Messenger Madness - Instant Messaging for Everyone
3GPP:
3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a GSM-based consortium
advocating standardization for mobile communications, who
published Release Five of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications
System (UMTS) standard mandating the use of IPv6 by wireless
vendors.
Always-on
applications: Applications that are always able to
accept a connection from a host on the Internet. Such
applications need to be running on a host that has a unique,
globally accessible IP address. An increase in the number of
always-on application would require a concomitant increase in IP
address space.
APNIC:
Abbreviation for the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, one
of four nonprofit organizations that register and administer IP
addresses. APNIC serves the Asia Pacific region,
which consists of 62 economies.
Application
layer: The top layer of the OSI
seven-layer model. This layer handles issues like network
transparency, resource allocation, and problem
partitioning. The application layer is concerned with the
user's view of the network (e.g., formatting electronic
mail messages).
ARIN:
Acronym for the American Registry for Internet Numbers. ARIN,
founded in 1997, is a nonprofit organization that registers and
administers IP
numbers for North America, a portion of the Caribbean
and sub-Saharan Africa. ARIN is one of four regional
Internet registries.
B2B
solutions: Short for business-to-business, the exchange
of services, information, and/or products from one business to
another, as opposed to between a business and a consumer (B2C).
Backbone
ISP: A large ISP that manages Internet traffic on a
national or regional scale, using extremely large routers and
other hardware and software network components.
Billing
system: System that tracks
customer usage of services, and calculates the impact on a
customer's account, based on the price of the services.
Billing systems have come to include noncore functionality such as
customer management, integration with payment gateways, and
statistical analysis.
Bit:
Short for binary digit, the smallest unit of information on a
machine. A single bit can hold only one of two values:
0 or 1. More meaningful information is obtained by
combining consecutive bits
into larger units. For example, a byte
is composed of 8 consecutive bits.
Bootstrap
Protocol: Allows a diskless client machine to discover
its own IP address, the address of a
server host, and the name of a file to be loaded into memory and
executed.
Byte:
Binary
term, a unit of storage
capable of holding a single character.
On almost all modern computers,
a byte is equal to 8 bits.
Large amounts of memory
are indicated in terms of kilobytes
(1,024 bytes),
megabytes
(1,048,576 bytes), and gigabytes
(1,073,741,824 bytes).
Conformance
test: A test performed by an independent body to
determine if a particular piece of equipment satisfies the
criteria in a specified controlling document, such as a Federal
standard, an American National Standard, a Military Standard, or a
Military Specification.
Data
link layer: Layer two, the second lowest layer in the OSI
seven-layer model—it splits data into frames
for sending on the physical
layer and receives acknowledgement frames. It
performs error checking and retransmits frames not received
correctly. It provides an error-free virtual channel to the network
layer. The data link layer is split into an upper
sublayer, Logical
Link Control (LLC), and a lower sublayer, Media
Access Control (MAC).
Diffserv:
Is an architecture for providing different types or levels of
service for network traffic. One key characteristic of
diffserv is that flows are aggregated in the network, so that core
routers only need to distinguish a comparably small number of
aggregated flows, even if those flows contain thousands or
millions of individual flows.
DNS:
Short for Domain Name System (or Service), an
Internet directory service that translates alphabetic domain names
into numeric IP addresses. Because domain names are
alphabetic, they're easier to remember. The Internet
however, is really based on numeric IP addresses. Every time
you use a domain name in an e-mail address or Web address, the
name must be translated into a corresponding IP address. For
example, the domain name www.cisco.com might translate to 198.105.232.4.
DNS servers hold the directories that translate a name to an IP
address.
The
DNS system is, in fact, its own hierarchical network. If one
DNS server doesn't know how to translate a particular domain name,
it asks, or refers the requestor, to another one, and so on, until
the correct IP address is resolved.
Domain
Name: A name that generally identifies an organization
on the Internet (e.g., Cisco.com). Multiple host URLs
can be specified in each domain (e.g., www.support.cisco.com,
www.sales.cisco.com, etc.). Each name (or URL)
corresponds to a numeric IP address which may be retrieved
(resolved) by contacting the appropriate Domain Name Server.
DSL:
Refers collectively to all types of digital subscriber lines; the
two main categories are ADSL
and SDSL.
Two other types of xDSL technologies are high-data-rate DSL (HDSL)
and very high DSL (VDSL). DSL technologies use sophisticated
modulation schemes to pack data onto copper wires.
Dual
stack: A network node running both IPv4 and IPv6
protocol stacks (or possibly others) at the same time. Such
a machine can act as a protocol converter between the two
networks.
Dynamic
Host Configuration Protocol: A protocol
for assigning dynamic
IP
addresses to devices on a network.
With dynamic addressing, a device can have a different IP address
every time it connects to the network. In some systems, the
device's IP address can even change while it is still connected.
