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Technical glossary
This page presents a list of words concerning computer science or the Internet and also their definition and/or explanation. - Letter A
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| ADSL (Asymetric Digital Subscriber Line) | Technology doping the capacity of the telephone lines to transmit data with a high flow, without losing the capacity and reception of a normal telephone call: the user can be connected permanently to Internet. It is necessary to have an Ethernet card, a specific modem, and especially, not to live too far from a ADSL telephone central. | | ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Administration Network) | Network developed by the American Departement of Defence in the sixties, and considered as the Internet's father. |
- Letter B
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| Backbone | Network having generally a high flow which is used to connect several sub-networks. | | Band Width | Data quantity that a communication channel can convey. The higher the
flow, the faster the data can be transmitted.
Expressed in bps. | | BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) | Protocol intended for the exchanges of routing information between automated systems. | | Bit rate | Amount of bits transmitted during a time interval brought back
to the length of this interval. A binary rate is expressed in bit/s
or multiple of this unit: kbit/s, Mbit/s, Gbit/s.
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- Letter C
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| Cable | Internet Broad band connection technology . Distributed in France
by Noos for exemple.
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- Letter D
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| DHTML (Dynamic Hyper Text Markup Language) | Advanced programming language intended for Internet pages. This language distinguishes itself from HTML by enriched instructions, in particular for graphics and special effects. | | DNS (Domain Name Server) | Computer, which one calls Domain Name Server, whose role is to ensure the correspondence between addresses like www.sitename.extension having an IP address in order to correctly convey the sent messages. | | Domain name | Abbreviations used at the end of an electronic address in order to inform the user about the general contents of the site ex: com: commercial, fr: France, gouv:gouvernement, org:organisation, etc. |
- Letter E
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| Ebone | One of two main Europeans IP networks of continental size (with
Europanet), which provides Internet access to the French universities (via an intermediary, RENATER).
| | Ethernet | Communications protocol made up of cable, cards and software in order to allow computers to communicate on a local area network.
Basic Ethernet allows a flow of 10 Mbit/s, Ethernet 100 allows a flow
of 100 Mbit/s. Ethernet gigabit reaches 1 Gbit/s.
| | Europanet | One of two main Europeans IP networks of continental size. |
- Letter F
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| Firewall | Computer and/or software which has the role of ensuring the safety of a local area network (in a company) connected to Internet. | | FTP | File transfer protocol. Allows the download all types of file between a distant machine and a local machine and vice a versa.
The open public sites are it generally in anonymous mode.
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- Letter G
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| GIX (Global Internet eXchange) | Interconnexion node for operators and ISPs. |
- Letter H
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| Hosting | Reserved Space on a server’s hard disk for storing an Internet site. This space allows, depending on the cases, the
possibility of using particular scripts (cgi) or languages: ASP, PHP
etc.
| | HTML | Common language of the Web's documents. Currently at version 4, HTML varies according to the navigators, which leads to compatibility problems. | | HTTP | Hyper Text Transfer Protocol: Protocol governing the Web. |
- Letter I
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| Internet | World network associating telecommunication resources and both client and server computers, intended for the exchange of electronic messages, multimedia information and files. It functions using a common protocol which allows the gradual routing of messages split up in independent packages. | | IP Address | Identifies the network and the station on a TCP/IP network. The address is normally on four bytes, separated by a point (for example,
87.34.53.12). Each number must lie between 0 and 255. According to the address class (A, B or C), 1, 2 or 3 bytes indicate the network, 3, 2 or 1 byte indicate the node. Thanks to the Hosts file, it is possible to make a correspondence between host names and IP addresses. IP addresses identifying peripherals on a network, must have a unique IP address. The networks connected to public Internet network must obtain an identifier from an network official from the InterNIC center or from one of its competitors (Internet Network
Information Center) so that the uniqueness of the IP network identifiers is guaranteed.
