IT technology - what is it? What is IT technology for?

The volume of new knowledge in the last century is growing exponentially. In order not to drown in the flow of information, quickly find it and use it competently, there is a whole field of activity - IT technology. What this means, you can guess by expanding the abbreviation IT - Information Technology. All that is related to information - search, storage, transfer - refers to IT-technologies.

In ancient times, there were also IT-technologies. The knowledge was written on parchment, papyrus, paper. Data transmission was carried out by messengers, pigeon mail, in the 19th century, mankind mastered radio and telegraph. Information was stored in libraries and archives.

But, of course, the boom of information technology occurred in the 20 th century, when computer technology appeared . Computer systems have shown the greatest efficiency when working with information, therefore, speaking of IT, computer technologies are often implied.

Data transfer

The exchange of information has reached a new level after the opening of electricity. The ability to transmit data through electrical signals has become an important achievement of IT technology. What did this give to ordinary people?

Our contemporaries can now communicate with each other from anywhere in the world. There was an opportunity to get an education without leaving home. The Internet has largely replaced traditional sources of knowledge. Digitization of paper books, annals, documents is in full swing. Digital copies of priceless works become available to all comers.

At the beginning of the Internet, the volumes of information transmitted were severely limited. For example, in order to download a music record to your computer, it took 15 minutes. Improving the methods of data transmission allowed to increase the speed of data exchange by hundreds of times. This opened new opportunities - such as video conferencing, webinars, online TV viewing, IP telephony.

Data storage

The transfer and storage of data are closely interrelated. If there is no possibility to store large amounts of information, then powerful communication channels will also not be in demand. And in this area of information technology, great progress has been made. The cost of a hard disk varies slightly, but the amount of information that can be written on it, over a decade has increased tens of times.

For comparison, the memory of the hard drive in 1995 was about 500 MB, in 2005 it was 80 GB, and in 2015 the majority exceeded the limit of 1 terabyte. In the Internet, servers are used to store data. As a matter of fact, these are usual personal computers, imprisoned for data storage. For greater profitability, they are integrated into data centers - the brainchild of IT technology. What is this as not one of the symbols of post-industrial society? In one room there can be hundreds of servers. The amount of electricity they consume, can reach the output of a small power plant.

Database

Storage and data transmission, of course, are very important, but only if you quickly find and process the necessary information. Here, too, great progress has been made. To store information, databases have been developed that allow you to process and retrieve information in an optimal way. Computer databases have entered into all spheres of human activity. They cost both in the ticket office and in the medical register, with their help a schedule of lessons is drawn up at the school.

There are free and commercial bases, both for the single user, and allowing to address to them set of people simultaneously. Accordingly, programming languages have been created that allow you to create databases for different situations.

Data search

Do not get lost in the stormy ocean of information, we also help IT technology. What are these names - Google, Yandex, Rambler - probably all Internet users know. A huge amount of information accumulated in the World Wide Web makes searching for necessary information a nontrivial task.

It is impossible to check each document from start to finish, otherwise each request would be processed by weeks. Therefore, developers of search engines resort to various tricks. For example, each site has keywords that are searched first. In addition, the pages found need to be sorted in order of importance so that the user could extract the most useful information from the very first sites found.

Also, the search engine should cut off resources that are artificially winding themselves a rating. Search engines are developed by large teams of programmers. Their founders become billionaires, and the cost of advertising on the main page of the search engine costs astronomical amounts - all because it is visited by millions of users every day.

Let me be taught

How can I get a profession in IT technology? This is primarily universities. Professions related to computer technology, programming, information technology are very much in demand now. In the institutes and universities, new departments have appeared to provide the labor market with specialists in the field of IT technology. Training traditionally goes with an emphasis on theory. On the one hand, this knowledge is rather abstract, and it is difficult to apply them directly to practical activities. On the other hand, the profession of IT specialist presupposes lifelong learning, and the foundation laid in the university will help the graduate to quickly master the latest developments.

There is another way to become a professional in this field. Currently, a lot of literature on IT technology has been released. "For Dummies" - this is probably the most popular series of books devoted to the basics of programming, database design, web design, network technologies, and so on. Training on this kind of literature also has its advantages. Almost always it is purely applied nature, written in an easy, understandable language. Having taken the first steps, you can start earning the first money on the freelancers' exchange, performing simple tasks for ridiculous money, but gaining invaluable experience. With due diligence, you can achieve significant success in 5 years.

Both approaches have the right to exist, the more so sometimes training in a university becomes inaccessible for financial reasons. The development of IT technology is so fast that university education simply does not go along with it. It gives a certain foundation, but many things will have to learn anew. And in general, the specificity of an information technology specialist is that you will have to learn constantly to remain in demand on the labor market.

Perspective developments

Of the latest developments and trends in IT technologies, cloud technologies can be noted. If the user used to install the necessary applications on his computer, now more and more services appear on the Internet. Graphic and text editors, processing video directly in the browser no one surprises. Appear accounting and management programs, allowing you to be aware of events away from the workplace.

Work is actively carried out to recognize the human voice and image. If the computer learns to recognize the image, then this will be another breakthrough of IT technology. Photos from documents can be checked in automatic mode. This will be of great help to law enforcement agencies and the border guard service. Confident recognition of human speech in the future will allow you to control your computer in the most familiar way.

Thousands of articles, sites, books devoted to IT technology. What it is? It is impossible to fully convey in one review. But if you are interested in the world of information technology, then the task of the article can be considered fulfilled.