BCT(A) flashcards
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32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- SWOT analysis
- A planning tool that lists internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats, giving a structured basis for strategy formulation and priority setting.
- Porter's Five Forces
- An industry analysis model covering rivalry among existing competitors, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, supplier bargaining power, and buyer bargaining power.
- Span of control
- The number of direct reports a manager supervises. Wide spans produce flatter structures with more delegation; narrow spans create taller hierarchies with closer supervision.
- Matrix organization
- A structure in which employees report to both a functional manager and a project or product manager, improving resource sharing but creating dual-authority conflict.
- Balanced scorecard
- A performance framework measuring four perspectives: financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth, linking measures to strategy rather than financial results alone.
- OSI model
- A seven-layer reference model: physical, data link, network, transport, session, presentation, and application, used to describe how data moves between networked systems.
- TCP versus UDP
- TCP is connection-oriented, sequencing and retransmitting data for reliable delivery. UDP is connectionless with no delivery guarantee, favored for streaming, voice, and DNS queries.
- Private IP addressing
- Non-routable ranges 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, and 192.168.0.0/16 used inside networks; NAT translates them to public addresses for internet access.
- IaaS, PaaS, SaaS
- Cloud service tiers: infrastructure supplies virtual machines and storage, platform supplies a managed runtime for development, software supplies a finished application to end users.
- RAID levels
- Redundant disk configurations: RAID 0 stripes without protection, RAID 1 mirrors, RAID 5 uses single parity tolerating one failure, RAID 6 tolerates two disk failures.
- Backup types
- Full copies all selected data; incremental copies changes since the last backup of any type; differential copies changes since the last full backup.
- ACID properties
- Database transaction guarantees: atomicity (all or nothing), consistency (valid state), isolation (concurrent transactions do not interfere), and durability (committed changes persist).
- Third normal form
- A table design state in which repeating groups and partial key dependencies are removed and no non-key attribute depends transitively on another non-key attribute.
- Primary and foreign keys
- A primary key uniquely identifies each row and cannot be null; a foreign key references another table's primary key and enforces referential integrity between tables.
- WHERE versus HAVING
- WHERE filters individual rows before grouping and aggregation; HAVING filters grouped results after aggregation, so it can test aggregate functions such as SUM or COUNT.
- Descriptive to prescriptive analytics
- Four analytics levels: descriptive reports what happened, diagnostic explains why, predictive forecasts what will happen, and prescriptive recommends which action to take.
- Mean versus median
- The mean is the arithmetic average and is pulled by outliers; the median is the middle value of ordered data and resists extreme values.
- CIA triad
- The core security objectives: confidentiality limits disclosure to authorized parties, integrity prevents unauthorized modification, and availability ensures timely access to systems and data.
- Symmetric versus asymmetric encryption
- Symmetric encryption uses one shared secret key and is fast for bulk data; asymmetric encryption uses a public and private key pair, enabling key exchange and digital signatures.
- Hashing and salting
- A cryptographic hash is one-way and reveals tampering; a salt is random data added to a password before hashing so identical passwords yield different hashes.
- Risk treatment options
- Four responses to identified risk: mitigate by reducing likelihood or impact, transfer through insurance or contracts, avoid the activity, or accept the residual risk.
- Least privilege
- Granting users and systems only the access needed for their assigned tasks, reducing the damage possible from error, credential theft, or insider misuse.
- Phishing variants
- Social-engineering attacks soliciting credentials or payments: bulk phishing by email, spear phishing targeted at individuals, vishing by phone, and smishing by text message.
- Communication process
- A message travels from sender through encoding and a channel to a receiver who decodes it; feedback confirms understanding and noise can distort any stage.
- Channel richness
- The capacity of a medium to convey cues and immediate feedback. Face-to-face is richest; impersonal written reports are leanest and suit simple, routine messages.
- Synchronous versus asynchronous tools
- Synchronous collaboration such as video conferencing and chat requires participants present at the same time; asynchronous tools such as email and wikis allow delayed participation.
- Active listening
- A communication technique of attending fully, reflecting and paraphrasing what was said, asking clarifying questions, and summarizing before responding to confirm understanding.
- SDLC phases
- The systems development life cycle: planning, analysis, design, implementation, testing, deployment, and maintenance, with maintenance usually the largest lifetime cost.
- Agile versus waterfall
- Waterfall proceeds sequentially with requirements fixed early; agile delivers in short iterations with continuous feedback and expects requirements to change over time.
- Critical path
- The longest sequence of dependent project tasks, which sets the minimum project duration; tasks on the critical path have zero float or slack.
- Functional versus non-functional requirements
- Functional requirements state what a system must do, such as processing an order; non-functional requirements state qualities such as performance, security, and availability.
- COBIT and ITIL
- Two governance frameworks: COBIT aligns IT objectives and controls with business goals, while ITIL organizes IT service management practices across the service lifecycle.