Appendix B. Terms and Acronyms

This appendix provides a table that lists the acronyms and abbreviations related to cloud computing found throughout this book, along with the expansions and definitions.

Acronym/Abbreviation	Expansion	Definition
AAA	Authentication, authorization, and accounting	AAA in some form is used by most users today. AAA is what keeps your network secure by making sure that only the right users are authenticated, that those users have access only to the right network resources, and that those users are logged as they go about their business.
ANSI	American National Standards Institute	ANSI oversees the creation, promulgation, and use of thousands of norms and guidelines that directly impact businesses in nearly every sector, from acoustical devices to construction equipment and from dairy and livestock production to energy distribution.
API	Application programming interface	An API allows computer programmers to access the functionality of prebuilt software modules. An API defines data structures and subroutine calls. Networking APIs are entry points to libraries that implement network and data communication protocols.
APM	Application Performance Management	Cisco APM enables service providers to extend application transaction visibility into the network and virtual machines running on physical servers to optimize the Quality of Experience (QoE) of the end user.
AWS	Amazon Web Services	AWS is a collection of web services that together make up a cloud-computing platform. The most well known of these services are Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. Amazon S3 is an online storage service offered by the Amazon web service.
BCP/DR	Business Continuity Process/Disaster Recovery	This is one of the common use cases in cloud computing. Business continuity is vital to many companies. However, the creation of a sound business continuity and contingency plan is a complex undertaking, involving a series of steps. Prior to creating BCP/DR, it is essential to consider the potential impacts of disaster and to understand the underlying risks.
BIOS	Basic Input/Output System	The primary function of the BIOS is to set up the hardware of a computer and load and start an operating system.
BN	Borderless networks	BNs connect anyone, anywhere, on any device, at any time.
CAB	Change Advisory Board	CAB is a group of people that advises the change manager in the assessment, prioritization, and scheduling of changes. This board is usually made up of representatives from all areas within the IT service provider, the business, and third parties such as suppliers.
CE	Customer edge	A customer router that connects the customer site to the service provider network is called a customer edge router (CE router). Traditionally, this device is called Customer Premises Equipment (CPE).
CI	Configuration item	Any component that needs to be managed to deliver an IT service. Information about each CI is recorded in a configuration record within the Configuration Management System and is maintained throughout its life cycle by Configuration Management.
CIM	Common Information Model	The CIM is an open standard that defines how managed elements in an IT environment are represented as a common set of objects and relationships between them.
CIO	Chief Information Officer	A CIO is a job title commonly given to the most senior executive in an enterprise responsible for the information technology that supports enterprise goals.
CLI	Command-line interface	The CLI is a mechanism for interacting with a computer operating system or software by typing commands to perform specific tasks. This text-only interface contrasts with the use of a mouse pointer with a graphical user interface (GUI) to click on options or menus on a text user interface to select options.
CMDB	Configuration Management Database	An ITIL term, the CMDB is a repository of information related to all the components of an information system.
CMMI	Capability Maturity Model Integration	CMMI is a process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes that will improve their performance. CMMI-based process improvement includes identifying your organization’s process strengths and weaknesses and making process changes to turn weaknesses into strengths.
CMS	Configuration Management System	The evolution of the CMDB as a federated system that provides a holistic, process-driven view of configuration management.
COBIT	Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology	COBIT is an IT governance framework and supporting tool set that allows managers to bridge the gap between control requirements, technical issues, and business risks.
CPU	Central processing unit	The CPU is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program and is the primary element carrying out the functions of the computer or other processing device.
CRM	Customer Relationship Management	CRM is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients, and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support.
CSA	Current-state architecture or Cloud Security Alliance	Typically, this is an assessment document of the provider environment containing the current state of technologies, people, processes, and so on. This CSA is done to determine the gaps between the current environment and the target environment, or target-state architecture (TSA). The CSA is a member-driven organization, chartered with promoting the use of best practices for providing security assurance within cloud computing.
