Network & Connectivity
1.6T Ethernet
1.6T Ethernet is a 1.6 terabit-per-second Ethernet interface being defined in the IEEE P802.3dj project alongside 800G, built…
Network & Connectivity
400G ZR
400G ZR is a coherent pluggable optics specification, defined by the Optical Internetworking Forum, that carries a 400…
Network & Connectivity
800G Ethernet
800G Ethernet is an 800 gigabit-per-second Ethernet interface standardised in IEEE 802.3df, typically implemented as eight 100G electrical…
Network & Connectivity
95th Percentile Billing
95th Percentile Billing is a method of charging for bandwidth in which usage is sampled at regular intervals…
Network & Connectivity
A-Side Demarc
An A-Side Demarc is the first of two independent demarcation points provided for a diversely routed, redundant service,…
Network & Connectivity
Active Optical Cable
An Active Optical Cable (AOC) is a fixed assembly with optical transceivers permanently attached to both ends of…
Network & Connectivity
Angled Physical Contact Connector
An Angled Physical Contact (APC) Connector is a fiber connector whose endface is polished at an eight-degree angle…
Network & Connectivity
Anycast Gateway
An Anycast Gateway is a distributed default gateway in which many leaf switches share the same gateway IP…
Network & Connectivity
Autonomous System Number
An Autonomous System Number (ASN) is a globally unique identifier assigned to a network that runs its own…
Network & Connectivity
B-Side Demarc
A B-Side Demarc is the second independent demarcation point in a diversely routed, redundant connectivity design, terminating the…
Network & Connectivity
Backbone Cabling
Backbone Cabling is the higher-capacity cabling that interconnects a data center's main and horizontal distribution areas, entrance rooms…
Network & Connectivity
Basket Tray
A Basket Tray is a lightweight, open wire-mesh cable pathway that supports and routes cables while allowing airflow…
Network & Connectivity
BGP
BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) is the routing protocol that exchanges reachability information between autonomous systems and, increasingly, inside…
Network & Connectivity
BGP Community
A BGP Community is a tag attached to a route advertisement that carries no forwarding meaning by itself…
Network & Connectivity
Border Leaf
A Border Leaf is a specialized leaf switch positioned at the edge of a data center fabric that…
Network & Connectivity
Border Spine
A Border Spine is a spine switch that additionally serves as the fabric's exit point to external networks,…
Network & Connectivity
Breakout Cable
A Breakout Cable is a fiber or copper assembly that splits one high-speed port into several lower-speed links,…
Network & Connectivity
Cable Landing Station
A Cable Landing Station is the coastal facility where a submarine cable comes ashore and connects to terrestrial…
Network & Connectivity
Cable Pathway
A Cable Pathway is any defined route and supporting infrastructure through which cabling travels, including trays, ladders, conduits,…
Network & Connectivity
Cable Tray
A Cable Tray is a rigid support structure that carries and routes cables along defined pathways overhead or…
Network & Connectivity
Carrier Hotel
A Carrier Hotel is a large, carrier-neutral facility, often in a major metro, where numerous telecommunications carriers and…
Network & Connectivity
Carrier-Neutral Facility
A Carrier-Neutral Facility is a data center that is not owned by or tied to any single network…
Network & Connectivity
Cat6A Cabling
Cat6A Cabling is an augmented Category 6 twisted-pair copper standard rated to carry 10 Gigabit Ethernet over the…
Network & Connectivity
CLOS Fabric
A Clos Fabric is a multi-stage, non-blocking switching topology, named after Charles Clos, that connects endpoints through layers…
Network & Connectivity
Co-Packaged Optics
Co-packaged optics integrate the optical engines that convert electrical signals to light directly alongside the switch or accelerator…
Network & Connectivity
Coherent Optics
Coherent Optics is a transmission technique that modulates the amplitude, phase and polarization of light and uses digital…
Network & Connectivity
Dark Fiber
Dark Fiber is installed optical fiber that is leased or owned unlit, meaning the provider supplies only the…
Network & Connectivity
Data Center Interconnect
Data Center Interconnect (DCI) is the networking that links two or more data centers so they can share…
Network & Connectivity
Demarcation Point
A Demarcation Point (demarc) is the physical location where a service provider's network responsibility ends and the customer's…
Network & Connectivity
Direct Attach Copper Cable
A Direct Attach Copper Cable (DAC) is a fixed-length assembly with transceiver-style connectors permanently bonded to a twinaxial…
Network & Connectivity
DWDM
DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) carries many independent optical channels, each on a slightly different wavelength, down a…
Network & Connectivity
East-West Traffic
East-West Traffic is network traffic that flows between servers, services, and storage within a data center, as opposed…
Network & Connectivity
ECMP
ECMP (Equal-Cost Multi-Path) is a routing technique that spreads traffic across multiple paths of equal routing cost toward…
Network & Connectivity
