Josh References Glossary I

IAB
See Internet Advisory Board (IAB).

IANA
See Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

IBM
See International Business Machines (IBM).

ICMP
See Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP).

icon
A visual representation of an object including a set of operations for the object.

IDE
See Integrated Disk Electronics (IDE).

IDL
See Interface Definition Language (IDL).

IDP
See Internetwork Datagram Protocol (IDP).

IETF
See Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

IFS
See Institutional File System (IFS).

IGMP
See Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP).

IGP
See Internet Gateway Protocol (IGP).

ILEC
See Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier.

IM
See Instance Manager (IM).

IMAP
See Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP).

incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC)
A local telephone company, such as a Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC), GTE, or ALLNET, that competes with an Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC).

Independent Software Vendor (ISV)
A company that sells software that was originally created or manufactured by a different company.

individual alias
A mail alias for an individual user.

infinite loop
See recursion.

inode
Pointer to a data block or another inode.

instance
A particular object of an object type.

Instance Manager (IM)
Provides the fundamental operations that support the management of multiple instances of an object type.

Institutional File System (IFS)
A specific instance of a distributed file system (DFS), based on the Andrew File System (AFS) developed at CMU, allowing multiple file systems to be shared between organizations and treated, at the user interface level, as one giant file system. Modified by IBM and in use at The University of Michigan.

Integrated Disk Electronics (IDE)
Also known as Advanced Technology Adapter (ATA), an interface for mass storage devices, in which the controller is integrated into the disk or CD-ROM drive.

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)
Combines voice and digital network services in a single medium. Defined in RFC 2127.

interface
A description of a set of possible operations that a client may request of an object. A listing of the operations and attributes that an object provided.

Interface Definition Language (IDL)
OMG CORBA specification providing a standard language for defining the interfaces to objects that clients call and object implementations provide.

internal firewall
A firewall between two or more subnets within a company. See also firewall.

International Business Machines (IBM)
One of the major mainframe computer manufacturers, as well as a personal computer designer. Manufacturer of many mainframes.

International Standards Organization (ISO)
An organization responsible for determining standards, including standards on computer hardware and protocols.

International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
The committee that defines telecommunications standards, like Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN). The new name for the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT).

International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT)
The committee that defines telecommunications standards. Now known as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

internet
A large meta-network of machines and other networks that exchange data such as electronic mail and news. When used with a capital I ("Internet") it refers to the specific worldwide network built upon the DARPA networks, the NSFnet, and other regional and national networks. When used with a small i ("internet") it refers to any large network of computers. See also Local Area Network (LAN), network, Wide Area Network (WAN).

Internet Advisory Board (IAB)
The organization tasked with maintaining and expanding the standards of the Internet. Among their responsibilities are the Internet Requests for Comment (RFC), that propose and define new standards.

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
The organization responsible for matching unique numerical addresses (IP addresses) to computer names for the Internet. Their web site is at http://www.iana.org/. See also Domain Naming Service (DNS), Internet, Internet Protocol, IP family.

Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)
A message-passing protocol that defines the control of IP packets.

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
One of the committees that steers new engineering developments for the Internet. Such developments include the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and the next version(s) of the Internet Protocol, IPNG or IPv6.

Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)
A protocol used to form and dissolve groups on the MBONE.

Internet Gateway Protocol (IGP)
A protocol used to communicate routing information between Internet routers.

Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP)
A protocol that defines how a client should fetch mail from and return mail to a mail server. IMAP is intended as a replacement for or extension to the Post Office Protocol (POP). It is defined in RFC 1203 (v3) and RFC 2060 (v4).

Internet Protocol (IP)
The internetwork datagram delivery protocol that is central to the Internet protocol family. Currently at version 4 (RFC 791), a new version is forthcoming from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) known as either IPNG (for "Next Generation") or IPv6 (for version 6). See also IP family.

Internet Protocol Next Generation (IPNG)
See Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)
Also known as IP Next Generation (IPNG), the next generation of the Internet Protocol. Reserves a larger address space and several new configuration and security options to fix shortcomings that the current version of IP (v4), created in the 1960s, doesn't address. See also Internet Protocol (IP).

Internet Service Provider (ISP)
A company that provides a connection to the Internet, such as UUNET Technologies.

InterNIC
The organization that administers the big six top-level domains.

Internetwork Datagram Protocol (IDP)
Part of the Xerox Network System (XNS) developed at Xerox PARC. Used as the basis for the Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX).

Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX)
A network protocol developed by Novell for its Netware product. It will hopefully be obsoleted by IP in the moderate-term future. Provides datagram (unreliable) delivery. See also Internetwork Datagram Protocol (IDP), User Datagram Protocol (UDP).

Inter-Object Message (IOM)
A service providing a connection-oriented bidirectional link between methods of different objects that is independent of the object services layer and the operating system.

Inter-Process Communication (IPC)
A structured means of communication between multiple processes on a single machine. See also Remote Procedure Call (RPC).

IOM
See Inter-Object Message (IOM).

IP
See Internet Protocol (IP).

IP family
The Internet Protocol (IP) family consists of many different protocols, including:

IPNG
See Internet Protocol Next Generation (IPNG).

IPv6
See Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

IPX
See Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX).

IPC
See Inter-Process Communication (IPC).

ISDN
See Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN).

ISDN Signalling Link (ISL)
A hybrid of CAS and CCS; basic signalling (such as "off-hook") is transmitted in-band (CAS style), and enhanced information (such as caller ID) is transmitted out-of-band (CCS style). See also Channel Associated Signalling (CAS), Common Channel Signalling (CCS).

ISL
See ISDN Signalling Link (ISL).

ISO
See International Standards Organization (ISO).

ISP
See Internet Service Provider (ISP).

ISV
See Independent Software Vendor (ISV).

ITU
See International Telecommunications Union (ITU).