BMT1006 – INTRODUCTION TO

INFORMATION SYSTEMS

DIGITAL ASSIGNMENT – 1

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

DIBYAJYOTI GHOSH GOKUL K
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR SR 22BBA0110
GRADE 1 Slot: B2 + TB2
VITBS
INTRODUCTION :
Information technology (IT) world continues to
change at an instantaneous pace, it can be challenging to
keep up with the latest trends. Nevertheless,
understanding these latest technological trends is
significant for businesses and individuals who want to
stay in the vanguard. The dynamic field of the
Information Technology industry is full of new
technologies, tools, software frameworks, and innovative
ideas.
The development of modern technologies
occurs symbiotically and inevitably affects one another.
For instance, mobile internet depends on cloud computing
and facilitates IOT development. Therefore, Innovations
in one area initiate innovations in the other.
Every year, new trends emerge in the dynamic
Information Technology industry, and it is significant for
professionals to be informed of these recent emerging
trends and all that they entail.
Let’s examine the top information technology trends. I am
going to discuss about .,
1. Blockchain
2. The Internet of Things
 BLOCKCHAIN

WHAT IS BLOCKCHAIN?

Blockchain technology is an advanced database

mechanism that allows transparent information sharing
within a business network. A blockchain database stores
data in blocks that are linked together in a chain. The data
is chronologically consistent because you cannot delete or
modify the chain without consensus from the network. As
a result, you can use blockchain technology to create an
unalterable or immutable ledger for tracking orders,
payments, accounts, and other transactions. The system
has built-in mechanisms that prevent unauthorized
transaction entries and create consistency in the shared
view of these transactions.

WHY IS BLOCKCHAIN IMPORTANT?

Traditional database technologies present several

challenges for recording financial transactions. For
instance, consider the sale of a property. Once the money
is exchanged, ownership of the property is transferred to
the buyer. Individually, both the buyer and the seller can
record the monetary transactions, but neither source can
be trusted. The seller can easily claim they have not
received the money even though they have, and the buyer
can equally argue that they have paid the money even if
they haven’t.
To avoid potential legal issues, a trusted third party has to
supervise and validate transactions. The presence of this
central authority not only complicates the transaction but
also creates a single point of vulnerability. If the central
database was compromised, both parties could suffer.

Blockchain mitigates such issues by creating a

decentralized, tamper-proof system to record transactions.
In the property transaction scenario, blockchain creates
one ledger each for the buyer and the seller. All
transactions must be approved by both parties and are
automatically updated in both of their ledgers in real time.
Any corruption in historical transactions will corrupt the
entire ledger. These properties of blockchain technology
have led to its use in various sectors, including the
creation of digital currency like Bitcoin.
HOW DO DIFFERENT INDUSTRIES USE
BLOCKCHAIN?
Energy:
Energy companies use blockchain technology to create
peer-to-peer energy trading platforms and streamline
access to renewable energy. For example, consider these
uses:
Blockchain-based energy companies have created a
trading platform for the sale of electricity between
individuals. Homeowners with solar panels use this
platform to sell their excess solar energy to neighbors.
The process is largely automated: smart meters create
transactions, and blockchain records them.
With blockchain-based crowd funding initiatives, users
can sponsor and own solar panels in communities that
lack energy access. Sponsors might also receive rent for
these communities once the solar panels are constructed.
Finance:
Traditional financial systems, like banks and stock
exchanges, use blockchain services to manage online
payments, accounts, and market trading. For example,
Singapore Exchange Limited, an investment holding
company that provides financial trading services
throughout Asia, uses blockchain technology to build a
more efficient interbank payment account. By adopting
blockchain, they solved several challenges, including
batch processing and manual reconciliation of several
thousand financial transactions.

