Hosting Technical Terms Explained

Below are some definitions of common hosting terms, if you have any questions please contact us.

Hosting Terms

Backbone - Each Internet Service Provider has major high-speed lines or a series of connections that forms their network infrastructure . These connections could be viewed as motorways for Internet traffic with junctions where traffic can join the rest of the network. The size (bandwidth) of connections vary depending on the size of the provider.

Blocking Switch - The switch that enables only a limited number of ports to be connected concurrently which is less than the number of ports available.

Dark Fibre - Dark fibre is optical fibre fully owned and lit by an end user company, as opposed to optical fibre that is rented from a telco and lit by that telco on the end user company's behalf. The term 'dark fibre' comes from the fact that cable is not already lit when you buy it. Generally companies will rent fibre runs that are lit by a telco and merely present data to the telco's tranceiver equipment.

DNS - Stands for Domain Name System. This is a system that using a database, translates your IP address or Internet Protocol address into an easy to remember name such as, www.strawberryonline.co.uk. So essentially, it makes it to where you don't have to remember a long series of numbers, but rather an actual name of a place. The DNS server's main job is to bind the IP address to a domain name. It can also be referred to as a name server, or domain name server. Whether you are using ftp, gopher, or http (web) these all require IP addresses.

Ethernet - Ethernet is the most widely-installed local area network (LAN) technology.

Gigabit Ethernet - Gigabit Ethernet is a local area network (LAN) transmission standard that provides a data rate of 1 billion bits per second (one gigabit).

IP - Internet Protocol The communications protocol underlying the Internet, IP allows large, geographically-diverse networks of computers to communicate with each other quickly and economically over a variety of physical links. An Internet Protocol Address is the numerical address by which a location in the Internet is identified. Computers on the Internet use IP addresses to route traffic and establish connections among themselves; people generally use the human-friendly names made possible by the Domain Name System

Layer Two - Layer 2 refers to the Data Link Layer of the commonly-referenced multi-layered communication model, Open Systems Interconnection (OSI). The Data Link Layer is concerned with moving data across the physical links in the network. In a network, the switch is a device that redirects data messages at the layer 2 level, using the destination Media Access Control (MAC) address to determine where to direct the message.

Load Balancing - Distributing processing and communications activity evenly across a computer network so that no single device is overwhelmed. Load balancing is especially important for networks where it's difficult to predict the number of requests that will be issued to a server. Busy Web sites typically employ two or more Web servers in a load balancing scheme. If one server starts to get swamped, requests are forwarded to another server with more capacity. Load balancing can also refer to the communications channels themselves.

Media Converter - Device that converts data passing from one media to another, such as from fibre to copper.

Multimode Fibre - In optical fibre technology, multimode fibre is optical fibre that is designed to carry multiple light rays or modes simultaneously, each at a slightly different reflection angle within the optical fibre core.

Multi-Homed - A host with more than one network adapter. Sometimes a host is multi-homed to link two networks (as with a router). More commonly, a multi-homed host is simply connected to two networks, such as a machine on a LAN which also has a modem for connecting to an ISP.

Network - An arrangement of interconnected computer systems, terminals, and other equipment which allows information to be exchanged.

Non-blocking Switch - A switch that facilitates all ports to have simultaneous access through it.

oc12 - An Optical Carrier 12 is a high-bandwidth "pipe" connection to the Internet operating at speeds 12 x 51.84 = 622.08 megabits per second. Equivalent to approximately 14 T3s.

Packet - A unit of data transmitted over a network. A packet is of fixed size, and is routed between a source and a destination. It contains binary information that represents both data and a header containing an ID number, source address, and destination address.

Peering - An agreement devised between two network service providers for the purpose of private and direct data exchange between their respective networks. Peering agreements usually result in faster and more efficient data exchange.

Port - Generally a specific place for being physically connected to another device, usually with a socket and plug of some kind.

RAID - Redundant Array of Independent Disks. A storage medium that spreads data across multiple disks to increase access performance and fault tolerance. RAID comes in at least nine types, with varying combinations of error checking, access speed and redundancy features.

Redundancy - The existence of more than one means of accomplishing a given task, where all means must fail before there is an overall failure of the system. Parallel redundancy applies to systems in which both means are working at the same time to accomplish the task and either of the systems is capable of handling the job itself in case of failure of the other system. Standby redundancy applies to a system in which there is an alternative means of accomplishing the task that is switched in by malfunction-sensing device when the primary system fails.

Router - On the Internet, a router is a device or, in some cases, software in a computer, that determines the next network point to which a packet should be forwarded toward its destination. The router is connected to at least two networks and decides which way to send each information packet based on its current understanding of the state of the networks it is connected to.

Single Mode Fibre - In optical fibre technology, single mode fibre is optical fibre that is designed for the transmission of a single ray or mode of light as a carrier and is used for long-distance signal transmission.

SSH - Sometimes known as Secure Socket Shell, is a UNIX-based command interface and protocol for securely getting access to a remote computer. It is widely used by network administrators to control Web and other kinds of servers remotely. SSH is actually a suite of three utilities - slogin, ssh, and scp - that are secure versions of the earlier UNIX utilities, rlogin, rsh, and rcp. SSH commands are encrypted and secure in several ways. Both ends of the client/server connection are authenticated using a digital certificate, and passwords are protected by being encrypted. SSH uses RSA public key cryptography for both connection and authentication.

SSL - Secure Sockets Layer. A protocol designed by Netscape Communications to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet. SSL used mostly in communications between web browsers and web servers. URL's that begin with 'https' indicate that an SSL connection will be used. SSL provides 3 important things: Privacy, Authentication and Message Integrity.

Switch - A piece of equipment with multiple ports providing dynamic connections. In FC terms providing a fabric of scalable (full) bandwidth with high speed routing to each of the connected ports.

Switch Port - A hardware unit connecting a node to a network.

Telco - Abbreviation for "telecommunications company."

T1 - A type of data connection able to transmit a digital signal at 1.544 megabits per second. T1 lines are often used to link large computer networks, such as those that make up the Internet.

T2 - A T2 is a digital carrier facility used to transmit a Digital Signal 2 (DS2) formatted digital carrier signal at 6.312 Mbps. This is the equivalent of 94 voice channels or 4 T1 channels.

T3 - A specification for a transmission line, the equivalent of 28 T1 lines. T3 lines run at 44.736 Mbps. In common usage, the term "T3" is used interchangeably with "DS3."