs.\r\nThe DBMS accepts the request for data from an application and instructs the operating system to provide the specific data. In large systems, a DBMS helps users and other third-party software to store and retrieve data.\r\n<h1 class=\"align-center\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal;\">What are the best data access rights practices?</span></h1>\r\nTo keep data access control issues from arising, the following practices are recommended:\r\n<ul><li>Company security policies should specify what employees can and cannot do on their computers. For example, will individual user data access to allow personal emails, file downloads, software installation, information ownership and authorized or unauthorized website access.</li><li>Data should be classified based on its degree of confidentiality (and the risks associated with being leaked) and criticality (the integrity and the risk of alteration or destruction).</li><li>Control to data should be established using required authorization or authentication and by employing traceability (which consists of tracking access to sensitive IT resources).</li><li>Regular detailed audits should be performed to help set up controls surrounding identity management, privileged users and access to resources.</li><li>The rights of users should be limited. For example, Windows 10 offers standard and administrator accounts, but most users should just have standard accounts to complete their daily tasks.</li></ul>\r\n\r\n","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/icon_Data_access.png","alias":"data-access"},"862":{"id":862,"title":"Time Tracking Software","description":"Any business owner knows that they have to keep track of their employees. Their hours must be documented for payroll and, naturally, you would like to know where they are.\r\nTime-tracking software is a category of computer software that allows its employees to record time spent on tasks or projects. The software is used in many industries, including those who employ freelancers and hourly workers. It is also used by professionals who bill their customers by the hour. These include lawyers, freelancers and accountants. The tool could be used as a stand-alone or be integrated with other applications like project management software, customer support and accounting to name just a few. Time tracking software is the electronic version of the traditional paper timesheet. Tracking time can increase productivity, as businesses can track time spent on tasks and get a better understanding of what practices causes their employees to waste time. Time tracking software enhances accountability by documenting the time it takes to finish given tasks. The data is collected in a database and could be used for data analysis by the human resources department. Features offered by time-tracking software include:\r\n<ul><li>Automatic generation of invoices to the professional's clients or customers based on the time spent.</li><li>Tracking of cost overruns for fixed cost projects.</li><li>Workforce management packages that track attendance, employee absences, human resource issues, payroll, talent management and labor analytics.</li></ul>","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the types of time-tracking software?</span>\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Timesheet.</span></span> Allows users to manually enter time spent on tasks.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Time-tracking/recording.</span></span> Automatically records activities performed on a computer.\r\nTime-tracking software can be:\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Standalone.</span></span> Used only to record timesheets and generate reports.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Integrated as part of:</span>\r\n<ul><li>Accounting systems, e.g. timesheet data fed directly to company accounts.</li><li>Billing systems, e.g. to generate invoices, especially for contractors, lawyers, etc.</li><li>Project management systems, e.g. timesheet data used by project management software to visualize the effort being spent on projects or tasks.</li><li>Payroll systems, e.g. to pay employees based on time worked.</li><li>Resource scheduling, e.g. bi-directional integration allows schedulers to schedule staff to tasks, which, once complete, can be confirmed and converted to timesheets.</li></ul>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is timesheet software?</span>\r\nTimesheet software is software used to maintain timesheets. It was popularized when computers were first introduced to the office environment with the goal of automating heavy paperwork needs for big organizations. Timesheet software allows documenting time spent performing different tasks.\r\nWhen used within companies, employees enter the time they've spent on tasks into electronic timesheets. These timesheets can then be approved or rejected by supervisors or project managers.\r\nSince 2006, timesheet software has been moving to mobile platforms (smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, etc.) enabling better tracking of employees whose work involves multiple locations.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is a time-tracking/recording software?</span>\r\nTime-tracking/recording software automates the time-tracking process by recording the activities performed on a computer and the time spent on each of them. This software is intended to be an improvement over timesheet software. Its goal is to offer a general picture of computer usage. Automatic time-tracking/recording software records and shows the usage of applications, documents, games, websites, etc.\r\nWhen used within companies, this software allows monitoring the productivity of employees by recording the tasks they perform on their computers. It can be used to help fill out timesheets.\r\nWhen used by freelancers, this software helps to create reports for clients (e.g. timesheets and invoices) or to prove work was done.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What are the time-tracking methods?</span>\r\nThere are several ways companies track employee time using time tracking software.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Durational.</span> Employees enter the duration of the task but not the times when it was performed.<br /><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Chronological.</span> Employees enter start and end times for the task.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Automatic.