Networking Week 4

Front 1

Adapter slot

Back 1

The sockets built into a PC motherboard that are designed to accommodate add-on cards, such as NICs.

Front 2

Automatic link aggregation

Back 2

A feature of some NICs that adds the bandwidth of two installed NICs together, resulting in a higher aggregate bandwidth.

Front 3

Autonegotiation

Back 3

The process by which a NIC driver auto selects an operating mode (speed and duplex mode). To make this selection, the NIC driver negotiates the optimal connection type with the device the NIC is connected to

Front 4

Boot PROM, PXE compliant

Back 4

A special programmable chip that includes enough software to permit a computer to boot sufficiently and access the network. (To be a thin client) From there, it can download an OS to finish the boot process.

Front 5

boot up, booting

Back 5

The process a computer goes through when starting

Front 6

buffer

Back 6

A temporary storage area that a device uses to contain incoming data before it can be processed for input or to contain outgoing data before it can be sent as output.

Front 7

bus mastering

Back 7

The capability of an adapter card's circuitry to take possession of a computer's bus and coordinate data transfers without requiring any service from the computer's CPU

Front 8

bus width

Back 8

The number of parallel lines that make up a type of bus. For ex: ISA supports 8- and 16-bit bus widths, and PCI supports 32- and 64- bit bus widths.

Front 9

Cardbus

Back 9

A credit card size expansion card used primarily to add functionality to laptop computers. Provides data transfer rates up to 132 MBps.

Front 10

computer bus

Back 10

A specialized collection of parallel lines in a PC used to transfer data between the CPU and peripheral devices and occasionally from one peripheral device to another

Front 11

Device driver

Back 11

Software program that mediates communication between an OS and a device for the purpose of sending and receiving input and output from that device. Are OS dependent. Need to be kept up to date too.

Front 12

Diagnostic software

Back 12

Specialized progs that can probe and monitor a system (or system component) to determine whether it works and, if not, try to establish the cause of the problem.

Front 13

Direct memory access (DMA)

Back 13

A technique for addressing memory on some other device as though it were local memory directly available to the device accessing that memory. This technique lets a CPU gain immediate access to the buffers on any NIC that supports DMA

Front 14

Diskless workstations

Back 14

Thin clients. Network computers that require a special type of ROM because they have no built in disk-drives.

Front 15

ExpressCard

Back 15

A credit card size expansion card used primarily to add functionality to laptop computers. Provides data transfer rates up to 500 MBps.

Front 16

Fault tolerance

Back 16

A feature that allows a system to continue working after an unexpected hardware or software failure through various techniques

Front 17

FireWire, IEEE 1394

Back 17

A high-speed external serial bus that supports bandwidths up to 400 Mbps and can connect up to 63 devices; used for streaming video and media, networking, and attaching video devices to computers

Front 18

Hexadecimal

Back 18

A mathematical notation for representing numbers in base 16.

Front 19

Industry Standard Architecture (ISA)

Back 19

Originally an 8-bit PC bus architecture, but upgraded to 16-bit after the intro of the IBM PC/AT in 1984

Front 20

Interrupt Request Line (IRQ)

Back 20

Any of 16 unique signal lines between the CPU and bus slots on a PC. Define the mechanism whereby a peripheral device of any kind, including NICs, can stake a claim on a PC's attention (called, thus, an "interrupt")

Front 21

Keycode

Back 21

A string of chars that a user must supply to wireless NIC software so that the comp can decrypt communications on a wireless LAN, therefore allowing the client to access the LAN

Front 22

Knowledge base

Back 22

A searchable online database containing problems and errors, along with their solutions, related to a makers product

Front 23

Media Access Control (MAC) Address, Hardware address, physical address, LAN address, Ethernet address

Back 23

The # identifying the physical address of a network computer. This address is burned onto the computer's NIC in the form of data programmed on to the NIC's ROM

Front 24

Network Device Interface Specification (NDIS)

Back 24

A driver standard for providing an interface between a NIC and the network medium; this standard enables a NIC to use multiple protocols

Front 25

Network Interface Card (NIC)

Back 25

The hardware device that mediates communication between a computer and the networking medium. Is translator and gatekeeper as well.

