2009 Business 4 Update - Glossary of Ter

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Business 4 Update Additional Glossary of Terms

1 2009 DeVry/Becker Educational Development Corp. All rights reserved.

Business 4 UpdateTechnical Addendum for 2009 Additional Glossary (Technical Addendum Glossary)

Last Updated: May 5, 2009

INTRODUCTION

We continue to feel strongly that, however technical or non-technical the actual exam questions might be or mightbecome in the future, the emphasis of the questions is and will continue to be on terminology. Because of that, we

have made extensive additions to the IT part of the Glossary in this Addendum. It might not be the most fun thing

in the world to read a glossary, but it just might make a difference on the exam! Remember that some of the

terminology could simply be used as distracters in an attempt to hide the correct answer to a question. A

considerable amount of the added technical information is located in the Glossary section. Note, however, while

significant terminology is included in the Glossary, not all of the glossary words are included in the text. Further,

there are some words that are included in the text but not in the Glossary, and other words that are contained in

higher level definitions (Java applet, for example, sometimes just called applet, is contained in the definition of

Java).

Note that some of the words in the Glossary are acronyms and are sorted alphabetically; other words are listed intheir non-acronym form, so it sometimes might take just a little looking to find a word. Because the questions on

the CPA exam can use different terminology, it helps to have some context so that you can adapt to any

differences in terminology that you may encounter on your exam. As there are no essay questions on the BEC

exam, you do not have to memorize all of the definitions, but it should be helpful to have some kind of idea of

what a specific word means. Again, you may see the words as correct answers or as incorrect answers.

Exam technique is important for all parts of the CPA exam, but it is especially important on the IT portion of the

BEC exam. As is demonstrated by the released questions, the IT portion of the BEC exam is often terminology,

but the examiners' definition of what level of technical knowledge is appropriate for CPA exam candidates does

not always seem to be consistent with the candidates' definition. Thus, sometimes it is necessary to take a

backwards approach to the questions.

Some questions are obvious and direct and, therefore, easily answerable. Of course, you should go ahead and

answer those questions without further work. Other questions, however, might not be that way at all. So if you

cannot figure out what the answer is, see if you can figure out what the answer is not. At the very least, doing that

might eliminate a couple of the answers and improve your odds of guessing.

Remember that somebody actually has to write the questions, and writing good questions is not an easy task. It is

often relatively easy to come up with 3 good alternative answers (good answers are answers that are either

correct or that are incorrect but close enough so that there might be a plausible reason to pick that answer) but a

lot harder to come up with that all-important 4th

alternative. Sometimes, that 4th

alternative just has to be pulled out

of the air. With IT questions, that means answers that use buzzwords but that actually do not mean anything. If

you are not sure about a question, look for that alternative. You might be able to eliminate that one alternative and

improve your odds of guessing just because you perused the Glossary!

Note: This material does not have to be learned or memorized. It is, however, worth at least a quick review

since it answers questions that candidates have often asked during or after live classes. Some time, however

painful, might pay off in a big way.


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GLOSSARY ADDITIONS FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Note 1: There is a reference on pages B4-67 and B4-68 to the overall BEC Glossary in the text.

Note 2: Ignore the following definitions in the "original" Glossary in the text that have been replaced bydefinitions in this Additional Glossary:

Application Firewall

Bandwidth Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Spam

Note 3: The "See also" references in this Glossary refer to additional terms in this Glossary and also to theglossary terms in the "original" Glossary in the text.

Note 4: Some of these definitions can be somewhat vague because many of the words can really be definedprecisely only by being way too technical for this presentation. We provide them here in an attempt to"collect" as many of the terms that could show up on your exam as possible. Note also that variousvendors of products often use the words a little bit differently (and not necessarily correctly).

10BaseT 10BaseT is an Ethernet implementation for UTP. The 10 is for the transmission speed of 10 Mbps.The Base is for baseband (only one signal is present on the medium at a time). The T is for twisted pair.100BaseT is one of several fast Ethernet standards for UTP. See also unshielded twisted pair (UTP) andEthernet.

3G 3G is the designation for third generation cellular networks. The first generation (1G) networks in the early1980s were analog and could be used only for voice communications. The second generation (2G) networks inthe early 1990's were digital and provided better voice quality and global roaming and could be used for voice anddata communications. Third generation (3G) networks utilize packet switching technology for higher speeds andcan be used for broadband digital services. There is also an interim 2.5G in the US. The first country where 3Gwas introduced on a large scale was Japan. See also analog signal and digital signal and 802.16.

802.11a 802.11a is an IEEE standard for WiFi that is faster and transmits at between 6 and 54 Mbps. See also

802.11b and 802.11g and WiFi and Mbps.

802.11b 802.11b is an IEEE standard for wireless LANs or WiFi. See also 802.11a and 802.11g and WiFi.

802.11g 802.11g is an IEEE standard for WiFi. It was released in 2003 and is backwards compatible with802.11b. It transmits at up to 54 Mbps but is subject to some interference from other electrical appliances usingthe same frequency band, just like 802.11b. See also 802.11a and 802.11b and WiFi and Mbps and 802.11n.

802.11i 802.11i (also known as WPA2, or WiFi protected access) is an IEEE standard specifying securitymechanisms for WiFi. It supersedes the previous security specification called WEP (wired equivalent privacy),which left an awful lot to be desired in terms of security (about all it could do was protect from casual snooping;the use of WEP was optional, which meant that some organizations did not use it at all and were thru totallyunprotected, the 40 bit encryption key that was used was not really long enough, and the same encryption key

was shared by all users). With WPA2, the encryption key is longer and is changed periodically. See also WiFi.

802.11n 802.11n is a new generation of wireless Internet products that is scheduled for release in 2009 (thereare draft versions available now, from 2007). The "n" products are expected to be about 5-6 times as fast as801.11g products. The technology uses multiple transmitter and receiver antennas to improve performance. Seealso 802.11g.

802.15.1 802.15.1 is an IEEE standard for small personal area networks known as Bluetooth. See alsoBluetooth.


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802.16 802.16 (or 802.16e) is an IEEE standard for WiMAX (worldwide interoperability for microwave access)for high-speed wireless. WiMAX is a competitor of 3G service and works considerably differently than WiFi, forexample. WiFi uses a contention access for all messages with all subscriber stations passing data through anaccess point competing for the access point's attention on a random basis (almost sounds a little like the oldCSMA/CD for Ethernet). With WiMAX, a subscriber station has to compete for the attention of the access pointonly on its initial access; after that, it is assigned a time slice. Some telephone companies are investigatingWiMAX for their connections between their central office and homes and businesses. There is no uniform globalassigned frequency spectrum for WiMAX. See also 3G and access point.

802.3 802.3 is the physical layer and data link layer IEEE standard for Ethernet. There are about 20-30 802.3standards for various media and various speeds and other characteristics. See also Ethernet and physical layerprotocol and data link layer protocol.

Access Log An access log is a file with information of each access to a file or web site. See also system accesslog and electronic access controls.

Access Point An access point is a device that connects wireless communication devices together to form awireless network. An access point is often called a wireless access point (WAP, but the abbreviation should notbe confused with the other WAP, wireless application protocol). The access point normally connects to a wirednetwork. Several WAPs can link together to form a larger network that allows roaming. Wireless access pointshave IP addresses for configuration and management of the network. See also hotspot and ad hoc mode and

infrastructure mode and roaming.

Acceptance Testing Acceptance testing is the final testing of an application system before it is installed inproduction. See also unit testing and parallel processing.

Access Control List (ACL) An access control list, in a computer security context, is a list of permissions attachedto a piece of data. The access control list specifies who (which users or groups of users or roles) can access thedata and what they can do to/with it (read, write, delete, execute).

Address Bus The address bus is the transfer mechanism for PC (memory) addresses into and out of theprocessor (the width of the address bus indicates the largest possible memory address for that particularprocessor). See also data bus and internal register and microprocessor.