</span> The system automatically calculates time spent on tasks or whole projects, using a connected device or a personal computer and user input using start and stop buttons. Users can retrieve logged tasks and view the duration or the start and stop times.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Exception-based.</span> The system automatically records standard working hours except for approved time off or LOA.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Clock-in clock-out.</span> Employees manually record arrival and departure times.\r\n<span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Monitoring.</span> The system records the active and idle time of employees. It might also record screen captures.<br /><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Location-based.</span> The system determines the working status of employees based on their location.","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/time.png","alias":"time-tracking-software"},"872":{"id":872,"title":"Telemedicine","description":"Telehealth is the distribution of health-related services and information via electronic information and telecommunication technologies. It allows long-distance patient and clinician contact, care, advice, reminders, education, intervention, monitoring, and remote admissions. Telemedicine is sometimes used as a synonym, or is used in a more limited sense to describe remote clinical services, such as diagnosis and monitoring. When rural settings, lack of transport, a lack of mobility, decreased funding, or a lack of staff restrict access to care, telehealth may bridge the gap as well as provider distance-learning; meetings, supervision, and presentations between practitioners; online information and health data management and healthcare system integration.\r\nHealthcare systems, physician practices, and skilled nursing facilities are using telemedicine to provide care more efficiently. Technologies that comes integrated with telemedicine software like electronic medical records, AI diagnosis and medical streaming devices, can better assist providers in diagnosis and treatment. The latter allows providers to monitor patients in real-time and adjust treatment plans when necessary. Ultimately, this leads to better patient outcomes. \r\nBecause of telemedicine, patients who previously had limited access to health care services can now see a physician without leaving their home. Seniors who would prefer to age in place can now do so with the use of medical streaming devices. The spread of disease is reduced as individuals with contagious diseases don’t have to expose it to others in crowded waiting rooms. \r\nThanks to telemedicine, physicians have the wonderful opportunity to connect with clients wherever they are. Patients who once could not see a physician due to access to care issues, can now do so almost seamlessly. Threre are 3 main types of telemedicine: \r\n<ul> <li>Interactive medicine, also known as “live telemedicine”, allows patients and physicians to communicate in real-time while also maintaining HIPAA compliance. </li> <li>Store and Forward, which allows providers to share patient information with a practitioner in another location. </li> <li>Remote Patient Monitoring, where using patient portals, a physician can gather and share information with their patient. </li> </ul>\r\nAlthough telemedicine brings with it many benefits, there are some downsides to it as well. Providers, payers, and policymakers alike know that there are some gray areas that are difficult to keep up with. While the field will grow exponentially over the next decade, it will bring with it both practical and technological challenges. ","materialsDescription":"Telemedicine refers to the practice of caring for patients remotely when the provider and patient are not physically present with each other. Modern technology has enabled doctors to consult patients by using HIPAA compliant video-conferencing tools.\r\n<b>What is telemedicine?</b>\r\nA tool that makes healthcare more accessible, cost-effective, and that increases patient engagement – is telemedicine. Since making its debut in the late 1950’s, advances in telemedicine has contributed to seniors having the choice to age in place. In addition, the patients that reside in rural areas that previously had difficulties accessing a physician, can now reach them virtually. \r\n<b>What are the benefits of telemedicine? </b>\r\nHealthcare systems, physician practices, and skilled nursing facilities are using telemedicine to provide care more efficiently. Technologies that comes integrated with telemedicine software like electronic medical records, AI diagnosis and medical streaming devices, can better assist providers in diagnosis and treatment. The latter allows providers to monitor patients in real-time and adjust treatment plans when necessary. Ultimately, this leads to better patient outcomes. Because of telemedicine, patients who previously had limited access to health care services can now see a physician without leaving their home. Seniors who would prefer to age in place can now do so with the use of medical streaming devices. The spread of disease is reduced as individuals with contagious diseases don’t have to expose it to others in crowded waiting rooms. \r\n<b>What are the applications of telemedicine? </b>\r\nThanks to telemedicine, physicians have the wonderful opportunity to connect with clients wherever they are. Patients who once could not see a physician due to access to care issues, can now do so almost seamlessly. \r\n<b>What do you need to start telemedicine? </b>\r\nDeciding to start a telemedicine practice is a big decision and requires a very well-thought out plan. While there are wonderful benefits to starting a telemedicine practice, there are also some drawbacks. It is an endeavor that requires up-to-date equipment, trained staff, and an understanding of telemedicine laws. ","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/49087__1_.png","alias":"telemedicine"},"878":{"id":878,"title":"Remote Desktop Software","description":"The term remote desktop refers to a software or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely on one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server), while being displayed on a separate client device. Remote desktop applications have varying features. Some allow attaching to an existing user's session (i.e., a running desktop) and &quot;remote controlling&quot;, either displaying the remote control session or blanking the screen. Taking over a desktop remotely is a form of remote administration.