Table of Contents

W

wide-area network. Data communications network that serves users across a broad geographic area and often uses transmission devices provided by common carriers. Frame Relay, SMDS, and X.25 are examples of WANs. Compare with LAN and MAN.

Subset of spoofing that refers specifically to a router acting for a NetWare client by sending watchdog packets to a NetWare server to keep the session between client and server active. See also spoofing.

1. Hardware or software mechanism that is used to trigger an event or an escape from a process unless the timer is periodically reset.

2. In NetWare, a timer that indicates the maximum period of time that a server will wait for a client to respond to a watchdog packet. If the timer expires, the server sends another watchdog packet (up to a set maximum). See also watchdog packet.

Electrical techniques used to convey binary signals.

See browser.

wave division multiplexing

Wideband Digital Crossconnect System. SONET DCS capable of crossconnecting DS-1 and VT1.5 signals. See also DCS, DS-1, SONET, and VT-n.

weighted fair queuing. Congestion management algorithm that identifies conversations (in the form of traffic streams), separates packets that belong to each conversation, and ensures that capacity is shared fairly between these individual conversations. WFQ is an automatic way of stabilizing network behavior during congestion and results in increased performance and reduced retransmission.

See WAN.

See broadband.

32-bit quantity used in conjunction with an IP address to determine which bits in an IP address should be ignored when comparing that address with another IP address. A wildcard mask is specified when setting up access lists.

Windows Socket Interface. Software interface that allows a wide variety of applications to use and share an Internet connection. WinSock is implemented as dynamic link library (DLL) with some supporting programs, such as a dialer program that initiates the connection.

Specially designed room used for wiring a data or voice network. Wiring closets serve as a central junction point for the wiring and wiring equipment that is used for interconnecting devices.

TCP/IP network in Wisconsin (United States) connecting University of Wisconsin campuses and a number of private colleges. Links are 56 Kbps and T1.

Collection of workstations and servers on a LAN that are designed to communicate and exchange data with one another.

See VSC in the "Cisco Systems Terms and Acronyms" section.

Method of switching that provides high-speed (100-Mbps) transparent bridging between Ethernet networks, and high-speed translational bridging between Ethernet and CDDI or FDDI.

See WWW.

Action taken by an FDDI or CDDI network to recover in the event of a failure. The stations on each side of the failure reconfigure themselves, creating a single logical ring out of the primary and secondary rings.

World Wide Web. Large network of Internet servers providing hypertext and other services to terminals running client applications such as a browser. See also browser.

Posted: Tue Sep 21 15:27:26 PDT 1999
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