1. Describe the EDP era. How were IT projects managed during this era?
A: EDP stands for Electronic Data Processing. The EDP era was distinguished by the purchase of centralized mainframe by large type of organizations. The projects throughout this era concentrated mainly on automating various organizational transactions such as inventory management and general accounting tasks. The administrator of this technology resource was called Data Processing Manager.
The major goal of using this technology was to improve efficiency and minimize the costs by automating many tasks which are performed by the people. The IT projects throughout this era were mainly structured and consequently a clear approach for managing these projects could be used.
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IT projects had to take more of an organizational view so that policies, standards, and controls become a part of all systems in order for existing mainframe applications to coexist. Moreover, a project manager and team would no longer depends on stable business processes, requirements, or technology that would allow for longer project schedules; or else, they would face the risk of implementing an outdated IT solution.
3. Describe the network era. What challenges did the network era present?
A. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a defense project called ARPANET allowed university researchers and scientists to share information with one another even in the event of a nuclear war. By the mid-1980s, this network of computers became known as the Internet and led to the network era that began around 1995.
In the network era, IT projects focused primarily on the challenge of creating an IT infrastructure to support many partners, vendors, and customers. The network architecture had to be scalable so that potentially thousands of networked computers could function in an efficient and timely manner. Integration of data, voice, graphics, and video allowed for new and innovative ways to deliver new products and services to