In the past couple of decades, the field of information technology has expanded to the point where it’s nearly impossible to come up with an all-encompassing definition. In its most crude form, IT is the use of computer systems to store, process, and disperse information. Considering computers are used in every walk of life now, both personal and professional, you can imagine IT is applicable in most fields that exist today.
This article offers a comprehensive, nuanced discussion of the different types and applications of information technology, as well as its role and importance in various fields. However, the discussion must start with a basic understanding of hardware (physical devices like computers, servers, and network routers) and software (intangible applications that instruct the hardware). Under the umbrellas of each of those fields, you have dozens of technical subsectors like network engineering, cybersecurity, software and application development, database administration, and more.
13-year-olds in the 21st century carry around more computing power in their pockets than what NASA used to put a man on the moon. With each leap, technology becomes cheaper and more accessible. Now that computers have been integrated into every part of our lives, the different fields of technology can become a little confusing. Before we move into the different parts of information technology, we need to understand the difference between IT and computer science.
Information Technology vs. Computer Science
Even though both fields are deeply interlinked and often overlap with each other, they serve distinct purposes and have very different training requirements. You can think of computer scientists as engine designers and IT professionals as car manufacturers. Both cannot exist without each other but require completely different skill sets.
Computer scientists design the technical elements of software applications. They’re responsible for all the logic, math, and coding behind the scenes. In turn, IT uses software designed by computer scientists to solve business problems. It’s a symbiotic relationship that shoulders the entire corporate technology industry, and both need to adapt to each shift in the tide. Of course, you can divide CS and IT into several different branches, but this article will only deal with the latter. The next section will look at the different types of information technology that have emerged in the last 3 decades.
Different types of IT
Internet and Web Technologies
The internet is the backbone of all digital interactions, and companies need constant access to the web to reach their full potential. Professionals in this section of IT develop tools and protocols to safely access, navigate, and engage with the seemingly endless information online. Some of the most recognizable components include:
Web Browsers: You can think of web browsers like the barrel of a gun - it gives direction to the power in the palm of your hand. A browser is an interface that interprets and displays web pages, giving you access to the information and services that exist online.
Websites: Your website is the address internet users will visit to access information online. Usually, they’re collections of web pages linked together in a clickable format that organizes your services.
Web Servers: Essentially, servers are extremely powerful computers used to store information you don’t need at the moment. Web servers store and deliver web pages, websites, and all their content when requested.
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML): You can’t just use English or Mandarin to create software; you need to use programming languages. HTML is the standard markup language we use to create all the content on a website and organize it.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): Software can work perfectly but be too complicated for the average user. You need a visual presentation of data that anyone can consume, and CSS helps us style HTML elements.
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol): Servers and browsers need to be able to communicate seamlessly—that’s where HTTP comes in.
Cloud Computing
Some advancements have such a profound impact on the internet that it completely changes the way we interact with technology. Like the name suggests, cloud computing lets you conduct operations online that you’d previously needed massive physical servers to execute. Cloud computing has empowered IT professionals from all over the world, especially in the MENA region and KSA, to work with leading tech firms across the world. The most significant sectors cloud computing gave rise to are:
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is single-handedly responsible for giving small businesses the platform to compete with massive organizations. It lets you rent computing services on demand without the need for installing in-house IT infrastructure.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) takes IaaS to another level—it gives developers access to any and all resources they need. It’s a flexible, scalable solution that includes servers, development tools, middleware, IT infrastructure, operating systems, and more.
- Software as a Service (SaaS) has made it possible for IT professionals to collaborate across borders and regions. You can develop, maintain, install, and deliver applications for your clients from anywhere in the world.
- Cloud Storage: This is probably the most intuitive and productive use of cloud computing in the world. It gives users the ability to store and remotely manage data from anywhere in the world, from a variety of devices.
The cloud computing industry is exploding in all the tech hubs of the world, especially in KSA and the MENA region. For both these regions, annual spending on public cloud services is forecasted to surpass $2.4 billion in 2024 and to reach $4.7 billion in 2027, according to IDC.
Database
Like we mentioned above, organizing and storing information is one of the most important problems to solve in IT. Databases are collections of images, text, files, numbers, and any other kind of data, stored and organized electronically. Databases can be categorized into two loose groups:
Relational databases are a straightforward way to organize data into rows and columns using a structured query language. It’s a useful tool for comparing two sets of data side by side.
NoSQL databases have a pretty confusing name—the NO in NOSQL stands for not only, so it's a non-relational database. Since it’s non-tabular, it’s much more flexible and scalable, letting developers achieve better results with less effort.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Even if your occupation has nothing to do with technology, you’ve definitely heard of AI and ML. LLMs and chatbots have become commonplace in the 21st century, and our journey towards creating true intelligence seems to be coming to its destination.
