Management Information Systems

MANAGING THE DIGITAL FIRM, 12TH EDITION

Chapter 6
FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS
INTELLIGENCE: DATABASES AND
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Learning Objectives

• Describe how the problems of managing data

resources in a traditional file environment
• Describe the capabilities and value of a database
management system in solving above problems
• Describe important database design principles
• Evaluate tools and technologies for accessing
information from databases to improve business
performance and decision making

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CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
RR Donnelley Tries to Master Its Data

• Problem: Explosive business growth created multiple

databases and information management challenges:
– Inconsistent, duplicated, incomplete, incorrect or outdated data.
• Solutions: Use MDM to create an enterprise-wide set of data,
preventing unnecessary data duplication.
• Master data management (MDM) enables companies like R.R.
Donnelley to eliminate outdated, incomplete or incorrectly
formatted data.
• Demonstrates IT’s role in successful data management.
• Illustrates digital technology’s role in storing and organizing
data.

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• ORGANIZING DATA IN A TRADITIONAL FILE

ENVIRONMENT
– File Organization Terms and Concepts
– Problems with the Traditional File Environment
• THE DATABASE APPROACH TO DATA MANAGEMENT
– Database Management Systems
– Capabilities of Database Management Systems
– Designing Databases

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• USING DATABASES TO IMPROVE BUSINESS

PERFORMANCE AND DECISION MAKING
– The Challenge of Big Data
– Business Intelligence Infrastructure
– Analytical Tools: Relationships, Patterns, Trends
– Databases and the Web
• MANAGING DATA RESOURCES
– Establishing an Information Policy
– Ensuring Data Quality

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CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Organizing Data in a Traditional File Environment

• An effective information system provides

accurate, timely, complete, up-to-date and
relevant information.
– Accurate: Free of errors
– Timely: Available when needed by decision
makers
– Complete: No missing information
– Up-to-date: Real-time information
– Relevant: Useful and appropriate for the work

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Organizing Data in a Traditional File Environment

• File organization concepts

– Bit: Transistor outputs of the binary form (0 or 1)
– Byte: An 8-bit variable, taking one of the 28=256
ASCII characters (letters, figures, symbols).
0100 0101 = Character 69 = Letter "E"
– Field: Group of characters as word(s) or number
Course_ID="IE 405"

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CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Organizing Data in a Traditional File Environment

• File organization concepts (cont’d)

– Record: Group of related fields
• Describes an entity (person, place, thing on which we
store information)
• Attribute: Each characteristic, or quality, describing
entity
Entity Attribute I Attribute II Attribute III
Course_ID Section Course_Name Semester
Record I IE 405 1 Management Information Systems 7
Record II IE 220 2 Operations Research I 3

– File: Group of records of same type

– Database: Group of related files
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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Organizing Data in a Traditional File Environment

THE DATA
HIERARCHY
A computer system organizes data
in a hierarchy that starts with the
bit, which represents either a 0 or a
1. Bits can be grouped to form a
byte to represent one character,
number, or symbol. Bytes can be
grouped to form a field, and related
fields can be grouped to form a
record. Related records can be
collected to form a file, and related
files can be organized into a
database.

FIGURE 6-1

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Organizing Data in a Traditional File Environment

• Problems with the traditional file environment when files

maintained separately by different departments
– Data redundancy:
• Presence of duplicate data in multiple files
• A result of independent data collection and storage
• Waste of storage resources
– Data inconsistency:
• When same attribute has different values
• When same attribute has different names
– Program-data dependence:
• When changes in program requires changes to data accessed
by program. When a field is to be changed that is in 2
separate programs then both programs must be modified

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• Problems with Data Redundancy:

– Wasted Storage Space.
– More Difficult Database Update.
– It will lead to Data Inconsistency.
– Retrieval of data is slow
and inefficient.

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• Data inconsistency: Data inconsistency meaning is

that different versions of the same data appear in
different places. For example, the ZIP code is saved in
one table as 0000-000 numeric data format; while in
another table it may be represented in 0000000.

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Year 2000 problem

• "Millennium Bug," led to anxiety and the Y2K (Year 2000)

scare. When complex computer programs were first written in
the 1960s, engineers used a two-digit code for the year,
leaving out the "19.
• As the year 2000 approached, computer programmers realized
that computers might not interpret 00 as 2000, but as 1900.
• Banks, which calculate interest rates on a daily basis, faced real
problems. Interest rates are the amount of money a lender,
such as a bank, charges a customer, such as an individual or
business, for a loan. Instead of the rate of interest for one day,
the computer would calculate a rate of interest for minus
almost 100 years!

