Acronyms

A

• AD - Active Directory
• ALUA - Asymmetric Logical Unit Access, SAN feature whereby connected hosts can determine the states of target ports and prioritise paths to use to access LUN's
• AP - Asia Pacific
• API - Application Programming Interface, used to allow a 3rd party access to an application via software/script
• ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange, character encoding system
• ASLR - Address Space Layout Randomisation, security feature that randomises data layout in memory
• ASR - Automated System Recovery, HP feature to reboot hardware in the case of the OS failing
• ATA - AT Attachment (disks), also known IDE or EIDE

B

• BCS - British Computer Society
• BGP - Border Gateway Protocol, a routing protocol
• BSOD - Blue Screen of Death, as seen on Windows servers

C

• CIFS - Common Internet File System
• CMDB - Configuration Management Database
• CRAC - Computer Room Air-Conditioning

D

• DCE - Data Communications Equipment, eg modem
• DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
• DNS - Domain Name System
• DTE - Data Termination Equipment, eg router

E

• EIDE - Enhanced IDE (drive), approximately equivalent of ATA-2
• EMEA - Europe, Middle-East, Asia

F

• FATA - Fibre-Channel ATA disks, slower disks with FC interface
• FC - Fibre-Channel, normally used to connect servers with remote storage
• FQDN - Fully Qualified Domain Name, eg vwiki.sandfordit.com as opposed to vwiki
• FTP - File Transfer Protocol, uses TCP 20 and 21
• FTPS - Secure version of FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS using TCP 989 and 990 (not to be confused with SFTP

G

• GPO - Group Policy Object
• GUI - Graphical User Interface

H

• HBA - Host Bus Adapter, server interface used to connect to SAN based storage
• HTTP - HyperText Transport Protocol, the bread and butter of the internet
• HTTPS - Secure HTTP, HTTP over SSL or TLS. Used for secure websites, and for delivering API and SOAP services

I

• IDE - Integrated Drive Electronics, aka ATA version 1
• IMAP - Internet Message Access Protocol, mailbox access protocol
• IP - Internet Protocol
• IPMI - Intelligent Platform Management Interface, open standard for managing hardware platforms
• iSCSI - IP Small Computer Serial Interface, SCSI over IP
• ISEB - Information Systems Examinations Board
• ITIL - IT Infrastructure Library

J

• JBOD - Just a Bunch of Disks

K

L

• LAN - Local Area Network
• LDAP - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
• LDS - Lightweight Directory Services

M

• MAN - Metropolitan Area Network, somewhere between a LAN and a WAN, for example connecting buildings within a localised area
• MPLS - Multi Protocol Label Switch(ing)
• MSCS - Microsoft Clustering Services

N

• NAS - Network Attached Storage, storage that's available via a network
• NTP - Network Time Protocol, reliable time sync protocol, uses UDP 123

O

• OSPF - Open Shortest Path First, dynamic routing protocol
• OVA - Open Virtualisation Appliance, single file TAR of an OVF
• OVF - Open Virtualisation Format, industry standard virtual appliance definition, made up of various files within a folder

P

• PATA - Parallel ATA (disks, newer name for ATA disks)
• PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions, a widely used Regex system
• PID - Process ID, number assigned by the OS to a running process
• POSIX - Portable Operating System Interface, cross OS standards for API's, etc
• PSOD - Purple Screen of Death, as seen on ESX servers
• PVLAN - Private VLAN, VLANs over VLANs

Q

R

• RDP - Remote Desktop Protocol
• RIP - Route Information Protocol, old school routing protocol
• RSS - Really Simple Syndication, news feed protocol

S

• SAN - Storage Area Network, architecture for connecting systems to centralised storage
• SAS - Serial Attached SCSI (disk)
• SATA - Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (disk)
• SCOM - System Centre Operations Manager, Microsoft monitoring and operations product
• SCP - SSH Copy, provided by SSH v1 (has weaknesses and is outdated, SFTP provided by SSH v2 is current))
• SCSI - Small Computer Serial Interface
• SFTP - SSH File Transfer Protocol, secure copy provided by SSH v2 (not to be confused with FTPS)
• SMB - Server Message Block (aka CIFS), typically used to access shared file-systems and printers
• SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, email message delivery protocol, uses TCP 25
• SNMP - Simple Network Management Protocol, used to monitor and manage network based devices by either polling of the device, or by the device generating traps (alerts)
• SNTP - Simple Network Time Protocol, lightweight version of NTP that doesn't include error checking etc
• SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol, used to deliver remote services, usually over HTTP or HTTPS
• SPD - Serial Presence Detect, counter of errors experienced by a RAM memory stick, recorded on the stick
• SQL - Structure Query Language
• SSH - Secure Shell, used to access network devices securely over TCP 22

T

• TAR - Tape Archive, a collection of files bundled together into a container file (historically used for backups)
• TCP - Transmission Control Protocol, networking transport of the internet
• TFTP - Trivial FTP, lightweight FTP using UDP 69
• TLS - Transport Layer Security, successor to SSL

U

• UPS - Uninterruptable Power Supply
• UUID - Universally Unique ID

V

• VCP - VMware Certified Professional, title for certification on VMware Virtual Infrastructure / vSphere
• VI3 - VMware Infrastructure 3, the name given to an infrastructure running ESX3(i) host servers managed by Virtual Centre v2
• VI4 - VMware Infrastructure 4, officially called vSphere, the name sometimes given to an infrastructure running ESX4(i) host servers managed by vCentre v4
• VIC - (VMware) Virtual Infrastructure Client
• VIM - Virtual Infrastructure Manager, old name for VMware vCentre
• VLAN - Virtual LAN, allows different networks to be carried across the same Ethernet, differentiated by 802.1Q tags
• VMDK - Virtual Machine Disk file, a VMware virtual machine's virtual hard drive file
• VMFS - Virtual Machine File System, VMware's storage format for virtual machines to run on
• VNC - Virtual Network Computer, superior remote desktop application
• VPN - Virtual Private Network
• VRF - Virtual Routing and Forwarding, used to provide selective/conditional routing
• VSS - Volume Shadow Service, Microsoft OS service that creates quiesced disks (aka snapshots)

W

• WAN - Wide Area Network

X

Y

Z

• ZCA - Appliance version of a ZCS
• ZCS - Zimbra Collaboration Suite