\r\nRemote access can also be explained as remote control of a computer by using another device connected via the Internet or another network. This is widely used by many computer manufacturers and large businesses' help desks for technical troubleshooting of their customers' problems.\r\nRemote desktop software captures the mouse and keyboard inputs from the local computer (client) and sends them to the remote computer (server). The remote computer in turn sends the display commands to the local computer. When applications with many graphics including video or 3D models need to be controlled remotely, a remote workstation software that sends the pixels rather than the display commands must be used to provide a smooth, like-local experience. HP Remote Graphics Software is one such remote workstation solution.\r\nRemote desktop sharing is accomplished through a common client/server model. The client, or VNC viewer, is installed on a local computer and then connects via a network to a server component, which is installed on the remote computer. In a typical VNC session, all keystrokes and mouse clicks are registered as if the client were actually performing tasks on the end-user machine.\r\nThe target computer in a remote desktop scenario is still able to access all of its core functions. Many of these core functions, including the main clipboard, can be shared between the target computer and remote desktop client.\r\nA main use of remote desktop software is remote administration and remote implementation. This need arises when software buyers are far away from their software vendor. Most remote access software can be used for &quot;headless computers&quot;: instead of each computer having its own monitor, keyboard and mouse or using a KVM switch, one computer can have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and remote control software, and control many headless computers. The duplicate desktop mode is useful for user support and education. Remote control software combined with telephone communication can be nearly as helpful for novice computer-users as if the support staff were actually there.\r\nSince the advent of cloud computing, remote desktop software can be housed on USB hardware devices, allowing users to connect the device to any PC connected to their network or the Internet and recreate their desktop via a connection to the cloud. This model avoids one problem with remote desktop software, which requires the local computer to be switched on at the time when the user wishes to access it remotely. (It is possible with a router with C2S VPN support, and Wake on LAN equipment, to establish a virtual private network (VPN) connection with the router over the Internet, if not connected to the LAN, switch on a computer connected to the router, then connect to it.)\r\nRemote desktop products are available in three models: hosted service, software, and appliance.","materialsDescription":"<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">What is Remote Desktop Software?</span>\r\nRemote Desktop Software is a tool that uses Virtual Network Computing (VNC) to allow one computer to remotely access and control another computer over an internet/network connection.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">How does Remote Desktop Software Work?</span>\r\nRemote Desktop Software uses a client-server model to connect to and control a computer remotely:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Server:</span> The server is a remote device that is being controlled.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Client:</span> The client is the local device used to control the server.</li></ul>\r\nThe server's UI is displayed on the client monitor which enables the client to control the server via keyboard and mouse inputs. These inputs are executed in the server's environment, and the UI is updated in the client's display accordingly.\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Why is Remote Desktop Software used?</span>\r\nRemote desktop software is a tool that allows you to use the remote desktop feature seamlessly. It is used mainly for the following purposes:\r\n<ul><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Troubleshooting:</span> IT Admins are on call 24/7 and a remote access tool helps them save time and effort by allowing them to fix issues remotely within a few minutes.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Help Desk:</span> Help Desk technicians' primary responsibility is to resolve any issues that customers might face while using their product, and this more often than not involves taking remote control of their customers' devices. Work from home: People that work from home often need to remotely connect to and use their corporate devices for various purposes.</li><li><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Personal use:</span> You can remotely access a computer at your home when you're on the move, to access files or personal documents you may require urgently.</li></ul>","iconURL":"https://old.roi4cio.com/fileadmin/user_upload/remote.png","alias":"remote-desktop-software"}},"companyUrl":"https://www.spec-india.com","countryCodes":["IND","USA"],"certifications":[],"isSeller":true,"isSupplier":true,"isVendor":true,"presenterCodeLng":"","seo":{"title":"SPEC INDIA","keywords":"","description":"ISO 9001:2015,&nbsp;ISO/IEC 27001:2013 software solutions and services company&nbsp;providing accelerated and cost-effective enterprise software development solutions to a large portfolio of customers across the globe, showcasing end-to-end business transforma","og:title":"SPEC INDIA","og:description":"ISO 9001:2015,&nbsp;ISO/IEC 27001:2013 software solutions and services company&nbsp;providing accelerated and cost-effective enterprise software development solutions to a large portfolio of customers across the globe, showcasing end-to-end business transforma","og:image":"https://old.roi4cio.com/uploads/roi/company/cropped-SPEC-INDIA_(12)_1.jpg"},"eventUrl":"","vendorPartners":[],"supplierPartners":[],"vendoredProducts":[],"suppliedProducts":[],"partnershipProgramme":null}},"aliases":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"implementations":{"implementationsByAlias":{},"aliases":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"agreements":{"agreementById":{},"ids":{},"links":{},"meta":{},"loading":false,"error":null},"comparison":{"loading":false,"error":false,"templatesById":{},"comparisonByTemplateId":{},"products":[],"selectedTemplateId":null},"presentation":{"type":null,"company":{},"products":[],"partners":[],"formData":{},"dataLoading":false,"dataError":false,"loading":false,"error":false},"catalogsGlobal":{"subMenuItemTitle":""}}