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Glossary
ASCII
Short for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A standard that encodes 128 common
English characters by using 7 of the 8 bits in a byte. It also describes the file format of text files
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API
Short for Application Programming Interface. The set of functions that are provided by the operating
system as a service to programmers. Using an API is easier than having to develop the capability from
scratch and helps to ensure some consistency across all programs that run on a given operating system.
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DNS
Short for Domain Name System (or Service), an Internet service that translates domain names into
IP address and vice versa. Because domain names are alphabetic, they're easier to remember. The
Internet however, is really based on IP addresses. Every time you use a domain name, therefore, a DNS
service must translate the name into the corresponding IP address. For example, the domain name in the
URL
www.example.com might translate to the IP Number 198.105.232.4.
The DNS system is, in fact, its own network. If one DNS server doesn't know how to translate a
particular domain name, it asks another one, and so on, until the correct IP address is returned.
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Domain Name
A fully qualified domain name, or FQDN, is a unique address that identifies a computer that is
connected to the internet. Often the computer is a server which holds a web site. An example of a FQDN
is:
serverworld.co.uk
This address contains a top level domain (TLD) name, which is the suffix on the right, the "co.uk".
Others are "com", "gov" and "edu". The internet is divided into several domains with the purpose of
helping in the accurate delivery of information throughout the internet.
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Email Servers
An email server is a server dedicated for email and allows for large companies to run there email
systems, having many email addresses and being able to store large numbers of messages.
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Hosting
To provide the infrastructure for a collection of web servers. Server World is a hosting company which
means that we provide the hardware, software and communications lines required by the servers we house.
The content on the servers is controlled by the customer.
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HTML
Short for HyperText Markup Language, the authoring language used to create documents on the World Wide
Web.
HTML defines the structure and layout of a Web document by using a variety of tags and attributes. The
correct structure for an HTML document starts with <HTML><HEAD>(enter here what document is
about)</HEAD><BODY> and ends with </BODY></HTML>. All the information you'd
like to include in your Web page fits in between the <BODY> and </BODY> tags. There are
hundreds of other tags used to format and layout the information in a Web page. For instance, <P>
is used to make paragraphs and <I> . </I>is used to italicize fonts.
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IP Number
An Internet Protocol (IP) Number - an identifier address for the destination computer on a
TCP/IP
network (e.g. the Internet).
The format of an IP address is a 32-bit numeric address written as four numbers separated by periods.
Each number can be between zero and 255. For example, 1.160.10.240 could be an IP address. Humans like
to work with words rather than numbers so a Domain Name System (DNS) held on a DNS server is used to
convert IP numbers to domain names.
The InterNIC Registration Service assigns Internet addresses but the number of unassigned (free)
Internet addresses is running out!
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ISP
Short for Internet Service Provider, a company that provides access to the Internet. For a monthly fee,
the service provider gives you a username, password and access phone number. Equipped with a modem, you
can then log on to the Internet and browse the World Wide Web and send and receive email.
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)
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Load Balancing
Distributing processing and communications activity evenly across a computer network so that no single
device is overwhelmed. Load balancing is especially important for networks where it's difficult to predict
the number of requests that will be issued to a server
.
Busy Web sites typically employ two or more Web servers in a load balancing scheme. If one server
starts to get swamped, requests are forwarded to another server with more capacity. Load balancing can
also refer to the communications channels themselves.
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Ping
Short for Packet Internet Groper, a utility to determine whether a specific
IP address
is accessible. It works by sending a packet to the specified address and waiting for a reply. PING is
used primarily to troubleshoot Internet connections.
To ping the this web site type:
ping www.serverworld.co.uk
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Remote Access
The ability to log onto a network from a distant location. Generally, this implies a computer, a modem,
and some remote access software to connect to the network. The remote access software dials directly
into the network server. The only difference between a remote host and workstations connected directly
to the network is slower data transfer speeds.
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Server
A computer that provides a specific kind of service to clients that are running software on other
computers. For example, when you, the client, request a web page when using a web browser the request
is passed on to the correct server on the web holding that page and the server "serves" or passes the
web page back to the remote computer.
Servers can be dedicated to particular tasks - it can be a web server serving web pages or an email
server handling email. Alternatively, single server machine could have several different server
software packages running on it, thus providing many different services to clients on the network.
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Structured Query Language (SQL)
A programming language used to access data in databases. In a database, information is organised in
rows known as records. Using SQL records can be extracted from the database and the information
examined. Records can be added, edited or deleted.
For example the query:
"SELECT * FROM Employees WHERE Age > 50"
would extract all the data from records in the Employees table where age was greater than 50.
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SQL Server
In general, SQL Server is any database management system that can respond to requests made from client
machines in structured query language
(SQL).
Microsoft produce a database management package called SQL Server. For large databases that may be accessed
over the internet by hundreds of users concurrently, SQL Server would be recommended. The current versions
of SQL Server have support for accessing data using XML
.
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Streaming
A technique for transferring data so that it can be processed as a steady and continuous stream.
Streaming technologies are becoming increasingly important with the growth the use of multimedia files
on the Internet. With streaming, the clients browser or plug-in can start displaying the data before
the entire file has been transmitted.
For streaming to work, the client receiving the data must be able to collect the data and send it as a
steady stream to the application that is processing the data and converting it to sound or pictures. If
the client receives the data more quickly than required, it needs to save the excess data in a buffer.
If the data doesn't come quickly enough, however, the presentation of the data will not be smooth.
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TCP/IP
TCP - Transmission Control Protocol - A system for breaking data into packets which can be sent over
the internet by the Internet Protocol (IP).
IP - Internet Protocol - A system which governs how data packets are sent over the Internet.
IP determines the destination of the packet, whereas TCP ensures that all the packets are delivered.
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UPS
Abbreviation of uninterruptible power supply, a power supply that includes a battery to maintain power
in the event of a power outage.
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URL
Abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator, the global address of documents and other resources on the
World Wide Web.
The first part of the address indicates what protocol to use (e.g. the "http"), and the second part
specifies the IP address or the domain name (e.g. "serverworld.co.uk") where the resource is located.
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XML
Short for Extensible Markup Language. XML is designed especially for producing web documents. It allows
designers to create their own customized tags, in the same way as you have
HTML
tags, enabling the definition, transmission, validation, and interpretation of data between
applications and between organizations.
Whether XML eventually supplants HTML as the standard web formatting specification depends a lot on
whether it is supported by future web browsers.
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