Ad Hoc Mode Ad hoc mode is wireless networking where networking devices are physically close enough sothat they can communicate without an access point. See also access point and infrastructure mode and hotspotand roaming.

Ajax Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a web development tool for creating interactive webapplications. Ajax applications are executed on the user's machine by manipulating the current web page with theuser's browser, in most cases without having to retrieve a full page of XML each time a change is made. Nobrowser plug-in is required for Ajax, but it does require users to have JavaScript enabled on their browsers. Seealso JavaScript and hypertext markup language (HTML) and XML (extensible markup language).

Alphanumeric Data Alphanumeric data is a string of characters that contains both letters and numbers. Numericdata contains only numbers, and alphabetic data contains only letters.

Analog Signal An analog signal is a continuous wave-type signal that varies in value over time. An analog signalcan be differentiated from a digital signal in that small fluctuations in the analog signal mean something. The mostcommon problem with analog signals is noise. See also digital signal and bandpass filtering and bandwidth andrepeater and noise and frequency.

Analytical CRM Analytical CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the part of a CRM system thatanalyzes customer data generated by the operational part of the system to provide information for improvingcustomer-related business functions. See also operational CRM.

Apache Apache is an open-source web (HTTP) server. See also web server and hypertext transfer protocol(HTTP) and open-source software and runtime.


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Application Firewall An application firewall is a "new" type of firewall that supplements the standard networkfirewall. A standard network firewall (which is what is meant when the word "firewall" is used by itself) inspectsdata in packet headers of packets that are coming from or going to certain ports (packet filtering) based on thefirewall access rules that have been written. An application firewall (sometimes known as a proxy or anapplication layer gateway or an application level gateway if it is implemented in hardware) examines data in thepackets themselves. Note that the word "application" in this context does not refer to application software such asthe Accounts Receivable application but to the application layer in a network protocol. See also firewall andapplication level gateway and port and network protocol and application layer protocol.

Application Program Interface (API) An application program interface is a source code interface that a computersystem or program library provides to support requests for services to be made of it by a computer program. AnAPI is often part of a software development kit (SDK). An API comes in the form of a collection of functions orsubroutines callable by other programs.

Appliance An appliance (or computer appliance) is a software advice which provides a narrow range offunctions and that are normally run on a stand-alone hardware platform that is designed specifically for that task.Appliances may be used for firewalls or for encryption or as email filters. One advantage is that the appliance canbe optimized for the specific function being performed. See also firewall and content filtering.

Application Layer Protocol An application layer protocol is a communication protocol for the application layer,normally or almost always the highest layer of an architecture. HTTP, FTP, DNS, SMTP, POP3, and Telnet are

application layer protocols. See also physical layer protocol and data link layer protocol and transport layerprotocol and Open System Interconnect (OSI).

Application Server An application server is a server for a particular software application. See also client/serverand middleware and simple object access protocol (SOAP).

Architecture From a communication protocol and network standard standpoint, an architecture is the overallstructure of a set of protocols or standards. An architecture is almost always built in layers, with the differentlayers performing different functions. An architecture is not a product that can be purchased somewhere. It is therules or standards that various products should conform to when they are providing services (for example, for aparticular layer). See also application layer protocol and data link layer protocol and transport layer protocol andOpen System Interconnect (OSI).

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Shell The AI shell is the programming environment of an expert or decision supportsystem. See also artificial intelligence and rule base and forward chaining and backward chaining and fuzzy logicand inference engine and expert system and decision support system.

ASCII ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a system of character encoding based onthe English alphabet. ASCII is strictly a 7-bit code, meaning that it uses only 7 bits or 0-127 in decimal torepresent characters. The first 32 codes are reserved for control characters, code 32 is a blank or a space, codes33-47 and 58-64 are special characters, codes 48-57 are numbers, and codes 65-90 are capital letters. The 8

thbit

in a byte is often used as a parity bit. See also EBCDIC and parity bit.

Assurance Services Assurance services are services provided by CPAs to their clients in areas such as riskassessment, information systems reliability, and E-commerce.

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Asynchronous transfer mode is a PSDN network protocol that encodesdata in small fixed-size packets instead of variable-sized packets (such as with IP or Ethernet). ATM is aconnection-oriented technology. This ATM should not be confused with the other ATM (automatic teller machine).See also frame relay and packet switching and TCP/IP and PSDN.

Asynchronous Transmission Asynchronous transmission is data transmission in which each character istransmitted separately. There is a start bit before each character transmitted and a stop bit after each charactertransmitted. See also synchronous transmission.

Attenuation Attenuation (signal attenuation) is the weakening of a signal as it travels through a cable. Bothanalog signals and digital signals are subject to attenuation. Attenuation is treated by amplification, sometimesusing repeaters. See also dispersion and analog signal and digital signal and repeater.


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Autonomic Computing Autonomic computing is hardware systems that can configure themselves, optimize andtune themselves, fix themselves when they are broken, and protect themselves from attack. The idea ofautonomic computing was developed by IBM. Its mainframe computers in the late 1990s could sense somehardware problems that were starting to develop and contact an IBM service center (call home) which could thendispatch a service technician before there was any external evidence of the problem to operations or softwarestaff.

Backbone The backbone is that part of a network that carries the major portion of the network traffic. See also

fiber optic cable and trunk line and local loop and POP.

Backup Backup (or file backup) is the copying of data so that the copies of the data will be available if theoriginal data is damaged or destroyed. Backups are necessary in normal operations (where individual files orgroups of files might be damaged by an incorrect application program, for example) or for disaster recovery.Backups may be full backups (where "all" of the data is backed up) or incremental backups (where only changeddata after the last full backup or the last incremental backup is backed up). A hot backup is the backup of adatabase that is being used; changes to the data might be made while the backup is being made. A backupwindow is the period of time that a system has available to perform a backup procedure; some systems nevershut down for backups so that a much more technically advanced backup process must be used. Backups areonly as good as the process to restore the data. Restores must be tested.

Backward Chaining Backward chaining in an AI shell starts with a hypothesis and works backwards by asking

questions of the user to see if there are data available to support the optimal goal; backward chaining is thuscalled goal driven. See also forward chaining and fuzzy logic and inference engine and artificial intelligence (AI)shell and rule base.

Band A band, sometimes called a service band, is a small part of the frequency spectrum, in which channelsare normally set aside or used for the same purpose. The AM radio band is a band between 535 KHz and 1,705KHz, and the FM radio band is a band between 88 MHz and 108 MHz. The 2.4 GHz band for wireless LANs isbetween 2.400 GHz and 2.4835 GHz. See also frequency and Hertz and gigahertz (GHz).

Bandpass Filtering Bandpass filtering is the process of chopping off the high and low ends of an analog signal.The signal then fits in a smaller band but does not really lose any of its information carrying capability. See alsoanalog signal and band.

Bandwidth Bandwidth is a measure of a communication medium's information carrying capacity. It is the rangeof frequencies that signals spread over or how wide a particular signal is. For analog signals, bandwidth is ameasure of how rapidly the signal fluctuates with respect to time, or how fast the signal's sine wave goes from aparticular point on the wave back to that same point. There are a number of different definitions of bandwidthdepending on the context. See also analog signal and frequency and band and broadband and bandpass filtering.

Banner Ad A banner ad is a graphic display on a web page that is used for advertising. The banner ad is linkedto the advertiser's web site and clicking on the ad transfers the person to that web site. See also pop-up ad.Baud Rate The baud rate is a measurement of the speed at which data is transmitted between two computers,informally the number of bits per second being transmitted. Technically, baud rate is the number of clock cycles atransmission of data uses per second. Technically, the bit rate is the number of bits per second. It is very unlikelythat candidates on the CPA exam will be required to make this kind of very technical distinction, but it is alwaysgood to have seen the words.

BIOS BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) is low-level software that controls PC system hardware and acts as aninterface between the operating system and the hardware. The BIOS contains the device drivers for the varioushardware devices attached to the PC. See also device driver and interrupt and microcode and plug-and-play.

