The development of information technologies and computing leads to the rapid technological progress. At the same time, today there are not many operation systems which are used in the overwhelming majority of computers. In fact, Widows is apparently the world’s leading operation system that is used in the majority of computers, while there are only few competitors, such as MacOS and Linux that attempt to challenge the position of Windows. On the other hand, modern operation systems tend to become user friendly and the major goal of the development of new operation systems is the simplification of the use of these systems and multi-functionality of new operation systems. In this respect, the main concerns of developers of operation systems are the ability of operation systems to store and protect data stored on computers and facilitate the transmission of information between users including the use of Internet and networking.
Basically, the development of computing and software leads to the diversification of software and hardware. At the same time, the introduction of new technologies, software and devices does not necessarily leads to the increasing competition between major producers and developers of IT products and software. In this respect, it should be said that the contemporary operating systems are basically represented by Windows, MacOS, and Linux. It should be said these three operating systems are the major competitors and the most popular operating system in the world market. However, it should be pointed out that their position in the world market is unequal, while the potential and functionality does not always vary dramatically. At any rate, it is hardly possible to speak about such a technical advantage or drawback of any of the operating systems mentioned above that could give them strategic advantage compared to competitors.

On analyzing the current situation in the operating systems market, it is important to underline that Windows occupies the dominant position in the world market. In this respect, it should be said that Windows has about 90% of the customer operating system market. As for its major competitors, MacOS and Linux, they can hardly achieve such a result, at least in a short-term perspective (Tanenbaum and Woodhull, 2006). At the same time, even being consistently less widely spread and popular than Windows, MacOS and Linux are also in an unequal position. To put it more precisely, MacOS was traditionally a very strong player in the world market of operating system. Moreover, MacOS has appeared before Windows was introduced. This is why it is possible to estimate that MacOS was historically one of the leaders in the development of Operating systems, while Linux may be viewed as the most recent alternative to two basic operating systems that are the most widely spread in the world, since Linux appeared in the early 1990s and its current position is still not very strong, especially compared to Windows.

At the same time, it should be said that it is hardly possible to speak about substantial differences between the three operating systems discussed above. In fact, they provide practically the identical range of services and facilities and, therefore, the popularity of either operating system is rather determined by its marketing than by its technical characteristics and suitability for customers’ use. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that Windows is traditionally oriented on PCs and, nowadays, practically all computers may function using Windows as their operating system. In contrast, MacOS was traditionally destined to operate in Apple computers (Tanenbaum and Woodhull, 2006). In such a way, both competitors, Windows and MacOS clearly distinguished spheres of their interests and application of software. However, it is worth mentioning the fact that potentially either operating system may be installed in any computer.

In this regard, Linux may be viewed as a universal operating system, which does not really rely on a specific manufacture of computers or a specific type of computers. In fact, this operating system may be used in desk computers, supercomputers, video games, Play Station 2 and 3, mobile phones, and other devices. In such a way, it is possible to speak about certain universality of Linux, compared to Windows and MacOS, which are basically oriented on PCs and Apple computers respectively (Tanenbaum and Woodhull, 2006).

Furthermore, speaking about the bootstrap, it should be pointed out that the principle of functioning of all the tree operating systems is identical. In fact, each of the operating systems, Windows, MacOS, and Linux functions on the basis of Bios, the operating system that is initially installed in the computer and functions prior to the booting of either operating system, i.e. Windows, MacOS or Linux. In other words, when a computer gets started it is Bios that boots the first and only after that either of the three operating systems is booted, depending on the operating system that is installed in the particular computer.

As for users functions and services, it should be pointed out that basically the quality of services is similar and, in this regard, the principal difference between Windows, MacOS and Linux is the fact that the latter is free and this operating system offers free software to its users, while Windows and MacOS are traditionally oriented on the supply of licensed software which customers have to pay for. Moreover, Windows’ producer, Microsoft, for instance, was often accused in the monopolization of the market and imposing its software on customers, regardless their preferences. In fact, Microsoft often supplied its own software along with Windows that naturally gave its products strategic advantage and limited customers’ choice, narrowing it to the choice among products compatible with Windows and produced by Microsoft.