Media and entertainment:

Companies in media and entertainment use blockchain
systems to manage copyright data. Copyright verification
is critical for the fair compensation of artists. It takes
multiple transactions to record the sale or transfer of
copyright content. Sony Music Entertainment Japan uses
blockchain services to make digital rights management
more efficient. They have successfully used blockchain
strategy to improve productivity and reduce costs in
copyright processing.

Retail:
Retail companies use blockchain to track the movement
of goods between suppliers and buyers. For example,
Amazon retail has filed a patent for a distributed ledger
technology system that will use blockchain technology to
verify that all goods sold on the platform are authentic.
Amazon sellers can map their global supply chains by
allowing participants such as manufacturers, couriers,
distributors, end users, and secondary users to add events
to the ledger after registering with a certificate authority.
WHHAT ARE THE FEATURES OF
BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY?

Decentralization
Decentralization in blockchain refers to transferring
control and decision making from a centralized entity
(individual, organization, or group) to a distributed
network. Decentralized blockchain networks use
transparency to reduce the need for trust among
participants. These networks also deter participants from
exerting authority or control over one another in ways that
degrade the functionality of the network.
Immutability
Immutability means something cannot be changed or
altered. No participant can tamper with a transaction once
someone has recorded it to the shared ledger. If a
transaction record includes an error, you must add a new
transaction to reverse the mistake, and both transactions
are visible to the network.
Consensus
A blockchain system establishes rules about participant
consent for recording transactions. You can record new
transactions only when the majority of participants in the
network give their consent.
WHAT ARE THE COMPONENTS OF
BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY:

A distributed ledger

A distributed ledger is the shared database in the

blockchain network that stores the transactions, such as a
shared file that everyone in the team can edit. In most
shared text editors, anyone with editing rights can delete
the entire file. However, distributed ledger technologies
have strict rules about who can edit and how to edit. You
cannot delete entries once they have been recorded.

Smart contracts
Companies use smart contracts to self-manage business
contracts without the need for an assisting third party.
They are programs stored on the blockchain system that
run automatically when predetermined conditions are met.
They run if-then checks so that transactions can be
completed confidently. For example, a logistics company
can have a smart contract that automatically makes
payment once goods have arrived at the port.

Public key cryptography

Public key cryptography is a security feature to uniquely
identify participants in the blockchain network. This
mechanism generates two sets of keys for network
members. One key is a public key that is common to
everyone in the network. The other is a private key that is
unique to every member. The private and public keys
work together to unlock the data in the ledger.

For example, John and Jill are two members of the

network. John records a transaction that is encrypted with
his private key. Jill can decrypt it with her public key.
This way, Jill is confident that John made the transaction.
Jill’s public key wouldn’t have worked if John’s private
key had been tampered with.

HOW DOES BLOCKCHAIN WORKS?

While underlying blockchain mechanisms are complex,
we give a brief overview in the following steps.
Blockchain software can automate most of these steps:

Step 1 – Record the transaction

A blockchain transaction shows the movement of physical
or digital assets from one party to another in the
blockchain network. It is recorded as a data block and can
include details like these:

Who was involved in the transaction?

What happened during the transaction?
When did the transaction occur?
Where did the transaction occur?
Why did the transaction occur?
How much of the asset was exchanged?
How many pre-conditions were met during the
transaction?
Step 2 – Gain consensus
Most participants on the distributed blockchain network
must agree that the recorded transaction is valid.
Depending on the type of network, rules of agreement can
vary but are typically established at the start of the
network.

Step 3 – Link the blocks

Once the participants have reached a consensus,
transactions on the blockchain are written into blocks
equivalent to the pages of a ledger book. Along with the
transactions, a cryptographic hash is also appended to the
new block. The hash acts as a chain that links the blocks
together. If the contents of the block are intentionally or
unintentionally modified, the hash value changes,
providing a way to detect data tampering.

Thus, the blocks and chains link securely, and you cannot
edit them. Each additional block strengthens the
verification of the previous block and therefore the entire
blockchain. This is like stacking wooden blocks to make a
tower. You can only stack blocks on top, and if you
remove a block from the middle of the tower, the whole
tower breaks.

