User's Manual

Glossary 215
bus
An information pathway between the components of a
computer. Your computer contains an expansion bus
that allows the microprocessor to communicate with
controllers for all the various peripheral devices
connected to the computer. Your computer also
contains an address bus and a data bus for
communications between the microprocessor and RAM.
byte
Eight contiguous bits of information, the basic data
unit used by your computer.
C
Abbreviation for Celsius.
CA
Abbreviation for certificate authority.
cache
A fast storage area that keeps a copy of data or
instructions for quicker data retrieval. For example,
your computer's BIOS may cache ROM code in faster
RAM. Or, a disk-cache utility may reserve RAM in
which to store frequently accessed information from
your computer's disk drives; when a program makes a
request to a disk drive for data that is in the cache, the
disk-cache utility can retrieve the data from RAM faster
than from the disk drive.
capability
Refers to the actions that an object can perform, or
actions that can be taken on a managed object. For
example, if a card is hot-pluggable, it is capable of being
replaced while the system power is ON.
CDRAM
Abbreviation for cached DRAM, which is a high-speed
DRAM memory chip developed by Mitsubishi that
includes a small SRAM cache.
CD-ROM
Abbreviation for compact disc read-only memory. CD
drives use optical technology to read data from CDs.
CDs are read-only storage devices; you cannot write
new data to a CD with standard CD drives.
certificate authority
A certificate authority is an industry-recognized entity
that verifies the identity of an organizations requesting
credentials to identify them to other systems over
networks or the Internet. Before issuing a certificate to
an applicant, the certificate authority requires proof of
identity and other security information.
chip
A set of microminiaturized, electronic circuits that are
designed for use as processors and memory in
computers. Small chips can hold from a handful to tens
of thousands of transistors. They look like tiny chips of
aluminum, no more than 1/16" square by 1/30" thick,
which is where the term "chip" came from. Large chips,
which can be more than a half inch square, hold
millions of transistors. It is actually only the top one
thousandth of an inch of a chip's surface that holds the
circuits. The rest of it is just a base.
CIM
Acronym for Common Information Model, which is a
model for describing management information from
the DMTF. CIM is implementation independent,
allowing different management applications to collect
the required data from a variety of sources. CIM
includes schemas for systems, networks, applications
and devices, and new schemas will be added. It provides
mapping techniques for interchange of CIM data with
MIB data from SNMP agents and MIF data from DMI-
compliant systems.
CIMOM
Acronym for common information model object
manager.
CI/O
Acronym for comprehensive input/output.
cm
Abbreviation for centimeter(s).