AI is a pretty broad, all-encompassing term that refers to anything we create that mimics human intellect. Machine learning is a specific technique that we use to achieve said intelligence: the software stores, organizes, and analyzes large sets of data to recognize patterns of behavior and use that information to make decisions in real time.
Cybersecurity
With the rapid increase in cloud computing, virtual servers, and the sheer amount of information we exchange online, it was imperative for society to create cybersecurity protocols. They protect your assets and sensitive information online from hackers and criminals with:
- Firewalls that filter traffic and block unauthorized access.
- Antivirus software that detects and removes harmful software before it can cause harm.
- Encryption that scrambles information as it travels online and reassembles it in a readable format only when it reaches the target system.
- Intrusion detection systems that monitor network traffic for malicious activity.
Internet of Things (IoT)
Alongside AI and blockchain technology, the IoT has to be the most impressive technological advancement of the last decade. The internet of things is exactly what it sounds like—it's a way for your devices to automatically connect with each other and share information in real time. For example, your thermostat has sensors to detect data and can automatically notify your phone when the temperature goes off your ideal setting or communicate with the air conditioner directly.
These functions may seem a little mundane at the moment, but the IoT is bound to explode in both accessibility and application in the next twenty years. You may have heard about several of the massive urban development projects in KSA—all of them depend heavily on advancements in the IoT. That’s why government spending in the sector is going to reach 2.9 billion by 2030.
Data Analytics and Business Intelligence
Once we had enough computing and storage abilities to have access to sets with millions of data points, we needed to figure out what to do with it. We use analytics and BI to uncover the most valuable insights from our collections and use them to make better business decisions. The four steps in any effective analytics strategy are:
- Data Mining: The first step is gathering and organizing data in sets that make it possible for software to discover patterns and trends.
- Statistical Analysis: Once patterns are recognized, we apply advanced statistical models to give meaning to the crude insights we get from mining.
- Data Visualization: Most people can’t make sense of raw data or statistics, so we need to have tools for creating graphs and other infographics that let humans digest data.
- Predictive Modeling: This is the focal point of all the effort we put into data analytics and business intelligence. We want to forecast trends in the market and get ahead of the curve.
The 4 branches of Information Technology
Classifying IT professionals is relatively simpler than the different types of information technology itself. Most IT occupations can be categorized into one of the four wings listed below.
Development:
If IT were a racing team, the developers would be the drivers; their role is extremely important, but it isn’t the only thing that matters on the track. Businesses need all kinds of software that performs all manner of tasks, and most IT companies will build an in-house development department to build all of their applications and interfaces.
These software programs are coded in a variety of programming languages, and you can find specialists for each one to create applications that can seamlessly interact with others. Developers also create mobile applications, interactive websites, landing pages, e-commerce stores, security protocols, and more.
IT support
Going back to our race car analogy, the IT support staff are the pit crew. They gather information and performance reports on all of your systems to direct troubleshooting efforts and make sure your IT infrastructure is running at optimum capacity. Some of their most common responsibilities include:
- Asset management
- Change management
- Incident response
- Backup and data recovery
- Log analysis
- Procurement
Administration:
Much like the team principals on a Formula 1 track, IT administrators have their hands in every team even if they don’t have a particular specialization. They handle the day-to-day operations of the entire IT environment, including all of your systems, networks, servers, databases, and applications. You can expect an administrator to:
- Keep all systems and software up to date.
- Train new users in enterprise software.
- Ensure all of your software licenses are active.
- Manage procurement
- Establish cybersecurity protocols and physical security for in-house servers.
- Manage data.
Regulatory Compliance
With the exponential increase in online transactions and business processes, it’s only natural for local governments and international organizations to establish certain rules of procedure companies have to follow. Failure to comply can result in heavy fines, business downtime, and shutting down the whole organization, and in extreme cases, people can even go to jail. That’s why companies invest in a dedicated compliance department that keeps the car pointed towards the finish line, not the crowd.
The importance of information technology
Communication
The core purpose of the internet, at the time of its inception, was to make it easier for academics all over the world to communicate with each other. The audience may have expanded, but the seamless flow of information is still the brace upon which the World Wide Web stands. Without IT services and the internet, the ‘global economy’ we know and love simply wouldn’t exist.
Businesses in the modern era use information technology to communicate with clients, partners, fellow businesses, and organizations around the world. The past 5 years have seen an explosion in remote working, staff augmentation, and internationally collaborative teams. All of our video conferencing tools, messaging platforms, and content collaboration tools depend on IT systems.
