Lantronix Device Server UDS 10 - Manual (Page 126)

Glossary of Terms
11-4 UDS-10 User Guide
Communication Server:
A dedicated, standalone system that manages communications activities for other computers.
Cut-through:
Technique for examining incoming packets whereby an Ethernet switch looks only at the first few
bytes of a packet before forwarding or filtering it. This process is faster than looking at the whole
packet, but it also allows some bad packets to be forwarded.
CSMA/CD:
Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection is the Ethernet media access method. All
network devices contend equally for access to transmit. If a device detects another device's signal
while it is transmitting, it aborts transmission and retries after a brief pause.
Data Link:
A logical connection between two nodes on the same circuit.
Data Link Layer:
Layer 2 of the seven-layer OSI reference model for communication between computers on networks.
This layer defines protocols for data packets and how they are transmitted to and from each network
device. It is a medium-independent, link-level communications facility on top of the Physical layer,
and is divided into two sublayers: medium-access control (MAC) and logical-link control (LLC).
DHCP
Short for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, a protocol for assigning dynamic IP addresses to
devices on a network. With dynamic addressing, a device can have a different IP address every time it
connects to the network. In some systems, the device's IP address can even change while it is still
connected. DHCP also supports a mix of static and dynamic IP addresses.
Dynamic addressing simplifies network administration because the software keeps track of IP
addresses rather than requiring an administrator to manage the task. This means that a new computer
can be added to a network without the hassle of manually assigning it a unique IP address. Many ISPs
use dynamic IP addressing for dial-up users.
DHCP client support is built into Windows 95 and NT workstation. NT 4 server includes both client
and server support.
Dial on Demand:
When a router detects the need to initiate a dial-up connection to a remote network, it does so
automatically according to pre-defined parameters set by the network manager.