Glossary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Access Microsoft's advanced database creation and maintenance software. It is very popular among developers who maintain online databases with Windows NT.
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Active Server Page (ASP) ASPs are HTML documents embedded with scripts (typically Microsoft's VB Script or Jscript). These scripts are processed by the server prior to being transferred to the user.
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ActiveX A set of properties that define how applications are to share information with each other. These properties are known as controls.
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Aliased Nameservers An aliased nameserver is a nameserver that has been labeled as yours (the reseller's) despite the fact it actually belongs to your Web hosting provider. This ensures that domains located on your server are listed as "ns.yourservername.com" instead of "ns.yourprovidersname.com". Also see NAMESERVER below.
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Apache One of the world's most popular Web server programs, Apache was built by a group of open-source programmers and is often used because of its outstanding performance, strong security features and the fact that it is free. The first version of Apache, based on the NCSA httpd Web server, was developed in 1995. Because it was developed from existing NCSA code plus various patches, it was called a patchy server - hence the name Apache Server.

As a result of its sophisticated features, excellent performance, and low price (it's free), Apache has became the world's most popular Web server. By some estimates, it is used to host more than 50% of all Web sites in the world. Core development of the Apache Web server is performed by a group of about 20 volunteer programmers called the Apache Group. However, because the source code is freely available, anyone can adapt the server for specific needs, and there is a large public library of Apache add-ons. In many respects, development of Apache is similar to development of the Linux operating system. The original version of Apache was written for UNIX, but there are now versions that run under OS/2, Windows and other platforms.
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Application Service Provider (ASP) A third party that manages software applications for servers and networks.
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ASP
Active Server Pages (ASP). ASP files, which provide Web developers with an easier, faster and more powerful way to build Web applications, are regular HTML pages with embedded scripts. These scripts can be written in any language and processed by the server when the file's URL is requested. The specification for a dynamically created Web page with an ASP extension contains either Visual Basic or Jscript code. When a browser requests an ASP page, the Web server generates a page with HTML code and sends it back to the browser. So ASP pages are similar to CGI scripts, but they enable Visual Basic programmers to work with familiar tools.
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Audio Streaming - The process of providing audio content on a web site. This takes up a large amount of bandwidth, especially if you get a lot of visitors at your site. Some hosts do not allow audio or video streaming because of this.
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Availability - Refers to the amount of time within a 24 hour period a system is active or available for servicing requests. For example, if a hosting company says it is available 99.9% of the time, they are claiming that your web site will up all the time except for about 8 seconds each day. Over the course of a year, in this example, the hosting company is claiming that your site will only be unavailable (couldn't surf to it) for 48 hours.
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Backbone - A high-speed line or series of connections that forms a major pathway within a network. The term is relative as a backbone in a small network and will likely be much smaller than many non-backbone lines in a large network. In general, the better the backbone of the hosting company, the better the availability of the web sites that run on their computers.
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Bandwidth The amount of data that can be transmitted at a given moment to a server. The higher your bandwidth, the larger amount of traffic your site can handle at one time.
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CGI Short for Common Gateway Interface, A set of rules that describe how a Web Server communicates with another piece of software on the same machine and how the other piece of software (the 'CGI program') talks to the web server. Any piece of software can be a CGI program if it handles input and output according to the CGI standard.

Usually a CGI program is a small program that takes data from a web server and does something with it, like putting the content of a form into an e-mail message or turning the data into a database query.

CGI "scripts" are just scripts which use CGI. CGI is often confused with Perl, a programming language. CGI is an interface to the server from a particular program. Perl is an application of CGI, as well as MIVA, Python, PHP3 and other scripting languages.
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Cgi-bin The directory on a Web server where CGI scripts are stored.
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ColdFusion - An application which simplifies database queries by allowing for a simpler programming language to handle functions between the user's browser, the server and the database. After you have developed your web site, you will know whether ColdFusion is a requirement. If you have not used ColdFusion to develop your site, you should ignore this feature.
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Co-located hosting This hosting option gives webmasters complete control over their server. You are responsible for providing the physical hardware and network administration; the hosting company will provide you with the rack space, power, security, a defined level of technical support and Internet connection.
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Control Panel - Control panel refers to a popular graphical user interface for webmasters to manage their website functions such as creation of POP3 email accounts, viewing of web stats, creation of mySQL database, etc.
