Glossary of computing acronymns

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Glossary

If finding out what all those technical acronyms irritates you, then you will find this page useful. When you go in to a meeting you want to sound like you know what you're talking about! There's a couple we haven't figured out yet (with ?) - if you know what they mean, or have any other to add, why not drop us an email at enquiries@paradigm-redshift.com and we will add them to the page.

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

3-G Third Generation (mobile telecoms technology)

ADSL	Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line. Transforms a telephone line into a high speed carrying data up to 2m bits per second.
AES	Advanced Encryption Standard
AI	Artificial Intelligence
API	Application Program Interface
Application	Software that performs a particular function, such as payroll
ASP	Application Service Provider - company that offers software applications for rent
ASCII	American Standard Code for Information Interchange

Bandwidth	Capacity of a network - how much traffic it can carry. The bigger the bandwidth, the faster the data will flow
BIOS	Basic Input/Output System
Bluetooth	A wireless technology allowing devices to communicate at short ranges
BPI	Business Process Integration
BSP	Business Service Provider (see MSP)

CEM	?
CDMA	Code-Division Multiple Access: A coding scheme, used as a modulation technique, in which multiple channels are independently coded for transmission over a single wideband channel
CGI	Common Gateway Interface
Cookies	Information stored on your computer from when you visit a web site that is useful if you revisit the site. When a web site says 'Welcome Back' it has read a cookie it stored on your computer on your last visit.
CORBA
CRM	Customer Relationship Management - system for planning, scheduling and managing an organisation's pre-sales and post sales activities.

DM	Document Management
DNS	Domain Name System. Relates a numerical IP address with a corresponding host name.
Domain Name	Website name which Identifies a server (or virtual server) on the internet. Domain names typically consist of a host name followed by a top level domain category, such as .com, .co.uk, .net
DSL	Digital Subscriber Line
DSLAM	Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexor
DVD	Digital Versatile Disc
DWDM	Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing

EAI	Enterprise Application Integration
ECM	Electronic Catalogue Management
EDI	Electronic Data Interchange
EDM	Electronic Document Management
EDMS	Electronic Document Management Systems
EIS	Enterprise Information Systems
EIS	Executive Information Systems
EPOS	Electronic point of sale
ERP	Enterprise Resource Planning - system that integrates the core functions of a company - accounting, distribution, etc.

FAQs	List of common questions and answers, posted to a newsgroup, web site or email list. It is wise to get this file and read it. It saves you time and helps you to learn about a group or company and its procedures
FTP	File Transfer Protocol. A way of transferring files onto a server, so that they are available on the Internet
FWA	Fixed Wireless Access

GIF	Graphic Image File. A file compressed graphics format commonly used on the net.
GIS	Geographical Information Systems
GPRS	General Packet Radio Service
GPS	Global Positioning System
GSM	?
GUI	Graphical User Interface. The use of windows and icons to talk to the computer

Hosting	Storing a company's applications on a remote computer system
HTML	Hyper Text Markup Language. The language used to create web pages.
HTTP	The protocol used by browsers to download web pages from web servers

IP	The system that routes information from one network to another
IP Address	Every computer connected to the Internet has an IP Address
ISDN	Integrated Services Digital Network. Allows faster data over telephone lines than a normal telephone
ISP	Internet Servive Provider - company which provides access to the Internet and email services
ISV	Independent Software Vendor

J2EE™	Java™ 2, Enterprise Edition
JAVA	A programming language used for parts of web pages.
Javascript	A programming language that enables you to do relatively advanced things on web pages.
JPEG	Joint Photographic Experts Group. A graphic file format with high compression creating smaller files that transfer more quickly over the Internet

LAN	Local Area Network
Legacy systems	An organisation's existing computer systems

MAN	Metropolitan Area Network. A single network that is split across multiple sites within a single area. Each site is usually no more than a few kilometres apart.
MIME	Multiple Internet Mail Extensions. This is a standard way of enclosing e-mail attachments so that the users of different e-mail programs can still send each other files without encountering problems.
MOM	Message-oriented middleware
MSP	Management Service Provider - company which provides one or more entire business processes for its clients
MVNO	Mobile Virtual Network Operators

NAP	Network access points-- the crossroads where major backbone carriers connect and exchange Internet traffic
NSP	Network Service Provider

OEM	Original Equipment Manufacturer
OLAP	OnLine Analytical Processing (use of computers to analyse an organisation's data)

PBN	Policy Based Networking - allows different types of data to have priority on corporate networks
PDA	Personal Digital Assistant - hand held PC
PDF	Portable Document Format Anyone can open your document across a broad range of hardware and software, and it will look exactly as you intended — with layout, fonts, links, and images intact.
PKI	Public Key Infrastructure
POP3	Post Office Protocol. An e-mail protocol that allows you to pick up you e-mail from anywhere on the Net, even if you are connected to someone else's computer
POTS	Plain Old Telephone Service!

RFP	Request for Proposal
RFQ	Request for Quotation
RFT	Request for Tender
RPC	Remote procedure calls

SAN	Storage Area Network
Scalability	Ability to increase the number of users or transactions for a system.
SCM	Supply Chain management
SET	Secure Electronic Transactions
SLA	Service Level Agreement
SMS	Short Message Services (text messages)
SOAP	Simple Open Access Protocol
SMTP	Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. An Internet protocol for transferring mail.
SQL	Structured Query Language (the standard language to interrogate relational databases)
SSL	Secure Socket Layer. SSL is a commonly-used protocol for managing the security of a message transmission on the Internet.
SSP	Storage Service Provider

TDMA	Time Division Multiple Access (Technology which divides each cellular phone channel into three time slots in order to increase the amount of data that can be carried).
TIFF	Tagged Image File Format
TTP	Trusted Third Party (Issuer of a digital certificate to authenticate messages etc

UDDI	Universal Description Discovery Integration
UMTS	Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service
URL	Universal Resource Locater. The addressing system for the World Wide Web.

VoDSL	Voice-over-DSL
VoIP	Voice over Internet Protocol
VPN	Virtual Private Network

WAP	Wireless Application Protocol
WASP	Wireless Application Sevice Provider
WEBDAV	Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning
WCDMA	Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, is a type of 3G cellular network
WLAN	Wireless Local Area Network
WSDL	Web Services Description Language

XML

eXtensible Mark-up Language

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