Blacklist In a spam control environment, a blacklist is an access control mechanism that allows email from allemail addresses except those email addresses on the blacklist. Sometimes legitimate organizations, who justhappen to be sending a large number of emails, are incorrectly identified as spammers and put on a blacklist. Seealso spam.


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Blade Server A blade server is a thin modular processor that is intended for a single dedicated application.Blade servers are normally installed in racks and often utilize a single heavy duty reliable power supply, asopposed to multiple power supplies for each of the servers. They tend to concentrate heat generation in a smallarea, but they can also utilize more efficient air cooling than a rack of non-blade servers. They can be customizedto perform specialized functions and are normally self-healing and highly redundant. An individual PC or serverdoes not require much power or generate much heat, but when there are a large number of PCs and serversused together in a data center in server racks, power consumption and heat removal can become a real problem,

just like they were back in the heyday of the mainframe. As heat builds up, equipment temperature rises and

equipment failure increases. See also server.

Blog A blog is an informal web site where individuals can publish opinions and views and add links to othersites. Most blogs are created by individuals, but they can be used by corporations for informal communicationsuch as presenting information about, and soliciting information about, new products and services. Blogosphere isa word which is sometimes used to refer to all blogs or a collection of linked blogs.

Blue Screen of Death The Blue Screen of Death is the popular name for the screen displayed by the variousWindows operating systems when the system cannot recover from, or is in danger of being unable to recoverfrom, a system error.

Bluetooth Bluetooth is the popular name for the 802.15.1 networking standard to create small personal areanetworks without a cable. Bluetooth can be used to connect up to 8 devices (PDAs, mobile phones, laptops, PCs,

printers, digital cameras, etc., anything with the appropriate radio transceiver in it) within a 10-meter (now 100-meter, depending on the power of the transmission) area using low-power radio-based communication. Bluetoothuses the same frequencies as WiFi, but WiFi has a stronger signal. Bluetooth does not require a line of sight andrequires less proximity than RFID devices. See also WiFi and 802.15.1 and RFID.

Boolean Logic Boolean logic is a system of logical operations, such as AND and OR and NOT, that is oftenused in programming or searching.

Booting Booting (short for bootstrapping) is a process that starts the operating system of a PC when the PC isturned on. Just after a PC is turned on, it does not have an operating system in memory so there is initiallynothing to execute. The boot process loads the operating system and gets things going. For mainframes, thesame process is called IPL (initial program load). Most embedded systems boot almost instantly; they have theirwhole operating system in ROM or flash memory so that it can be executed directly. See also flash memory.

Bot A bot is an Internet software program that performs certain services on the Internet, such as gatheringinformation from web pages, autonomously. The term is derived from the word "robot." Web crawlers are bots.Bots that were designed with a malicious intent are sometimes called malicious bots. See also web crawler andintelligent agent and botnet and denial-of-service attack.

Botnet A botnet is a collection of compromised computers (sometimes called zombie computers) runningworms, Trojan horses, or other malicious software under the common control of a botmaster, who controls thebotnet remotely. A bot may be used to send spam, for example, or for a denial-of-service attack. See also bot andzombie attack and spam.

Buffer Overflow A buffer overflow is a condition in the processing of a program where the program attempts towrite data beyond the boundaries of a buffer (an area of memory). Without worrying too much about what a bufferis, the program is attempting to write data into addresses in memory beyond where it should be writing data, thuspotentially damaging or destroying the processing of other programs that are trying to use the data that has beenoverwritten. Buffer overflows may be caused by malicious code of some type and may be used to attack asystem; at least two major worms have exploited buffer overflows. The choice of programming language can havea major effect on the occurrence of buffer overflows; for example, neither C nor C++ provides automaticprotection against buffer overflows, leaving that up to the programmer. Most interpreted languages protect againstbuffer overflows. See also software vulnerability and zombie attack and interpretation and bot.


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Bullwhip Effect The bullwhip effect, in a supply chain using push-based models or forecast-driven models, is theincrease of inventories caused by each part of the supply chain building up safety stocks. In periods of increaseddemand, each part of the supply chain will build up more of a safety stock, thus causing the overall inventory toincrease more than is indicated by the increased demand. In periods of decreased demand, each part of thesupply chain will reduce its safety stock, thus causing the overall inventory to be reduced more than is indicatedby the reduced demand. See also supply chain management and pull-based model.

Bundling Bundling is the selling of a combination of products at a price lower than the price would be if the

products were purchased separately. A common example of bundling is that of cable and telephone companiesselling local and long distance telephone (and possibly VoIP), cable TV, and high-speed Internet access at abundled and somewhat reduced price.

Bus Topology A bus topology or bus network is a network topology in which all stations are connected to thesame transmission medium and all signals are transmitted to all stations (but with the ends not connected in aring). Early Ethernet was an example of a bus topology. See also bus network and ring topology and star topologyand tree topology.Business Continuity Planning Business continuity planning is one step up from disaster recovery in thatbusiness continuity planning deals with the whole business and not just IT. See also disaster recovery.

Business Information System A business information system is a set of interrelated components (hardware,software, networks, people, and data) that collect, process, store, transform, and distribute data and information

to support decision making in an organization. See also accounting information system and transactionprocessing system and decision support system and management information system and executive informationsystem.

Business Intelligence Business intelligence is the process of analyzing large amounts of data stored on datawarehouses. See also data warehouse and data cleansing and data mining and metadata.

Business Model A business model describes how a business produces, delivers, and sells its products orservices so as to bring value to its customers. See also business process and channel conflict and collaborativecommerce.

Business Process A business process is a unique set of tasks and actions that organizations develop and utilizeto produce specific business results. A particular business process may or may not utilize information technology,

but these days many or most do. See also business model.

C and C++ C and C++ are programming languages. C is a general-purpose procedural language developed inthe early 1970s (and used to write Unix). C is known for the efficiency of the executable code that is produces(although it is not necessarily easy to learn) and is theoretically part way between assembly language (close tothe 0's and 1's that a computer understands and uses) and higher-level languages. C relies on the programmer tokeep programs out of trouble (such as handling memory allocation properly and using pointers and arraysproperly). C++ is an object-oriented version of C (more or less; it does not have to be used in an object-orientedmanner; out of the box, it can be used just like C) that was developed in 1983. See also Java and programminglanguage.

C2C C2C E-commerce involves consumers selling directly to other consumers such as on EBay. See also B2Band B2C.

Cable Modem A cable modem is a modem designed to operate over cable TV wiring. Because the coaxial cableused for cable TV is much faster than twisted pair telephone lines, cable modems can provide fast Internetaccess. Cable modems can offer speeds up to 2 Mbps. See also digital subscriber line (DSL).

Cache Cache or cache memory is a high-speed memory buffer that temporarily stores data that a processorneeds, allowing the processor to retrieve that data faster than if it came from memory. This definition, however,can be generalized to mean any area of any kind of memory that temporarily stores almost any kind of data. Diskdrives and web browsers also frequently use cache memory.

Call Center A call center is an organization which handles customer service by telephone and other channelssuch as chat. Many call centers were early victims of outsourcing to offshore organizations. See also outsourcing.


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Capability Maturity Model (CMM) The capability maturity model is a model for the software developmentprocess that allows the "maturity" of the process to be measured. Software process maturity is the extent to whicha specific process is defined, managed, measured, controlled, and effective. The CMM was developed by theSoftware Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University in the early 1980s. Maturity is defined at one of5 levels: initial, repeatable, defined, managed, and optimized. Areas that are addressed are requirementsmanagement, software configuration management, project planning, project tracking, subcontract management,and software quality assurance. See also capability maturity model and CERT/CC.

Case-Based Reasoning System A case-based reasoning system is a system that reasons based on pastproblems that are similar. This reasoning is a form of learning by experience. The process is broken down intofour parts: (1) given a problem, retrieve a case and its solution which is relevant to solving it; (2) adapt the solutionto the current problem; (3) test the new solution and revise it if necessary; and (4) store the new case for futureuse. Case-based reasoning is often used in Help Desk systems. See also rule base and neural network andintelligent agent.

