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Emerging Technologies and Infrastructures

Grid Technologies

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Glossary of Grid related terms

Below is a (non-exhaustive) glossary of terms and acronyms relating to Grid computing and the EU's IST Programme

API
Application Programming Interface
CERN
Organisation for Nuclear Research - European Laboratory for Particle Physics (the acronym CERN comes from: Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire established originally in 1951)
CORBA
Common Object Request Broker Architecture
CPU
Central Processing Unit
DBMS
Data Base Management System
DG INFSO
Directorate General for Information Society and Media of the European Commission
EC
European Commission
ERA
European Research Area
EU
European Union
EU DataGrid
European Data Grid Project
FP5
The EU's 5th Framework Prgramme for RTD
FP6
The EU's 6th Framework Prgramme for RTD
FTP
File Transfer Protocol
GEANT
Pan-European Gigabit research network.
GGF
Global Grid Forum; see here
Globus
Project that aims at developing fundamental technologies needed to build computational grids.
GMA
Grid Monitoring Architecture; monitoring architecture defined by GGF.
GRAM
Grid Resource Allocation Management
GRID computing
A collection of distributed computing resources available over a local or wide area network that appear to an end user or application as one large virtual computing system.
GSI
Grid Security Infrastructure (Globus Security mechanism).
GUI
Graphical User Interface
HTML
Hyper Text Markup Language
HTTP
HyperText Transfer Protocol
IP
Internet Protocol
IP
Integrated Project (a new instrument introduced by the EU in FP6)
IPv6
Internet Protocol version 6
ISDN
Integrated Services Digital Network
IST
Information Society Technologies
JDL
Job Description Language; to describe Grid jobs.
KB
KiloByte
MB
MegaByte
MDS
Globus Meta-computing Directory Service
MUI
Monitoring User Interface
NoE
Networks of Excellence - a new instrument introduced under FP6
OGSA
Open Grid Services Architecture
OS
Operating System
PB
PetaByte
PDF
Portable Document Format
PKI
Public Key Infrastructure
QoS
Quality of Service
RB
Resource Broker
RDBMS
Relational Database Management System
RMS
Resource Management Subsystem
RPC
Remote Procedure Call
RTD
Research and Technological Development
SOAP
Simple Object Access Protocol (XML-based protocol for exchange of information in a decentralised, distributed environment)
SQL
Standard Query Language for relational databases.
UI
User Interface
UML
Unified Modeling Language; a notation for describing software systems.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator
VO
Virtual Organization; A set of individuals defined by certain sharing rules - e.g. members of a collaboration.
VPN
Virtual Private Network
W3C
Worldwide Web consortium
WAI
Web accessibility Initiative
Web services
a new breed of Web applications that are self-contained, self-describing, modular applications whcih can be published, located, and invoked across the Web. Web services perform functions, which can be anything from simple requests to complicated business processes. Once a Web service is deployed, other applications (and other Web services) can discover and invoke the deployed service.
WP 2005-2006
Work Programme 2005-2006
WSDL
Web Services Description Language
WWW
World Wide Web
XML
eXtensible Markup Language

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