Entrance Room
An Entrance Room is the space where carrier and external network cabling enters a data center and hands…
Network & Connectivity
EVPN
EVPN (Ethernet VPN) is a BGP-based control-plane technology that distributes MAC and IP address reachability between switches, most…
Network & Connectivity
Explicit Congestion Notification
Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) lets switches mark packets to signal impending congestion instead of dropping them, so endpoints…
Network & Connectivity
Fat-Tree Topology
A fat-tree topology is a multi-tier network design in which link capacity increases toward the root so that…
Network & Connectivity
Fiber Polarity
Fiber Polarity is the discipline of ensuring every transmit fiber at one end lands on the corresponding receive…
Network & Connectivity
Fiber Trunk
A Fiber Trunk is a pre-terminated, multi-fiber cable assembly, usually with MPO connectors at each end, used to…
Network & Connectivity
Horizontal Cabling
Horizontal Cabling is the portion of structured cabling that runs from a horizontal distribution area out to the…
Network & Connectivity
Horizontal Distribution Area
The Horizontal Distribution Area (HDA) is the space in a data center's cabling hierarchy that houses the horizontal…
Network & Connectivity
In-Band Network Telemetry
In-Band Network Telemetry (INT) has data packets collect and carry metadata, such as per-hop latency, queue depth and…
Network & Connectivity
Insertion Loss
Insertion Loss is the amount of optical power lost as light passes through a fiber link's connectors, splices…
Network & Connectivity
Interconnect
Interconnect is a direct physical or virtual connection between two parties' networks or equipment, such as between a…
Network & Connectivity
Interconnection Density
Interconnection Density is a measure of how many networks, carriers, cloud providers and other participants are present and…
Network & Connectivity
Internet Exchange Point
An Internet Exchange Point (IXP) is a shared physical infrastructure, usually a switching fabric hosted in one or…
Network & Connectivity
IP Transit
IP Transit is a paid service in which a provider carries a customer's traffic to and from the…
Network & Connectivity
Jumbo Frames
Jumbo Frames are Ethernet frames carrying a payload larger than the standard 1500-byte limit, typically around 9000 bytes.…
Network & Connectivity
Ladder Rack
A Ladder Rack is a cable pathway resembling a ladder, with two side rails joined by regularly spaced…
Network & Connectivity
Latency Budget
A Latency Budget is the total end-to-end delay an application can tolerate, apportioned across each contributing segment such…
Network & Connectivity
LC Connector
An LC (Lucent Connector) is a small-form-factor fiber connector with a 1.25 mm ferrule and a latching mechanism,…
Network & Connectivity
Leaf Switch
A Leaf Switch is a top-of-rack or access-layer switch in a leaf-spine fabric that connects directly to servers,…
Network & Connectivity
Leaf-Spine Architecture
Leaf-Spine Architecture is a two-tier data center network design in which every leaf switch connects to every spine…
Network & Connectivity
Linear Pluggable Optics
Linear Pluggable Optics (LPO) are transceivers that remove the module's digital signal processor and rely on the host…
Network & Connectivity
Link Aggregation Group
A Link Aggregation Group (LAG) bundles several physical links between two devices into one logical connection that shares…
Network & Connectivity
Lit Fiber Service
A Lit Fiber Service is connectivity delivered as an active, managed bandwidth circuit over the provider's own equipped…
Network & Connectivity
Main Distribution Area
The Main Distribution Area (MDA) is the central space in a data center's structured-cabling hierarchy that houses the…
Network & Connectivity
Meet-Me Room
A Meet-Me Room (MMR) is a secured room in a colocation or carrier-neutral facility where carriers, networks, and…
Network & Connectivity
Merchant Silicon
Merchant Silicon refers to switching and routing chips sold by third-party vendors, such as Broadcom's Tomahawk and Jericho…
Network & Connectivity
Metro Ethernet
Metro Ethernet is a carrier service that delivers Ethernet connectivity across a metropolitan area, linking customer sites and…
Network & Connectivity
MPO Connector
An MPO (Multi-fiber Push On) Connector is a fiber connector that terminates multiple fibers, commonly 12, 16 or…
Network & Connectivity
Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation
Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation (MLAG) lets two physical switches present themselves as one logical device so a downstream server…
Network & Connectivity
Multimode Fiber
Multimode Fiber (MMF) is optical fiber with a larger core that carries light along multiple paths, suited to…
Network & Connectivity
Non-Blocking Fabric
A Non-Blocking Fabric is a switch network engineered so that any set of endpoints can communicate at full…
Network & Connectivity
North-South Traffic
North-South Traffic is network traffic that flows between a data center and external networks, such as clients on…
Network & Connectivity
OM4 Multimode Fiber
OM4 Multimode Fiber is a laser-optimised 50-micron multimode fiber grade specified for higher bandwidth than OM3, supporting longer…
Network & Connectivity