CAPTCHA A CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) is theset of squiggly characters used in a challenge-response test to determine whether a user is a person or acomputer. The user is asked to type the letters of the distorted image and/or numbers. CAPTCHAs aretheoretically unreadable by machines although there are ways to defeat certain of them.

Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) A CRT is the display device that has traditionally been used in most video displays

and televisions, the kind that sticks out in the back. Old timers in the IT business will often say that they havebeen hunched over a "tube." CRTs are now being quickly replaced by flat panel displays. See also flat paneldisplay.

CERT/CC The CERT/CC is an organization that coordinates responses to Internet security problems. It is partof the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University. See also capability maturity model.

Certificate Authority A certificate authority is an independent organization that issues digital certificates. Seealso digital certificate and digital signature. Note: A certificate authority is different than a certificate of authorityauthorizing a foreign corporation to transact business within a state. See also certificate of authority.

Change Control Change control (sometimes called program change control or change management if used in amore general context) is a formal process to ensure that a computer program is modified only with approved

changes. Some system of change control (normally at least partly automated these days) is necessary to knowexactly what versions of what programs are actually running in production at a particular point in time. In additionto normal planned changes, there is almost always a need for some kind of emergency changes (that bypass thenormal change control procedure) to keep a system up and running. There should always be some kind ofprocess to back out the changes if they create a bigger problem than the problem that was originally beingaddressed. See also maintenance and software distribution.

Channel Conflict A channel conflict is a conflict between product distribution channels. For example, if acompany has utilized resellers (retail stores) for most of its product distribution and then implements a direct-salesoperation over the Internet, there is a possibility of a channel conflict where the direct sales might cannibalizesales from the resellers (since the two distribution methods can compete with each other). The same kind ofconflict can exist if the company has utilized internal salespeople for most of its product sales. See also businessmodel and clicks and mortar.

Checkpoint A checkpoint is any one of a series of points where a very long running process (batch job) could bestopped and restarted. It is sometimes called a checkpoint/restart. See also batch processing.

Chipset A chipset is the circuits that actually perform the functions of a motherboard. See also motherboard.

Churn Rate The churn rate is the number of customers who stop using or purchasing products or services froma company.


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Circuit Switching Circuit switching is the process for telephone lines in which an entire circuit is reserved for theentire duration of a call. The alternative to circuit switching is packet switching, where a signal is broken intomultiple packers and sent separately, to be reconnected at the other end. When a telephone handset is pickedup, that action signals the phone network that a call is being made. When the other end picks up, the circuit isestablished. When one person hangs up, the circuit is disconnected. See also packet switching and POTS andsampling.

Cladding Cladding is the thick cylinder of glass fiber that surrounds the thin transmitting core. The cladding

keeps the light in the central core. See also fiber optic cable.

Click Fraud Click fraud is a type of fraud that occurs in pay per click advertising where a person or some time ofan automated script imitates a legitimate user and generates a click for the ad without having actual interest in thetarget. See search engine and search engine marketing.Clicks and Mortar A business model combining stores (the mortar part) and clicks (the Internet part). See alsocontent provider and business model and channel conflict and virtual storefront.

Clickstream Tracking Clickstream tracking tools collect data on customer activities on a web site. The analysisof such clickstream data is not surprisingly called clickstream analysis. See also web personalization andcollaborative filtering.

Cloud The cloud is the representation in network diagrams of the public switched data network (PSDN). Once

customer data gets to the cloud, the customer does not have to worry about exactly what happens to it after that(the carrier worries about that). Most carriers offer service level agreements for transmission within the cloud. Seealso PSDN and service level agreement.

Cloud Computing Cloud computing has nothing to do with the public switched data network. Cloud computing isInternet-based computing. It is a style of computing in which IT-related capabilities are provided as a service,allowing users to access those services through the Internet. It encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends existing capabilities. See also software-as-a-service andutility computing and Web 2.0.

Cluster A cluster is a group of loosely coupled computers that work together as a group. Clusters may be high-availability clusters, load balancing clusters, or high-performance clusters. See also grid computing and edgecomputing and supercomputer.

Coaxial Cable Coaxial cable (or coax) is a thickly insulated and heavily shielded copper wire similar to that usedfor cable television. It is higher speed than unshielded twisted pair (UTP). See also fiber optic cable andunshielded twisted pair.

COBIT COBIT is the Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology is a set of best practicescreated by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association and the IT Governance Institute in 1992, withupdates since then. COBIT discusses control objectives for each of 34 different IT processes (divided into the 4domains of plan and organize, acquire and implement, deliver and support, and monitor and evaluate) and 7criteria (effectiveness, efficiency, confidentiality, integrity, availability, compliance, and reliability) and IT resources(people, applications, technology, facilities, and data).

Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) CDMA is a wireless networking (digital cellular) standard used in the USby companies such as Verizon, MCI, and Sprint. CDMA uses spread-spectrum technology and does not assign aspecific frequency to each user. Instead, individual conversations are encoded with a pseudo-random digitalsequence. Supposedly, CDMA provides a higher capacity than TDMA, a major competitive standard. CDMA,TDMA, and GSM are all 2G technologies. See also time division multiple access (TDMA) and global system formobile communications (GSM) and 3G.

Codec A codec is a device that converts analog signals from analog to digital. See also modem and analogsignal and digital signal.

Collaborative Commerce Collaborative commerce is a general term for the methods that organizations interactelectronically to plan, design, build, buy, sell, distribute, and support goods and services. See also businessmodel.


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Collaborative Filtering Collaborative filtering compares information gathered about a particular customer'sbehavior to data about other customers and decides what the particular customer would like to see next on a website. See also clickstream tracking and web personalization.

Command Line Interface A command line interface is a method of interfacing with a computer through typingcommands on a command line. DOS for PCs had a command line interface and so do Unix and Linux (althoughGUIs are now available for both Unix and Linux). The program that interprets the commands is called a commandline interpreter or shell. See also graphical user interface (GUI).

Common Gateway Interface (CGI) CGI is a standard protocol to interface external application software with aserver such as a web server, which allows the server to pass requests from a browser to the external applicationand for the external application to return the output to the browser.

Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) Computer aided software engineering is a method of systemdevelopment that supposedly reduces the amount of repetitive work that a system developer needs to do thoughthe use of certain tools. It was once a panacea for quicker system development. See also rapid applicationdevelopment (RAD) and structured programming.

Computer Forensics Computer forensics is the examination, testing, and analysis/evaluation of computer-basedmaterial for evidence in a court of law. See also electronic discovery.

Computer Literacy Computer literacy is the knowledge of information technology. It ranges from knowledge of aparticular application, such as a specific word processor or a particular spreadsheet, to a broader knowledge ofhow to use hardware, software, networking, and application systems in general. See also digital divide.

Concatenation Concatenation is the joining together of two strings of characters by sticking them end-to-end.

Connectionless Protocol A connectionless protocol is a protocol that does not establish a connection beforetransmitting. A connection-oriented protocol does establish a connection before transmitting. See also TCP.

Content Filtering Content filtering is examining data for its content and preventing that data from entering orleaving an organization. To some extent, anti-virus software is a form of content filtering, but normally contentfiltering is used in a broader sense. Common types of content filtering are parental controls over TV and parentalcontrol over web sites that can be viewed by their children. A problem with any kind of content filtering software

(on the Internet, for example) is keeping up with new inappropriate web sites since they tend to multiply likerabbits. See also appliance and firewall.

Content Provider A content provider is an organization that provides digital content, such as digital news, music,or video over the Internet. An example would be wsj.com from the Wall Street Journal. See also clicks and mortarand virtual storefront and business model.

Conversion Conversion (sometimes called data conversion when data only is being discussed) is the process ofchanging from an old application system to a new application system. There may be a direct cutover or some kindof parallel processing where both the old application system and the new application system are both run and theresults are compared (often a quite difficult comparison to make if the new and old systems do not perform thesame functions in the same way). See also system analysis and system design and maintenance and parallelprocessing.