Also, it should be said that the GNU userland is an important part of Linux operating system, providing the shell and Unix tools, which carry out many basic operating systems tasks. On top these tools form a Linux system with a graphical user interface that can be used, usually running in the X Window System (Deitel et al, 2004). As for Windows, it should be said that this operating system is characterized by the introduction of innovations in the GNU. To put it more precisely, one of the most important novelty of Windows was the possibility of running 32-bit multi-threaded preemptively multitasked programs. However, the necessity of keeping compatibility with 16-bit programs meant that the GUI components were still 16-bit only and fully reentrant, which resulted in reduced performance and stability, though, by the present days these problems are practically eliminated. In this respect, it should be said that MacOS provides aqua GUI, which is a fluid graphical user interface with glass-like elements, which provides a high quality of graphics (Tanenbaum, 2001).

Also, it should be said that all the three operating systems can provide a high quality of NOS. In fact, Windows, MacOS and Linux can provide customers with an opportunity to have stable and fast network connection, to the extent that it is possible to control graphics on one computer using another one. At the same time, it should be said that Windows apparently has certain advantages in NOS because of its domination in the world market Linux and MacOS remain quite secondary (Silberschatz et al, 2004). The same may be said about programming tools, which are widely spread and often installed within Windows, while Linux and MacOS are rather exotic operating systems as well as their programming tools than widely used ones.

At the same time, some specialists (Deitel, et al., 2004) provide the comparison of different operation systems and point out that the most popular operation systems are not necessarily the best ones:

Platform Comparison Chart



System


Connectivity


Stability


Scalability


Multi-user


Multi-platform


POSIX


Non-proprietary

Legacy System Poor Good Medium-Huge Yes No No No
MS-DOS None Poor Small No No No No
Windows 3.x Poor Poor Small No No No No
Windows95 SMB Only Fair Small Insecure No No No
WindowsNT SMB+ Fair Small-Medium Yes Yes, 2 Some No
UNIX Excellent Excellent Small-Huge Yes Yes, Many Yes No
*BSD Good Excellent Small-Large Yes No Yes Yes
Linux Excellent Excellent Small-Huge Yes Yes, Many Yes Yes

Source: Deitel, H.M. et al. (2004). Operating Systems. NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Today, operation systems are particularly important for storage of data and its protection. In this respect, it should be said that the application of database and a data warehouse is essential for the normal functioning and development of business. At first glance, database and data warehouse may seem to be homogeneous and, therefore, replaceable by each other. However, in actuality, modern companies tend to develop both database and a data warehouse. The explanation of such a trend is quite simple since both database and a data warehouse are essential for the modern business and complement each other. In fact, database is mainly used to record current data, which is essential for any company, while a data warehouse is crucial for the effective analysis of data, which can be used for planning the further development of business. Hence, modern companies separate database and a data warehouse to record current information and keep information on current performance of a company, on the one hand, and to analyze data in depth with the help of a data warehouse, on the other hand.

In fact, in order to understand the necessity of such separation of database and data warehouse, it is important to understand the essence and function of both database and a data warehouse and principal differences between them. At the same time, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that, without database and a data warehouse, modern companies cannot develop successfully because, today, information is a key factor that determines a successful marketing performance of companies and defines their future prospects. It proves beyond a doubt that functional differences are particularly important and they predetermine the co-existence of database and a data warehouse and prevent them from cohesion into a single database.

On analyzing differences between database and a data warehouse, it is worth mentioning the fact that database is designed to record data, which are stored in the form of tables, indexes, keys, views, etc. In contrast, a data warehouse is designed to respond and to analyze questions that are crucial for business (Behzad, 2003). In other words, a data warehouse provides not only the possibility to record and store data as an ordinary database does, but it is mainly designed for analysis of information stored. The latter is particularly important in the contemporary business environment, especially in a long-run perspective because routine recording of information, which is attributed to database, allows to keep the current performance of an organization balanced at the moment, but it is quite difficult to forecast any possible changes or develop new, more effective strategies without an effective analysis of data related to the performance of the organization (Andrew, 2003). Therefore, a data warehouse is needed to analyze data and respond to possible challenges the company can face in the future as well as it also allows developing mid- and long-term strategies on the basis of the analysis of the data stored and processed within a data warehouse.

Basically, the application databases are on-line transaction processing systems, where every transaction has to be recorded, and super-fast at that. For instance, a bank ATM has disbursed cash to a customer but was unable to record this event in the bank’s records. If this started happening frequently, the bank would likely to be ruined and ran bankrupt. Hence, the banking system is designed to make sure that every transaction gets recorded within the time customers stand before an ATM machine. This system is write-optimized.