Step 4 – Share the ledger

The system distributes the latest copy of the central ledger
to all participants.

HISTORY OF BLOCKCHAIN:

How did blockchain technology evolve?

Blockchain technology has its roots in the late 1970s
when a computer scientist named Ralph Merkle patented
Hash trees or Merkle trees. These trees are a computer
science structure for storing data by linking blocks using
cryptography. In the late 1990s, Stuart Haber and W.
Scott Stornetta used Merkle trees to implement a system
in which document timestamps could not be tampered
with. This was the first instance in the history of
blockchain.
The technology has continued to evolve over these three
generations:

First generation – Bitcoin and other virtual currencies

In 2008, an anonymous individual or group of individuals
known only by the name Satoshi Nakamoto outlined
blockchain technology in its modern form. Satoshi’s idea
of the Bitcoin blockchain used 1 MB blocks of
information for Bitcoin transactions. Many of the features
of Bitcoin blockchain systems remain central to
blockchain technology even today.

Second generation – smart contracts

A few years after first-generation currencies emerged,
developers began to consider blockchain applications
beyond cryptocurrency. For instance, the inventors of
Ethereum decided to use blockchain technology in asset
transfer transactions. Their significant contribution was
the smart contracts feature.
Third generation – the future
As companies discover and implement new applications,
blockchain technology continues to evolve and grow.
Companies are solving limitations of scale and
computation, and potential opportunities are limitless in
the ongoing blockchain revolution.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF BLOCKCHAIN

TECHNOLOGY?
Advanced security
Blockchain systems provide the high level of security and
trust that modern digital transactions require. There is
always a fear that someone will manipulate underlying
software to generate fake money for themselves. But
blockchain uses the three principles of cryptography,
decentralization, and consensus to create a highly secure
underlying software system that is nearly impossible to
tamper with.
Improved efficiency
Transparency and smart contracts in blockchain make
business transactions faster and more efficient.
Faster auditing
Enterprises must be able to securely generate, exchange,
archive, and reconstruct e-transactions in an auditable
manner. Blockchain records are chronologically
immutable, which means that all records are always
ordered by time. This data transparency makes audit
processing much faster.

BLOCKCHAIN AS A SERVICE ( BaaS):

Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) is a managed blockchain

service that a third party provides in the cloud. You can
develop blockchain applications and digital services while
the cloud provider supplies the infrastructure and
blockchain building tools. All you have to do is customize
existing blockchain technology, which makes blockchain
adoption faster and more efficient.
 THE INTERNET OF THINGS(IOT)

WHAT IS IOT?
The internet of things, or IoT, is a system of
interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital
machines, objects, animals or people that are provided
with unique identifiers (UIDs) and the ability to transfer
data over a network without requiring human-to-human or
human-to-computer interaction.

A thing in the internet of things can be a person with a

heart monitor implant, a farm animal with a biochip
transponder, an automobile that has built-in sensors to
alert the driver when tire pressure is low or any other
natural or man-made object that can be assigned an
Internet Protocol (IP) address and is able to transfer data
over a network.

Increasingly, organizations in a variety of industries are

using IoT to operate more efficiently, better understand
customers to deliver enhanced customer service, improve
decision-making and increase the value of the business.
HOW DOES IOT WORKS?
An IoT ecosystem consists of web-enabled
smart devices that use embedded systems, such as
processors, sensors and communication hardware, to
collect, send and act on data they acquire from their
environments. IoT devices share the sensor data they
collect by connecting to an IoT gateway or other edge
device where data is either sent to the cloud to be
analyzed or analyzed locally. Sometimes, these devices
communicate with other related devices and act on the
information they get from one another. The devices do
most of the work without human intervention, although
people can interact with the devices – for instance, to set
them up, give them instructions or access the data.

WHY IS IOT IMPORTANT?