Cookies Cookies are small files deposited on a person's hard drive when a person visits a web site. Cookiesidentify the person's web browser software, track that person's visits to the web site, and allow the operator of theweb site to customize the contents of its interaction with that person. The procedure is as follows: (1) a persongoes to a particular web site, (2) the web server reads the person's browser and determines the browser andbrowser version, the IP address, and other information, and (3) the web server transmits the cookie to thebrowser and the cookie is stored on the hard drive. When the person returns to the web site, the web server looksfor the cookie and, to some extent, identifies the person.


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Copyright A copyright is a statutory grant that protects creators of intellectual property from having their workcopied for any purpose during the life of the author plus a certain number of years. Software is just one of themany forms of intellectual property. Copyright law covers only the particular form or manner in which the ideas orconcepts have been manifested and not the actual ideas or concepts themselves. See also patent and intellectualproperty and trade secret and software piracy.

Core Competency A core competency is an activity for which an organization is a leader and that providescustomer benefits, is hard for competitors to imitate, and can be leveraged widely to many products and services.

If a core competency yields a long-term advantage, it is said to be a sustainable competitive advantage. A corecompetency may be knowledge of a particular subject matter, a reliable manufacturing or product developmentprocess, a specific and beneficial business culture, good customer relationships, and many other factors.Theoretically, activities which are not core competencies should be outsourced. See also outsourcing.

Core Systems Core systems are systems that support functions that are absolutely critical to an organization.

COSO COSO is the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission, consisting of theAICPA, the American Accounting Association, the Institute of Internal Auditors, the Institute of ManagementAccountants, and the Financial Executives Institute. It was formed in 1985. Note that COSO's Internal Control Integrated Framework is now often used as the criteria for evaluating internal control in the auditor's opinion onManagement's Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting now included in the report of independentregistered public accounting firms in annual reports.

CSMA/CD Carrier sense multiple access/collision detection is a now obsolete scheme for broadcasttransmission on a LAN. A station (NIC) with something to transmit checks the transmission medium to see ifsomething else is already being transmitted. If so, it waits. If not, it transmits. If it then detects a coll ision (someother station transmitting at the same time), it waits a random interval of time and retransmits (and so does theother station, but since the interval is random, the two stations do not wait the same time). The problem withCSMA/CD was that it did not work well for large networks. With large networks, there were just too manycollisions to detect and to fix. See also Ethernet.

CSU/DSU A CSU/DSU (Data Service Unit/Channel Service Unit) is customer-owned network terminationequipment, normally used with a leased line. An example is a device connecting a LAN to a phone company T1.The CSU/DSU manages line control and converts between formats of messages. See also customer premisesequipment.

Customer Premises Equipment Customer premises equipment is telecommunications equipment owned by thecustomer. Customer premises equipment is anything inside of the demarcation point, which is the point ofseparation of the customer equipment (a LAN) from the carrier's telecommunication channel (a T1). See alsoCSU/DSU.Customization Customization is changing a purchased application software package to meet a customer'sspecific requirements. Customization is not always a good idea since every time a new release of the software isdistributed, the customizations have to be made over again. And the customizations do take time.

Cybersquatting Cybersquatting is registering or selling a domain name with the intent to profit from the goodwillattached to a trademark belonging to someone else. Normally it refers to registering or selling a domain name thathas some other company's name in it. See also domain name and domain name warehousing.

Data Bus A data bus is the transfer mechanism for data into and out of a PC processor or into and out ofmemory. See also address bus and internal register.

Data Cleansing Data cleansing or data cleaning is the finding and fixing of errors in data in a database. Datacleansing is also called data scrubbing. Data cleansing fixes data that is incorrect, incomplete, improperlyformatted, or redundant. See also data warehouse and metadata.

Data Independence Data independence is the condition in which data that is processed is independent of theprograms that process it so that either can be changed without affecting the other. See also data redundancy.


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Data Link Layer Protocol A data link layer protocol is a communication protocol for the data link layer of anarchitecture. Ethernet is a data link layer protocol. See also Ethernet and application layer protocol and networklayer protocol and transport layer protocol and Open System Interconnect (OSI).

Data Redundancy Data redundancy is where the same data is stored in more than one place in an organization.If data is stored in more than one place, its value is likely to be different in at least some of those places. If data isstored only in place, it can have only one value. See also data independence.

Data Store A data store is another name for a data warehouse. See also data warehouse and data mart anddata mining and business intelligence.

Denial-of-Service Attack A denial-of-service attack (DoS) is an attack on a computer system in an attempt tomake the computer system unavailable to its intended users. One common method of attack is to bombard thetarget machine with external communication requests so that it cannot respond to legitimate requests. Adistributed denial-of-service attack (DDos) occurs when multiple compromised systems (a botnet) flood the targetmachine. See also botnet and internet protocol address spoofing.

Device Driver A device driver is a specialized piece of software that handles a specific hardware interrupt in aPC. See also BIOS and interrupt and plug-and-play.

Dialback System A dialback system is a password system that hangs up and calls back potential system users

after their passwords have been validated. This kind of safeguard is normally used only on dial-up systems andwhere the user is calling from a pre-defined phone number.

Digital Cash Digital cash (also electronic cash or E-cash) is currency in an electronic form that moves outsidethe normal channels of money. Digital cash can be used by people who want to make purchases over the Internetbut do not want to use their credit cards. An example of digital cash is PayPal. See also digital checking anddigital wallet and smart cards and micropayment.

Digital Checking Digital checking is an electronic check with a secure digital signature. See also digital cash anddigital wallet and smart card.

Digital Divide The digital divide is the name given to the high degree of access to computing in higher economicareas and the lower degree of such assess in lower economic areas. See also computer literacy.

Digital Signal A digital signal is a signal that is represented by zeros and ones. See also analog signal andrepeater.

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) DSL is a technology that provides digital data transmission over the wires of atelephone network. It is broadband communication over telephone lines as opposed to cable. See also cablemodem and VoIP.

Digital Wallet A digital wallet is software that stores credit card and other information to facilitate payment forgoods on the Internet. A digital wallet can hold a user's payment information, a digital certificate to identify theuser, and shipping information for delivery. See also digital cash and digital checking.

Direct Cutover A direct cutover is implementing a system without any period of parallel processing. See alsoparallel processing.

Disaster Recovery Disaster recovery is the plan for or the actual resumption of computer processing after somekind of a disaster (which is more than just a temporary system outage). See also business continuity planning.

Disintermediation Disintermediation is the removal of organizational or business process layers responsible forintermediate steps in a value chain. The process of shifting or moving intermediate steps in a value chain is calledre-intermediation.

Dispersion Dispersion is the spreading of optical signals as they travel along a fiber optic cable. Dispersion isrelated to signal attenuation for other types of signals. See also attenuation and fiber optic cable and analogsignal and digital signal.


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Distributed Database A distributed database is a database that is physically stored in several different physicallocations. A distributed database is not the same as distributed processing. See also replication and partitioning.

Domain Name A domain name is a name which includes one or more IP addresses; domain names are merelysomething that is easier to remember than an IP address. In web addresses such as www.beckerreview.com, thedomain name is beckerreview.com. The .com is the top level domain name for commercial organizations. Othersuch top level domain names are .gov for governments, .edu for educational institutions, .org for nonprofitorganizations, and .mil for the military. The beckerreview is the second level domain name, and the www

indicates that the PC with that address is a web server. Organizations with second level domain names have tohave a DNS server. A third level domain name is an individual host and would be something likeolinto.beckerreview.com if a host were named after Peter Olinto. The entire address is called a fully qualifieddomain name. The word "domain" has multiple uses in IT and is normally not used here other than in "domainname;" if it were, the domain would be the routers, networks, and hosts under the control of a single organization.If the name had a /students attached to it, like in www.beckerreview.com/students, the /students (and anythingafter it in more complex domain names) would be a file name. A DNS root server is the servers that administerthe top level domain names. See also domain name system (DNS) and IP address and domain namewarehousing and cybersquatting.