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Organizing Data in a Traditional File Environment

• Problems with the traditional file environment when

files maintained separately by different departments
(cont’d)
– Lack of flexibility
• Lack of capability for delivering unanticipated
information requirements.
– Poor security
• Lack of control over management, access, and
dissemination of information
– Lack of data sharing and availability
• Lack of relation between data files, thus, the shared
information.

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CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Organizing Data in a Traditional File Environment

TRADITIONAL FILE PROCESSING

FIGURE 6-2 The use of a traditional approach to file processing encourages each functional area in a corporation to develop specialized applications.
Each application requires a unique data file that is likely to be a subset of the master file. These subsets of the master file lead to data
redundancy and inconsistency, processing inflexibility, and wasted storage resources.

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

• Database: Collection of data that serves many

applications by centralizing data and controlling
redundant data
• Database management system (DBMS)
– Interfaces between applications and physical data files
– Separates logical and physical views of data
• Logical View: As perceived by user, multiple views
• Physical View: Structure of data in storage media, unique.

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

HUMAN RESOURCES DATABASE WITH MULTIPLE VIEWS

FIGURE 6-3 A single human resources database provides many different views of data, depending on the information requirements of the user.
Illustrated here are two possible views, one of interest to a benefits specialist and one of interest to a member of the company’s payroll
department.

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

• A database solves problems of

traditional file environment
– Controls redundancy
– Eliminates inconsistency
– Uncouples programs and data
– Enables organization to centrally manage
data and data security

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

• Relational DBMS
– Represent data as two-dimensional tables called relations or
files
– Each table contains data on entity and attributes
• Table: A grid of columns and rows
– Rows (tuples): Records for different entities
– Columns (fields): Represents attribute for entity
– Key field: Field used to uniquely identify entities
– Primary key: Field in table used to identify each record.
– Foreign key: Primary key used in another table as look-up field
to identify records from original table (relating tables)
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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

RELATIONAL DATABASE TABLES

FIGURE 6-4 A relational database organizes data in the form of two-dimensional tables. Illustrated here are tables for the entities SUPPLIER and
PART showing how they represent each entity and its attributes. Supplier Number is a primary key for the SUPPLIER table and a foreign
key for the PART table.

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

RELATIONAL DATABASE TABLES (cont.)

FIGURE 6-4
(cont.) A relational database organizes data in the form of two-dimensional tables. Illustrated here are tables for the entities SUPPLIER and
PART showing how they represent each entity and its attributes. Supplier Number is a primary key for the SUPPLIER table and a foreign
key for the PART table.

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

• Operations of a Relational DBMS

– Three basic operations used to develop useful
sets of data
• SELECT: Creates subset of data of all records that
meet stated criteria
• JOIN: Combines relational tables to provide user
with more information than available in individual
tables
• PROJECT: Creates subset of columns in table,
creating tables with only the information specified

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

THE THREE BASIC OPERATIONS OF A RELATIONAL DBMS

FIGURE 6-5 The select, join, and project operations enable data from two different tables to be combined and only
selected attributes to be displayed.

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

• Object-Oriented DBMS (OODBMS)

– Stores data and procedures (add, change, delete, retrieve) as
objects
– Data can include graphics, multimedia, Java applets
– Relatively slow compared with relational DBMS for
processing large numbers of transactions
– Hybrid object-relational DBMS: Provide capabilities of both
OODBMS and relational DBMS
• Databases in the cloud
– Typically less functionality than on-premises DBs
– Offers scalability for small or medium-sized businesses.

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

• Capabilities of Database Management Systems

– Data definition capability: Specifies structure of database
content, used to create tables and define characteristics
of fields (e.g. description, size, format, unit)
– Data dictionary: Automated or manual file storing
definitions of data elements and their characteristics
– Data manipulation language: Used to add, change,
delete, retrieve data from database
• Helps to perform SELECT, JOIN, and PROJECT operations.
• Structured Query Language (SQL)
• Microsoft Access user tools (wizard interface) for generation SQL

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

MICROSOFT ACCESS
DATA DICTIONARY
FEATURES
Microsoft Access has a
rudimentary data dictionary
capability that displays
information about the size,
format, and other characteristics
of each field in a database.
Displayed here is the information
maintained in the SUPPLIER
table. The small key icon to the
left of Supplier_Number
indicates that it is a key field.

FIGURE 6-6

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management
EXAMPLE OF AN SQL QUERY

FIGURE 6-7 Illustrated here are the SQL statements for a query to select suppliers for parts 137 or 150. They produce a
list with the same results as Figure 6-5.

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

AN ACCESS QUERY

Illustrated here is how the

query in Figure 6-7 would be
constructed using Microsoft
Access query building
tools. It shows the tables,
fields, and selection criteria
used for the query.