The internet of things helps people live and work smarter,

as well as gain complete control over their lives. In
addition to offering smart devices to automate homes, IoT
is essential to business. IoT provides businesses with a
real-time look into how their systems really work,
delivering insights into everything from the performance
of machines to supply chain and logistics operations.
IoT enables companies to automate processes and reduce
labor costs. It also cuts down on waste and improves
service delivery, making it less expensive to manufacture
and deliver goods, as well as offering transparency into
customer transactions.
As such, IoT is one of the most important technologies of
everyday life, and it will continue to pick up steam as
more businesses realize the potential of connected devices
to keep them competitive.

BENEFITS OF IOT TO ORGANIZATION :

The internet of things offers several benefits to

organizations. Some benefits are industry-specific, and
some are applicable across multiple industries. Some of
the common benefits of IoT enable businesses to:

 Monitor their overall business processes;

 Improve the customer experience (CX);
 Save time and money;
 Enhance employee productivity;
 Integrate and adapt business models;
  Make better business decisions;

HISTORY OF IOT:

Kevin Ashton, co-founder of the Auto-ID Center at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), first
mentioned the internet of things in a presentation he made
to Procter &Gamble (P&G) in 1999. Wanting to bring
radio frequency ID (RFID) to the attention of P&G’s
senior management, Ashton called his presentation
“Internet of Things” to incorporate the cool new trend of
1999: the internet. MIT professor Neil Gershenfeld’s
book, When Things Start to Think, also appeared in 1999.
It didn’t use the exact term but provided a clear vision of
where IoT was headed.
IoT has evolved from the convergence of wireless
technologies, microelectromechanical systems
(MEMSes), microservices and the internet. The
convergence has helped tear down the silos between
operational technology (OT) and information technology
(IT), enabling unstructured machine-generated data to be
analyzed for insights to drive improvements.
Although Ashton’s was the first mention of the internet of
things, the idea of connected devices has been around
since the 1970s, under the monikers embedded internet
and pervasive computing.
The first internet appliance, for example, was a Coke
machine at Carnegie Mellon University in the early
1980s. Using the web, programmers could check the
status of the machine and determine whether there would
be a cold drink awaiting them, should they decide to make
the trip to the machine.
IoT evolved from M2M communication, i.e., machines
connecting to each other via a network without human
interaction. M2M refers to connecting a device to the
cloud, managing it and collecting data.
Taking M2M to the next level, IoT is a sensor network of
billions of smart devices that connect people, systems and
other applications to collect and share data. As its
foundation, M2M offers the connectivity that enables IoT.
The internet of things is also a natural extension of
supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), a
category of software application programs for process
control, the gathering of data in real time from remote
locations to control equipment and conditions. SCADA
systems include hardware and software components. The
hardware gathers and feeds data into a computer that has
SCADA software installed, where it is then processed and
presented in a timely manner. The evolution of SCADA is
such that late-generation SCADA systems developed into
first-generation IoT systems.

The concept of the IoT ecosystem, however, didn’t really

come into its own until the middle of 2010 when, in part,
the government of China said it would make IoT a
strategic priority in its five-year plan

THE PROS AND CONS OF IOT:

Some of the advantages of IoT include the following:

 Ability to access information from anywhere at any

time on any device;
 Improved communication between connected
electronic devices;
 Transferring data packets over a connected network
saving time and money; and
  Automating tasks helping to improve the quality of a
business’s services and reducing the need for human
intervention.

Some disadvantages of IoT include the following:

 As the number of connected devices increases and

more information is shared between devices, the
potential that a hacker could steal confidential
information also increases.
 Enterprises may eventually have to deal with massive
numbers – maybe even millions – of IoT devices, and
collecting and managing the data from all those
devices will be challenging.
 If there’s a bug in the system, it’s likely that every
connected device will become corrupted.
 Since there’s no international standard of
compatibility for IoT, it’s difficult for devices from
different manufacturers to communicate with each
other.