Data Processing (DP)
Definition/Meaning:
A term used predominantly in the context of industrial,
business, governmental, and other organizations within that context it refers
(a) to a class of computer applications, (b) to a function within the
organization.
While it is hard to generalize, data-processing applications may
be characterized as those that store and process large quantities of data on a
routine basis, in order to be able to produce (regularly or on request)
information that is predictably needed by an organization's employees, by its
customers or suppliers, by government, or by any other organization. Typical
applications within this category include financial accounting, cost and
management accounting, market research and sales forecasting, order processing,
investment analysis, financial modeling, stock control, production planning and
control, transport planning and control, payroll, and personnel records.
COBOL
is at present the programming language used for almost all data-processing
applications. Data-processing systems are normally long-lived (apart from the
need to redesign/rewrite them periodically, they may well last as long as the
host organization), and they handle data that is large in volume and complex in organization
(which leads to a major concern for the problems and costs of data capture and
storage).
The data-processing function within an organization is that department
responsible for the development and operation of application systems (largely of
the types listed above) on behalf of other parts of the organization. Its tasks
normally include systems analysis and design, program development and
maintenance, database administration, computer operation, data preparation, data
control, and network management. The data-processing department may not,
however, be responsible for all data-processing applications within an
organization (this is a live issue with the current diffusion of microcomputers
and small business systems throughout some companies), and conversely it may
have responsibility for some applications that are not usually thought of as
data processing (e.g. industrial process control).
The term is a rather
unfortunate one since all computing could be regarded as the processing of data
(in at least one of the senses of that word). It is certainly used in contexts
other than the one described above: for instance, scientific data processing
means the fairly straightfoward processing of large quantities of experimental
results, and personal data processing means an individual's use of a
microcomputer to keep personal records. The term has never seriously been used
to refer to any applications other than computer-based ones, but it was
recognized that a lot of clerical and unit-record tasks could be described as
data processing. In order to exclude this possibility, the terms automatic data
processing (ADP) or electronic data processing (EDP) were coined, and can still
occasionally be encountered. The term integrated data processing (IDP) had some
limited use, mainly in the 1960s, as it became clear that much of an organization's data was common to separately developed systems, and the effort was
made to integrate or rationalize them; that effort has mainly been diverted into
the growth of databases and database management systems.
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