FIGURE 6-8

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

• Designing Databases
– Conceptual (logical) design: Abstract model from business
perspective
– Physical design: How database is arranged on storage device
• Design process identifies
– Relationships among data elements, redundant database elements
– Most efficient way to group data elements to meet business
requirements, needs of application programs
• Normalization
– Streamlining complex groupings of data to minimize redundant
data elements and awkward many-to-many relationships

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

AN UNNORMALIZED RELATION FOR ORDER

FIGURE 6-9 An unnormalized relation contains repeating groups. For example, there can be many parts and suppliers
for each order. There is only a one-to-one correspondence between Order_Number and Order_Date.

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

NORMALIZED TABLES CREATED FROM ORDER

FIGURE 6-10 An unnormalized relation contains repeating groups. For example, there can be many parts and suppliers
for each order. There is only a one-to-one correspondence between Order_Number and Order_Date.

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Management Information Systems
MANAGING THE DIGITAL FIRM, 12TH EDITION
Management Information Systems
MANAGING THE DIGITAL FIRM, 12TH EDITION
 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

• Entity-relationship diagram
– Used by database designers to document the data model
– Illustrates relationships between entities
• Distributing databases: Storing database in more than one place
– Partitioned: Separate locations store different parts of database
– Replicated: Central database duplicated in entirety at different
locations
• Referential Integrity:
– When one table has a foreign key that points to another table, you may not
add a record to the table with the foreign key unless there is a corresponding
record in the linked table

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The Database Approach to Data Management

AN ENTITY-RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAM

FIGURE 6-11 This diagram shows the relationships between the entities SUPPLIER, PART, LINE_ITEM, and ORDER that
might be used to model the database in Figure 6-10.

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Using Databases to Improve Business Performance and Decision Making

• Very large databases and systems require special

capabilities, tools
– To analyze large quantities of data
– To access data from multiple systems
– Big data to describe these datasets with volumes so huge
that they are beyond the ability of typical DBMS to capture,
store, and analyze.
– For example, a single jet engine is capable of generating 10
terabytes of data in just 30 minutes, and there are more
than 25,000 airline flights each day.
– Twitter generates over 8 terabytes of data daily.
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• Three key techniques

1.Data warehousing
2.Data mining
3.Tools for accessing internal databases through the
Web

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Using Databases to Improve Business Performance and Decision Making

• Data warehouse:
– The traditional tool for analyzing corporate data for the
past two decades has been the data warehouse.
– Stores current and historical data from many core
operational transaction systems
– Consolidates and standardizes information for use across
enterprise, but data cannot be altered
– Data warehouse system will provide query, analysis, and
reporting tools

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• Data marts:
– Subset of data warehouse
– Summarized or highly focused portion of firm’s data for
use by specific population of users
– Typically focuses on single subject or line of business (e.g.
Sales and marketing), less cost, rapid construction

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• Hadoop : For handling unstructured and semi-structured

data in vast quantities, as well as structured data,
organizations are using Hadoop. Hadoop is an open source
software framework managed by the Apache Software
Foundation that enables distributed parallel processing of
huge amounts of data across inexpensive computers.
• You’ve probably used Hadoop to find the best airfare on
the Internet, get directions to a restaurant, do a search on
Google, or connect with a friend on Facebook.

•
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• Hadoop can process large quantities of any kind of

data, including structured transactional data, loosely
structured data such as Facebook and Twitter feeds,
complex data such as Web server log files, and
unstructured audio and video data.
• Facebook stores much of its data on its massive
Hadoop cluster, which holds an estimated 100
petabytes.

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• in-memory computing, which relies primarily on a

computer’s main memory (RAM) for data storage.
(Conventional DBMS use disk storage systems.) Users
access data stored in system primary memory,
thereby eliminating bottlenecks from retrieving and
reading data in a traditional, disk-based database and
dramatically shortening query response times. In-
memory processing makes it possible for very large
sets of data, amounting to the size of a data mart or
small data warehouse, to reside entirely in memory.

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• Centrica, a gas and electric utility, uses SAP’s High

Performance Analytics Appliance (HANA) to quickly
capture and analyze the vast amounts of data
generated by smart meters. The company is able to
analyze usage every 15 minutes, giving it a much
clearer picture of usage by neighborhood, home size,
type of business served, or building type. HANA also
helps Centrica show its customers their energy usage
patterns in real-time using online and mobile tools.

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• Analytic platforms using both relational and non-

relational technology that are optimized for
analyzing large datasets.
• For example, IBM Netezza features tightly integrated
database, server, and storage components that
handle complex analytic queries 10 to 100 times
faster than traditional systems.
• Analytic platforms also include in-memory systems
and NoSQL non-relational database management
systems

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Using Databases to Improve Business Performance and Decision Making
COMPONENTS OF A DATA WAREHOUSE

FIGURE 6-12 The data warehouse extracts current and historical data from multiple operational systems inside the organization. These data are
combined with data from external sources and reorganized into a central database designed for management reporting and analysis.
The information directory provides users with information about the data available in the warehouse.

