Glossary

What's the difference between colocation and a dedicated server? Do you sometimes muddle up your FTP with your IP? Ours is an industry littered with acronyms, so here we aim to offer a clearer path through the jargon...

IPv4 & IPv6

Each host which is directly accessible on the internet is given its own address that is globally unique. Collections of addresses are grouped together in to networks, which form the smallest parts of an addressing hierarchy containing progressively larger networks. At each level, routers on the internet know which paths to take to reach other networks, and so through a series of hops, any host on the internet should be able to reach any other host.

The Internet Protocol standard allows for some 4.3 billion addresses. By virtue of this limitation, as well as some of the imprudent decisions made in the early days, this pool of addresses is fast nearing exhaustion. So a successor to the protocol - Internet Protocol version 6 - is in the process of being adopted. The new protocol has space for over 340 undecillion (1036) addresses, making exhaustion somewhat unlikely!

FTP

Stands for File Transfer Protocol. It was one of the first and most widely supported ways for uploading and downloading files over the internet. A large choice of both free and commercial FTP clients exists across almost all operating systems, offering a multitude of different features.

Tier Rating

A four-tier system that provides a simple and effective means for identifying different data centres' site infrastructure and design. The Uptime Institute's tiered classification system is an industry standard approach to site infrastructure functionality, and it addresses common benchmarking standard needs. The four tiers, as classified by The Uptime Institute, comprise the following:

Tier 1: Non-redundant capacity components (single uplink and servers). Composed of a single path for power and cooling distribution, without redundant components, providing 99.671% availability.

Tier II: Tier 1 + redundant capacity components. Composed of a single path for power and cooling distribution, with redundant components, providing 99.741% availability

Tier III: Tier 1 + Tier 2 + Dual-powered equipment and multiple uplinks. Composed of multiple active power and cooling distribution paths, but only one path active, has redundant components, and is concurrently maintainable, providing 99.982% availability

Tier IV: Tier 1 + Tier 2 + Tier 3 + all components are fully fault-tolerant including uplinks, storage, chillers, HVAC systems, servers etc. Everything is dual-powered. Composed of multiple active power and cooling distribution paths, has redundant components, and is fault tolerant, providing 99.995% availability.

Colocation

Is the renting of physical space in racks (cabinets), and the supply of power and cooling for your own equipment. To make things simpler, Redstation also offers connectivity as part of its colocation packages.

Amp

This is a unit of current for electricity supplied to colocation customers. Full racks are usually provisioned as 8 amp, 16 amp or 32 amp; half-rack, quarter-rack or 1U customers usually as a proportion of these ratings.

A single server might use anything between 0.5 amp and 4 amp depending on processor, memory and disk specification, as well as workload.

Note that we charge for the supply of power in amps based on delivery at 240 Volts in the data centres. The energy ratings of equipment are typically specified in watts, which is where the equation volts x amps x power factor = watts comes in handy.

MB / GB / TB transfer

Billing is sometimes based on volume of data sent and received during a month, measured in bytes.

Kbps / Mbps / Gbps

These are units of speed (in bits per second); Kilobits per second / