Taming Information Technology Paperback

Eser Kandogan

Information technology is at the center of modern life. It supports most day-to-day activities: talking on the phone, getting money from an ATM, or working in the office. Whether for work, commerce, or fun, we interact with computers, networks, and databases ― all sorts of information technology. How does it work? Certainly, technological advances helped create this world. But what keeps it running? The answer is people. These people ― computer system administrators ― are the unsung heroes of the modern age. When we notice them, it is only because something went wrong. Small failures can become big problems, and big failures can make news headlines and cost lots of money. But most of the time, things go right, and system administrators are invisible. They work out of sight, down in the data-center, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. But how do they keep systems running? And more importantly, how can we help make them better at their jobs?

0195374126

9780195374124

English

Oxford University Press

14-Aug-2012

312

Eser Kandogan is a research staff member at IBM Research - Almaden and manages a group conducting research on visual interfaces to data. He served as the general chair and program chair for ACM CHIMIT symposium and was a member of the program committee for several conferences including ACM CHI, USENIX LISA, and IEEE Policy. Dr. Kandogan has over 50 publications in areas such as human-computer interaction and information visualization. Paul P. Maglio is a research scientist and manager at IBM Research - Almaden. Dr Maglio serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Service Research and Service Science, and was lead editor of the Handbook of Service Science. Dr Maglio has published more than 100 papers in computer science, cognitive science, and service science, and is an Associate Adjunct Professor at UC Merced, where he has taught service science since 2007.