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Cookie A text file sent to a user's Web browser from a Web server. Cookies are typically exchanged back and forth between the two in order to prepare custom content for users and to exchange data like registration information.
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Data Transfer This is the amount of data that is transferred from an account as visitors view the pages of the web site. If you have a web site with lots of video, audio, and images that gets many visitors per day, you would have to make sure that you choose a host that will allow large amounts of data to be transferred. If you choose a host that only allows 200 MB of data transfer per month, and your site transferred 500 MB per month, then the host may stop half of your visitors from viewing your site and you could lose potential customers. Your best bet is to try to find a host that offers unlimited data transfer or at least a Gig of transfer. A gig is more than enough for most web sites. As a general rule, 500 MB of data transfer is equivalent to 20,000 page views.
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Dedicated hosting A hosting feature that allows a Web site to have its own server. This is more flexible than shared hosting (see below), as webmasters typically have full control over the back end of the server, including choice of OS. Administration, however, is still handled by the hosting company.
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Diesel Generator A diesel-powered generator used by hosting companies as a back-up source to generate electricity in the event of a power outage.
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Disk Space Indicates the amount of space on the hard drive that will be available to you on the hosts server to hold your Web site files. Normally because HTML files are small, a Web site (unless it has extensive graphics or database functionality) will be small, as low as 1 or 2 MB in most cases.
A good rule of thumb is to assume approx. 50 KB per page (1 MB = 1000 KB, 1 GB = 1000 MB). 50 KB per page is on the high side so it's a conservative estimate for the average size of a web page.
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Often hosting companies will charge an extra fee if disk space exceeds the plan limits. If you think this could happen then either go with a higher MB limit from the start or check with the hosting provider to understand their policies on Disk Space. Remember, the addition of a database can significantly increase your requirements for disk space.
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Domain names Domain names are the word sequences users enter in their URL bar to visit your site. They are attached to a DNS, short for Domain Naming System, which is used to translate numeric addresses (known as IP, or Internet Protocol, addresses) into words. Each site you visit on the net has a numeric IP address behind its name.
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Firewall A piece of security software designed to protect Web servers. They are typically used to protect sites from hacker attacks/unauthorized access.
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Flash A popular piece of animation software developed by Macromedia. Flash is widely used on the Web because it requires little bandwidth, therefore making it friendly to users with low or high-speed connections.
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FrontPage A site design and management tool developed by Microsoft. FrontPage extensions can be thought of as "mini programs" that allow features of a web site created with MS Front Page to operate smoothly. It is possible to use MS Front Page to create a web site and host that site on a server that doesn't offer FP extensions; however some of the powerful features of the program cannot be used in these web sites. See Microsoft's Front Page site for more information. After you design your web site, you will know whether FrontPage extensions will be a requirement.
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FTP Short for File Transfer Protocol, A very common method of moving files between two Internet sites. FTP is a special way to login to another Internet site for the purposes of retrieving and/or sending files. There are many Internet sites that have established publicly accessible repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP. By logging in using the account name anonymous, these sites are called anonymous ftp servers.
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Gateway
The technical meaning is a hardware or software set-up that translates between two dissimilar protocols. For example Prodigy has a gateway that translates between its internal, proprietary e-mail format and Internet e-mail format. Another, sloppier meaning of gateway is to describe any mechanism for providing access to another system, e.g. AOL might be called a gateway to the Internet.
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Gigabyte
1024 Megabytes
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Home Page (or Homepage)
This word has several meanings. Originally, homepage means the web page that your browser is set to use when it starts up. The more common meaning refers to the main web page for a business, organization, person or simply the main page out of a collection of web pages, e.g. 'Check out so-and-so's new Home Page.'
Another sloppier use of the term refers to practically any web page as a 'homepage,' e.g. 'That web site has 65 homepages and none of them are interesting.'
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Host
Any computer on a network that is a repository for services available to other computers on the network. It is quite common to have one host machine provide several services, such as WWW and USENET.
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Hosting
This term can be used to refer to the housing of a web site, email or a domain. See Email hosting and Web Site hosting for more details.
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HTML Short for HyperText Markup Language, the language by which Web servers and client browsers communicate. All server-side functions (such as database processing), although they may be performed in another language, must eventually be output back to the user in HTML.
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HTTP Stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol, the protocol by which HTML files move across the Internet. HTTP requires a client browser and an HTTP server (typically a Web server).
