Curiosity Hook: What Makes a Great Infrastructure Provider?

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to information technology:

Information technology (IT) – microelectronics based combination of computing and telecommunications technology to treat information, including in the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information. It is defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) as "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly toward software applications and computer hardware."

There are different names for this at different periods or through fields. Some of these names are:

• ICT^[1] – Information and communication technologies
• IT^[2] – Information technology
• DCT^[3] – Data Communication & technology
• CDT^[4] – Creative digital technology
• DT – Design & technology^[5]
• Communication technology
• ^[6] Hacker

• MOSFET (MOS transistor)
  • Semiconductor device fabrication
  • PMOS (p-type MOS)
  • NMOS (n-type MOS)
  • CMOS (complementary MOS)
  • Floating-gate MOSFET (FGMOS)
  • Silicon-gate transistor (SGT)
  • Power MOSFET
  • Multi-gate field-effect transistor (MuGFET)
    • FinFET (fin field-effect transistor)
  • Thin-film transistor (TFT)
• Integrated circuit (IC)
  • Hybrid integrated circuit (HIC)
  • Monolithic integrated circuit (IC) chip
    • Planar process
    • MOS integrated circuit (MOS IC)
    • Silicon-gate technology (SGT) MOS IC
  • Three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC)
• Computer memory
  • Semiconductor memory
  • Random-access memory (RAM)
    • Static random-access memory (SRAM)
    • Dynamic random-access memory (DRAM)
    • Synchronous DRAM (SDRAM)
  • Nonvolatile memory (NVM)
    • Read-only memory (ROM)
    • Programmable ROM (PROM)
    • Floating-gate memory
    • EPROM (erasable PROM)
    • EEPROM (electrically erasable PROM)
    • Flash memory
  • Magnetic-core memory
• Microprocessor
  • Central processing unit (CPU)
  • Graphics processing unit (GPU)
  • Digital signal processor (DSP)
  • Image signal processor (ISP)

• History of computing
  • History of computing, by subject
    • History of computing hardware
    • History of computing hardware (1960s–present)
    • History of computer hardware in Eastern Bloc countries
    • History of artificial intelligence
    • History of computer science
    • History of operating systems
    • History of programming languages
    • History of software engineering
    • History of the graphical user interface
    • History of the Internet
    • History of personal computers
    • History of laptops
    • History of video games
    • History of the World Wide Web
  • Timeline of computing
    • Timeline of computing hardware 2400 BC–1949
    • Timeline of computing 1950–1979
    • Timeline of computing 1980–1989
    • Timeline of computing 1990–1999
    • Timeline of computing 2000–2009

• BSIT or B.Sc IT^[7] – Bachelor of Science in Information Technology
• M.Sc. IT, MSc IT or MSIT^[8] – Master of Science in Information Technology
• BCA^[9] – Bachelor of Computer Applications
• MCA^[10] – Master of Computer Applications

• Amazon Web Services has 5 certifications ^[11]
• Apple Inc. – sponsors the Apple certification program^[12]
• Avaya Professional Credential Program
• Cisco Systems – sponsors the Cisco Career Certifications program
• Citrix Systems – sponsors the Citrix Certified Administrator program
• Hewlett-Packard – sponsors the HP-CP certifications related to HP Technologies
• Dell – sponsors the Dell Certified Systems Expert program with Associate and Master levels
• Huawei – sponsors certifications
• IBM – sponsors certifications
• Juniper Networks – sponsors the Juniper Networks Technical Certification Program
• LANDesk – sponsors the Certified LANDesk Administrator and Certified LANDesk Engineer program
• Microsoft Corporation – sponsors the Microsoft Certified Professional program
• MySQL (as part of Oracle Corporation now) – sponsors a certification program
• NetApp – sponsors the NetApp Certification program
• Nortel – sponsors the Nortel Certifications program
• Novell – sponsors a certification program
• Object Management Group – sponsors the Certified Professional program for the Unified Modeling Language
• Oracle Corporation – sponsors the Oracle Certification Program^[13]
• Red Hat – sponsors the Red Hat Certification Program
• SAP – sponsors individual training and certifications
• SolarWinds – sponsors the SolarWinds Certified Professional Program for network management ^[14]
• Sun Microsystems – sponsors the Sun Certified Professional program
• Sybase – sponsors the Certified Sybase Professional program
• VMware – sponsors certification programs (VCP & VCDX)
• Zend Technologies – sponsors the Zend Certified Engineer program

