HP Vectra VL6 7 Administrator's Manual page 105

Glossary
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.
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.
105 English
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.
CSMA/CD Carrier Sense Multiple
Access with Collision Detection. An
enhancement to CSMA in which a
network station stops transmitting if
it detects a collision on the network
cable.
Demand Priority Protocol A
request-based, deterministic protocol
- a network end node connected to a
100VG hub makes a request (or
"demand") to transmit, and then can
transmit only when authorized by the
hub. Under hub control, the Demand
Priority Protocol guarantees network
access for any end node that requests
to transmit data.
DLL Dynamic Link Library. A library
of shared functions that applications
can link in at runtime rather than at
compile time.
DMI Desktop Management
Interface. The DMI allows
management applications access to
management data defined in MIF files.