CSI	Continuous Service Improvement	CSI is part of the ITIL V3 life cycle. It consists of the following processes: service evaluation, process evaluation, CSI initiatives, and CSI monitoring. Cisco uses the PPDIOO model, which is the equivalent of ITIL V3. The Cisco optimization phase in the PPDIOO life cycle is the equivalent of the ITIL CSI phase in the ITIL V3 life cycle.
CXO	Chief “X” officer	Where X can be Information, Executive, and so on.
DC	Data center	The DC is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. It generally includes redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls (for example, air conditioning and fire suppression), and security devices. A modern DC would have all the equipment necessary to create a cloud.
DC/V	Data Center/Virtualization	In computing, virtualization is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as a hardware platform, operating system, storage device, or network resources. Hardware virtualization or platform virtualization refers to the creation of a virtual machine that acts like a real computer with an operating system. Software executed on these virtual machines is separated from the underlying hardware resources. Other forms of virtualization are discussed in Chapter 1, “Cloud Computing Concepts.”
DCB	Data Center Bridging	A set of IEEE 802.1 standards that provide enhancements to existing 802.1 bridge specifications to satisfy the requirements of protocols and applications in the data center and provide in part the foundation for “Unified I/O” data center network designs.
DCI	Data Center Interconnect	A general description of various apparatuses and methods to connect two geographically dispersed data center sites.
DCN	Data Center Network	A DCN connects various elements within the data center.
DMTF	Distributed Management Task Force	DMTF members collaborate to develop IT management standards that promote multivendor interoperability worldwide. (See www.dtmtf.org.)
DMZ	Demilitarized zone	In computer security, a DMZ is a physical or logical subnetwork that contains and exposes an organization’s external services to a larger untrusted network, usually the Internet. It is sometimes referred to as a perimeter network.
DVS	Distributed virtual switch	A software-based OSI Layer 2 switch that extends its data, control, and management planes to two or more physical server hosts that are running hypervisor software.
EML	Element management layer	The EML of the TMN reference model manages each network element on an individual or group basis and supports an abstraction of the functions provided by the network element layer (see NML).
EMS	Element management system	The EMS is part of the element management layer: a management layer that is responsible for the management of network elements on an individual or collective basis.
EOL	End-of-life	Products reach the end of their life cycle for a number of reasons. This can be due to market demands, technology innovation, and development-driving changes in the product, or the products simply mature over time and are replaced by functionally richer technology. Cisco Systems recognizes that EOL milestones often prompt companies to review the way in which such end-of-sale and EOL milestones impact the Cisco products in their networks. With that in mind, we have set out the Cisco EOL policy to help customers better manage their end-of-life transition and to understand the role that Cisco can play in helping to migrate to alternative Cisco platforms and technology.
EOS	End-of-Sale	Access to the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a period of X years from the end-of-sale date for hardware and operating system software issues and for a period of X years from the end-of-sale date for application software issues. Here, “X” depends on the type of product.
ERP	Enterprise Resource Planning	ERP integrates internal and external management information across an entire organization, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, CRM, and so on. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application. Its purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the organization and to manage the connections to outside stakeholders.
ESB	Enterprise service bus	A distributed software bus that interconnects multiple disparate systems.
eTOM	enhanced Telecom Operational Map	A catalogue of elements used to describe telco processes.
FAB	Fulfillment, Assurance, and Billing	The TMF define three vertical operational areas, fulfillment, assurance and billing that are collectively known as the FAB.
FCoE	Fibre Channel over Ethernet	FCoE is a mapping of Fibre Channel over selected full-duplex IEEE 802.3 networks. The goal is to provide I/O consolidation over DCB-based Ethernet.
HIPAA	Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act	HIPAA regulates the availability and breadth of group health plans and certain individual health insurance policies.