DHCP also supports a mix of static and dynamic IP addresses.
Dynamic addressing simplifies network administration because the
software keeps track of IP addresses rather than requiring an
administrator to manage the task. This means that a new
computer can be added to a network without the hassle of manually
assigning it a unique IP address. Many ISPs
use dynamic IP addressing for dial-up
users.
End-to-end
applications (E2E): applications which communicate on
the Internet in such a way that each application can originate a
direct connection to the other.
Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) software: A business management
system that integrates all facets of the business, including
planning, manufacturing, sales, and marketing. As the ERP
methodology has become more popular, software
applications have emerged to help business managers
implement ERP in business activities such as inventory control,
order tracking, customer service, finance, and human resources.
Firewalls:
A system designed to prevent unauthorized access
to or from a private network.
Firewalls can be implemented in both hardware
and software,
or a combination of both. Firewalls are frequently used to
prevent unauthorized Internet
users from accessing private networks connected to the Internet,
especially intranets.
All messages entering or leaving the intranet pass through the
firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not
meet the specified security
criteria.
Global
Information Grid (GIG): Globally interconnected,
end-to-end set of information capabilities, associated processes,
and personnel for collecting, processing, storing, disseminating,
and managing information on demand to warfighters, policy makers,
and support personnel.
GSM:
Short for Global System for Mobile Communications, one of the
leading digital cellular
standards. GSM uses narrowband TDMA,
which allows eight simultaneous calls on the same radio frequency.
GSM was first introduced in 1991. As of the end of 1997, GSM
service was available in more than 100 countries and has become
the de facto standard in Europe and Asia.
Header:
The header is the part of a packet containing administrative
information (such as destination address or encryption type). The
header is used by the network and/or host in delivering and
presenting the payload information to the recipient application.
Host:
(1) A computer that is connected to a TCP/IP network, including
the Internet.
Each host has a unique IP
address. The system
that contains the data
is typically called the host, while the computer
at which the user sits is called the remote terminal;
(2) A computer
system that is accessed by a user
working at a remote
location.
IETF:
Internet Engineering Task Force, the main standards
organization for the Internet.
The IETF is a large open international community of network
designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the
evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of
the Internet. It is open to any interested individual.
Instant
messenger: Allows users to send and receive short
messages instantly.
Interoperability:
The ability of software and hardware on different machines from
different vendors to share data.
Internet2:
a consortium being led by 206 universities working in partnership
with industry and government to develop and deploy advanced
network applications and technologies, accelerating the creation
of tomorrow's Internet. Internet2 is recreating the
partnership among academia, industry, and government that fostered
today´s Internet in its infancy.
Internet
Control Message Protocol (ICMP): An extension to the Internet
Protocol (IP) that allows for the generation of error
messages, test packets, and informational messages related to IP.
It is defined in STD 5, RFC
792.
Internet
Protocol (IP): IP specifies the format of packets,
also called datagrams, and the addressing scheme. Most networks
combine IP with a higher-level protocol
called Transmission
Control Protocol (TCP), which establishes a virtual
connection between a destination and a source. IP by itself
is something like the postal system. It allows users to
address a package and drop it in the system, but there is no
direct link between the user and the recipient. TCP/IP, on
the other hand, establishes a connection between two hosts
so that they can send messages back and forth for a period of
time.
Internet
service provider (ISP): A company that provides access
to the Internet.
For a monthly fee, the service provider gives users a software
package, username,
password,
and access phone number. Equipped with a modem,
users can then log
on to the Internet and browse
the World
Wide Web and USENET
and send and receive e-mail.
In addition to serving individuals, ISPs also serve large
companies, providing a direct connection from the company’s
networks to the Internet. ISPs themselves are connected to
one another through Network
Access Points (NAPs). ISPs are also called IAPs
(Internet Access Providers).
IP
stack: A particular software
implementation of a computer networking protocol suite.
Strictly speaking, the suite is the definition of the protocols
and the stack is the software implementation of them.
IPv4:
Internet protocol version 4. IPv4 is the current IP version used
on the Internet.
IPv6:
Internet protocol version 6. IPv6 is the latest iteration of
IP for the Internet.
Moonv6:
A collaborative effort between the North American IPv6 Task Force
(NAv6TF), the University of New Hampshire-InterOperability
Laboratory (UNH-IOL), the Joint Interoperability Testing Command (JITC)
and various other DoD agencies, and Internet2. Taking place
across the
United States
at multiple locations, the Moonv6 project represents the most
aggressive collaborative IPv6 interoperability and application
demonstration event in the North American market to date.
Network
layer: The third lowest layer in the OSI
seven-layer model, the network layer determines routing of packets
of data from sender to receiver via the data
link layer and is used by the transport
layer. The most common network layer protocol
is IP.
Node:
In networks,
a processing location, so a node can be a computer
or some other device,
such as a printer.
