System Fundamentals
This method can be used to obtain system requirements directly from stakeholders
What are interviews, surveys, or direct observation?
Within the central processing unit (CPU), this unit is responsible for directing the operation of the processor.
What is the control unit (CU)?
A standard data packet typically features these two main characteristics or structural components.
What are a header and a payload?
Fixing bugs, patching security vulnerabilities, and providing new features are all common reasons a developer will release one of these to the public.
What is a software update (or patch)?
In 1989, Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented this system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the internet.
What is the World Wide Web?
Providing one of these for a new system allows stakeholders to get a preliminary idea of how it will look and function
What is a prototype?
This type of memory speeds up the functioning of a processor by holding frequently accessed data closer to the CPU.
What is cache memory?
These are used in network communications to provide a standard, agreed-upon set of rules for transmitting data.
What are protocols?
Unlike an online help portal, this traditional format for user documentation has the advantage of being accessible without power or an internet connection, though it cannot be easily updated.
What is a printed manual (or printed material)?
Before USB flash drives became the norm, these square, flexible magnetic storage mediums were the standard for saving and transferring small amounts of data.
What are floppy disks?
This type of testing ensures the end-user is satisfied that the system meets the requested requirements before it is fully rolled out.
What is user acceptance testing?
In an 8-bit register, this is the binary representation of the hexadecimal number 3B.
What is 00111011?
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) relies on these two features to make data secure over the internet.
What are encryption and tunneling?
This phase of software testing involves releasing a nearly finished system to a select group of end-users outside the development team so they can try it out under real-world conditions.
What is beta testing?
Proposed in 1950, this famous evaluation tests a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from that of a human.
What is the Turing Test?
During data migration, this is one of two possible major problems that may occur for a business or university.
What is data loss or data incompatibility?
In the machine execution cycle, this register plays the specific role of holding data fetched from memory or data waiting to be stored.
What is the memory data register (MDR)?
The OSI model features several standardized layers, including any two of these.
What are the Physical, Data Link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation, or Application layers?
While it saves valuable storage space and transmission time, this specific type of data compression permanently removes some background information, resulting in a loss of original file quality.
What is lossy compression?
Unlike a standard array which is static, this type of abstract data structure does not have a fixed, pre-determined length and can dynamically grow as new items are added to it.
What is a collection (or dynamic list)?
Maintaining this type of older, often obsolete computer system or software can lead to high costs and compatibility issues, yet organizations may keep it running because it still performs a critical business function.
What is a legacy system?
This specific function of an operating system prevents a computer from crashing when multiple programs are running simultaneously by ensuring one application doesn't overwrite the data of another.
What is memory management?
A router can improve network security by checking these unique, hard-coded physical identifiers on network interface cards to restrict exactly which devices are permitted to connect.
What are MAC (Media Access Control) addresses?
Because each character has 16 possible values (0-9 and A-F), exactly this many different colors can be represented using a standard two-character hexadecimal code.
What is 256?
In Boolean logic and circuit design, this specific two-input logic gate outputs "True" only when exactly one of its inputs is true, but will output "False" if both are true.
What is an XOR (Exclusive OR) gate?