IA	Information assurance	Data is broken down into a number of different impact levels to offer organizations guidance as to the level of IA (security) they might need.
IaaS	Infrastructure as a Service	Cloud infrastructure services, also known as IaaS, deliver computer infrastructure—typically, a platform virtualization environment—as a service. Rather than purchasing servers, software, data center space, or network equipment, clients instead buy those resources as a fully outsourced service. Suppliers typically bill such services on a utility computing basis; the amount of resources consumed (and therefore the cost) will typically reflect the level of activity.
IC	Intellectual capital	From a Cisco perspective, IC is defined broadly as the sum of the intellectual assets that Cisco has within the company—people, processes, methodologies, tools, and techniques that we accumulate and develop on a daily basis. IC is the unit of knowledge that is self-sufficient to define the problem at hand. It assumes that certain information is being provided by other ICs and is dependent on them.
IDM	Identity management	IDM relates to how humans are identified and authorized across computer networks. It covers issues such as how users are given an identity, the protection of that identity, and the technologies supporting that protection.
IEEE	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers	IEEE, an association dedicated to advancing innovation and technological excellence for the benefit of humanity, is the world’s largest technical professional society.
INCITS	International Committee for Information Technology Standards	INCITS serves as ANSI’s Technical Advisory Group for the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1. JTC 1 is responsible for international standardization in the field of information technology.
IP	Internet Protocol	The network layer protocol for the TCP/IP protocol suite widely used on Ethernet networks, defined in STD 5, RFC 791. IP is a connectionless, best-effort packet-switching protocol. It provides packet routing, fragmentation and reassembly through the data link layer. IPv4 is the version in widespread use today, and IPv6 is the newer version starting to be more broadly deployed.
IPsec	IP Security	IPsec is a set of protocols developed by the IETF to support the secure exchange of packets at the IP layer. IPsec has been deployed widely to implement virtual private networks (VPN). IPsec supports two encryption modes: Transport and Tunnel. Transport mode encrypts only the data portion (payload) of each packet, but leaves the header untouched. The more secure Tunnel mode encrypts both the header and the payload. On the receiving side, an IPsec-compliant device decrypts each packet. For IPsec to work, the sending and receiving devices must share a public key. This is accomplished through a protocol known as Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol/Oakley (ISAKMP/Oakley), which allows the receiver to obtain a public key and authenticate the sender using digital certificates.
ISO	International Organization for Standardization	ISO is the world’s largest developer and publisher of international standards, being a network of the national standards institutes of 162 countries. ISO is a nongovernmental organization that forms a bridge between the public and private sectors.
ISP	Internet service provider	An ISP is a entity that supplies an Internet carriage service to the public. An Internet carriage service is a “listed carriage service” (under the Telecommunications Act of 1997) that enables end users to access the Internet. A “listed carriage service” is a carriage service between points in Australia, or with at least one point inside Australia (Telecommunications Act, Sect 16), while a “carriage service” indicates a service for carrying communications by means of guided and/or unguided electromagnetic energy.
ITIL	Information Technology (IT) Infrastructure Library	ITIL is the most widely adopted approach for IT service management in the world. It provides a practical, no-nonsense framework for identifying, planning, delivering, and supporting IT services to the business. ITIL advocates that IT services must be aligned to the needs of the business and underpin the core business processes. It provides guidance to organizations on how to use IT as a tool to facilitate business change, transformation, and growth.
ITU-T	International Telecommunications Union – Telecommunications Section	ITU-T is responsible for studying technical, operating, and tariff questions and issuing recommendations on them, with the goal of standardizing telecommunications worldwide. The ITU-T combines the standard-setting activities of the predecessor organizations formerly called the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT) and the International Radio Consultative Committee (CCIR).
KPI	Key performance indicator	KPIs are provided on a report or a dashboard to give guidance to meet the business objectives.
