(i

PREFACE

While delivering lectures in the class, I learnt that students of (Inter, Gr. I) of ICSI course were facing great
difficulty in lacking of a syllabus-oriented reference-book on “Management Information Systems”; appropriate for
students like them who are new and non-technical in this technology-dominant subject.
Constant inspirations of my students encouraged me to publish a book on this subject, to suit them best. This book
is written only for students of ICSI (Inter, Gr. I) course.
I am indebted to my father Prof. B. K. Bhar (B.Sc.(H), M.Com., LL.B., A.C.M.A.(Lond.), F.I.C.W.A.) and my
mother Mrs. Dipali Bhar (M.Sc. B.T.) for their good wishes, blessings and effortless motivation that they provided
me while writing the first edition of this book. In this regard, the eternal good wishes of my sister, Miss. Phalguni
Bhar (B.Com.(H)), needs separate mention.
I owe my respect and gratitude to Prof. Abhijit Sarkar, my first computer professor, whose valid teachings and able
guidance made me understand this world of computer, so much so that I am what I am today. Last but not the least,
I owe my sincere reverence to Mr. Amalendu Basak, whose worth advice has helped me a lot in achieving success
in my life.
I am thankful to Mr. A. K. Lodha and his publishing team for publishing this book within such a short time.
I wish good knowledge and understanding to all those who read this book. If you think any suggestions of yours
can enrich this book, you are always heartily welcome to write at author.bhar@yahoo.com.

27th April 2006, Thursday Bhuban Kr. Bhar

th
(13 Baisak, 1413) (98319 44428)
 (ii

ABOUT THE BOOK

The book is written in plain and simple but concise and lucid language; so as to help students grasp the concept
effortlessly, retain the knowledge naturally and reproduce the acquired wisdom easily.
The book is divided into four chapters, each containing the textual matter for background concept and knowledge.
The fifth chapter is a bundle of solved-problems for revision, categorized into 5 parts — the first four of which
contains solved-problems referring to the previous four chapters and the last part contains solved-problems of
general/miscellaneous topics for widening knowledge base on this subject and its periphery; in order to score in the
Main examination.
Recent issues have been dealt with in-depth, as required by the course. Although more would be beneficial, only a
handful of case-studies have been able to be incorporate in this first edition, written in a very short time.
This is a technical subject to be studied by non-technical students, for their law-based course. The syllabus, as
compared to the allotted marks, seems to be vast. Students may find difficulty to comprehend and recapitulate the
subject. Here are some suggestions regarding how to use this book in accordance with the Institute’s Study
Material; so as to learn and master this subject without much difficulty —
⇒ Before commencing each chapter, carefully study the ‘Learning objectives’ at the very beginning. These
present the most important material covered in the chapter. At the minimum, one must be able to
understand and recall the material contained within the key points when one have completed the study of
the chapter.
⇒ Read the chapter quickly. Skim the contents and try to develop an overall feel for the material contained in
the chapter.
⇒ Then read the chapter carefully, and should try to study the contents actively rather than passively.

⇒ Now, go through the Institute’s Study Material carefully, thereby integrating the gathered knowledge with
the viewpoints of the Study Material. The organization of this book differs from the organization of the
Study Material, kindly refer to the contents of the Study Material, in order to match and study.
⇒ One may now glance through the contents of this book again, just for brush-up purpose.

⇒ Finished with the process of studying, you may write down its (main) points, topic-wise and then check up.
Judge yourself and if required, repeat the above steps; otherwise go through the relevant solved-problems
of Chapter 5.
⇒ It is now time to solve the questions given at the end of each chapter of this book, as well as the Study
Material.
⇒ As the last step, solve past-term questions and then go through Institute’s Guideline Answers to check your
progress yourself.
The students, who keep a positive attitude and work on their own motivation, are expected to find the contents of
the book challenging and fun. Enjoy it! Face it! Overcome it!
I intend this book to be useful only to the students of Intermediate Group-I examinations of ‘The Institute of
Company Secretaries of India’. This book covers the entire syllabus of the course. The book is written with a
perspective of the situations a professional may have to face during the career.
 (iii
ACRONYMS

A
AI Artificial Intelligence
AIS Accounting Information System
AKA Also Known As
ALU Arithmetic Logic Unit
ANS American National Standard
ANSI American National Institute of Standards
API Application Program Interface
APL Application Program Language
ARPA Advanced Research Projects Agency
ARPANET Advanced Research Projects Agency Network
ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange

B
BCD Binary Coded Decimal
BIOS Basic Input/Output System
bps Bits-per-second

C
C/S Client/Server
CAD Computer-Aided Design
CAE Common Application Environment
CASE Computer Aided Software Engineering
CBIS Computer Based Information Technology
CBX Computer Branch Exchange
CCITT Committee Consult Int. Telephone and Telegraph
CDPD Cellular Digital Packet Data
CGA Colour Graphics Adapter
CIO Chief Information Officer
CIS Computer Information System
CNM Computer Network Management
cpi Characters-per-inch
CPI Common Programming Interface
CODASYL Conference on Data Systems Languages
CPM Critical Path Method
CPU Central Processing Unit
CRC Cyclical Redundancy Check
 (iv
CRT Cathode Ray Tube

