Acronym

Expansion/Phrase

Comments

Reference:

Application Protocol Design

M. Rose. “On the Design of Application Protocols”. November 2001.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3117.txt

AH

Authentication Header

This is part of the IPSec, an additional header, before the ESP, and after the IP header, to an otherwise normal IP datagram.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2402.txt

BGP

Border Gateway Protocol

Inter autonomous system routing protocol. BGP is the only protocol that can support a very large number of routes. BGP is also designed to exchange information between routers that are not directly connected.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1771.txt

BGP RR

BGP Route Reflector

Method of avoiding the need for full mesh of BGP speakers within an autonomous system.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2796.txt

CAR

Committed Access Rate

See also CDR.

CBQ

Class Based Queuing

Floyd, S., and Jacobson, V., Link-sharing and Resource Management Models for Packet Networks. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 365-386, August 1995.

CDR

Committed Delivery Rate

See also CAR.

CIDR

Classless Inter Domain Routing

Good explanation of Supernetting as well.

 http://www.ralphb.net/IPSubnet/cidr.html

CIR

Committed Information Rate

See also MIR, PIR.

Compulsory Tunneling

“A Framework for IP Based Virtual Private Networks”

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2764.txt, Section 6.2.

Digital Signatures

Sender uses private key to encode; receiver uses public key to decode. In practice, a subset of the sender’s document, a cryptographic hash, is what is encoded using the sender’s private key.

Reference:

DDOS

Distributed Denial of Service

TCP/IP SYN flooding into a server.

http://staff.washington.edu/dittrich/misc/ddos

http://www.insecure.org/

DNS Round Robin

A DNS serves different IP addresses for a given domain name, thereby providing a sort of server load balancing.

Reference:

DOCSIS

Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification

Reference:

DOS

Denial of Service

TCP/IP SYN flooding into a server.

http://staff.washington.edu/dittrich/misc/ddos

DVB-ASI

Digital Video Broadcast Asynchronous Serial Interface

Established by the Digital Video Broadcasting standards group, DVB-ASI is a high-speed (270 Mbps) asynchronous serial interface used for distribution of digital video, audio, and data within cable headends or hubs.

Reference:

ECN

Explicit Congestion Notification

“The Addition of ECN to IP”, September 2001. This uses an ECN field in the IP header with two bits, making four ECN code points, ‘00’ to ‘11’. 

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3168.txt

ERO

Explicit Route Object

One of the object types used in traffic engineering.

ESP

Encapsulating Security Payload

This is part of the IPSec, an additional header, after the AH, and after the IP header, to an otherwise normal IP datagram.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2406.txt

Firewalls

http://www.interhack.net/pubs/fwfaq/

FQ

Fair Queuing

“Per-flow state to achieve general fairness might be maintained by a per-flow scheduling algorithm such as Fair Queueing (FQ) …”

Demers, A., Keshav, S., and Shenker, S., Analysis and Simulation of a Fair Queueing Algorithm, Internetworking: Research and Experience, Vol. 1, 1990, pp. 3-26.

GBIC

Gigabit Interface Converter

A transceiver to convert electrical signals to optical signals and vice-versa.

Reference:

GFP

Generic Framing Procedure

ANSI standard Mappings of Ethernet, Fibre Channel, ESCON, PPP, etc. over SONET/SDH.

Reference:

GFS

Google File System

Describes the choices made in designing the meta data server.

Sanjay Ghemawat, Howard Gobioff, and Shun-Tak Leung. The Google File System. Communications of the ACM, October 2003, pp. 29-43.

GGSN

Gateway GPRS Support Node

 Cisco has a product offering:

Reference:

GPRS

General Packet Radio Service

GRE

Generic Route Encapsulation

Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2784.txt

GSM

Global System for Mobile Communications

Hardware Load Balancing

A router/switch intercepts server requests.

HSRP

Hot Standby Routing Protocol

Both active and the [hot] standby routers use virtual MAC and IP addresses for their interfaces towards the network that needs redundant routing. Cisco-defined.

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2281.txt.

IKE

Internet Key Exchange

IETF chose IKE as the standard method of configuring security associations for IPSec.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2409.txt

IKMP

Internet Key Management Protocol

Protocol used to construct security associations (SA). The IETF chose to break the process into two parts: IPSec provides the packet-level processing (using SA), while the Internet Key Management Protocol (IKMP) negotiates security associations.

