Glossary

ACTS

Advanced Communications Technology Satellite, a NASA-sponsored program. A joint NASA/ARPA NREN collaboration will demonstrate high speed ATM/SONET transmission over the ACTS satellite, and will provide interface and operations experience in mating high speed terrestrial communications systems with high speed satellite communications systems.

Algorithm

A procedure designed to solve a problem. Scientific computing programs contain algorithms.

ARPA

Advanced Research Projects Agency, part of DOD

ASTA

Advanced Software Technology and Algorithms, a component of the HPCC Program

ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode, a new telecommunications technology, also known as cell switching, which is based on 53 byte cells

Backbone Network

A high capacity electronic trunk connecting lower capacity networks, e.g., NSFNET backbone

Bit

Acronym for binary digit

BRHR

Basic Research and Human Resources, a component of the HPCC Program Byte A group of adjacent binary digits operated upon as a unit (usually connotes a group of eight bits)

CERT

Computer Emergency Response Team

Computer Engineering

The creative application of engineering principles and methods to the design and development of hardware and software systems

Computer Science

The systematic study of computing systems and computation. The body of knowledge resulting from this discipline contains theories for understanding computing systems and methods; design methodology, algorithms, and tools; methods for the testing of concepts; methods of analysis and verification; and knowledge representation and implementation.

Computational Science and Engineering

The systematic application of computing systems and computational solution techniques to mathematical models formulated to describe and simulate phenomena of scientific and engineering interest

CIC

Committee on Information and Communication, part of NSTC

DOC

Department of Commerce

DOD

Department of Defense

DOE

Department of Energy

ED

Department of Education

EPA

Environmental Protection Agency

ESnet

Energy Sciences Network

FDDI

Fiber Distributed Data Interface

FIRST

Forum of Incidence Response and Security Teams

Flops

Acronym for floating point operations per second. The term "floating point" refers to that format of numbers that is most commonly used for scientific calculation. Flops is used as a measure of a computing system's speed of performing basic arithmetic operations such as adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing two numbers.

FNC

Federal Networking Council

Giga-

109 or billions of ... (e.g., gigabits, gigaflops, gigaops)

GOSIP

Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile

Grand Challenge

A fundamental problem in science and engineering, with broad economic and scientific impact, whose solution can be advanced by applying high performance computing techniques and resources

Heterogeneous system

A distributed system that contains more than one kind of computer High performance computing Covers the full range of advanced computing systems including workstations, networks of workstations with servers, scalable parallel systems, vector parallel systems, and more specialized systems. Scalable input/output interfaces, mass storage systems, and archival storage are components of these systems. Included also are system software and software development environments that enable users to view their workstations and the rest of their computing environments as a unified system.

HiPPI

High Performance Parallel Interface

HHS

Department of Health and Human Services

HPCC

High Performance Computing and Communications

HPCCIT

High Performance Computing, Communications, and Information Technology Subcommittee, part of the CIC

HPCS

High Performance Computing Systems, a component of the HPCC Program

IITA

Information Infrastructure Technology and Applications, a component of the HPCC Program

Interagency Internet

The federally funded part of the Internet that is directly used by the HPCC Program. It includes NSFNET, ESnet, and NSI.

Internet

The global collection of interconnected, multiprotocol computer networks including Federal, mid-level, private, and international networks. The Interagency Internet is a part of the Internet.

InterNIC

Internet Network Information Center

Interconnectivity

The ability of two or more computers to easily locate and communicate with each other over an infrastructure that provides the speed and clarity to accomplish a proposed task

Interoperability

The ability of any two computers that are interconnected to understand each other and perform mutually supportive tasks such as client/server computing

ISDN

Integrated Services Digital Network

Kb/s

Kilobits per second or thousands of bits per second

LAN

Local Area Network

Mb/s

Megabits per second or millions of bits per second

MIMD

Multiple Input Multiple Data

MPP

Massively parallel processor

NAPs

Network Access Points, a set of nodes connecting mid-level or regional networks and other service providers to NSFNET

NASA

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

National Challenge

A fundamental application that has broad and direct impact on the Nation's competitiveness and the well-being of its citizens, and that can benefit from the application of HPCC technology and resources

National Information Infrastructure (NII)

The integration of hardware, software, and skills that will make it easy and affordable to connect people with each other, with computers, and with a vast array of services and information resources.

NCO

National Coordination Office for High Performance Computing and Communications

Network

Computer communications technologies that link multiple computers to share information and resources across geographically dispersed locations

NIH

National Institutes of Health, part of HHS

NIST

National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of DOC

NLM

National Library of Medicine, part of NIH

NOAA

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, part of DOC

NREN

National Research and Education Network. The NREN is the realization of an interconnected gigabit computer network system devoted to HPCC. NREN is also a component of the HPCC Program. NSA National Security Agency, part of DOD

NSF

National Science Foundation

NSFNET

NSF computer network

NSI

NASA Science Internet

NSTC

National Science and Technology Council

OMB

Office of Management and Budget

Ops

Acronym for operations per second. Ops is used as a rating of the speed of computer systems and components. In this report ops is generally taken to mean the usual integer or floating point operations depending on what functional units are included in a particular system configuration.

OSI

Open Systems Interconnection

OSTP

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Parallel processing

Simultaneous processing by more than one processing unit on a single application

Peta-

1015 of ... (e.g., petabits)

Port

Transport a computer program from one computer system to another

Portable

Portable computer programs can be run with little or no change on many kinds of computer systems. Prototype The original demonstration model of what is expected to be a series of systems. Prototypes are used to prove feasibility, but often are not as efficient or well-designed as later production models.

R&D

Research and development

Scalable

A system is scalable if it can be made to have more (or less) computational power by configuring it with a larger (or smaller) number of processors, amount of memory, interconnection bandwidth, input/output bandwidth, and amount of mass storage.

SIMD

Single Instruction Multiple Data

SONET

Synchronous Optical Network

Tera-

1012 or trillions of ... (e.g., terabits, teraflops)

T1

Network transmission of a DS1 formatted digital signal at a rate of 1.5 Mb/s

T3

Network transmission of a DS3 formatted digital signal at a rate of 45 Mb/s

vBNS

Very high speed Backbone Network Services

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