Third-party commercial organizations and vendor neutral interest groups that sponsor certifications include:

• XML Certification Program - XML Master
• Certiport – sponsors the Microsoft Office Specialist and IC3 certification (Internet and Computing Core).
• CompTIA (Computing Technology Industry Association) – offers 12 professional IT Certifications, validating foundation-level IT knowledge and skills.
• European Computer Driving License-Foundation – sponsors the European Computer Driving License (also called International Computer Driving License) (ICDL)
• International Information and Communication Technology Council Certification Program
• (ISC)² – sponsors the CISSP, SSCP and other security certifications
• Linux Professional Institute
• Majinate sponsors the Accredited Symbian Developer scheme for Symbian OS
• NACSE (National Association of Communication Systems Engineers) sponsors 36 Vendor Neutral, knowledge specific, Certifications covering the 5 major IT Disciplines which are: Data Networking, Telecomm, Web Design & Development, Programming & Business Skills for IT Professionals.
• The Open Group – sponsors TOGAF certification and the IT Architect Certification (ITAC) and IT Specialist Certification (ITSC) skills and experience based IT certifications.
• Planet3 Wireless – sponsors the Certified Wireless Network Administrator (CWNA) certification
• SAGE (organization) – sponsors the cSAGE program
• SANS Institute – operates the Global Information Assurance Certification program

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General certification of software practitioners has struggled. The ACM had a professional certification program in the early 1980s, which was discontinued due to lack of interest. Today, the IEEE is certifying software professionals, but only about 500 people have passed the exam by March 2005^[update].

• The IEEE Computer Society – sponsors the Certified Software Development Professional as well as membership designations, "Senior" and "Fellow" which reflect experience and peer review qualification.
• The IET – sponsors the Chartered Engineer and Incorporated Engineer, which can be ratified into the European Engineer
• The BCS – sponsors the Chartered IT Professional (CITP) programme.
• The Institute for Certification of Computing Professionals sponsors the Certified Computing Professional (CCP) and Associate Computing Professional (ACP) certifications
• The BDPA IT Institute – sponsors the BDPA IT Associate (BITA), the BDPA IT Professional (BITP), and the BDPA IT Master (BITM) certifications
• The Canadian Information Processing Society – sponsors the Information Systems Professional certification in Canada.
• The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants – sponsors the Certified Information Technology Professional program.
• APICS – establishes operations management standards and sponsors certification for Logistics

• E democracy
• ^[15]

• British Computer Society
• National Software Testing Laboratories
• American Society for Quality § Certifications
• ISTQB
• CSTE

• Surveillance, Transparency and Democracy: Public Administration in the Information Age. p. 35-57. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, AL. ISBN 978-0-8173-1877-2

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet.

IP has the task of delivering packets from the source host to the destination host solely based on the IP addresses in the packet headers. For this purpose, IP defines packet structures that encapsulate the data to be delivered. It also defines addressing methods that are used to label the datagram with source and destination information. IP was the connectionless datagram service in the original Transmission Control Program introduced by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in 1974, which was complemented by a connection-oriented service that became the basis for the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). The Internet protocol suite is therefore often referred to as TCP/IP.

The first major version of IP, Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4), is the dominant protocol of the Internet. Its successor is Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), which has been in increasing deployment on the public Internet since around 2006.^[1]

The Internet Protocol is responsible for addressing host interfaces, encapsulating data into datagrams (including fragmentation and reassembly) and routing datagrams from a source host interface to a destination host interface across one or more IP networks.^[2] For these purposes, the Internet Protocol defines the format of packets and provides an addressing system.

