Glossary of Terms used in the SYNAQ Services Agreement
3G: a popular wireless network technology used mainly with mobile phones for mobile connectivity
ActiveSync: a mobile data synchronisation technology and protocol developed by Microsoft
AD: Active Directory (AD) is a Microsoft implementation of a LDAP-compatible directory service
ADSL: Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) is a data communications technology for delivering high speed links to customers over ordinary copper wire
AJAX: Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) is a group of interrelated web development techniques used to create interactive web applications
Application: any computer software designed to perform a single or multiple related specific tasks
BES: Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) synchronises data between an email and collaboration service (like Zimbra or MS Exchange) and a Blackberry device
BIS: BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) is a push-to-mobile service that polls a IMAP/POP email server for new email, and sends these emails to a BlackBerry device. The service is usually provisioned through a mobile phone service provider.
Blacklist (email): a list of email addresses or email domains from which email is automatically rejected without further processing
Blacklist (proxy): a list of websites for which users are always denied access
Caching: a technique that improves performance by transparently storing data such that future requests for that data can be served faster
CPU: central processing unit (CPU) is a microprocessor chip on a computer board that is responsible for most of the computer's data processing
Data ingestion: the act of taking in data and processing it for use by the system
DHCP: Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP) is a method for automating the assignment of IP addresses and other networking information to computers on a network
Diginet: a dedicated point-to-point connection providing an always on service with guaranteed bandwidth
Directory: a structured collection of user names and details, of specific classes of people or organisations
DMZ: a demilitarized zone (DMZ) is a physical or logical sub-network that contains and exposes an organisation's external services to a larger untrusted network, usually the Internet
DNS: the Domain Name System which identifies each computer as a network point on the Internet using an internet protocol (IP) address system to translate from host name to IP and vice versa
Ethernet: a protocol that controls data transmission over a local area network, such as within a home or office
Filtering: in the context of email security, filtering refers to the processing of emails to remove unwanted emails from reaching their final destination. Unwanted mails typically include spam, emails containing viruses and emails that do not conform to an organisation's email policy for other reasons.
Firewall: a device designed to block unauthorised access to a network or network resources, while permitting authorised communications, based on a set of predefined rules
GB: Gigabyte (GB) is a measure of computing storage. 1GB is equivalent to 1,073,741,824 (1024x1024x1024) bytes, and a byte consists of 8 binary digits.
Hardware: the physical components of a computer system, such as servers, external storage devices, modems, keyboards etc.
iBurst: a wireless broadband technology for home or business use, delivered via dedicated iBurst base stations
IMAP: Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is an application-layer Internet standard protocol for interactive remote retrieval of mail and storage of mail folders, used by clients who prefer to keep their mail on a remote server
LDAP: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is an application protocol for querying and modifying data using directory services, often used to maintain user authentication information
Managed Services: Proactive, remote support and management of a Client's infrastructure
MS Exchange: Microsoft's email and collaboration implementation
MS Office: Microsoft (MS) Office is a suite of administrative, communications and business applications including Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Word for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems
MTA: Mail Transport Agent (MTA) is a server that handles the sending and receiving of email
OpenVPN: an open source software application that implements virtual private networks (VPNs) using key-based security
OTA: Over The Air (OTA) refers to any wireless networking technology
Packet Filtering: a method of controlling access to a network by analysing the headers of incoming and outgoing network packets, and letting them pass or halting them based on rules created by a network administrator
PDC: Primary Domain Controller (PDC) is a server at which the master copy of a organisation's user database is maintained. The primary domain controller also validates authentication requests.
PDF: Portable Document Format (PDF) is a standard for representing electronic documents, allowing them to be transmitted and reproduced accurately
POP: Post Office Protocol (POP) is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by local email clients to retrieve e-mail from a remote email server
PPPoE: Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE) is a network protocol for encapsulating Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) frames inside Ethernet frames. It is used mainly with ADSL services where individual users connect to the DSL modem over Ethernet.
PPTP: Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) is a simple method for implementing virtual private networks (VPNs)
PST: Personal Storage Table (PST)is a file format used to store copies of messages, calendar events, and other items within Microsoft software such as Microsoft Outlook
Push-to-mobile: A technology that allows content to be pushed to a mobile device by a server, without the mobile device polling for content
Quarantine (email): a temporary storage for emails which are classified as unclean with a probability of being legitimate email (i.e. possibly misclassified). Placing the emails in quarantine allows a human user to manually verify the emails, and release emails from the quarantine that were incorrectly classified.
RTF: Rich Text Format (RTF) is a proprietary document file format with published specification developed by Microsoft
Scalix: an email and collaboration server that runs on Linux (an alternative to MS Exchange and Zimbra)
Server: any combination of hardware or software designed to provide services to clients
SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard for electronic mail (email) transmission across the Internet
Software As A Service: a software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a service provider and made available to clients via the Internet
Spam: Unsolicited email, usually sent in bulk, and indiscriminately, to many recipients
Spooling: in the context of email services, spooling refers to the temporary storage of emails, for later delivery to their final destination
Stubbing: a process whereby the attachments and the message body of an email are stripped from the message, and only the header remains in the email application, resulting in a smaller message store
Support Service Levels: Internal standards defining appropriate response and resolution times for support requests based on a set of criteria
SYNAQ Knowledge Base: a secure system on which Client-specific technical information is stored, for use while carrying out technical support and maintenance tasks
URL: Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the address of a web page, ftp site, audio stream or other Internet resource, e.g. http://www.google.com
Virus: a malicious computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer, often causing damage to the host computer in the process. Viruses are often spread via email.
VPN: Virtual Private Network (VPN) is an seemingly secluded network on the Internet, enabling secure traffic of encrypted data, typically between branches of an organisation
Web Proxy: a server that acts as an intermediary for requests from Web clients (browsers)
World Wide Web: Abbreviated as WWW, the World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents and services contained on the Internet. These documents and services are accessible using a Web browser.
Whitelist (email): a list of email addresses or email domains from which email is automatically accepted for delivery without further processing
Whitelist (proxy): a list of websites for which users are always allowed access
Zimbra Connector for Outlook: a software program that runs together with Outlook to provide real time two-way synchronisation of email, contacts, tasks, and calendars between Outlook and a Zimbra server
Zimbra Desktop: a cross-platform open source email client application that provides on- and off-line access to a variety of different email account types. The Zimbra desktop is available for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.
ZIP: a data compression and archive format