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| Abbreviations
and Standards Quick-Reference |
| Because
the world of data communications is punctuated by acronyms and
abbreviations, it is often helpful to have a means not only
of looking up the full form of an abbreviation, but also to
refer to the standards documentation which defined it in the
first place. After all, knowing that IPv6 stands for Internet
Protocol version 6 is all very well, but maybe you need to know
the frame format of the protocol and the fields it defines.
This, as you will discover in this unique Abbreviations listing
is defined in the document RFC~2460. |
Before using this appendix, it is valuable to read the explanation
and `key' below which will help you to make the best use of~it. |
As
far as possible, the listing gives the abbreviated and full
forms of an expression, and is then followed by a list of
relevant standards documentation. The standards documents
generally originate from three~sources: |
Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF). These documents are labelled
with RFC (stands for request-for-comment) and a number. RFCs
are issued in number order and never updated. Instead, updated
versions of the same document receive a new number. The text
of most of the RFCs can be obtained online from www.rfc-editor.org
or www.faqs.org/rfcs/ |
International
Telecommunications Union---Standardization Sector (ITU-T).
These documents are called recommendations (rec.). They are
issued with an alphabetical series letter and a number (e.g.
X.400). These documents are sometimes updated, so that, for
example there is an X.400 (1984) and another version called
X.400 (1988). Most ITU-T recommendations are available online
from the ITU's electronic bookshop at www.itu.org |
International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) and its related agency
the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). International
standards typically have a designation ISO or ISO/IEC and
a number (e.g. ISO 8073). Most standards are available online
from www.iso.org |
Since
the RFCs are of central importance to modern IP-based data
networking, most of the technical and standards-related RFCs
are listed below, cross referenced to the relevant abbreviation.
But this leads in some cases to a long list of RFCs following
a particular abbreviation (e.g. MIME). To help you identify
the document which defines the original term (e.g. the specification
of a particular protocol), the most current version of the
relevant main document has been underlined. RFCs with lower
numbers than the RFC underlined are probably superseded by
the underlined RFC. Meanwhile, RFCs with higher numbers are
most likely to be `extensions' or standardised `uses' of the
basic standard. Thus, for example, the many RFCs associated
with MIME define a whole gamut of different content and message
types which may sent as `attachments' to Internet emails.
The MIME standard meanwhile is defined by the documents RFC
2045-9. |
| Where
long lists exist, these are sometimes punctuated with brackets
enclosing either one of the terms in the key below (indicating,
for example, that the relevant document defines the MIB (management
information base) of a particular protocol) or with another
brief explanation. If none of the listed standards documents
is underlined, then the listed reference relates only to a usage
or application of the particular function or~protocol. |
