A network topology describes the arrangement of systems on a computer network. It defines how the computers, or nodes, within the network are arranged and connected to each other. Some common network topologies include star, ring, line, bus, and tree configurations. These topologies are defined below:

A nybble, sometimes spelled “nibble,” is a set of four bits. Since there are eight bits in a byte, a nybble is half of one byte. While it may take the average person several nibbles to equal one bite of a cookie, in the computer world, two nybbles always equal one byte.

Stands for “Open Shortest Path First.” OSPF is a method of finding the shortest path from one router to another in a local area network (LAN). As long as a network is IP-based, the OSPF algorithm will calculate the most efficient way for data to be transmitted.

In networking, a packet is a unit of data that is transmitted over a network. It consists of two main parts: a header and a payload.

A pebibyte is a unit of data storage that equals 2 to the 50th power, or 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes.

A petabyte is 2 to the 50th power, or 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes.

Stands for “Simple Network Management Protocol.” SNMP is used for exchanging management information between network devices. For example, SNMP may be used to configure a router or simply check its status. There are four types of SNMP commands used to control and monitor managed devices: 1) read, 2) write, 3) trap, and 4) traversal operations.

Stands for “Secure Sockets Layer.” SSL is a secure protocol developed for sending information securely over the Internet. Many websites use SSL for secure areas of their sites, such as user account pages and online checkout. Usually, when you are asked to “log in” on a website, the resulting page is secured by SSL.

Each spoken language has a general set of rules for how words and sentences should be structured. These rules are collectively known as the language syntax. In computer programming languages, syntax serves the same purpose, defining how declarations, functions, commands, and other statements should be arranged.

A tebibyte is a unit of data storage that equals 2 to the 40th power, or 1,099,511,627,776 bytes. While a terabyte can be estimated as 10^12 or 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, a tebibyte is exactly 1,099,511,627,776 bytes. This is to avoid the ambiguity associated with the size of terabytes. A tebibyte is 1,024 gibibytes and precedes the pebibyte unit of… Read More »