On the other hand, a data warehouse is a database that is designed for facilitating querying and analysis. Often a data warehouse is designed as on-line analytical processing systems. These database contain read-only data that can be queried and analyzed far more efficiently compared to a regular on-line transaction processing application database. In this regard, a data warehouse is designed to be read-optimized. In fact, creation of a data warehouse leads to a direct increase in the quality of the analysis as the table structures, typical for databases, are simpler standardized and often denormalized to reduce linkages between tables and the corresponding complexity of queries. Hence, a data warehouse reduces drastically the cost-per-analysis and thus makes analysis faster and more efficient. Consequently, modern companies are interested in the development and co-existence of both database and data-warehouse. On the one hand, database are useful when current information and data need to be recorded and processed immediately, while, on the other hand, a data warehouse is particularly helpful when data need to be analyzed in details.

At the same, one of the major goal of operation systems is not only efficient use and work on computers, but also effective communication between users, which is provided by various tools and devices which are important for all operation systems and existing operation systems should be able to use all these tools and devices to ensure effective transmission of data. In this respect, it is worth mentioning XON and XOFF, it should be pointed out that both are control characters used in data transmission. Basically, XOFF is used by a receiving device to tell the transmitting device to stop transmitting (Devroye, 1986). The normal functioning of device means that the XON character is sent. With most environments, XOFF is achieved by pressing CTRL S, XON is achieved by pressing CTRL Q. It should be said both XON and XOFF functions in a combination and they are both closely interrelated. Their interrelatedness play a very important role since it contributes to the effective function of both XON and XOFF.

Nowadays, fiber optics plays increasingly more important role and the innovations made in this field may produce a significant impact on the development of new technologies. In this respect, it should be said that among the most widely spread optic fibers, it is possible to name simplex and duplex, which though are quite different from each others (Johns and Martin, 2004). Simplex fiber is a single fiber available in single mode, multi mode, or polarization maintaining. Duplex fibers consist of two fibers, either single mode or multi mode, and are used in applications where data needs to be transferred bi-directionally. One fiber transmits data in one direction, the other fiber transmits data the opposite direction. Basically, there are two types of duplex fibers (Johns and Martin, 2004). The first type is half-duplex. The half-duplex type implies that fibers data may only be transmitted in one direction at a time. Also, there is another type of duplex fibers – full duplex. This type of duplex is characterized by a different process when data is transferred in two directions simultaneously. In such a way, simplex and duplex provides large opportunities for the development of optic fibers.

Digital data transmission can occur in two basic modes: serial or parallel. Data within a computer system is transmitted via parallel mode on buses with the width of the parallel bus matched to the word size of the computer system (Behzad, 2003). Data between computer systems us usually transmitted in bit serial mode. Consequently, it is necessary to make a parallel-to-serial conversion at a computer interface when sending data from a computer system into a network and a serial-to-parallel conversion at a computer interface when receiving information from a network (Behzad, 2003). The type of transmission mode used may also depend upon distance and required data rate. It should be said that in parallel transmission, multiple bits are sent simultaneously on different channels within the same cable or radio path, and synchronized to a clock. Parallel device have a wider data bus than serial devices and can therefore transfer data in words of one or more bytes at a type. As a result, there is a speedup in parallel transmission bit rate over serial transmission bit rate. However, this speedup is a tradeoff versus cost since multiple wires cost more than a single wire, and as a parallel cable gets longer, the synchronizing timing between multiple channels becomes more sensitive to distance (Behzad, 2003). The timing for parallel transmission is provided by a constant clocking signal sent over a separate wire within a parallel cable. Thus, parallel transmission is considered parallel, while serial transmission can be either synchronous or asynchronous.

As a rule, data signals can be transmitted via network using either of two possible ways: broadband or baseband. An example of broadband signaling is how one views different channels through his/her cable box and a signal coaxial box and a signal coaxial cable carrying multiple signals in cable television. (Johns and Martin, 2004) Whereas, baseband signaling only sends a single signal over the cable. This type of signaling is typically used in Ethernet networks, with the exception of 10Broad3 standard, which though is rarely used. Baseband uses very simple transceiver devices that send and receive signals on a cable (Johns and Martin, 2004). The simplicity behind the baseband signaling is that only three states need to be distinguished: one, zero and idle. Broadband transceivers are much more complex because they must be able to distinguish those same states, but on multiple channels within the same cable (Johns and Martin, 2004). The simplicity of baseband signaling defines its wide spread in Ethernet networks.

Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP) and Point to Point Protocol (PPP) are extremely important standards of network communication. Both standards were developed to support dial-up access to network based on the Internet protocols. SLIP is a simple protocol that functions at the physical layer, whereas PPP is a considerably enhanced protocol that provides physical layer and data link layer functionally (Stallings, 2000). Developed to provide dial-up TCP/IP connections, SLIP is an extremely rudimentary protocol that suffers from the lack of rigid standardization, which sometimes hinders different implementations from interoperating (Andrew, 2003). This is why SLIP is most commonly used on older operational systems or for dial-up connections to the Internet via SLIP-server internet host. PPP was originally destined to improve on SLIP by providing the following features: security using password logon; simultaneous support for multiple protocols on the same link; dynamic IP processing; error control. Different PPP implementations may offer different levels of service and negotiate service levels when connections are made (Devroye). Because of its versatility, interoperability, and additional features, PPP is presently surpassing SLIP as the most popular serial-line protocol.

HTTP provides a standard for web browsers and servers to communicate. The definition of HTTP is a technical specification of a network protocol that software must implement. HTTP is an application layer network protocol built on top of TCP (Andrew, 2003). HTTP clients and servers communicate via HTTP request and response messages. The three main HTTP message types are GET, POST and HEAD. The current version of HTTP in widespread use was developed to address some of the performance limitations of its original version. Unlike HTTP, FTP is a network protocol used to transfer data from one computer to another computer through a network, such as over the Internet. FTP is commonly used as protocol for exchanging files over any TCP/IP based network to manipulate files on another computer on that network regardless of which operating system are involved. FTP servers can be set anywhere between game servers, voice servers, internet hosts, etc. (Andrew, 2003).

The IP is a data-oriented protocol used for the communicating data across a packet-switched internetwork. IP is a network layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite and is encapsulated in a data link protocol (Savoric, 2004). As a lower layer protocol, IP provides the service of communicable unique global addressing amongst computers. The TCP is one of the core protocols in the IP suite. TCP provides reliable, in-order delivery of a stream of bytes, making it suitable for applications like file transfer and e-mail (Savoric, 2004). In fact, TCP is the transport protocol that manages the individual conversations between web servers and web clients. TCP divides HTTP messages into smaller pieces, called segments, to be sent to the destination client.

Basically, modern operation systems aim at the provision of a reliable data transmission that implies that they should compatible with existing tools and devices used for the transmission of data. However, it is worth mentioning the fact that Windows is traditionally in an advantageous position since this system is applied in the majority of computers worldwide while the use of two different operation systems in the process of the transmission of data is accompanied by numerous difficulties that makes such transmission ineffective or, at least, consistently less effective compared to the transmission of data between computers using identical operation system.

Thus, it is possible to conclude that, today, operation systems tend to be more user friendly and compatible with advanced devices and tools used for the transmission as well as storage of data. At the same time, the problem of security remains one of the primary concerns of modern operation systems. In such a situation, the most reliable system has larger opportunities to take the leading position, but, in actuality, the leading position is maintained by Windows, although other operation systems are not worse than Windows. Its leading position is determined by the domination of this system in the world market since it is applied in the majority of computers worldwide. Nevertheless, the progress of technologies open new opportunities for other operation systems which tend to gain a larger share of the market and more and more users prefer different operation systems, such as MacOS or Linux, instead of traditional Windows.

References:

Andrew S. (2003). Tanenbaum, Computer Networks (4th Ed), Prentice Hall.

Behzad, R. (2003). Principles of Data Conversion System Design. New York: Random House.

Deitel, H.M. et al. (2004). Operating Systems. NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Devroye, Luc. (1986). Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation.

Johns, David and Ken Martin (2004). Analog Integrated Circuit Design. New York: Random House.

Mingliang, Liu. (2002). Demystifying Switched-Capacitor Circuits. New York: Routledge.

Rudin, Walter. (1976) Principles of Mathematical Analysis New York: McGraw-Hill.

Savoric, Michael (2004-10-18). “Improving Congestion Control in IP-based Networks by Information Sharing”. Retrieved February 29, 2008 from

Stallings, William. (2000). Data and Computer Communications, 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Silberschatz, Abraham; Galvin, Peter Baer; Gagne, Greg (2004). Operating System Concepts. NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Stevens, W. Richard. (2002). TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1: The Protocols. New York: Random House.

Tanenbaum, Andrew S. and Woodhull, Albert S. (2006). Operating Systems. Design and Implementation. N.J.: Prentice Hall.

Tanenbaum, Andrew S. (2001). Modern Operating Systems. N.J.: Prentice Hall.
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