Data: consists of raw facts, such as an employee number, total hours worked in a week, inventory part

numbers, or sales orders. When facts are arranged in a meaningful manner, they become information.

Information: is a collection of facts organized and processed so that they have additional value
beyond the value of the individual facts.

Input, Processing, Output:

Input
In information systems, input is the activity of gathering and capturing raw data. In producing paychecks,
for example, the number of hours every employee works must be collected before paychecks can be
calculated or printed. In a university grading system, instructors must submit student grades before a
summary of grades for the semester or quarter can be compiled and sent to students.

Processing
In information systems, processing means converting or transforming data into useful outputs.
Processing can involve making calculations, comparing data and taking alternative actions, and storing
data for future use. Processing data into useful information is critical in business settings.

Output
In information systems, output involves producing useful information, usually in the form of documents
and reports. Outputs can include paychecks for employees, reports for managers, and information
supplied to stockholders, banks, government agencies, and other groups. In some cases, output from one
system can become input for another. For example, output from a system that processes sales orders can
be used as input to a customer billing system.

Protocol (computing):
In computing, a protocol is a set of rules which is used by computers to communicate with each other
across a network. A protocol is a convention or standard that controls or enables the connection,
communication, and data transfer between computing endpoints. In its simplest form, a protocol can be
defined as the rules governing the syntax, semantics, and synchronization of communication. Protocols
may be implemented by hardware, software, or a combination of the two. At the lowest level, a protocol
defines the behavior of a hardware connection.
The most prominent component of the Internet model is the Internet Protocol (IP) which provides
addressing systems (IP addresses) for computers on the Internet. IP enables internetworking and
essentially establishes the Internet itself. IP Version 4 (IPv4) is the initial version used on the first
generation of the today's Internet and is still in dominant use. It was designed to address up to ~4.3 billion
(109) Internet hosts. However, the explosive growth of the Internet has led to IPv4 address exhaustion
which is estimated to enter its final stage in approximately 2011. A new protocol version, IPv6, was
developed in the mid-1990s which provides vastly larger addressing capabilities and more efficient
routing of Internet traffic. IPv6 is currently in commercial deployment phase around the world and
Internet address registries (RIRs) have begun to urge all resource managers to plan rapid adoption and
conversion.
Common protocols:
IP (Internet Protocol)
UDP (User Datagram Protocol)
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
Telnet (Telnet Remote Protocol)
SSH (Secure Shell Remote Protocol)
POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3)
SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol)
SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol)

TCP - Transmission Control Protocol

TCP is used for transmission of data from an application to the network.
TCP is responsible for breaking data down into IP packets before they are sent, and for assembling the
packets when they arrive.

IP - Internet Protocol
IP takes care of the communication with other computers.
IP is responsible for the sending and receiving data packets over the Internet.

HTTP - Hyper Text Transfer Protocol

HTTP takes care of the communication between a web server and a web browser. HTTP is used for
sending requests from a web client (a browser) to a web server, returning web content (web pages) from
the server back to the client.

HTTPS - Secure HTTP

HTTPS takes care of secure communication between a web server and a web browser.
HTTPS typically handles credit card transactions and other sensitive data.

SSL - Secure Sockets Layer

The SSL protocol is used for encryption of data for secure data transmission.

SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

SMTP is used for transmission of e-mails.

MIME - Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions

The MIME protocol lets SMTP transmit multimedia files including voice, audio, and binary data across
TCP/IP networks.

IMAP - Internet Message Access Protocol

IMAP is used for storing and retrieving e-mails.

POP - Post Office Protocol

POP is used for downloading e-mails from an e-mail server to a personal computer.
FTP - File Transfer Protocol
FTP takes care of transmission of files between computers.

NTP - Network Time Protocol

NTP is used to synchronize the time (the clock) between computers.

DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

DHCP is used for allocation of dynamic IP addresses to computers in a network.

SNMP - Simple Network Management Protocol

SNMP is used for administration of computer networks.

LDAP - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

LDAP is used for collecting information about users and e-mail addresses from the internet.

ICMP - Internet Control Message Protocol

ICMP takes care of error-handling in the network.

ARP - Address Resolution Protocol

ARP is used by IP to find the hardware address of a computer network card based on the IP address.

RARP - Reverse Address Resolution Protocol

RARP is used by IP to find the IP address based on the hardware address of a computer network card.

BOOTP - Boot Protocol

BOOTP is used for booting (starting) computers from the network.

PPTP - Point to Point Tunneling Protocol

PPTP is used for setting up a connection (tunnel) between private networks.