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ICANN- The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the non-profit corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management and root server system management functions.
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IIS Short for Internet Information Server, Microsoft's server software for Windows NT/2000.
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Internet Message Access Protocol - (IMAP) IMAP is gradually replacing POP as the main protocol used by email clients in communicating with email servers. Using IMAP, an email client program can not only retrieve email but can also manipulate messages stored on the server without having to actually retrieve the messages. In other words, messages can be deleted, have their status changed, multiple mail boxes can be managed, etc.
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Intranet A vast internal network structured in a fashion similar to the Internet. Intranets are usually established by large corporate organizations to improve communication. The main difference between the Internet and an intranet is that access to intranets is restricted to authorized members only.
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IP Short for Internet Protocol, which designates the format of "data packets" that are used to exchange information over the Internet. Also sometimes called a dotted quad. A unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g.165.113.245.2
Every machine that is on the Internet has a unique IP number - if a machine does not have an IP number, it is not really on the Internet. Most machines also have one or more Domain Names that are easier for people to remember.
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IRC Short for Internet Relay Chat, a popular text-base multi-user chat network.
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ISDN Short for Integrated Services Digital Network, a high-speed solution to moving data over phone lines. It can transfer data at approximately 128,000 bits per second over a standard land line.
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ISP (Internet Service Provider)
A company that provides an Internet connection.
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Kilobyte
A thousand bytes. Actually, usually 1024 (210) bytes.
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Load Balancing Distributing data across a network of servers in order to ensure that a single Web server does not get overloaded with work, thereby affecting performance.
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Managed hosting A dedicated server that is accompanied by a full suite of technical support, maintenance and monitoring services. This differs from dedicated Web hosting, where customers are provided with their own servers but are still responsible for virtually all administrative and maintenance duties.

MB MB is the abbreviation for Megabytes. In data communication, a megabyte is 1 million bytes (1,048,576 bytes to be exact or a thousand kilobytes). A byte is a group of eight binary digits processed as a unit by a computer and used especially to represent an alphanumeric character.

Megabytes (MB) are commonly associated with the disk space of a website.
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MIME Short for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, a protocol that allows users to transfer non-text messages like audio, video and images through e-mail.
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Mirror sites A mirror site is an exact copy of another FTP or Web site. These are used to offset/spread traffic load on busy Web sites.
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MS Index Server An add-on for Microsoft Internet Information server (see above) that indexes documents on Web or Intranet servers running IIS. The information is then presented to users in a searchable format.

MS SQL Server, also known as Microsoft (MS) SQL, is a relational database management system (RDBMS) used to manage transactions between a client and a database. It receives SQL queries from a client, executes those queries against the database and then returns the requested information back to the client.
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Name server A server responsible for translating domain names and IP addresses.
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Newsgroup A USENET discussion group (see below).
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NIC - Networked Information Center Generally, any office that handles information for a network. The most famous of these on the Internet is Network Solutions, which is where new domain names are registered. Another definition: NIC also refers to Network Interface Card which plugs into a computer and adapts the network interface to the appropriate standard. ISA, PCI, and PCMCIA cards are all examples of NICs.
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NOC Short for Network Operations Center, a hosting company's "home base," so to speak. The NOC is usually where most administration, technical support and physical server storage takes place. For more information, please refer to our article, Inside the NOC, here.
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OC Short for Optical Carrier, representing the speed of fiber-optic networks. OC speeds can range anywhere between 1 and 48. Most hosting companies have OC3 connections, which allows for the transfer of data at a rate of up to 155.52 Mbps.
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Packet switching The method by which most data is exchanged throughout the Internet. Most data is broken down into smaller "packets" prior to transfer,and then reassembled at the destination.
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Parking All domain names have to be stored on a server in order to be purchased. Most domain registration services will therefore temporarily place a newly purchased name on their servers until a hosting plan is purchased or the owner points the DNS to a different site. This is known as parking.
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PERL Perl is an interpreted language optimized for scanning arbitrary text files, extracting information from those text files, and printing reports based on that information. It's also a good language for many system management tasks.
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PHP PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML.
You can use it to create forms for user interaction or Web pages which require access to the mySQL database backend.
PHP files usually end with the .php extension and can be stored anywhere within the public directory of the web hosting account.