Front 26

on-board co-processor

Back 26

A special or general purpose microprocessor on an adapter card, usually for offloading data from a computer's CPU. Typically NICs with on-board co-processors use the special-purpose variety

Front 27

on-board NIC

Back 27

The electronics that make up a network interface integrated directly onto a computer motherboard

Front 28

Open Data-Link Interface (ODI)

Back 28

A specification developed by Apple Computer and Novell that simplifies driver development and enales a single NIC to use multiple protocols

Front 29

Parallel transmission

Back 29

The technique of spreading bits of data across multiple parallel data lines to transmit them at once, instead of according to an ordinal and temporal sequence

Front 30

PCI Express

Back 30

A high speed bus standard that relies on serial communications arranged in lanes to provide communications up to 8 GBps.

Front 31

PCI-X

Back 31

A high speed bus standard that relies on serial communication arranged in lanes to provide communications up to 8 GBps

Front 32

PCMCIA cards

Back 32

Credit card sized expansion cards used primarily to add functionality to labtop computers. Includes CardBus and ExpressCard

Front 33

Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)

Back 33

The 32 and 64 bit PC bus architecture that currently prevails as the best and fastest of all available bus types, operating at 33 and 66 MHz

Front 34

Plug and Play (PnP)

Back 34

Microsoft requirements for PC motherboards, buses, adapter cards, and OSs that enable a PC to detect and configure hardware on a system auto. To work, all system components must conform to specs.

Front 35

Power on self test

Back 35

Set of internal diagnostic and status checking routines a PC and its peripheral devices run each time the computer is powered on

Front 36

Quality of service (QoS)

Back 36

A networking term that specifies a guaranteed level of service when applied to apps requiring high bandwidth

Front 37

RAM buffering

Back 37

A memory access technique that permits an adapter to use a computer's main memory as though it were local buffer space

Front 38

Serial transmission

Back 38

A technique for transmitting data signals that sends each bit's worth of data (or its analog equivalent) one at a time, one after another, in sequence

Front 39

Service set identifier (SSID)

Back 39

The name assigned to a wireless LAN

Front 40

Shared adapter memory

Back 40

A technique for a computer's CPU to address memory on an adapter as though it were the computers own main memory

Front 41

Shared system memory

Back 41

A technique for an adapter to address a computer's main memory as though it resided on the adapter

Front 42

Traffic management

Back 42

In terms of NICs, features that improve network accessibility for remote users, especially those using apps that require higher bandwidth, such as streaming video or multimedia

Front 43

Universal Serial Bus (USB)

Back 43

hot pluggable PnP serial interface; standard support for peripheral devices such as (in 1.0) mouses and keyboards and printers and (in 2.0) external hard drives, scanners, Wireless adapters, NICs, etc. 1.0 data transfer rate of 12 Mbps and 2.0 up to 480 Mbps.

Front 44

Win32 Driver Model (WDM)

Back 44

A unified driver standard that allows a single driver to be written for any 32 bit version of Windows since Win98

Front 45

A punch block, punchblock, punchdown block, quick-connect block

Back 45

A very quick and easy way to connect wiring thru use of a tool, as there is no stripping of insulation and no screws to loosen and tighten. Punch blocks are often used as patch panels

Front 46

Hot-plug capable

Back 46

Allows users to replace upgrade or add PCI adapters to PCI local buses without powering down the server. So, can also switch out NICs if there is a failure, promoting fault tolerance

Front 47

CATV

Back 47

Cable tv

Front 48

MIMO (IEEE 802.11n)

Back 48

New to come wireless standard with data transfer rates up to 100Mbps