IPSec

IPSec

IPSec is one of the tunneling mechanisms over the Internet; the other is GRE. IPSec ensures confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of data communications across a public IP network. IPSec allows for two modes of operation: (i) transport and (ii) tunnel.

In transport mode, only the IP payload is encrypted, and the original IP headers are left intact. Unfortunately, by passing the IP header in the clear, transport mode allows an attacker to perform some traffic analysis. For example, an attacker could see when Cisco’s CEO sent a lot of packets to another CEO.

In tunnel mode, the entire original IP datagram is encrypted, and it becomes the payload in a new IP packet. With tunnel mode, an attacker can only determine the tunnel endpoints and not the true source and destination of the tunneled packets, even if they are the same as the tunnel endpoints.

Reference:

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2401.txt

IPSec SA

IPSec SA

The security association is unidirectional. (Just like an LSP). The security association is uniquely identified by a randomly chosen unique number called the security parameter index (SPI), and the destination IP address. In summary, the security association is simply a statement of the negotiated security policy between two devices.

IPSec vs. FR, etc.

VPN solutions based on either GRE or IPSec inherit all of the problems associated with the overlay model …

In the area of QoS, the best that could be accomplished by the GRE or IPSec tunnels is to rely on differentiated services …

One of the claimed advantages of using GRE or IPSec tunnels over leased lines, Frame Relay or ATM is the ability to extend the VPN service to any place connected to the Internet, rather than being limited to the scope of an ATM or Frame Relay network. In practice, this advantage is limited by the fact that when a GRE or IPSec tunnel spans multiple providers, the providers at the end of the tunnel have little or no influence on the path taken by the tunnel.

Bruce Davie and Yakov Rekhter. MPLS: Technology and Applications. Morgan Kaufmann, 2000. p. 217.

IP VPN

IP-based VPNs

“A Framework for IP Based Virtual Private Networks”

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2764.txt, Section 6.2.

LC-ATM

Label Switching Controlled ATM Interface

LMDS

Local Multipoint Distribution Service

http://www.lmdswireless.com/. This means that the base station can use a special type of radio that allows it to have a 90-degree field of view as opposed to having a specific radio installed on the base station for each radio installed at the client site.

LSP Tunnel

LSP is also generally referred to as LSP Tunnel.

MIR

Minimum Information Rate

See also CIR, PIR.

MMDS

Multipoint Microwave Distribution System

Fixed wireless access. MMDS is a line-of-sight service (see Fresnel Zone definition), so it won’t work well around mountains, but it will work in rural areas, where copper lines are not available.

MPLS VPN

Uses the peer model.

1. Constrained distribution of routing information (using BGP Extended Community concept for allowing 2**32 VPN customers per service provider)
2. Multiple forwarding tables
3. Use of VPN-IP addresses = <RD, IP>; RD = <Type (2), AS (2), Assigned Number (4)>
4. Label switching or forwarding

Bruce Davie and Yakov Rekhter. MPLS: Technology and Applications. Morgan Kaufmann, 2000. p. 218.

Nested Tunnel

In PPVPNs, a single nested tunnel is used between PE devices to support communication for VPNs. This results in reduction of tunnels to be maintained between PEs.

Reference: August 2001

PHP

Penultimate Hop Popping

The egress router in an MPLS network normally has to make two lookups: (i) destination-based forwarding outside of the MPLS network and (ii) label pop. With PHP implemented, the egress router requests the penultimate LSR to do the popping, thereby streamlining the work at the egress router.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3031.txt

PIR

Peak Information Rate

See also CIR, MIR.

Public Key Cryptography

Sender uses public key to encode; receiver uses private key to decode.

Public Key Infrastructure

Recommended by Shivaram.

Reference:

PPVPN

Provider Provisioned VPN

Discusses 3 types of VPNs:

1.      BGP VPNs

2.      Virtual routers

3.      Port-based VPNs (Layer 2 for access)

Reference:

Reference:, August 2001

Reference:, February 2002

RED

Random Early Detection

“Recommendations on Queue Management and Congestion Avoidance in the Internet”

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2309.txt

RP

Rendezvous Point

Root in a shared multicast tree.