Most web hosting companies provide use of PHP with their accounts. If a company you're looking at does not provide PHP, then you should re-consider the buy as you'll miss out on the ability to run PHP scripts.
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POP Short for Post Office Protocol. An e-mail protocol that mail software such as Eudora use to communicate with mail servers.
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Propagation The process whereby the nameservers throughout the Internet have updated their records for a specific domain. For example, if you move your domain from one host to another, it will take around 24 hours or so for the new address to broadcast everywhere. During that 24 hour period, the traffic is decreasing at the old location and increasing at the new location.
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RAID Short for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, a method of data protection/backup. Data is stored over a number of servers so that information will still be accessible if a piece of hardware/software crashes.
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Register (Domain Name)
Since every domain is unique, registries have been set up to assign domains to individuals and organizations. When a domain is registered with the appropriate registry, that domain is assigned and becomes no longer available for anyone else to use. Typically, there are registration and renewal fees (local registry fees) associated with the right to use a domain. However, there are some TLDs that are provided at no charge.
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Registrant (Domain Name)
The entity, organization or individual that will be using the domain name.
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Registrar (Domain Name)
Some registries don't provide the ability for end users to register domains with them directly. They might require end users to purchase the domain through an internet provider that is acting as the registrar.
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Registry (Domain Name)
An organization responsible for assigning domain names for the TLD that they manage. Furthermore, it is their responsibility to update the global DNS tables that all nameservers use to resolve domain names. For example, InterNIC is the registry for .COM, .NET and .ORG domain names.
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Renewal (Domain Name)
Most TLDs need to be renewed at some scheduled yearly interval. This is an opportunity for both the registrant and the registry to update their records as well as collect any applicable renewal fees.
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Reseller A reseller operates components of a Web hosting operation using services, infrastructure and equipment provided by another Web hosting service. Some resellers operate full-fledged businesses using the hardware, software, network and logistical support of another Web hosting firm, while others simply operate as sales agents for other Web hosting companies, offering discounts and providing low-level technical support.
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Scalability The ability of a piece of software or hardware to expand/grow as necessary.
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Server
A computer, or a software package, that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers. The term can refer to a particular piece of software, such as a WWW server, or to the machine on which the software is running, e.g.Our mail server is down today, that's why e-mail isn't getting out. A single server machine could have several different server software packages running on it, thus providing many different servers to clients on the network.
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Shared hosting The most basic of Web hosting types. With shared hosting, numerous Web sites are shared on one server. While an economic solution, they typically cannot handle large amounts of storage or traffic.
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Shopping cart A program designed to handle the e-commerce section of a Web site. Shopping cart software lets users browse for and purchase products online.
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SLA SLA refers to Service Level Agreement. Credible web hosting companies have an SLA stating their uptime and downtime policies.
For example, a good SLA should specify that the host will ensure an uptime of above 99.0%. In addition, it should also clearly state the compensation available to clients if the service level falls below the SLA figures.
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SMTP Short for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, a protocol used by mail servers to exchange messages with each other. Most e-mail systems that send mail over the Internet use SMTP to send messages from one server to another; the messages can then be retrieved with an e-mail client using either POP or IMAP. In addition, SMTP is generally used to send messages from a mail client to a mail server. This is why you need to specify both the POP or IMAP server and the SMTP server when you configure your e-mail application.
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SQL Short for Standard Query Language. A standard protocol used to request information from databases. Servers which can handle SQL are known as SQL servers.
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SSL Short for Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol developed by Netscape to handle and protect confidential/sensitive information required for e-commerce transactions (like credit card numbers). SSL addresses usually begin with 'https'.
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Streaming Video The process of providing video data or content via a web page. Typically are downloadable movies (video files) that are transmitted over the Internet just like any other kind of static text, graphic or sound file. These downloaded movies arrive at the desktop, are stored and then available to be played. This is the simplest form of video on the Internet and requires no special Internet tools to either server or view. Files of this sort are often Quicktime or MPEG, and have been the most popular form of video on the Internet in recent history.
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Subdomain Typically known as a "domain within a domain", subdomains are individual Web addresses built upon a pre-existing domain name (such as clientname.yourhostingcompany.com). As a reseller, you will have the option of assigning subdomains to clients if they do not choose to have a domain name.