Every node has a unique network address, sometimes called a Data
Link Control (DLC) address or Media
Access Control (MAC) address.
North
American IPv6 Task Force (NAV6TF): A subchapter of the
IPv6 Forum dedicated to advancing and propagating IPv6
(Internet Protocol, version 6) in the North American
continent. Comprising individual, rather than corporate,
membership, the NAv6TF mission is to provide technical leadership
and innovative thought for the successful integration of IPv6 into
all facets of networking and telecommunications infrastructure,
present and future.
OSI
or OSI
seven-layer model: A model of network architecture and a
suite of protocols (a protocol stack) to implement it, developed
by ISO in 1978 as a framework for international standards in
heterogeneous computer network architecture. The OSI
architecture is split between seven layers, from lowest to
highest: 1 physical layer, 2 data link layer, 3 network layer, 4
transport layer, 5 session layer, 6 presentation layer, 7
application layer. Each layer uses the layer immediately
below it and provides a service to the layer above. In some
implementations a layer may itself be composed of sublayers.
OSPF
(Open Shortest Path First): An interior gateway routing
protocol developed for IP networks based on the shortest path
first or link-state algorithm.
Packet:
A piece of a message transmitted over a packet-switching network.
One of the key features of a packet is that it contains the
destination address in addition to the data. In IP
networks, packets are often called datagrams and are comprised of
an “administrative” header and a payload
Physical
layer: Layer one, the lowest layer, in the OSI
seven-layer model, concerning electrical and mechanical
connections to the network. The physical layer is used by
the data link layer. Example physical layer protocols are
CSMA/CD, token ring, and bus.
Protocol:
An agreed-upon format
for transmitting data
between two devices.
The protocol determines the type of error checking to be used; data
compression method, if any; how the sending device will
indicate that it has finished sending a message; and how the
receiving device will indicate that it has received a message.
There are a variety of standard protocols from which programmers
can choose. Each has particular advantages and
disadvantages; for example, some are simpler than others, some are
more reliable, and some are faster.
Proxy:
A device that acts on behalf of another device by taking on its
identity to interact with the outside world.
RIPE
NCC: Short for the Réseaux IP Européens Network
Coordination Centre, RIPE NCC is one of four regional Internet
registries that supply and administer IP
addresses. Founded in 1989, RIPE NCC is a
nonprofit organization. RIPE NCC provides IP numbers to
Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Africa and Asia.
Router:
A device
that forwards data packets
along networks,
a router is connected to at least two networks, commonly two LANs
or WANs
or a LAN and its ISP’s
network. Routers are located at gateways,
the places where two or more networks connect. Routers use headers
and forwarding tables to determine the best path for forwarding
the packets, and they use protocols
such as ICMP
to communicate with each other and configure the best route
between any two hosts.
Segment:
In networks, a section of a network
that is bounded by bridges,
routers,
or switches.
Dividing an Ethernet
into multiple segments is one of the most common ways of
increasing available bandwidth on the LAN. Most network
traffic will remain within a single segment, enjoying the full 10
Mbps bandwidth. Hubs and switches are used to connect each
segment to the rest of the LAN.
Server:
A computer
or device
on a network
that manages network resources.
For example, a file server is a computer and storage
device dedicated
to storing
files.
Any user
on the network can store files on the server. A print server
is a computer that manages one or more printers.
A database
server is a computer
system that processes database queries.
Servers are often dedicated, meaning that they perform no other
tasks besides their specific server tasks. On multiprocessing
operating
systems, however, a single computer can execute
several programs
at once. A server in this case could refer to the program
that is managing resources rather than the entire computer.
Translation:
the process of translating one protocol to another such that users
of either protocol can communicate in their native mode.
Limitations arise when one protocol has elements which can not be
translated into the other protocol.
Transport
layer (Or "host-host layer"): The middle layer
in the OSI
seven-layer model. The transport layer uses the network
layer to establish a conversation between two hosts. An
example is the transmission control protocol (TCP), which provides
a virtually error-free point-to-point connection that allows
messages to arrive uncorrupted and in the correct order.
Tunneling:
A technology that enables one network
to send its data via another network’s connections.
Tunneling works by encapsulating a network protocol
within packets
carried by the second network. For example, Microsoft’s PPTP
technology enables organizations to use the Internet
to transmit data across a VPN.
It does this by embedding its own network protocol within the TCP/IP
packets carried by the Internet. Tunneling is also called
encapsulation.
UMTS:
Short for Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, a 3G
mobile technology that will deliver broadband
information at speeds up to 2Mbps.
Besides voice and data,
UMTS will deliver audio and video to wireless devices anywhere in
the world through fixed, wireless, and satellite systems.
VoIP:
Voice over IP. Using an IP network to carry voice data.
WAPI:
China’s Wi-Fi GB 15629.11-2003 encryption standard, which
differs from the existing IEEE 802.11 global standard.
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