1
Essentials of MIS, 12e (Laudon)
Chapter 5 IT Infrastructure: Hardware and Software
1) Software that manages the resources of the computer is called:
A) system software.
B) application software.
C) data management software.
D) network software.
E) web services software.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.1: What are the components of IT infrastructure?
2) Software used to apply the computer to a specific task for an end user is called:
A) system software.
B) application software.
C) data management software.
D) network software.
E) web services software.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.1: What are the components of IT infrastructure?
3) Software that organizes, manages, and processes business data, such as data concerned with
inventory, customers, and vendors, is called:
A) system software.
B) application software.
C) data management software.
D) network software.
E) web services software.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.1: What are the components of IT infrastructure?
4) Which of the following is an example of a legacy system?
A) Transaction processing system running on a mainframe
B) Scalable grid computing system
C) Web services running on a cloud computing platform
D) MDM software
E) Quantum computing system
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.1: What are the components of IT infrastructure?
2
5) A firm’s IT infrastructure provides the foundation for supporting all the information systems
in the business.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.1: What are the components of IT infrastructure?
6) Today, most system and application software is custom built by in-house programmers.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.1: What are the components of IT infrastructure?
7) Systems integration means ensuring the legacy systems work with new elements of the
infrastructure.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.1: What are the components of IT infrastructure?
8) Describe the five major categories of IT infrastructure and provide an example of each.
AACSB: Information Technology; Written and Oral Communication
LO: 5.1: What are the components of IT infrastructure?
3
9) In a ________ computing model, companies use their own infrastructure for essential
computing tasks and adopt public cloud computing for less critical operations or additional
processing during peak business periods.
A) scalable
B) quantum
C) grid
D) hybrid cloud
E) private cloud
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
10) What would be a reason for using a workstation rather than a personal computer?
A) When you need more powerful computational abilities
B) When you need to access a network
C) When you need to serve applications and data to client computers
D) When you need to share resources
E) When you need to connect to a cloud computing platform
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
11) Which of the following types of computer would you use to support a computer network?
A) Server
B) Mainframe
C) Workstation
D) PC
E) Tablet
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
4
12) Which of the following types of computer is used for weather forecasting on a national or
worldwide scale?
A) Mainframe
B) Server
C) Minicomputer
D) Supercomputer
E) PC
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
13) Connecting geographically remote computers in a single network to create a “virtual
supercomputer” is called:
A) co-location.
B) cloud computing.
C) grid computing.
D) client/server computing.
E) centralized processing.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
14) The use of multiple computers linked by a communications network for processing is called:
A) grid computing.
B) distributed processing.
C) client/server computing.
D) centralized processing.
E) supercomputing.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
5
15) The business case for using grid computing involves all of the following except:
A) cost savings.
B) centralized maintenance.
C) speed of computation.
D) agility.
E) increased computational power.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
16) Which of the following statements about client/server computing is not true?
A) The client provides the user interface.
B) The bulk of processing occurs on the client.
C) Computing on the Internet is based on the client/server model.
D) The client is normally a desktop or laptop computer.
E) The server provides security, remote access, and user authentication.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
17) In a multitiered network:
A) the work of the entire network is centralized.
B) the work of the entire network is balanced over several levels of servers.
C) processing is split between clients and servers.
D) processing is handled by multiple, geographically remote clients.
E) users interface with the server rather than the client.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
6
18) A client computer networked to a server computer, with processing split between the two
types of machines, is called a(n) ________ architecture.
A) service-oriented
B) on-demand
C) multitiered client/server
D) two-tiered client/server
E) grid
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
19) The primary storage technologies are:
A) storage networks, magnetic tape, magnetic disk, and optical disk.
B) hard drives, magnetic tape, magnetic disk, and optical disk.
C) storage networks, magnetic disks, hard disks, and optical disks.
D) hard drives, removable drives, storage networks, and magnetic tape.
E) flash drives, SSDs, storage networks and magnetic disks.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
20) Which of the following is a type of optical disc storage?
A) CD-ROM
B) Hard drive
C) USB flash drive
D) Magnetic tape
E) SSD
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
7
21) Which of the following storage technology stores data sequentially?
A) CD-ROM
B) RAID
C) Magnetic disks
D) Magnetic tape
E) USB flash drive
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
22) Which of the following is a high-speed network dedicated to storage that connects different
kinds of storage devices, such as tape libraries and disk arrays so they can be shared by multiple
servers?
A) SSN
B) ASP
C) LAN
D) SAN
E) Grid
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
23) What type of device gathers data and converts them into electronic form for use by the
computer?
A) Output device
B) Input device
C) Optical storage
D) Magnetic storage
E) SAN
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
8
24) Which of the following devices collects data directly from the environment for input into a
computer system?
A) Sensor
B) Touch screen
C) Audio input
D) Trackball
E) Digital scanner
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
25) Which of the following is not a type of output device?
A) Speakers
B) Cathode ray tube
C) Ink jet printer
D) Keyboard
E) Sensor
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
26) Virtualization:
A) allows one operating system to manage several physical machines.
B) has enabled microprocessor manufacturers to reduce the size of transistors to the width of an
atom.
C) can boost server utilization rates to 70% or higher.
D) allows smartphones to run full-fledged operating systems.
E) uses the principles of quantum physics to represent data.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
9
27) Which of the following statements is not true about cloud computing?
A) It is the fastest-growing form of computing.
B) It removes the concern about data and systems security for businesses.
C) It allows smaller firms to use resources previously unaffordable.
D) It relies on the Internet as the platform for delivering services to users.
E) Charges for cloud resources are based on resources actually used.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
28) Which of the following is not an essential characteristic of cloud computing?
A) On-demand self-service
B) Rapid elasticity
C) Measured service
D) Open source software
E) Ubiquitous network access
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
29) ________ describes the practices and technologies used to minimize the environmental
effects of manufacturing and managing computing devices.
A) Capacity planning
B) Cloud computing
C) Green computing
D) Utility computing
E) On-demand computing
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
10
30) The world’s data centers use as much energy as the output of ________ nuclear power plants,
which is about ________ percent of all the energy use in the world.
A) 10; 1
B) 20; 2.5
C) 30; 1.5
D) 50; 10
E) 100; 25
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
31) Data center traffic is expected to increase by ________ percent by 2016.
A) 50
B) 100
C) 200
D) 300
E) 400
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?
32) Which of the following is not an example of the consumerization of IT?
A) Google Apps
B) Dropbox
C) Facebook
D) Gmail
E) Amazon Web Services
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 5.2: What are the major computer hardware, data storage, input, and output technologies
used in business and the major hardware trends?