Cabletron Systems 9A000 manual Glossary

GLOSSARY

work module hardware and software, IP connectivity, and SNMP network management.

ANSI (American National Standards Institute) - a private organization that coordinates the setting and approval of some U.S. standards. It also repre- sents the United States to the International Standards Organization.

API (Application Program Interface) - a language format that defines how a program can be made to interact with another program, service, or other soft- ware; it allows users to develop custom interfaces with FORE products.

APP (application program) - a complete, self-contained program that per- forms a specific function directly for the user.

AppleTalk - a networking protocol developed by Apple Computer for com- munication between Apple’s products and other computers. Independent of the network layer, AppleTalk runs on LocalTalk, EtherTalk and TokenTalk.

ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) - a method used to resolve higher level protocol addressing (such as IP) into the appropriate header data required for ATM; i.e., port, VPI, and VCI; also defines the AAL type to be used.

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) - a standard character set that (typically) assigns a 7-bit sequence to each letter, number, and selected control characters.

Assigned Cell - a cell that provides a service to an upper layer entity or ATM Layer Management entity (ATMM-entity).

asxmon - a FORE program that repeatedly displays the state of the switch and of all its active ports.

Asynchronous time division multiplexing - a multiplexing technique in which a transmission capability is organized into a priori, unassigned time slots. The time slots are assigned to cells upon request of each application’s instantaneous real need.

ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) - a transfer mode in which the informa- tion is organized into cells. It is asynchronous in the sense that the recurrence of cells containing information from an individual user is not necessarily periodic.

ATM Forum - an international non-profit organization formed with the objec- tive of accelerating the use of ATM products and services through a rapid convergence of interoperability specifications. In addition, the Forum pro- motes industry cooperation and awareness.

ATM Layer link - a section of an ATM Layer connection between two adja- cent active ATM Layer entities (ATM-entities).

ATM Link - a virtual path link (VPL) or a virtual channel link (VCL).

g-2