KQI	Key Quality Indicator	KQIs provide a measurement of a specific aspect of the performance of the application or service. KQIs are derived from a number of sources, including performance metrics of the service or underlying support services such as KPIs. As a service or application is supported by a number of service elements, a number of different KPIs might need to be determined to calculate a particular KQI. More on SLAs, KPIs, and KQIs can be found in the TMF SLA Management Handbook.
LAMP	Linux, Apache, MySQL, and Perl/PHP/Python	LAMP is an acronym for a solution stack of free, open source software, originally coined from the first letters of Linux (operating system), Apache HTTP Server, MySQL (database software), and Perl/PHP/Python, principal components to building a viable general-purpose web server. The software combination has become popular because it is free, open source, and therefore easily adaptable, and because of the ubiquity of its components that are bundled with most current Linux distributions.
LAN	Local-area network	A local computer network for communication among computers, especially a network connecting computers, word processors, and other electronic office equipment to create a communications system between offices.
LISP	Locator Identifier Separation Protocol	LISP is a “map-and-encapsulate” protocol that is currently being developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force LISP Working Group.
MIB	Management Information Base	The MIB contains the name, object identifier (a numeric value), data type, and indication of whether the value associated with the object can be read from and/or written to. While the top levels of the MIB are fixed, specific subtrees have been defined by the IETF, vendors, and other organizations. Variables in MIB are named using Abstract Syntax Notation 1 (ASN.1), an international standard for representing data types and structures. For example, the MIB variable in the IP subtree that counts incoming IP datagrams is named internet.mgmt.mib-2.ip.iplnReceives.
MoM	Manager of Managers	In an ideal environment, the fault manager would collect both syslog and SNMP information, filter that information, and pass the filtered data to a MoM for further processing. This method helps decrease the amount of data that an end user needs to see or react upon. The MoM, in turn, can provide further analysis and automation based on the incoming event streams.
MPLS	Multi-Protocol Label Switching	MPLS is a highly scalable, protocol-agnostic data-carrying mechanism. In an MPLS network, data packets are assigned labels. Packet-forwarding decisions are made solely on the contents of this label, without the need to examine the packet itself. This allows one to create end-to-end circuits across any type of transport medium, using any protocol.
MTOSI	Multi-Technology Operations Systems Interface	MTOSI is an XML-based Operations System (OS)-to-OS interface suite defined by the Tele-Management Forum (TMF).
MTOSI	Multi-Technology Operations Systems Interface	A TMF standard defining the northbound API offered by a resource or service management system.
MySQL	My Structured Query Language	MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) that runs as a server providing multiuser access to a number of databases. MySQL has made its source code available under the terms of the GNU General Public License, as well as under a variety of proprietary agreements. MySQL was owned and sponsored by a single for-profit firm, the Swedish company MySQL AB, now owned by Oracle Corporation.
NAND	Negated AND gate memory	NAND flash memory is a type of nonvolatile storage technology that does not require power to retain data. There are two types of flash memory: NAND and NOR. The names refer to the type of logic gate used in each memory cell. NAND has significantly higher storage capacity than NOR.
NAT	Network Address Translation	NAT is the translation of an IP address used within one network to a different IP address known within another network. One network is designated the inside network, and the other is the outside. Typically, a company maps its local inside network addresses to one or more global outside IP addresses and unmaps the global IP addresses on incoming packets back into local IP addresses. This helps ensure security because each outgoing or incoming request must go through a translation process that also offers the opportunity to qualify or authenticate the request or match it to a previous request. NAT also conserves the number of global IP addresses that a company needs, and it lets the company use a single IP address in its communication with the world. NAT is included as part of a router and is often part of a corporate firewall. Network administrators create a NAT table that does the global-to-local and local-to-global IP address mapping. NAT can also be used in conjunction with policy routing. NAT can be statically defined, or it can be set up to dynamically translate from and to a pool of IP addresses.