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T1 Connection A phone or data connection that can support the transfer of up to 1.544Mbits of data per second. T1 connections are popular among businesses and ISPs. Most T1s are connected to T3, which can handle up to 43Mbits per second and are actual Internet backbone connections.
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Tape back-up A popular and inexpensive way to back up Web sites. Contents of a site are periodically stored in what looks similar to a cassette. Some cassettes can store several gigabytes.
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Telnet A command-line interface that allows remote users and Web servers to communicate.
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TCP Short for Transmission Control Protocol, an important network protocol. TCP allows two hosts to connect and exchange data and ensures that "data packets" are delivered exactly as sent.
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TLD Shot for Top Level Domain, the suffix for major domain names like .com, .net and .org.
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Terabyte
1024 gigabytes.
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Transfer (Domain Name)
On occasion, domains are sold to another organization or sometimes the name of a company might change. Most registries require a letter of permission from the old owner to hand over control to the new owner. The procedures for Transfer of ownership will depend on the registry.
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UNIX A text-based, multitasking Operating System suitable for Web and network administration. Unix has spawned numerous popular spinoffs, including Linux and FreeBSD. Most Unix-based Operating Systems are open source, meaning the source code to the Operating System has been made freely available to the public for modification. Most Web hosting companies and resellers offer Unix-based hosting in some capacity or other.
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URL
(Uniform Resource Locator) -- The standard way to give the address of any resource on the Internet that is part of the World Wide Web (WWW). A URL looks like this: telnet://anywhere.you.want or news:new.newusers.questions.
The most common way to use a URL is to enter into a WWW browser program, such as Netscape, or Lynx.
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USENET A network of thousands of discussion groups (known as newsgroups; see above) on the Internet.
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UUENCODE Short for Unix to Unix Encoding, a method of converting images to ASCII (see above) text in order to be transferred over the Internet.
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VB Script
The Microsoft® Visual Basic® programming language, is a fast, portable, lightweight interpreter for use in World Wide Web browsers and other applications that use Microsoft® ActiveX® Controls, Automation servers, and Java applets Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/scripting/default.htm
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Video Streaming The process of providing video data or content via a Web page. Typically are downloadable movies (video files) that are transmitted over the Internet just like any other kind of static text, graphic or sound file. These downloaded movies arrive at the desktop, are stored and then available to be played. This is the simplest form of video on the Internet and requires no special Internet tools to either server or view. Files of this sort are often Quicktime or MPEG and have been the most popular form of video on the Internet in recent history.
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Virtual host A shared hosting solution, the most basic of hosting types. Numerous Web sites are shared on one server.
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Virtualization A process/software designed to reduce server management costs through automation, while providing more control over service levels.
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Virtual Private Server (VPS) A virtual private server provides the features of a dedicated server on a machine that is shared by other Web hosting customers. Customers therefore get hosting services that are similar to that of dedicated Web hosting without sacrificing privacy or performance.
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Virus Viruses are small files that attach to e-mails or download and infect your computer. They can be harmless (they place a funny picture on your monitor) or dangerous (they can go through your address book and send everyone within your address book the same virus). More dangerous viruses can wipe out your computer and all your information. Some viruses can take over your machine and send spam from your computer. Without your knowledge, you can become a spammer.
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VPN - Virtual private network (VPN) is a private data network that makes use of the public telecommunication infrastructure, maintaining privacy through the use of a tunneling protocol and security procedures. The idea of the VPN is to give the company the same capabilities at much lower cost by using the shared public infrastructure rather than a private one.
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WHOIS A central database which tracks all domain name/IP registrations.
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Windows NT/2000 These are graphic-based, multitasking Operating Systems developed over the past few years by Microsoft. Both can act as standalone OS for personal computers/workstations, or can serve as an OS for a Web site/network. Most Web hosting companies and resellers offer Windows-based hosting in some capacity or other.
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WWW
(World Wide Web) -- Two meanings - First, loosely used: the whole constellation of resources that can be accessed using Gopher, FTP, HTTP, telnet, USENET, WAIS and some other tools. Second, the universe of hypertext servers (HTTP servers) which are the servers that allow text, graphics, sound files, etc. to be mixed together.
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XML Short for Extensible Markup Language. XML is a language allowing developers to create their own markup tags. All XML tags are defined by the programmer, and can be interpreted differently in different applications. For example, the "" tag in HTML means Italics, but could mean anything in XML, depending on the function the developer assigns to it.
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