Glossary

A

ACT

Activity LED. Indicates that the port is up and running.

B

BIOS

Basic input/output system. In this guide, the term BIOS refers to the BIOS software on the client or server system.

C

CFI

Canonical format indicator. A 1-bit field in the Ethernet header.

D

DHCP

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. Part of the application layer in the Internet protocol suite.

DMA

Direct memory access.

DNS

Domain name system. Translates human-readable domain names into numerical identifiers.

DR

Dynamic reconfiguration. Used to automatically reconfigure resources within a domain or from one domain to another domain.

E

EEE

Energy-efficient Ethernet.

EEPROM

Electronically erasable programmable read-only memory.

EMI

Electromagnetic interference. The interference caused by the magnetic fields of electronic components.

G

Gb

Gigabyte.

GbE

Gigabit Ethernet.

Gbps

Gigabits-per-second.

GT

Gigabit-transfer.

GTps

GTs-per-second.

I

IP

Internet Protocol. The principal communications protocol in the IP suite.

K

KB

Kilobytes.

L

LACP

Link Aggregation Control Protocol. Enables several physical ports to be bundled into a single logical channel.

LAN

Local area network. Two or more devices connected to each other either physically or logically.

LFM

Linear feet per minute.

LNK

Link LED. Indicates that the network link is up and running.

LOM

LAN-on-motherboard. A LAN design.

low-profile adapter

Refers to the Oracle Quad 10Gb Ethernet Adapter from Oracle.

M

MAC

Media access control. Enables the use of a unique address for each device on a network.

Mb

Megabit.

Mbps

Megabits-per-second.

MPO

Multi-Fiber Push-On connector.

MTP

High performance MPO connector.

MTU

Maximum transmission unit. The MTU (payload without the Ethernet header) affects how jumbo frames function.

N

NIC

Network interface card. Connects clients and servers to a LAN, WAN, or VLAN.

NIS

Network Information Service. Originally known as Yellow Pages, NIS is a protocol for distributed system configuration data.

NVM

Nonvolitive memory.

P

PCI

Peripheral Component Interconnect.

PCIe

PCI Express.

PF

Physical function.

PHY

Physical layer. Controls the physical, analog signal access to a link.

PPA

Physical point of attachment. Used in constructing VLAN IDs.

PXE

Preboot execution environment. Enables clients to boot over a network interface, independent of the OS or other devices.

Q

QSFP

Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable.

R

ROM

Read-only memory.

RPM

RPM Package Manager.

RSS

Really Simple Syndication.

RX

Response. The automatic response mechanism used by Ethernet PAUSE frames.

S

SerDes

Serializer/deserializer. A mechanism used in high-speed connections to compensate for limited input or output.

SGMII

Serial Gigabit Media Independent Interface. A standard interface used to connect an Ethernet MAC-block to a PHY.

SPI

Serial peripheral interface. A type of flash memory.

SRC

Source code. The SRC RPM is used in Linux to build the driver kernel files.

T

TCI

Tag control information. Part of the Ethernet header.

TCP

Transmission Control Protocol. Part of the transport layer of the Internet protocol suite.

TCP/IP

Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol. In this guide, TCP/IP refers to the TCP/IP model, which is a framework for the IP suite.

TPID

Tag protocol identifier. Two bytes of information in an Ethernet frame.

TX

Generation. The automatic generation mechanism used by the Ethernet PAUSE frames.

U

UDP

User Datagram Protocol. Part of the transport layer of the Internet protocol suite.

UDP/IP

User Datagram Protocol and Internet Protocol. In this guide, UDP/IP refers to the relationship between the two protocols, which are on different layers of the IP suite.

UEFI

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface. Manages the operations between hardware firmware and the OS during the boot time.

V

VID

VLAN identifier. A 12-bit identifier in an Ethernet header.

VLAN

Virtual LAN. Splits the physical LAN into logical subparts. Multiple VLANs are supported on a single port, enabling a server with a single adapter to have a logical presence on multiple IP subnets.

VXLAN

Virtual eXtensive LAN. A tunneling mechanism for providing isolated virtual Layer 2 (L2) segments that can span multiple physical L2 segments.