Computing Power
Capitalism, innovation, curiosity, ambition—whatever it may be, there’s no sign of humans slowing down in their quest for smaller, faster, more powerful computers. Our computing power hasn’t just increased; the tasks we use computers for have also expanded. The need for pervasive computing is why we need to maintain and improve our IT systems. We don’t just need servers and PCs. Nowadays, all of our tablets, phones, laptops, gaming consoles, and even our doorbells depend on pervasive computing.
Productivity
At the end of the day, computers are tools, and the only purpose tools serve is making our jobs easier. Business processes have gotten extremely complex, and it’s either impossible or wasteful to have people take care of them alone. We need AI and computers to automate mundane, repetitive tasks that are too time-consuming for people, and even if they can manage to complete the task, it’s likely full of human error.
Innovation and Creativity
Some people may scoff at the relationship between automatic machines and creativity, but those people are likely taking a narrow view of the role of computers. First of all, writing new software and code is its own brand of art and creativity. IT systems provide opportunities for collaboration with all of these professionals, along with tools that make their jobs easier. In the past, coding was much harder because you had to manually test all your iterations with iterative testing, feedback loops, and problem-solving techniques.
Streamlined operations
Keeping our conversation about productivity in mind, information technology is the base upon which all business operations are run. For instance, your finances are automatically checked for compliance, payroll is augmented with technology, and customer service is made simple with AI-powered chatbots. Not only does this free up employees for more critical tasks, it results in a better user experience.
Education and Training
Thankfully, the internet hasn’t grown beyond its original purpose of education. In fact, educational technology has seen just as much innovation as any field we’ve discussed so far. Information technology has enabled professionals to get certifications from the best institutions in the world online, from their own country. You can access free tutorials online and find all forms of research from all parts of the world. It’s made employee training and upskilling much more efficient.
Uses for Information Technology
From all the information provided above, you probably realize that the uses for information technology are endless. However, we’ve chosen 6 of the most relevant and innovative uses for IT.
Server Upgrade and Modernization
Hackers and malicious actors are constantly looking for new ways to bypass server security, which means businesses need to revamp their security policies all the time. The following are some of the ways you can make sure your servers are secure and operating at optimum capacity.
- Procurement: Not all servers are the same, so you can't acquire ones that are close to your project guidelines or business requirements.
- Configuration and Deployment: One of the core responsibilities of IT teams is to configure servers with the latest software and security measures. You can’t install a weak server into your data center because it could compromise the entire operation.
- Data Backup and Migration: Murphy’s Law is applicable in all aspects of life, but especially so when it comes to servers. You have to assume something or the other will go wrong eventually and have backups for all your data and critical applications. Ideally, this backup is on the cloud or on offsite servers to minimize risk.
- Validation and Testing: If something’s going to go wrong, you don’t want it to be during a client meeting or during a project. A robust testing schedule is a good idea for all software but particularly important for server operations.
- Server Retirement: It’s hard figuring out when it’s time to retire a server. Many regulatory bodies recommend changing servers after 7 years, even if there’s not much wear and tear. You may have to replace them to be compliant, but you can use end-of-life servers for internal operations and testing.
Security
All of the applications and tools businesses use in their security strategy are born from the branches of information technology. We need ways to monitor activity in system applications, restrict access to servers and networks, and make sure all systems are immune to hackers. The bread and butter for any security strategy is a robust notification and alert system. All noncompliant behavior needs to be recorded, and the right people need to be notified so they can investigate each case for the root cause. Over time, you can gather enough information to plug holes and improve your security posture.
Development
There are thousands of IT service providers in each country, and it’s not wrong to assume that most of their products are somewhat interchangeable. Like all businesses, IT providers need to differentiate themselves with new software, applications, and technology. For instance, you may come up with a faster way for users to log into your application or develop a more secure payment portal. Developers should work with your IT team to make sure each iteration of new software can be integrated with current systems and all back-end systems are compliant with company and industry regulations.
Infrastructure availability
High availability is crucial for IT firms. It refers to the degree to which a system, component, or service is accessible and usable when required. It's a critical metric that directly impacts business productivity, customer satisfaction, and overall operational efficiency. When you want to create an application cluster with a good availability score, you call the IT team to make sure single outages won’t affect the overall performance.
User Support
If you’ve never heard of beta testing, it’s when a company creates a limited version of an upcoming application and releases it to a small base of users. Beta testing reveals inefficiencies in the program and helps gauge user satisfaction. All of this information is invaluable for IT teams and developers to improve their end product and reduce expensive callbacks and relaunches.
Digital Organization
Employees nowadays don’t know the pain of chasing down a paper trail for a system developed years ago. It doesn’t just waste time; files and office supplies take up too much space to store and aren’t particularly good for the environment. With information technology, we’ve been able to develop digital filing and inventory management systems. Now, all you need to do is scan, save, and electronically tag all of your documents. Even if there are documents you don’t want to save online, you can organize their locations in a digital database. All you need to do is access the server and find your document with a keyword search.