OM5 Wideband Multimode Fiber
OM5 Wideband Multimode Fiber is a multimode grade specified to carry several wavelengths in the 850 to 953…
Network & Connectivity
Optical Circuit Switch
An Optical Circuit Switch (OCS) physically steers light from input to output fibers, often with tiny movable mirrors,…
Network & Connectivity
OSFP
OSFP (Octal Small Form-factor Pluggable) is a pluggable transceiver form factor built around eight high-speed electrical lanes, with…
Network & Connectivity
Overlay Network
An Overlay Network is a virtual network built on top of a physical underlay by encapsulating tenant traffic…
Network & Connectivity
Oversubscription Ratio
An Oversubscription Ratio expresses how much more downstream capacity a switch tier offers to servers than upstream capacity…
Network & Connectivity
Patch Cord
A Patch Cord is a short, flexible cable with a connector on each end used to link equipment…
Network & Connectivity
Point of Presence
A Point of Presence (PoP) is a location where a network operator places equipment to connect to other…
Network & Connectivity
Priority Flow Control
Priority Flow Control is an Ethernet mechanism that pauses individual traffic classes instead of an entire link, so…
Network & Connectivity
Private Peering
Private Peering is the direct exchange of traffic between two networks over a dedicated connection, typically a cross-connect,…
Network & Connectivity
Public Peering
Public Peering is the exchange of traffic between networks over a shared internet exchange fabric, where each participant…
Network & Connectivity
QSFP-DD
QSFP-DD (Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable Double Density) is a pluggable optical and copper transceiver form factor that adds…
Network & Connectivity
Rail-Optimized Topology
A rail-optimized topology is a GPU-cluster network design in which each GPU's NIC connects to a dedicated network…
Network & Connectivity
RDMA over Converged Ethernet
RDMA over Converged Ethernet lets one server read or write another's memory directly across a standard Ethernet network,…
Network & Connectivity
ROADM
A ROADM (Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer) is a DWDM node that can add, drop or pass through individual…
Network & Connectivity
RoCE
RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) is a protocol that lets one server read or write another server's memory…
Network & Connectivity
Route Server
A Route Server is a system at an internet exchange that collects BGP routes from participating networks and…
Network & Connectivity
Settlement-Free Peering
Settlement-Free Peering is an interconnection arrangement in which two networks exchange traffic directly without either paying the other,…
Network & Connectivity
SHARP
SHARP, the Scalable Hierarchical Aggregation and Reduction Protocol, is NVIDIA in-network computing that performs collective operations such as…
Network & Connectivity
Silicon Photonics
Silicon Photonics is a technology that builds optical components such as modulators, waveguides and detectors on silicon chips…
Network & Connectivity
Single-Mode Fiber
Single-Mode Fiber (SMF) is optical fiber with a small core that carries light along a single path, enabling…
Network & Connectivity
SONiC
SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud) is an open-source network operating system, originated by Microsoft, that…
Network & Connectivity
Spanning Tree Protocol
Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) prevents loops in a bridged Ethernet network by blocking redundant links so only one…
Network & Connectivity
Spine Switch
A Spine Switch is a high-capacity core switch in a leaf-spine (Clos) data center fabric that interconnects every…
Network & Connectivity
Structured Cabling
Structured Cabling is a standardized, organized system of copper and fiber cabling, pathways and connection points that supports…
Network & Connectivity
Submarine Cable
A Submarine Cable is a fiber-optic cable laid across the seabed to carry traffic between continents and coastal…
Network & Connectivity
Superspine
A Superspine is an additional switching tier placed above the spine layer to interconnect multiple leaf-spine fabrics, or…
Network & Connectivity
Ultra Ethernet
Ultra Ethernet is a specification developed by the Ultra Ethernet Consortium to adapt Ethernet for large AI and…
Network & Connectivity
Underlay Network
An Underlay Network is the physical IP-routed infrastructure of switches, links, and routing protocols that provides basic reachability…
Network & Connectivity
VTEP
A VTEP (VXLAN Tunnel Endpoint) is the function that encapsulates outgoing tenant frames into VXLAN packets and decapsulates…
Network & Connectivity
VXLAN
VXLAN (Virtual Extensible LAN) is an overlay tunneling protocol that encapsulates Layer 2 Ethernet frames inside UDP/IP packets…
Network & Connectivity
Wavelength Service
A Wavelength Service provides a dedicated optical channel, a specific light wavelength, over a shared fiber using dense…
Network & Connectivity
White Box Switch
A White Box Switch is a bare-metal networking device built from standard merchant silicon and sold without a…
Network & Connectivity
Zone Distribution Area
A Zone Distribution Area (ZDA) is an optional cabling aggregation point serving a defined group of cabinets in…