Domain Name System (DNS) The domain name system is the system of domain names that is employed by theInternet. The Internet is based on IP addresses, not domain names, and each web server requires a domainname server to translate domain names into IP addresses. Think of domain name servers as large electronic

telephone books. See also IP address and domain name.

Domain Name Warehousing Domain name warehousing is the practice of obtaining control of domain nameswith the intent of warehousing (hanging onto them without using them). See also domain name andcybersquatting.

Dotted Decimal Notation Dotted decimal notation is the notation that is used to designate an IP address. Seealso IP and IP address.

Downsizing Downsizing is shifting data processing from mainframes to smaller computer systems. Many peoplethought that downsizing would automatically save money because small processor MIPS cost considerably lessthan mainframe MIPS. Those people conveniently forgot that small processors (partly because there are so manyof them) take considerably more people resources to support than did mainframes. Upsizing and rightsizing came

along later, and the definition of downsizing was expanded to include other things than the replacement ofmainframes. See also total cost of ownership and RAS and MIPS.Downtime Downtime is a period of time when an application system is not available to a user of that system, forwhatever reason, including hardware problems, software problems, and network problems. See also high-availability computer system.

Dual Core Processor A dual core processor is a device which contains two independent processors, sometimeson a single integrated circuit.

EBCDIC EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code) is a system of character encoding usedfor IBM processors. EBCDIC is an 8 bit code, meaning that it uses 8 bits or 0-255 in decimal to representcharacters. EBCDIC was introduced along with the System/360 processors. Code 40 (in hexadecimal) is a blankor a space, codes C1-C9 are the alphabetic characters A I, codes D2-D9 are the alphabetic characters J-R, andcodes E2-E9 are the alphabetic characters S-Z. PCs use ASCII. See also ASCII and hexadecimal notation.

Echo Echo (in voice communications) is a signal propagating in the same direction as the original signal butreflected back to the originator. There are two types of echo: acoustic echo (caused by sound from the speakerpart of the telephone and transmitted back by the microphone) and hybrid echo (caused by the electricaltransmission itself). Trying to get rid of echo is called echo cancellation. See also noise and jitter and latency.

Edge Computing Edge computing is a multi-tier load-balancing web service in which significant parts of the website content, logic, and processing are performed by smaller servers. See also grid computing.


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Electronic Discovery Electronic discovery (sometimes called ediscovery or electronic data discovery) refers todiscovery in civil litigation of electronic information. Discovery refers to a pre-trial procedure used by a party to alawsuit to obtain facts and information about the case from the other party in order to assist in its preparation fortrial. Electronic discovery is governed by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which at the time of this writingrequire that electronically stored information be provided within 99 days of request. Any electronic information(including telephone calls), but especially email in some recent well-publicized cases, may be the subject ofelectronic discovery. The process of performing electronic discovery is often called litigation support. See alsoemail and email archiving and metadata and computer forensics.

Electronic Vaulting Electronic vaulting is the electronic transmission and storage of backup data at an offsitestorage location. Traditionally, backup data has been stored offsite, for disaster recovery and/or data retentionpurposes, on tapes that had to be physically taken to the offsite location. Electronic vaulting replaces the physicalmovement of the tapes with electronic transmission and sometimes replaces the tapes with other storage devices.

Email Email (or electronic mail) is a method of composing, sending, storing, and receiving messages overelectronic communication systems. See also instant messaging and simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) andemail archiving.

Email Archiving Email archiving is the secure preservation of email for regulatory compliance and otherpurposes. It is a form of backup. An email archiving system normally extracts message contents and attachmentsand indexes them and stores them in a read-only format so that they cannot be altered. See also email and

electronic discovery and metadata.

Embedded System An embedded system (such as a PDA or a bank ATM or a cell phone) is a hardware devicein which the processor controlling the device is completely contained in the device it controls. Unlike a generalpurpose PC, an embedded system performs only certain specialized tasks and thus can be optimized forperformance. Of course, the functions of many embedded systems tend to expand over time as they take onmore and more functions.

Emulation Emulation is the ability of a program or of a device to imitate another program or device.

End User An end user is a person who actually uses a system. In many cases, the entry of data into anapplication has been handed over to the end users (and away from keypunch operators). See also end-userdevelopment.

End-User Development End-user development (sometimes called end-user computing or EUC) is thedevelopment of application systems or parts of application systems by end users as opposed to people in an ITorganization. Some of the first end-user developed systems were spreadsheets. A problem that often occurs withend-user developed systems is keeping the (same) data in those systems in sync with that in the formalproduction systems of an organization. Other problems are the security of the programs and of sensitive datacontained in these systems, and backup and recovery (or lack thereof). Other problems are incompatibility ofsome of these systems with the hardware and software in the rest of the organization and the resulting inability ofthe systems to communicate. See also end user.

Ergonomics Ergonomics is the interaction of people and machines. See also repetitive stress injury.

Escrow Escrow (of source code) is where the source code of an application system is held by a supposedlyindependent third party (escrow agent) so that it can be made available to the purchaser if something happens tothe vendor (filing for bankruptcy) or if the vendor fails to maintain the software as promised in the licenseagreement for the software. Escrowing source code is not a panacea because the software in escrow is notalways maintained properly (to be useable, the source code should be updated when new releases of theapplication system are distributed and theoretically even when fixes are made) and there have beendisagreements about whether the escrow agreement is a contract that can be voided by a trustee in bankruptcy.See also source code and object code.


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Ethernet Ethernet is a large collection of frame-based networking technologies for LANs. Ethernet incorporatesa number of wiring and speed standards for the physical layer and a common addressing and message format.Ethernet was originally developed for communicating over shared coaxial cable in broadcast mode usingCSMA/CD (transmitting to all stations on the network and using a collision detection scheme); today, Ethernet isused on the vast majority of networks and no longer uses CSMA/CD. See also 802.3 and CSMA/CD and10BaseT and network and network protocols.

Exchange An exchange is an independently owned third-party Internet marketplace to connect buyers and

sellers for spot purchases. Exchanges proliferated during the early years of E-commerce, but many of them failedin the dot.com bust. This use of the word "exchange" is not the same as Microsoft Exchange, which a messagingand collaborative software product.

Expansion Slot An expansion slot is a part of an I/O bus that allows the processor to communicate withperipheral devices. See also address bus and data bus and internal register and motherboard.

Exposure Exposure is a measure of risk derived by multiplying the potential magnitude of an error (in dollars) bythe probability of occurrence of that error. See also risk.

Fault-Tolerant Computer System A fault-tolerant computer system is a system that contains redundanthardware, software, and power supplies that enable the system to provide continuous and uninterrupted service.Fault-tolerant computer systems hopefully detect hardware problems before they occur and switch to a backup

device. Fault-tolerant systems are one step above high-availability computer systems. See also high-availabilitycomputer system.

Fax on Demand Fax on demand is the faxing of documents directly from business applications (ERP, CRM,SCM, and others), without having to get people involved in the process.

Feasibility Study A feasibility study is a part of system analysis that attempts to determine if a particular systemsolution is technically or economically or organizationally feasible. See also system analysis.

Fiber Optic Cable Fiber optic cable is a cable that works with light pulses. It is faster than coaxial cable andunshielded twisted pair. In recent years, fiber optic cable has been installed everywhere by everybody (it was firstused for long-distance transmission but it has come or is coming closer and closer to the desktop). In many cities,fiber optic cable is what is installed right after a road is repaved. Of course, that means that the road has to be

dug up all over again. See also unshielded twisted pair and coaxial cable and backbone and cladding.

File Extension A file (or filename) extension is a suffix, in many but not all operating systems, to the name of afile that indicates its format. The file extension is the (often) three characters after the dot in the file name. Fileextensions can be "associated" with specific applications so that the file can be processed by the associatedapplication by clicking on the file name. Examples are "doc" for Word files and "xls" for Excel files and "exe" forexecutable files and "txt" for plain text files and "pdf" for Adobe files and "xps" for Windows Vista document format(xps means XML paper specification, which is a general-purpose document format to compete with Adobe). Seealso plain text file and XML.

