Architecture

A strategic information asset base that defines the “business”, information necessary to operate the “business”, technologies necessary to support the “business”, and transitional processes for implementing new technologies in response to the changing needs of the “business”.

ASON

Automatically switching optical networks

AS

Autonomous system, the minimum logical network as seen by Border Gateway Protocol.

BGP

Border Gateway Protocol, the global internet routing protocol.

CWDM

Coarse wave division multiplexing, a way of adding additional capacity to an optical fibre based transmission cable, up to eight “colours”, or different wavelengths per optical bearer.

Dark Fibre

One or more optical fibre pairs out of a particular optical fibre cable, not “lit” by any transmission electronics.

DWDM

Dense wave division multiplexing, a way of adding additional capacity to an optical fibre based transmission cable, up to 128 “colours”, or different wavelengths per optical bearer.

Ethernet Frames

A standard ethernet frame MTU is 1500 bytes. Adding the Ethernet header and cyclic redundancy check (CRC) trailer brings the frame size to 1518 bytes. Frames carrying VLAN information are usually a few bytes larger. Jumbo frame usually refers to an ethernet frame size up to 9216 bytes.

GbE, GigE

Gigabit ethernet

GFP

Generic framing procedure. Defines new frame formats and procedures for mapping broadband data protocols onto multiple concatenated STS-1 (51.84Mb/s) payloads in a SONET/SDH frame.

GMPLS

Generalised multi protocol label switching

Institution

A member of the Advanced Network community that is eligible to connect to the network.

IP

Internet protocol.  The network layer protocol for the Internet.

IPv4

The internet currently uses IP version four (Ipv4) addressing format that is now some 20 years old.

IPv6

The next generation of internet expanded address format will use IP version six (Ipv6) which is currently being used in some test and early adopter networks.

ISP

Internet service provider.

Lambda

A particular wavelength, or colour, out of a CWDM or DWDM system.

MAC

Media access control.  A ‘MAC address' is usually an ethernet address.

Managed Service

A data transmission bearer provided by a telecommunications supplier in the form of an end-to-end service rather than as individual components.  Alarms etc associated with the circuit are managed by the provider rather than by the user.

MPLS

Multi protocol label switching. A technology for setting labels in packets so as to indicate their destination. Routers can switch such packets using only the label. Also, MPLS routers and switches can manage the physical links involved in a label path so as to provide rapid recovery from link failures. Developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

MTU

Maximum transmission unit is the size of packets that can be transmitted across a link without fragmentation. Maximum transmission unit is measured in bytes.

Multicast

Protocol to allow point to multipoint efficient distribution of packets, frequently used in access grid applications.  Requires multicast –capable routers.

NREN

A national research, education and innovation network like KAREN

OOB

Out of band, relates to independent access for monitoring network elements

POP

Open Point of Presence, which provides very high speed (Gbps initially) connectivity between research, education and innovation users.

QoS

Quality of service

SDH

Synchronous digital hierarchy, a transmission protocol used by telecommunications companies to provide managed bandwidths.

SLA

Service level agreement

Site

A physical location where an institution wishing to connect is geographically situated.

STM

Synchronous transport module

TCP/IP

The Internet as we know it uses a suit of protocols generally lumped under the name TCP/IP. TCP/IP strictly describes just two of the protocols. Internet protocol (IP) is the protocol operating at ISO layer three and transmission control protocol (TCP) operates at ISO layer four.

TCP/IP Datagrams

IPv4 supports datagrams up to 64kB. Ipv6 supports larger datagrams. Datagrams may be sent in a sequence of smaller frames.

VLAN

Virtual local area network

VPLS

Virtual private LAN service. A type of layer 2 VPN, provided as a service using MPLS tunnels between participating routers.

Wavelength

A particular “colour”, out of a CWDM or DWDM system

Wizard Ratio

The ratio between available/apparent end-to-end bandwidth and the actual achieved throughput.

xDSL

Refers collectively to all types of digital subscriber lines, the two main categories being asymmetric DSL and symmetric DSL