Each datagram has two components: a header and a payload. The IP header includes a source IP address, a destination IP address, and other metadata needed to route and deliver the datagram. The payload is the data that is transported. This method of nesting the data payload in a packet with a header is called encapsulation.

IP addressing entails the assignment of IP addresses and associated parameters to host interfaces. The address space is divided into subnets, involving the designation of network prefixes. IP routing is performed by all hosts, as well as routers, whose main function is to transport packets across network boundaries. Routers communicate with one another via specially designed routing protocols, either interior gateway protocols or exterior gateway protocols, as needed for the topology of the network.^[3]

There are four principal addressing methods in the Internet Protocol:

• Unicast delivers a message to a single specific node using a one-to-one association between a sender and destination: each destination address uniquely identifies a single receiver endpoint.
• Broadcast delivers a message to all nodes in the network using a one-to-all association; a single datagram (or packet) from one sender is routed to all of the possibly multiple endpoints associated with the broadcast address. The network automatically replicates datagrams as needed to reach all the recipients within the scope of the broadcast, which is generally an entire network subnet.
• Multicast delivers a message to a group of nodes that have expressed interest in receiving the message using a one-to-many-of-many or many-to-many-of-many association; datagrams are routed simultaneously in a single transmission to many recipients. Multicast differs from broadcast in that the destination address designates a subset, not necessarily all, of the accessible nodes.
• Anycast delivers a message to any one out of a group of nodes, typically the one nearest to the source using a one-to-one-of-many^[4] association where datagrams are routed to any single member of a group of potential receivers that are all identified by the same destination address. The routing algorithm selects the single receiver from the group based on which is the nearest according to some distance or cost measure.

In May 1974, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) published a paper entitled "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication".^[5] The paper's authors, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, described an internetworking protocol for sharing resources using packet switching among network nodes. A central control component of this model was the Transmission Control Program that incorporated both connection-oriented links and datagram services between hosts. The monolithic Transmission Control Program was later divided into a modular architecture consisting of the Transmission Control Protocol and User Datagram Protocol at the transport layer and the Internet Protocol at the internet layer. The model became known as the Department of Defense (DoD) Internet Model and Internet protocol suite, and informally as TCP/IP.

The following Internet Experiment Note (IEN) documents describe the evolution of the Internet Protocol into the modern version of IPv4:^[6]

• IEN 2 Comments on Internet Protocol and TCP (August 1977) describes the need to separate the TCP and Internet Protocol functionalities (which were previously combined). It proposes the first version of the IP header, using 0 for the version field.
• IEN 26 A Proposed New Internet Header Format (February 1978) describes a version of the IP header that uses a 1-bit version field.
• IEN 28 Draft Internetwork Protocol Description Version 2 (February 1978) describes IPv2.
• IEN 41 Internetwork Protocol Specification Version 4 (June 1978) describes the first protocol to be called IPv4. The IP header is different from the modern IPv4 header.
• IEN 44 Latest Header Formats (June 1978) describes another version of IPv4, also with a header different from the modern IPv4 header.
• IEN 54 Internetwork Protocol Specification Version 4 (September 1978) is the first description of IPv4 using the header that would become standardized in 1980 as RFC 760.
• IEN 80
• IEN 111
• IEN 123
• IEN 128/RFC 760 (1980)

IP versions 1 to 3 were experimental versions, designed between 1973 and 1978.^[7] Versions 2 and 3 supported variable-length addresses ranging between 1 and 16 octets (between 8 and 128 bits).^[8] An early draft of version 4 supported variable-length addresses of up to 256 octets (up to 2048 bits)^[9] but this was later abandoned in favor of a fixed-size 32-bit address in the final version of IPv4. This remains the dominant internetworking protocol in use in the Internet Layer; the number 4 identifies the protocol version, carried in every IP datagram. IPv4 is defined in