NCCM	Network Configuration and Change Management	Configuration and change management play a key role in the overall management. With DC/V and the cloud, the role of NCCM has expanded to not only network but also compute, storage devices, and applications. More on this is provided in Chapter 7, “Service Fulfillment.”
NE	Network element	Typically, a network element that resides in the NML layer per TMN. A network element is generally a combination of a hardware and a software system that is designed primarily to perform a telecommunications service function. It is a piece of network equipment that can be managed through an element manager as part of a network management system.
NEL	Network element layer	Within the TMN framework, this is the logical layer responsible for the management of atomic units and functions within network elements.
NIST	National Institute of Standards and Technology	NIST, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, was founded in 1901 as the nation’s first federal physical science research laboratory. Over the years, the scientists and technical staff at NIST have made solid contributions to many technology areas including the cloud.
NML	Network management layer	As part of the TMN framework, the network management layer has the responsibility for the management of a network as supported by the element management layer. At this layer, functions addressing the management of a wide geographical area are located. Complete visibility of the whole network is typical and, as an objective, a technology-independent view will be provided to the service management layer.
NMS	Network Management System	The system responsible for managing at least part of a network. An NMS is generally a reasonably powerful and well-equipped computer, such as an engineering workstation. NMSs communicate with agents to help keep track of network statistics and resources. An element management system (EMS) manages one or more of a specific type of telecommunications network element (NE). Typically, the EMS manages the functions and capabilities within each NE but does not manage the traffic between different NEs in the network. To support management of the traffic between itself and other NEs, the EMS communicates upward to higher-level NMS as described in the telecommunications management network (TMN) layered model.
OA&M	Operations, Administration & Maintenance	The information transferred from the network element (NE) to OA&M equipment (typically OSS) can include customer usage and charging data, NE status indication, system resource utilization data, system performance measurements, alarms, and messages alerting operating personnel to the current state of the NE and other data.
OGC	Office of Government Commerce	The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a registered trademark of the OGC and maintains ITIL books.
OLA	Operational-level agreement	An OLA is an internal agreement between departments. An OLA defines how departments will work together to meet the service-level requirements (SLR) documented in an SLA. If you do not have formal SLAs in place, you are still delivering IT services, and a service catalog will do instead.
OS	Operating system	The most important program that runs on a computer. Every general-purpose computer must have an operating system to run other programs. Operating systems perform basic tasks, such as recognizing input from the keyboard, sending output to the display screen, keeping track of files and directories on the disk, and controlling peripheral devices such as disk drives and printers. For large systems, the operating system has even greater responsibilities and powers. It is like a traffic cop: It ensures that different programs and users running at the same time do not interfere with each other. The operating system is also responsible for security, ensuring that unauthorized users do not access the system.
OSI	Open Systems Interconnection (Model)	A model that subdivides a communications system into smaller parts called layers. Similar communication functions are grouped into seven logical layers. A layer provides services to its upper layer while receiving services from the layer below.
OSR	Operations Support and Readiness	TMF uses the term OSR. The core of the operations area is the Fulfillment, Assurance, and Billing (FAB) model. The OSR part was added to the original TOM FAB model (GB910). FAB operations are directly related to customer services, whereas OSR ensures that the operational environment is in place for FAB to be successful.
OSS	Operations Support Systems	Software applications used to support operational business processes. The term operations support system (OSS) generally refers to the system (or systems) that perform various management functions such as inventory, engineering, planning, and repair functions for communications service providers and their networks. OSSs help service providers maximize their return on investment (ROI) in one of their key assets—information. OSSs ultimately help enable next-generation service providers to reduce costs, provide superior customer service, and accelerate their time to market for new products and services.
OTV	Overlay Transport Virtualization	OTV is an industry-first solution that significantly simplifies extending Layer 2 applications across distributed data centers through dynamic encapsulation of OSI Layer 2 frames in OSI Layer 3 packets “MAC-in-IP.”