Professional streams in Information Technology
With so many fields, sections, and types of information technology, there’s a massive demand for IT professionals that have specialized in subsections. While it’s impossible to cover each one, we’ve picked 15 of the most relevant and important roles in information technology you can move into.
Analytics is the new kid on the IT block that everybody wants a piece of. Analysts are some of the best-paid professionals in any industry, and the value they provide can make or break a company. They extract insights from large datasets with a variety of different tools, and use this information to make predictions on the market and influence business strategy. You can specialize in data mining, machine learning, or pattern recognition.
Automation: If you’re okay with people believing you’re after their jobs, automation is the place for you. It’s the single most important tool companies use to improve efficiency and margins, and it’s not the existential threat people think it is. You just use AI, robotic process automation and scripting to automate mundane, repetitive tasks.
Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI is one of the most exciting technological fields today. The industry has made massive strides in the past 5 years, and we’re closer to AGI than we’ve ever been. It’s an industry that won’t be going out of business anytime soon, and chances are the importance of AI to IT will only increase.
Machine Learning: People usually confuse AI with machine learning, and while it’s an understandable mistake, the two are very distinct. In machine learning, there’s no explicit programming. All you are doing is training algorithms on large datasets and improving their prediction ability.
Cloud Computing: Like we mentioned briefly above, cloud computing is the process of moving computing services to the internet. This includes your IT infrastructure, platforms, software, and data. Not only does it improve security and decrease operational costs, but cloud computing is the best way to establish virtual, collaborative work environments.
Communications: Communication is probably the broadest sector in information technology. It empowers development teams to collaborate with international clients over a number of different platforms. Additionally, it manages channels like email, messages, video conferencing, and social media for both internal projects and for external customer interaction.
Cybersecurity: While it may not be as glamorous as data analytics, there’s a much higher demand for competent cybersecurity professionals in the market. Their role is so broad and so important, it’s unlikely they’ll ever go out of business. People will always need firewalls, encryptions, access protocols, and intrusion detection systems.
Robotics: All of the abuse automation gets should actually go to robotics. Jokes aside, robotics is an intersection of IT and engineering that has the power to change or kill entire industries. It’s more of a back-end operation with processes like manufacturing and logistics. Some of the richest countries in the world, like Saudi Arabia, are committed to creating thousands of jobs in data and robotics to cement their position in the global economy.
SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)
Through no fault of their own, most people often overlook SCADA when talking about essential IT operations. The field almost deals with manufacturing, energy, and transportation, so it often goes unnoticed. However, its importance can’t be understated.
SCADA collects and analyzes information from the aforementioned industrial processes in real time. This live data is used to control essential operations from a remote, central location. Typically, SCADA systems consist of:
- Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) that collect data from sensors and control devices in the field.
- Human-Machine Interface (HMI) that allows operators to interact with the SCADA system, monitor processes, and make adjustments.
- Supervisory Control Systems that analyze data, generate alarms, and provide control commands.
- Communication networks for all the components of the SCADA system, allowing for data transfer and control signals
Put together, these systems can minimize downtime and ensure product quality, the two most important considerations in the manufacturing industry. For the energy sector, SCADA manages power grids and monitors energy consumption to reduce waste and prevent outages. All in all, you can use SCADA to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance safety across all the industries it’s relevant in.
The IT sector in KSA
Technology economies in the Middle East have been booming for over a decade now, and local governments plan to step on the gas in the upcoming years. The general perception of massive economies like Saudi Arabia is that a vast majority of the country’s wealth is in the oil industry. While that’s true, the government is diversifying into renewable energy, IT, healthcare, tourism, FinTech, and entertainment.
However, the IAE predicts the world demand for oil will go into terminal decline by 2030, which has given rise to KSA’s Vision 2030 initiative. Admittedly, Vision 2030 is a complete reimagining of several sectors in the Saudi economy, but experts believe their investment into the IT sector will have the largest impact. The 3 most important takeaways for the IT sector in Vision 2030 are:
- To increase KSAs tech vector contribution by 1% to 5% of their GDP by 2030
- Improving the country’s digital infrastructure using a $1 billion investment
- Creating over 15,000 new jobs in artificial intelligence and data
Technology and the IT sector have been snowballing ever since we normalized regular people having high-performing devices in the palm of their hands, and it’s never going to slow down. Computers will get faster, businesses will always look for the next innovation that makes them stand out or makes them more efficient, and IT professionals will continue to be some of the most important employees in a company. Information technology is, and always will be, the lifeblood of the modern, global economy, and we hope the information in this article has empowered you to use this technology to grow your business.