File Transport Protocol (FTP) FTP is a network protocol used to exchange files over any network that supportsTCP/IP. FTP is an application layer protocol. FTP transfers require a server and a client. FTP is commonly run ontwo named ports (20 and 21); the FTP server listens on port 21 for incoming connections from FTP clients, and,once a connection is established, the data is transferred using port 20 or some other port as indicated by theclient. There is no way to transfer encrypted data using basic FTP (SFTP or FTPS have to be used) since theprotocol was written prior to the development of SSL (secured socket layer). See also hypertext transport protocol(HTTP) and simple mail transport protocol (SMTP) and IP and TCP/IP and application layer protocol and dataencryption and SSL.

FireWire FireWire is a PC serial interface standard that offers high-speed communications and data services.FireWire has replaced SCSI (small computer system interface, which was often used for disk drives and tapedrives) in many PCs; servers and high-end workstations often use SCSI interfaces. Many digital cameras andcamcorders and other such external devices use a FireWire interface. See also Serial ATA.


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Flash Drive A flash drive is a data storage device with a USB interface. They are small in size and are difficult todestroy. A flash drive is a small circuit board encased in plastic with a USB connector on one end. They can beplugged into a USB port on a PC and do not require any power other than that provided by the USB port. Seealso flash memory and universal serial bus (USB) port.

Flash Memory Flash memory is a form of non-volatile memory (that does not need power to maintain itsinformation) that can be electrically erased and re-written. Flash memory is used in digital cameras and cellphones and USB flash drives (that are quickly replacing floppy disks). See also flash drive.

Flat Panel Display Flat panel displays are a newer kind of display device that has more of a flat screen than aCRT. See also cathode ray tube (CRT).

Floating-Point Coprocessor A floating-point coprocessor is a special math chip that was used in early PCs forarithmetical calculations based on scientific notation. Starting with the 486 chip, floating point processors havebeen built into PC motherboards. See also motherboard.

Flowchart A flowchart is a diagrammatic (or symbolic) representation of a program (program flowchart) orsystem (system flowchart), including the flow of data through a program or system and the processes performedon that data. The flowchart that sometimes shows up on the BEC exam is a system flowchart. Questions canappear on how to interpret a system flowchart by asking what the flowchart symbols are.

Forward Chaining Forward chaining in an AI shell begins with the available data or data entered by a user and

uses the rules to extract more data until an optimal goal is reached; forward chaining is called data driven. Seealso backward chaining and fuzzy logic and inference engine and artificial intelligence (AI) shell and rule base.

Frame A frame has different definitions in different areas of IT (not even counting the word "frame" inmainframe). In general, a frame is a packet of data that has been encoded for transmission over a particulartransmission link. The process involves adding address and control fields and sometimes fields to detect errors.The word "frame" may also be used in frame relay multiplexing to describe a time slot. Normally, packets can bedivided into frames. In this Addendum, frame and packet are used somewhat interchangeably. See also framerelay and packet.

Frame Relay Frame relay (multiplexing) is a shared network service that is faster and sometimes lessexpensive than packet switching. Frame relay puts data into variable-length frames and leaves any errorcorrection up to the end-points of the data transmission; when frame relay detects an error in a frame, it just drops

the frame. Cable modem and DSL and dedicated broadband services are replacing frame relay. See also packetand frame and packet switching and TCP/IP and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and cable modem anddigital subscriber line (DSL).

Freeware Freeware is copyrighted software that is made available free of charge (as opposed to shareware,which is paid for after some period of use). See also shareware and open-source software.

Frequency Frequency is the rate at which a signal oscillates. Frequency is measured in terms of cycles persecond or Hertz (this is a different Hertz than the rental car company). One Hertz means that an event repeatsitself once per second. When waves travel from one transmission medium to another, their frequency does notchange; only their wavelength and speed change. See also Hertz and frequency division multiplexing and analogsignal and wavelength.

Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) Frequency division multiplexing is a form of multiplexing where two ormore signals at their individual frequencies are combined and transmitted at the same time over a carrierfrequency (don't worry about how that is actually done). It can also be thought of as dividing a frequency spectruminto multiple channels, such as with microwaves. Historically, telephone networks have used FDM to carry severalvoice channels over a single physical circuit. See also microwave transmission and time division multiplexing andmultiplexing and wavelength division multiplexing.

FTP FTP (File Transport Protocol) is a protocol for transferring files. See also hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP)and simple mail transport protocol (SMTP) and domain name system (DNS).


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Full-Duplex Full-duplex transmission or communication is the ability to transmit in both directions at the sametime using more than one communication medium or at a different frequency. Half-duplex transmission istransmission in both directions, but not at the same time.

Fuzzy Logic Fuzzy logic deals with reasoning that is approximate rather than precise. Fuzzy logic does notnecessarily reason in terms of IF-THEN statements but attempts to reason like people, in terms, for example, of"good" and "bad" and "tall" and "short" and "hot" and "cold" and shades of grey in addition to black and white.Fuzzy logic is derived from fuzzy set theory. See also backward chaining and forward chaining and rule base and

artificial intelligence (AI) shell and inference engine and neural network.

Gigabyte (GB) A gigabyte is approximately 1 billion bytes. The word approximately is in the definition becausethe size is actually 1,073,741,824, which is 2

30bytes. See also megabyte and terabyte and kilobyte.

Gigahertz (GHz) Gigahertz is a measurement of how fast something, possibly a processor in a computer, is.One gigahertz represents 1 billion cycles per second. A CPU that runs at 200 GHz executes 200 billion cycles persecond. Each instruction requires a fixed number of cycles so that the CPU can execute a certain number ofinstructions per second. Earlier slower CPUs were measured in terms of MHz, which were millions of cycles persecond. See also Hertz.

Global Positioning System (GPS) GPS is a worldwide satellite navigation system. GPS used to be real neattechnically, but now that GPS receivers are being installed in cars (automotive navigation systems) and handheld

devices, GPS has become somewhat commonplace. GPS can be used by emergency services to locate mobilephones. GPS transmission requires a line of sight and cannot be used indoors.

Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) GSM is the major standard for wireless networking (mobilephones) in the world. See also code division multiple access (CDMA) and time division multiple access (TDMA)and 3G.

Graphical User Interface (GUI) A GUI is a method of interfacing with a computer through the manipulation ofgraphical images. The first GUIs were on Apple computers and Windows. GUIs replaced the DOS command lineinterface. See also command line interface and Visual Basic.

Grid Computing Grid computing is a collection of interconnected computers (like a cluster) that do not fully trusteach other and that act more like a computing utility than like a single computer. Grid computing is optimized forworkloads that consist of many independent packets of work that do not share data during the computationprocess. See also supercomputer and edge computing and cluster.

Handoff Handoff is the process of transferring an ongoing cell phone call from one cell to another, for examplewhen the cell phone is moving away from the area covered by one cell to the area covered by another cell. A cellis an area that is covered by a single transmitter (or mobile base station).

Header Label A header label is an internal label which occurs at the beginning of a tape or disk file andidentifies the file. See also trailer label.

Hertz Hertz is how frequency is measured. See also frequency and gigahertz.

Hexadecimal Notation Hexadecimal notation is measurement in base-16 notation (normal numbers are base-10). In hexadecimal, numbers are 0-9 and A-F. See also EBCDIC and ASCII.

High-Availability Computer System A high-availability computer system is a system that contains redundanthardware, software, and power supplies that enables the system to attempt to provide continuous anduninterrupted service or to recover quickly from problems that do occur. Planned downtime is downtime formaintenance; it can normally be scheduled and users can be alerted. Unplanned downtime is downtime that is notplanned and is normally the result of some system problem. Uptime is the opposite of downtime. Availability isuptime / total time, with some calculations excluding planned downtime from the calculations. See also fault-tolerant computer system and downtime and service level agreement.

Hop A hop is the transmission of microwaves between one microwave transmitter or microwave repeater andanother. Microwave transmission has to be line of sight. See also microwave transmission.