P Router	Provider router	P routers are routers that are inside the core of the MPLS network. P routers are only aware of the PE routes, not the VPN or CE routes. This reduces complexity.
PaaS	Platform as a Service	PaaS is the delivery of a computing platform and solution stack as a service. PaaS offerings facilitate the deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software and provisioning hosting capabilities, providing all the facilities required to support the complete life cycle of building and delivering web applications and services entirely available from the Internet.
PCI	Peripheral Component Interconnect	PCI is an industry specification for connecting hardware devices to a computer’s central processor.
PE	Provider edge	The designation for a router on the edge of a service provider network. PE routers maintain only the CE routes that are defined in their VRF tables, not the routes for all CE routers in the network.
PHP	Personal home page	PHP is a general-purpose scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document.
PUE	Power usage efficiency	PUE = Total Facility Energy divided by the IT Equipment Energy. See www.thegreengrid.org.
QoE	Quality of Experience	QoE is related to but differs from quality of service (QoS), which attempts to objectively measure the service delivered by the vendor. QoE, sometimes also known as quality of user experience, is a subjective measure of a customer’s experiences with a vendor. It looks at a vendor’s offering from the standpoint of the customer or end user. To many service providers, this is most important, because the customer satisfaction comes from the user experience.
QoS	Quality of service	QoS refers to the ability of a network to provide better service to selected network traffic over various underlying technologies including Frame Relay, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Ethernet and 802.1 networks, SONET, and IP-routed networks. In particular, QoS features provide better and more predictable network service by supporting dedicated bandwidth, improving loss characteristics, avoiding and managing network congestion, shaping network traffic, and setting traffic priorities across the network. In general, edge routers perform the following QoS functions: packet classification, admission control, and configuration management. In general, backbone routers perform the following QoS functions: congestion management and congestion avoidance.
RADIUS	Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service	RADIUS is the standard for centralized network authentication, authorization, and accounting of remote user access.
RAID	Redundant Array of Independent Disks	RAID refers to multiple independent hard drives combined to form one large logical array. The major objective of RAID is to improve data availability and security. RAID prevents downtime in the event of a hard disk failure.
RBIC	Rules-Based Intellectual Capital	Cisco RBIC allows consistent analysis across multiple devices in the network. The policy knowledge can be provided by Cisco network consulting engineers and other Cisco experts, or it can be provided in customer-specific custom policies that have been developed in conjunction with a CCIE certification.
ROI	Return on investment	A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. To calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment; the result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio.
SAA	Service assurance agent	Cisco IOS SAA is embedded software within Cisco IOS devices that performs active monitoring. Active monitoring is the generation and analysis of traffic to measure performance between Cisco IOS devices or between Cisco IOS devices and network application servers. Active monitoring provides a unique set of performance measurements: network delay or latency, packet loss, network delay variation (jitter), availability, one-way latency, website download time, as well as other network statistics. SAA can be used to measure network health, perform network assessment, verify service-level agreements, assist with network troubleshooting, and plan network infrastructure. SAA is supported on almost all Cisco IOS devices.
SaaS	Software as a Service	SaaS, sometimes referred to as “on-demand software,” is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally (typically in the [Internet] cloud) and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally using a web browser over the Internet.
SAN	Storage-area network	A SAN is a dedicated storage network that provides access to consolidated, block-level storage.
SID	Shared information/data	The TMF NGOSS SID model provides the industry with a common vocabulary and set of information/data definitions and relationships used in the definition of NGOSS architectures.
SIP	Strategy, Infrastructure, and Products	SIP is a TMF term. The Strategy and Commit Process grouping, Infrastructure Lifecycle Management grouping, and Product Lifecycle Management Process grouping are shown as three vertical, end-to-end process groupings. The Strategy and Commit processes provide the focus within the enterprise for generating specific business strategy and gaining buy-in within the business for this. The Infrastructure Lifecycle Management and Product Lifecycle Management processes drive and support the provision of products to customers.