Reference:

RPR

Resilient Packet Ring

Reference:

SA

Security Association

In IP Sec or IKE. Thus, it is desirable to use IPSec or IKE as adjectives along with SA.

SAN

System Area Network

Used in defining a robust scalable architecture for N-tier enterprise applications. Intel-defined. Infiniband is the suggested medium for the System Area Network.

Reference:

SHA

Secure Hash Algorithm

One of the security algorithms used in IPSec that provides data integrity. The other is MD5.

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2404.txt

Server Load Balancing

(i) DNS round robin; (ii) Hardware load balancing

Reference:

SOAP

Simple Object Access Protocol

SOAP overview at dcb.sun.com is very good introduction: “Where CORBA was a 600-pound semi-caged gorilla, Web services is a gazelle romping freely through the vast Internet preserves.”

http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/

Reference:

Soft PVC

Soft PVC

Soft PVC is PVC whose path is automatically changed around a failure. Thus, soft PVC is regarded as more robust than PVC.

Reference:

TCP/IP

Easy-to-understand diagrams illustrate TCP/IP.

http://www.kclug.org/talks/tcpip

Traffic Trunk

A traffic trunk is an aggregation of traffic flows following the same path through the network and belonging to the same Class of Service (CoS).

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2702.txt, Sec 3.0.

Transparent VLAN Services over MPLS

Removes the 4096-VLAN restrictions by????

Reference:

UDDI

Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration

Dcb.sun.com has a very good overview.

http://www.uddi.org

Reference:

VC Merge

Virtual Circuit Merge

VC merge is a method of conserving label space in IP+MPLS+ATM networks. An implication is that enough buffering needs to be available within ATM switches to capture a complete AAL5 frame (of the IP traffic).

Reference:

VLL

Virtual Leased Line

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2764.txt, Section 4.1.

VMI

Virtual Metropolitan Internetwork

This is considered as a special case of PPVPN in this draft.

Reference:

VOQ

Virtual Output Queue

Virtual output queues avoid head-of-the-line blocking by creating separate virtual output queues on a single physical interface.

Reference:

VPDN

Virtual Private Dial Network

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2764.txt, Section 6.1.

VPLS

Virtual Private LAN Segment

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2764.txt, Section 7.1.

VPN

Virtual Private Network

VN

VLAN

VPDN

VPN

Overlay

Layer 2

X.25

F/R

ATM

Layer 3

IPSec

GRE

Peer-to-Peer

Access Lists (Shared router)

Split Routing (Dedicated Router)

MPLS-based

An excellent analysis of security in VPNs is presented by Dr. Bernard Aboba of Microsoft at http://www.drizzle.com/~aboba/IEEE/.

Ivan Pepelnjak and Jim Guichard. MPLS and VPN Architectures. Cisco Press, 2001, 424 pages. P. 143.

VPN-ID

Virtual Private Network Identifier

This is a 7-octet quantity: 3 octets of organizationally unique identifier (OUI) and VPN index within the OUI.

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2685.txt

VPRN

Virtual Private Routed Network

“A Framework for IP Based Virtual Private Networks”

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2764.txt, Section 5.1.

Voluntary Tunneling

“A Framework for IP Based Virtual Private Networks”

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2764.txt, Section 6.3.

VRRP

Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol

Similar to HSRP, but is a little more general.

ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2338.txt

VRF

Virtual Routing & Forwarding instance

Ivan Pepelnjak and Jim Guichard. MPLS and VPN Architectures. Cisco Press, 2001, 424 pages. P. 150.

WAFS

Wide Area File Services

A Core File Engine (Core FE) and a number of Edge File Engines (Edge FE) are connected by a WAN link that carries a Cisco-proprietary to implement full range of semantics of NFS (Sun) and CIFS (Microsoft) distributed file systems. A key advantage is to enable centralization of file servers in the data center.

 Reference:

WSDL

Web Services Description Language

Gottshalk et al.: “… this architecture sets forth three roles and three operations. The three roles are the service provider, the service requester, and the service registry. The objects acted upon are the service and the service description, and the operations performed by the actors on these objects are publish, find, and bind.”

http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl

Reference:

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