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Hotspot A hotspot is several wireless access points in a public place to provide wireless coverage for a specificarea. See also access point and ad hoc mode and infrastructure mode.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) HTML is a tag-based formatting language used for web pages. It providesa means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document and to replicate that information in aweb page by using the tags in the text. An extension of HTML is XHTML (extensible HTML), which confirms to theXML format. The ability to read and work with HTML documents is built into browsers, and the ability to readXHTML is built into all new browsers. XML, on the other hand, needs a "parser" to translate it before it can be

used in standard browsers. See also XML.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) HTTP is the communications protocol used to transfer web pages on theWorld Wide Web. HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP that uses SSTL (secure socket layer) for its security. Seealso hypertext markup language (HTML) and XML and file transfer protocol (FTTP) and UDP and simple objectaccess protocol (SOAP) and secure socket layer (SSL).

Hub A hub is a device that connects network components. See also router and gateway and switch and localarea network (LAN).

IEEE The IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is a leading standard setting organization fortelecommunications and related areas. It is based in the US. See also WiFi Alliance and the various IEEE 8xxstandards.

Identity Theft Identity theft is a crime in which an imposter obtains key pieces of personal information such associal security numbers, driver license numbers, and credit card numbers to impersonate the person whoseidentity was stolen. The information may be used to obtain credit, merchandise, or services in the name of thevictim. See also phishing.

Image Processing Image processing (sometimes called document processing) is any form of processing forwhich both the input and the output are images. See also workflow management.

Inference Engine An inference engine is the strategy used to search through the rule base in an artificialintelligence shell. See also backward chaining and forward chaining and fuzzy logic and artificial intelligence (AI)shell and rule base.

Information Appliance An information appliance is a simple hardware device, such as an Internet-enabled cellphone or a PDA, which has been customized to perform a few specialized communication functions. See alsopersonal digital assistant (PDA).

Information Asymmetry Information asymmetry is where one party to a transaction has better access toinformation that is important to the transaction than the other party.

Infrastructure Infrastructure (specifically IT infrastructure) is the hardware, software, storage technology, andnetworks providing shared resources to an organization.

Infrastructure Mode Infrastructure mode is wireless networking when the networking devices communicatethrough an access point. See also ad hoc mode and access point and hot spot.

Ink Jet Printer An ink jet printer is a printer which prints by propelling very small droplets of liquid ink onto thepaper. Ink jet printers are contrasted to laser printers which capture an image of the entire page at once and use atoner to transfer that image to paper.

Instant Messaging Instant messaging (IM) is the act of instant communication between two or more users overthe Internet based on typed text. Instant messaging requires the use of a client program that connects to aninstant messaging service and a contact list to determine who can exchange messages. Instant messaging isinstant or real time where email is not. Instant messaging has been available on private networks since the 1970s.There are no real standards for instant messaging, and each major IM provider (MSN, AOL, and Yahoo)continues to use its own protocol although they are interoperable. See also email.


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Intellectual Capital Intellectual capital is intangible assets such as proprietary knowledge, information, uniquebusiness methods, and brands which are seldom recorded on the books of an organization. Intellectual capital iscontrasted to physical capital or physical assets.

Intelligent Agent An intelligent agent is a software agent that assists users and acts on their behalf with non-repetitive tasks. The "intelligent" aspect means that the agent can adapt and learn from what is happening or hashappened in its environment. See also rule base and neural network and case-based reasoning system and bot.

Interrupt An interrupt (or hardware interrupt) is used by hardware devices to indicate to the motherboard thatthey (the hardware devices) are requesting service. In the text and this Addendum, interrupts are used inconjunction only with PCs, but they actually are used in all types of processors. See also BIOS and device driver.

Intellectual Property Intellectual property is a term used to describe products of the human intellect that haveeconomic value. Software is just one of the many forms of intellectual property. Intellectual property can beprotected as trade secrets or by copyrights or by patents. See also copyrights and patents and trade secrets.

Internal Register Internal registers are the pieces of hardware that store data and addresses within the PCprocessor and determine the size of the data on which the processor can operate. See also address bus and databus and motherboard.

Internet Protocol Address Spoofing Internet protocol address spoofing is the creation of IP packets with a forged

IP address. It is often referred to as IP spoofing or a sequence number attack. IP spoofing is often used in denial-of-service attacks. See also IP and IP address and firewall and denial-of-service attack.

Interrupt An interrupt (or hardware interrupt) is used by hardware devices to indicate to the motherboard thatthey are requesting service. See also address bus and data bus and internal register and motherboard and devicedriver and stack.

Integrated Service Digital Network (ISDN) ISDN is a type of circuit switched telephone network service whichwas designed to allow the digital transmission of voice and data over telephone lines at a rate of up to 64kbps.ISDN is being replaced by DSL, which has a higher transmission rate. See also digital subscriber line (DSL).

IP IP (Internet Protocol) is the protocol used to send messages over the Internet. See also TCP and TCP/IP andIP address and dotted decimal notation and Internet protocol address spoofing.

IP Address An IP address is an address assigned to users on a network or the Internet (actually assigned to theNIC). IP addresses are written in a decimal format (dotted decimal notation) such as 123.11.1.123. Each of thefour sets of numbers between the dots can be between 0 and 255. For dial-up access to the Internet, the internetservice provider assigns the user to a temporary IP address, which is released when the user hangs up (dynamicIP addresses). For high-speed connections, the cable modem has an IP address which is always used. IPaddresses are 32 bits long (IPv4), although there is a new version with addresses that are 128 bits long (IPv6).See also domain name and domain name system (DNS) and IP and dotted decimal notation and IPv4 and MACaddress and Ethernet and Internet protocol address spoofing.

IP Fragment An IP fragment is a part of an IP message. Fragmentation occurs when an IP message must bebroken into fragments for transmission over networks that allow different maximum lengths. See also firewall andnetwork address translation (NAT).

IPv4 IPv4 is the current version of IP with 32-bit addresses. IPv6 is a newer version of IP with 128-bitaddresses. At the time of this writing, estimates are that the Internet will run out of network addresses in fewerthan 10 years. In IPv4, there are only approximately 2 billion network addresses (232 = 4,294,967,296). In IPv6,there are approximately 16 billion-billion network addresses (2128), which should be enough for a while longer.See also IP address and IP.

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) IRC is a form of Internet chat or synchronous conferencing. It is designed for groupconferencing but is also used for one-to-one communications and private messages. IRC used TCP and can useSSL for security. The basic means of communication in an IRC session is a channel; channels may have nodes.IRC sessions are not encrypted unless they are using SSL and thus can be susceptible to Internet attacks. Seealso TCP and SSL.


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ISO 17799 ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 17799 is an international set of standards forsecurity and control. The areas that are covered by ISO 17799 are security policy, security organization, assetcontrol, personnel security, physical security, communications and operations management, access control,systems development and maintenance, and business continuity management, and compliance. The InternationalOrganization for Standardization itself is the organization that sets the standards. The ISO is based in Genevaand currently includes national standards organizations from 156 countries. See also IEEE.

ISO 9000 ISO 900 is an international set of standards for quality management and quality assurance. One of

the standards in ISO 9000 is ISO 9001, which is a standard for manufacturing. See also capability maturity model.

Java Java is an object-oriented programming language somewhat similar to C++. It is independent of operatingsystems and processors (it runs under any operating system and on any hardware processor). Java has becomethe leading programming language on the Internet. Java programs are often small programs called applets (orJava applets) that are designed to run on local processors and that perform certain limited functions. Only thoseparticular applets that are necessary for a particular function are actually downloaded from the server to the localprocessor. The Java environment is the programs that can be used to run Java; since Java is an interpretedlanguage, it needs a Java run-time system to run a Java applet. See also programming language and operatingsystem and JavaScript and C and C++.

JavaScript JavaScript is a script language developed by Netscape that allows the insertion of commands on aHTML web page (HTML is static and cannot interact with users other than by presenting hyperlinks). Despite the

name, the only real rela

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