| | IP Multicast | routing system minimizing the number of data flows going from a server towards several clients by multiplying them only when closest
to a recipients stations (the opposite of a broadcast). | | IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) | Current version of the IP protocol which codes the addresses on 32 bits and therefore managing 4 billion IP addresses. | | IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) | New Internet Protocol which will replace IPv4, it codes the addresses on 128 bits and manages the coding of the data using a method called ESP, the whole of Internet should have migrated to IPv6 by 2010. | | ISDN (Internet Service Digital Network) | Technology offering one or two specific lines trough which the voice, the data, the faxes can transit. It offers flows going from 64 to 128
kbit/s and requires a particular modem as well as a subscription invoiced according the duration of the connection at France Telecom. | | ISP (Internet Service Provider) | Internet Service Provider: Company that gives it customers the possibility to connect to a network. |
- Letter J
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| No entry with this letter |
- Letter K
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| No entry with this letter |
- Letter L
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| LAN (Local Aera Network) | Local area network: Network located in a limited zone or a common environment, such as a building or a block of buildings. A local area
network becomes a part of a wide area network when a connection is
established (via distant modems, routers, telephone, satellite lines
or a hertzian connection) with a large system, a public data network
(Internet for example) or another local area network. |
- Letter M
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| MIME (Multi Purpose Internet Mail Extensions) | The most common Encoding system to attach digital files to electronic mails. | | Minitel | Ancestor of the Internet terminals which did not breakthrough worldwide because of its weak band-width, its lack of possible evolutions, its ridiculous graphic Definition, its very high user cost and its official management. France was the first country in the world to have a wide public network. | | Modem | MOdulator - DEModulator (of telephone signals...). Either
internal or external to the computer, the modem is an electronic card specialized in the transformation and the emission/reception of data-processing signals into telephone signals and vice versa. |
- Letter N
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| NAP (Network Access Point) | American equivalent of the GIX. | | Network | A computer network can be local (its size is relatively reduced and it connects, generally through cables, several computers and peripherals inside a company) or widened (wide area network). It allows the transmission of any type of data, exchanged in a digital form and exploitable by the whole network.
To manage a network, one or more computers have to be a server | | NSF (National Science Foundation) | American public organization which took care for a long time (amongst other things) of the maintenance of the American Internet backbone and prepared the emergence of Internet by laying out the first NAPs. | | NTP (Network Time Protocol) | Protocol for a temporal synchronization of the network. |
- Letter O
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| No entry with this letter |
- Letter P
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| Peering | Relation between two service providers who can, through a direct connection with each other, dispatch traffic mutually, save money and have a faster response time. | | PoP (Point of presence) | User Internet Access point. A service provider generally has several POPs thus allowing the communication tariffication to be at local cost. | | POP3 (Post Office Protocol version 3) | E-mail management protocol which allows mail consulting by all email management software. | | Protocol | Rules and defined code for data exchange (for the communication) between two connected machines (by a network, a telephone line, an infra-red connection, etc...) | | PSTN (Public switched telephone network) | It is the telephone network such as we all know it. Switched means
here that the established connection is temporary and only lasts the time of the communication, in opposition to a permanent connection such as cable or the ADSL.
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- Letter Q
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| No entry with this letter |
- Letter R
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| Referencing | Once stored on a hosting server, an Internet site must be referred to the search engines. Referencing consists in contacting these
engines and subjecting the presence and the contents of the site to
them through ' Meta-Tags' markers which contain information relative
to this site.
| | RIPE NCC (Réseau IP Européen Network Organisation Centre) | Founded in 1989, RIPE NCC is a non-profit institution in charge of the management of IP addresses for Europe, the Middle East and some Asian and African countries. It is one of the three worldwide organizations in charge of the management of IP addresses.
www.ripe.net | | Router | Software or hardware tool used to direct data through a network. It often acts as a bridge between several servers so that the users can easily reach all the resources available on the network. The router is also used as an interface between two networks using different protocols. |
- Letter S
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| Server | Consultable computer via another computer using a client software.
The Web servers host Web pages, the mail servers
store the messages, etc.
| | SMTP (Simple Mail Transfert Protocol) | Electronic mails' management protocol. | | Switch | Interconnection element between 2 segments of local area networks of the same topology. Uses the MAC physical addresses. |
- Letter T
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| TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Ineternet protocol ) | Communication protocol used on the Internet (particularly favourable with the networks interconnections) and more and more used for internal company networks (Intranet). |
- Letter U
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| URL (Uniform Ressource Locator) | Address of a HTML document. Each HTML document of a Web site has its own URL address. It indicates on which computer and in which folder the client's software will be able to find it. |
- Letter V
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| VLAN (Virtual LAN) | Logical regrouping (i.e. virtual) of some of the stations located on
the same local area network. |
- Letter W
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| WAN (Wide Aera Network) | Opposite of a LAN. This type of network can be extend to the whole world. | | WWW (World Wide Web) | World Wide network also called Web. It is a grid of computers connected to each other by various ways: telephone, cable, fibre etc... The physical connection is ensured by the multitude of possible routes a bit like a cobweb. The temporary cut of one of the meshes of the net in general does not compromise the functioning of the network. In the same way, only one HTML page is split up into numbered packages which transit all by a different route before being given in the right order once delivered to the user's navigator. |
- Letter X
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| No entry with this letter |
- Letter Y
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| No entry with this letter |
- Letter Z
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| No entry with this letter |
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