IPX/SPX Programming Manual

Glossary
HP NonStop IPX/SPX Programming Manual—528022-001
Glossary-2
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). A transfer mode in which the information is
organized into cells.
ATM. See Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM).
attribute. In DSM, a characteristic of an entity. For example, two attributes of a
communications line might be its hop count and its retry count. In a token-oriented
interface based on SPI, an attribute of an object is usually expressed as either a simple
token or as a field within an extensible structured token.
broadcast. A packet delivery system that delivers a copy of a given packet to all hosts that
attach to it is said to broadcast the packet. Broadcast can be implemented with
hardware or software.
BSD. Berkeley Software Distribution.
client. A workstation in a client/server environment. A program that requests operations
from another program. See server.
collector. An EMS process that accepts event messages from subsystems and logs them
in the event log. See EMS. Compare distributor.
compatibility distributor. An EMS distributor process that filters event messages
according to fixed (rather than user-specified) criteria, and writes the text to the
standard NonStop Kernel console-message destinations. See also distributor.
connection. The path between two protocol modules that provides reliable stream delivery
service. In the Internet, a connection extends from a TCP module on one machine to a
TCP module on another machine.
connectionless service. Characteristic of the packet delivery service offered by most
hardware and by the Internet Protocol (IP). The connectionless service handles each
packet or datagram as a separate entity that contains the source and destination
address. Usually, connectionless services can drop packets or deliver them out of
sequence.
consumer distributor. An EMS distributor process that returns selected event messages
to management applications upon request. See also distributor.
control and inquiry. In DSM, those aspects of object management that affect the state or
configuration of an object, such as inquiries about the object and commands pertaining
to the environment (for example, commands that set default values for the session).
Compare event management.
critical event. An EMS event that is considered to be crucial to the operation of the system
or network. Each subsystem determines which of its events are critical, designating
them as such by setting the value of the emphasis token to TRUE. Compare noncritical
event.