SLA	Service-level agreement	SLAs define the quality of service expected by the user of the service from the provider. This can be an ISP, a telco providing WAN access, or an internal group providing infrastructure services to an enterprise. Whether you are the provider or customer, identifying and measuring service delivery are the only ways of assuring the quality of that delivery.
SML	Service management layer	As part of the TMN layered architecture, the service management layer is concerned with, and responsible for, the contractual aspects of services that are being provided to customers or available to potential new customers. Some of the main functions of this layer are service order handling, complaint handling, and invoicing. Customer-facing systems provide the basic point of contact with customers for all service transactions, including provision/cessation of service, accounts, QoS, fault reporting, and so on. The service management layer is responsible for all negotiations and resulting contractual agreements between a (potential) customer and the service(s) offered to this customer.
SNMP	Simple Network Management Protocol	The protocol governing network management and monitoring of network devices and their functions.
SOA	Service-Oriented Architecture	SOA defines how to integrate widely disparate applications for a web-based environment and uses multiple implementation platforms. Rather than defining an API, SOA defines the interface in terms of protocols and functionality.
SOAP	Simple Object Access Protocol	SOAP is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of web services in computer networks. It relies on eXtensible Markup Language (XML) for its message format, and usually relies on other application layer protocols, most notably Remote Procedure Call (RPC) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), for message negotiation and transmission.
SOX	Sarbanes-Oxley Act	The SOX is a United States federal law enacted on July 30, 2002, that set new or enhanced standards for all U.S. public company boards, management, and public accounting firms. The bill was enacted as a reaction to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals including those affecting Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems, and WorldCom. These scandals, which cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of affected companies collapsed, shook public confidence in the nation’s securities markets.
SPOC	Single point of contact	A service desk is a primary IT capability called for in ITSM as defined by the ITIL. It is intended to provide an SPOC to meet the communications needs of both users and IT and to satisfy both customer and IT provider objectives.
TCP	Transmission Control Protocol	TCP is one of the main protocols in TCP/IP networks. Whereas the IP deals only with packets, TCP enables two hosts to establish a connection and exchange streams of data. TCP guarantees delivery of data and also guarantees that packets will be delivered in the same order in which they were sent.
TMF	Telecommunications Management Forum	An organization dedicated to Operations Support Systems (OSS) communication management issues.
TMN	Telecommunications Management Network	A management framework developed by the ITU-T to facilitate interoperability among different network management systems and to meet the demand for a standard set of broadly defined network management functions.
TOGAF	The Open Group Architecture Framework	TOGAF is a detailed method and set of supporting resources for developing an enterprise architecture.
TRILL	Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links	The IETF TRILL WG has specified a solution for shortest-path frame routing in multihop IEEE 802.1–compliant Ethernet networks with arbitrary topologies, using an existing link-state routing protocol technology and encapsulation with a hop count.
TSA	Target-state architecture	TSA is the one that the service provider wants to get to in order to support new services and fill any gaps in the current state. Typically current-state architecture (CSA) and target-state architecture (TSA) documents are done during the assessment phase of the engagement to understand the gaps in the current state and determine what it takes to get to the target state.
UC	Underpinning contract	An ITIL term, this is a contract between an IT service provider and a third party. The third party provides goods or services that support delivery of an IT service to a customer. The UC defines targets and responsibilities.
UUID	Universal Unique Identifier	A UUID is a 128-bit number used to uniquely identify some object or entity on the Internet. Depending on the specific mechanisms used, a UUID is either guaranteed to be different or is, at least, extremely likely to be different from any other UUID generated until 3400 A.D.
VCE	Virtual Computing Environment	The VCE coalition between VMware, Cisco, and EMC represents collaboration in development, services, and partner enablement that reduces risk in the infrastructure virtualization journey to the private cloud. VCE’s Vblock infrastructure packages deliver a complete IT infrastructure that integrates best-of-breed virtualization, networking, compute, storage, security, and management technologies. The three companies have invested in industry-first collaborative delivery of seamless customer support with end-to-end vendor accountability.
