NonStop S-Series Planning and Configuration Guide (G06.26+)
Glossary
HP NonStop S-Series Planning and Configuration Guide—523303-017
Glossary-5
application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)
application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). A custom-built integrated circuit (IC) used 
to perform highly specialized functions.
Apply. The Distributed Systems Management/Software Configuration Manager (DSM/SCM) 
action of executing the instructions contained in an activation package, such as placing 
new software on the target system and taking a snapshot of the new target system.
appropriate privileges. In the Open System Services (OSS) environment, an 
implementation-defined means of associating privileges with a process for function 
calls or function call options that need special privileges.
archive. 1. A collection of files of a similar type. For example, one archive might contain 
only Guardian executable files and another might contain only Java servlets or only 
configuration files. Archives are used for convenience, such as moving similar files 
between multiple environments (UNIX to PC to Guardian). There are many software 
utilities for creating archives; the best known is the UNIX 
ar utility. 2. For DSM/SCM, a 
set of unstructured files used to collect the software received onto the host system. 
Files received as input are placed in the DSM/SCM archive, and attributes of the files 
are stored in the host database. You can use the Archive and Database Maintenance 
Interface to specify the archive location in the Configuration Manager profile.
Archive and Database Maintenance Interface. A block-mode interface run by a database 
or system administrator at both the host system and target systems to perform 
Distributed Systems Management/Software Configuration Manager (DSM/SCM) 
maintenance functions.
ASCII. American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A single-byte code set that 
uses only 7 of the 8 bits in a byte to represent each character. The ASCII code set 
contains the uppercase and lowercase characters of the U.S. English alphabet, some 
punctuation symbols, the digits 0 through 9, and some symbols and control characters. 
Because of its limited characters, and because the 8th bit is sometimes used in ASCII 
programs as a utility bit, the ASCII code set is not appropriate for use in international 
software.
ASIC. See application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).
ASSIGN. An HP Tandem Advanced Command Language (TACL) command you can use to 
associate a file name with a logical file of a program or to assign a physical device to 
logical entities that an application uses.
assign message. Within Subsystem Control Facility (SCF), a message created by SCF for 
each ASSIGN command. A new process must request its assign message following 
receipt of the startup message. All assign messages set by the SCF ASSIGN 
command, plus the ones read from the HP Tandem Advanced Command Language 
(TACL) command interpreter, are passed to the new process.
assumed object. The object type or object name specified by a Subsystem Control Facility 
(SCF) ASSUME command. If an ASSUME command has been used to establish a 
default object type and fully qualified default object name, and if that object type and 