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Using Databases to Improve Business Performance and Decision Making

• Business Intelligence:
– Tools for consolidating, analyzing, and providing access
to vast amounts of data to help users make better
business decisions
– E.g., Harrah’s Entertainment analyzes customers to
develop gambling profiles and identify most profitable
customers
– Principle tools include:
• Software for database query and reporting
• Online analytical processing (OLAP)
• Data mining
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• Suppose your company sells four different products

—nuts, bolts, washers, and screws—in the East,
West, and Central regions.
• If you wanted to ask a fairly straightforward question,
such as how many washers sold during the past
quarter, you could easily find the answer by querying
your sales database.
• But what if you wanted to know how many washers
sold in each of your sales regions and compare actual
results with projected sales?

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Using Databases to Improve Business Performance and Decision Making

• Online analytical processing (OLAP)

– Supports multidimensional data analysis
• Viewing data using multiple dimensions
• Each aspect of information (product, pricing, cost,
region, time period) is different dimension
• E.g., how many washers sold in the East in June
compared with other regions?
– OLAP enables rapid, online answers to ad hoc queries
– Ad hoc query: Queries which cannot be determined
prior to the moment the query is issued

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Using Databases to Improve Business Performance and Decision Making

MULTIDIMENSIONAL
DATA MODEL
The view that is showing is
product versus region. If you
rotate the cube 90 degrees,
the face that will show is
product versus actual and
projected sales. If you rotate
the cube 90 degrees again, you
will see region versus actual
and projected sales. Other
views are possible.

FIGURE 6-13

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Using Databases to Improve Business Performance and Decision Making

• Data mining:
– More discovery driven than OLAP
– Finds hidden patterns, relationships in large databases and
infers rules to predict future behavior
– E.g., Finding patterns in customer data for one-to-one
marketing campaigns or to identify profitable customers.
– Types of information obtainable from data mining
• Associations: Occurences linked to a single event. Cola- chips
• Sequences: Occurences linked over time. House- refrigerator
• Classification: Recognizes patterns that describe a group of entities
and inferring rules for classification.
• Clustering: Classification with no groups being defined yet.
• Forecasting: Uses series of existing values to predict other values.
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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Using Databases to Improve Business Performance and Decision Making

• Predictive analysis
– Uses data mining techniques, historical data, and
assumptions about future conditions to predict
outcomes of events
– E.g., Probability a customer will respond to an
offer
• Text mining
– Extracts key elements from large unstructured
data sets (e.g., stored e-mails)

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• Sentiment analysis software is able to mine text

comments in an e-mail message, blog, social media
conversation, or survey form to detect favorable and
unfavorable opinions about specific subjects.

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Using Databases to Improve Business Performance and Decision Making

WHAT CAN BUSINESSES LEARN FROM TEXT MINING?

Read the Interactive Session and discuss the following questions

• What challenges does the increase in unstructured data

present for businesses?
• How does text-mining improve decision-making?
• What kinds of companies are most likely to benefit from text
mining software? Explain your answer.
• In what ways could text mining potentially lead to the
erosion of personal information privacy? Explain.

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Using Databases to Improve Business Performance and Decision Making

• Web mining
– Discovery and analysis of useful patterns and
information from WWW
• E.g., to understand customer behavior, evaluate effectiveness of Web
site, etc.
– Web content mining
• Knowledge extracted from content of Web pages (text, image, video)
– Web structure mining
• E.g., links to and from Web page (measures popularity and coverage)
– Web usage mining
• User interaction data recorded by Web server

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Using Databases to Improve Business Performance and Decision Making

• Databases and the Web

– Many companies use Web to make some internal
databases available to customers or partners
– Typical configuration includes:
• Database server (hosting DBM)
• Application server or middleware
• Web server
– Advantages of using Web for database access:
• Ease of use of browser software
• Web interface requires few or no changes to database
• Inexpensive to add Web interface to system

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CHAPTER 6: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE:
DATABASES AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Using Databases to Improve Business Performance and Decision Making
LINKING INTERNAL DATABASES TO THE WEB

FIGURE 6-14 Users access an organization’s internal database through the Web using their desktop PCs and Web browser
software.

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• Data in the database is stored using the data format

required by the database software.
• This formatted data needs to be transformed into an
XML format for presentation on the Web.
• The database server makes this transformation and
passes it along to the application server which uses
it to populate (or construct) an HTML web page.
• The Web page is then sent to the Web server which
sends it over the Internet as an HTML web page,
which is finally displayed on the users screen.
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