VDC	Virtual Device Context	Cisco Nexus 7000 Series switches can be segmented into virtual devices based on business need. VDCs deliver true segmentation of network traffic, context-level fault isolation, and management through the creation of independent hardware and software partitions.
VIP	Virtual IP address	A virtual IP address can represent multiple virtual servers, and the correct mapping between them is generally accomplished by further delineating virtual servers by TCP destination port. So, a single virtual IP address can point to a virtual HTTP server, a virtual SMTP server, a virtual SSH server, and so on.
VLAN	Virtual LAN	A group of devices on one or more LANs that are configured (using management software) so that they can communicate as if they were attached to the same wire, when in fact they are located on a number of different LAN segments. Because VLANs are based on logical instead of physical connections, they are extremely flexible, a logical capability that allows physically separated LAN segments to operate on a common broadcast domain. See also LAN.
VM	Virtual machine	A VM is an environment, usually a program or operating system, that does not physically exist but is created within another environment. In this context, a VM is called a “guest” while the environment it runs within is called a “host.” Virtual machines are often created to execute an instruction set that is different than that of the host environment. One host environment can often run multiple VMs at once. Because VMs are separated from the physical resources they use, the host environment is often able to dynamically assign those resources among them.
VMM	Virtual machine monitor	VMM is the software that creates a virtual machine environment in a computer. The term hypervisor is used to refer to the virtual machine monitor component nearest the hardware.
VPC	Virtual Private Cloud	A VPC is a private cloud existing within a shared or public cloud.
vPC	Virtual PortChannel	A vPC is a port channel that can operate between more than two devices. While multiple devices are used to create the virtual port channel, the terminating device sees the vPC as one logical connection/switch.
VPN	Virtual private network	Enables IP traffic to travel securely over a public TCP/IP internetwork by encrypting all traffic from one network to another. A VPN is essentially a collection of sites sharing common routing information, which means that a site can belong to more than one VPN if it holds routes from separate VPNs. This provides the capability to build intranets and extranets.
VRF	VPN routing and forwarding	VRF is a technology included in IP network routers that allows multiple instances of a routing table to exist in a router and work simultaneously. This increases functionality by allowing network paths to be segmented without using multiple devices. Because traffic is automatically segregated, VRF also increases network security.
VSAN	Virtual storage-area network	In computer networking, a VSAN is a collection of ports from a set of connected Fibre Channel switches that form a virtual fabric. Ports within a single switch can be partitioned into multiple VSANs, despite sharing hardware resources. Conversely, multiple switches can join a number of ports to form a single VSAN. VSANs were designed by Cisco, modeled after the VLAN concept in Ethernet networking. In October 2004, the Technical Committee T11 approved VSAN technology into the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as the standard.
WAAS	Wide-area application service	Cisco WAAS solutions are deployed by more than 5000 customers to accelerate applications over the WAN, consolidate branch infrastructure, and empower cloud computing. Cisco WAAS appliances deliver comprehensive application, branch, and WAN optimization.
WAN	Wide-area network	The term WAN usually refers to a network that covers a large geographical area and uses communications circuits to connect the intermediate nodes. A major factor impacting WAN design and performance is a requirement that they lease communications circuits from telephone companies or other communications carriers. Transmission rates are typically 2 Mbps, 34 Mbps, 45 Mbps, 155 Mbps, and 625 Mbps (or sometimes considerably more).
WSDL	Web Services Description Language	WSDL is an XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information.
XaaS	(Anything) as a Services	A catch-all term defining any service delivered using a consumption- or utility-based model.
XML	eXtensible Markup Language	A simple, flexible text format based on SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) designed specifically for large-scale electronic publishing.