D
DASD Direct Access Storage Device
DBMS Data Base Management System
DDL Data Definition Language
DES Data Encryption Standard
DIF Data Interchange Format
DLL Dynamic Link Library
DML Data Manipulation Language
DNA Digital Network Architecture
DNS Domain Name Service
DS Database Server
dpi Dot-per-Inch
DRDA Distributed Relational Database Architecture
DSS Decision Support System
DTP Desk-Top Publishing
DTP Distributed Transaction Processing
DVD Digital Video Disk

E
EDI Electronic Data Interchange
EDP Electronic Data Processing
EFT Electronics Funds Transfer
EGA Enhanced Graphics Adapter
EIS Executive Information Systems
EMS Expanded Memory System
EMS Electronic Meeting System
EPS Encapsulated Postscript
ERD Entity Relationship Diagram
ERP Enterprise Resource Planning
EUI End-user Interface

F
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions
FAT File Allocation Table
FAX Facsmile Transmission
FDDI Fibre Distributed Data Interface
FTP File Transfer Protocol

G
 (v
GB Gigabyte
Gb Gigabit
GIF Graphics Interchange Format
GIGO Garbage In, Garbage Out
GIS Graphic Information System
GUI Graphic User Interface

H
HMA High Memory Area
HP Hewlett-Packard Co.
HTML Hyper Text Markup Language
HTTP Hyper Text Transfer Protocol
Hz Hertz (frequency measurement unit)

I
IBM International Business Machines
IC Integrated Circuit
IDE Integrated Drive Electronics
IDL Interface Definition Language
IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IIA Information Interchange Architecture
IITF Information Interchange Task Force
I/O Input/Output
IP Internet Protocol
IPOS Input, Processing, Output and Storage
IRQ Interrupt ReQuest
IS Information System
ISAM Indexed Sequential Access Method
ISP Internet Service Provider
IT Information Technology

J
JAD Joint Application Development
JIT Just in Time
JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group

K
K Kilo
Kb Kilo bit
KB Kilo Byte
Kbps Kilo bit per second
 (vi
KBps Kilo Byte per second

L
LAN Local Area Network
LOB Line of Business
LU Logical Unit

M
MAC Media Access Control
MAN Metropolitian Area Network
MB Mega Byte
Mb Mega bit
BDT Mobile Data Terminal
MegaHertz Mega Hertz
MID Management Information Base
MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface
MIME Multipart Internet Mail Extension
MIPs Millions of Instructions per second
MIS Management Information System
MPEG Moving Picture Experts Group
MVS Multiple Virtual Storage

N
NCSA National Computer Security Association
NCSC National Computer Security Centre
NETBIOS NETwork Basic Input/Output System
NFS Network File System
NIC Network Interface Controller
NII National Information Infrastructure
NIST National Institute of Science and Technology
NIU Network Interface Unit
NN Network Node
NOS Network Operating System
NT New Technology
NTP Network Time Protocol

O
OA Office Automation
OCR Optical Character Recognition
OPBC Open Data Base Connectivity
ODI Open Data-link Interface
 (vii
OEM Original Equipment Manufacture
OP Office Protocol
OLE Object Linking and Embedding
OLAP Online Analytical Processing
OLTP Online Transaction Processing
OMR Optical Mark Reader
OO Object Oriented
OOA Object Oriented Analysis
OOD Object Oriented Design
OOP Object Oriented Programming
OS Operating System
OSI Open Systems Interconnection
OSQL Object-oriented Structured Query Language

P
PABX Private Automatic Branch eXchange
PBX Private Branch eXchanges
PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect
PCL Pulse Code Modulation
PRMCIA Personal Computer Memory Card Inter. Association
PD Public Domain
PDA Personal Digital Assistant
PI Programming Interface
PIF Program Information File
POS Point of Sale
POWER Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC
PPP Point-to-Point Protocol

R
RAD Rapid Application Development
RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks
RAM Random Access Memory
RDA Remote Data Access
RDBMS Relational Database Management System
RGB Red, Green, Blue
RISC Reduced Instruction Set Computing
ROM Read Only Memory
RPC Remote Procedure Call
RSN Remote Service Network
 (viii
S
SAP Service Access Point
SCSI Small Computer System Interface
SDF System Data Format
SDK Software Development Kits
SDLC Synchronous Data Link Control
SDLC System Development Life Cycle
SIMM Single In-line Memory Module
SLC System Life Cycle
SLIP Serial Line Internet Protocol
SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
SQL Structured Query Language

T
TCOS Technical Committee on Open Systems
TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
TIFF Tagged Image File Format
TP Transaction Processing
TP Transport Protocol
TQM Total Quality Management
TSI Time Slot Interchange
TSR Terminate and Stay Resident
TWAIN Technology Without An Interesting Name

U
UAE Unrecoverable Application Error
UI User Interface
UPS Uninterruptible Power Syste,
URL Universal Resource Locator

V
VDT Video Display Terminal
VDU Visual Display Unit
VGA Video Graphics Array
VR Virtual Reality
VSAT Very Small Aperture Terminal
VRAM Virtual Telecommunications Access Method
VTP Virtual Terminal Protocol

W
WAIS Wide Area Information Service
 (ix
WAN Wide Area Network
WDM Wave Division Multiplexing
WMF Windows Metafile Format
WNT Windows New Technology
WORM Write-Once, Read Many
www World Wide Web
WYSIWIG What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get

X
XGA Extended Graphics Array

Z
ZIF Zero Insertion Force