HP P Class 733/800/866MHz / 1GHz Administrator's Manual page 109

Glossary
broadband A network that
transmits signals as variations of
carrier waves rather than directly as
pulses. Broadband networks provide
greater network bandwidth capacity,
but are also more complex.
broadcast To send a message to all
workstations connected on the
network.
buffer A temporary storage space.
Data may be stored in a buffer before,
during, or after a data transmission.
Buffers are often used to compensate
for the difference between the speed
of data packet transmission and the
speed of data packet processing.
bus An electrical connection over
which information is transported.
bus topology A network topology in
which all devices are connected to a
central cable called the bus or
backbone. Bus networks are relatively
inexpensive and easy to install.
Ethernet, a very popular LAN, uses a
bus topology.
byte A group of eight consecutive
bits that are treated as one unit.
channel A path between a sender
and receiver that carries one stream
of information. A two-way path is
called a circuit.
client A client PC is any PC
connected to a network that does not
act as a server.
109 English
Client/Server Architecture A
networking architecture in which
each computer or process on the
network is either a client or server. A
server is a powerful computer or
process dedicated to managing disk
drives (file server), printers (printer
server), or network traffic (network
server). Clients are normally less
powerful PCs or workstations on
which users run applications and
issue requests to servers for
resources.
coax cable A type of network
medium. Coaxial cable contains a
copper inner conductor surrounded
by plastic insulation and then a woven
copper or foil shield. It is commonly
used in cable television and Ethernet
networks.
CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check. A
CRC is calculated by the Media
Access Control (MAC) transmit
process and checked by the MAC
receive process of a workstation to
ensure integrity of the frame
contents.
CSMA Carrier Sense Multiple
Access. CSMA is a medium-sharing
scheme in which network
workstations listen on the network
medium and transmit only if the cable
is not in use. CSMA is often combined
with a collision detection scheme for
more efficient data transmission.