Active Directory
A Microsoft technology, part of Active Platform, that enables applications to find, use, and manage directory resources (such as user names, network printers, and permissions) in a distributed computing environment.
Canonicalization
Canonical data follows a rule or set pattern, such as a file path: c:\myfolder\myfile.txt. Canonicalization is the process of converting non canonical data into its canonical form e.g. a relative file path into an absolute file path.
COM
(Component Object Model) Microsoft COM technology in the Microsoft Windows-family of Operating Systems enables software components to communicate. COM is used by developers to create re-usable software components, link components together to build applications, and take advantage of Windows services. The family of COM technologies includes COM+, Distributed COM (DCOM) and ActiveX® Controls.
COM+
COM+ is the name of the COM-based services and technologies first released in Windows 2000. COM+ brought together the technology of COM components and the application host of Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS). COM+ automatically handles difficult programming tasks such as resource pooling, disconnected applications, event publication and subscription and distributed transactions.
CRC
(Cyclic Redundancy Check) A procedure that checks for errors in data transmission by using a complex calculation to generate a number that is based on the transmitted data. The sending device performs the calculation before transmission and includes it in the packet that it sends to the receiving device. After transmission, the receiving device repeats the same calculation. If both devices obtain the same result, the transmission is assumed to be error free.
DCOM
(Distributed Component Object Model) Microsoft's extension of their
Component Object Model (COM) to support objects distributed communication
across a network.
GNU
Acronym for “GNU's Not UNIX, pronounced “guh-noo.”
Loose Coupling
A way of describing systems that can be taken apart or revised without damaging the entire system. If a component is loosely coupled then it doesn’t rely heavily on other components.
MIME
Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extensions. A set of extensions to the Internet Mail standards that supports the inclusion of multi-part and multimedia files, such as sound and video, in e-mail messages.
Multiplexing
A technique used in communications and input/output operations to transmit a number of separate signals simultaneously over a single channel or line. To maintain the integrity of each signal on the channel, multiplexing can separate the signals by time, space, or frequency. The device used to combine the signals is a multiplexer.
MUX
(Multiplexer) A device that funnels several different streams of data over a common communications line. Multiplexers are used to attach many communications lines to a smaller number of communications ports or to attach a large number of communications ports to a smaller number of communications lines.
OLAP
(On Line Analytical Processing) A database technology that has been specially designed to deal with high performance querying and reporting. OLAP data is organised hierarchically and stored in cubes instead of tables.
POP3
Post Office Protocol 3. A protocol that provides a simple, standardized way for users to access mailboxes and download messages to their computers.
RFC
Request For Comments are the working notes of the Internet research and development community. These documents contain protocol and model descriptions, experimental results, and reviews. All Internet standard protocols are written up as RFCs.
RPC
(Remote Procedure Call) Is a protocol that enables distributed system components to communicate with eachother.
SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. The protocol widely implemented on the Internet for exchanging e-mail messages.
SOAP
SOAP is a lightware protocol for exchanging messages between application components. SOAP is one of the main enabling protocols for Web Services. It is based on XML running mainly on top of HTTP.
UDDI
(Universal Description, Discovery and Integration protocol) A directory model for web services.
URI
(Uniform Resource Identifier) The address of an Internet resource. A URI is the unique name used to access the resource. It is not necessarily a specific file location (it may be a call to an application or a database, for example), which is why it is preferred over the similar acronym URL (Uniform Resource Locator).
XML
(eXtensible Markup Language) The universal format for structured documents and data on the Web. XML is an industry-standard protocol administered by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). XML is a key enabling technology for Microsoft .NET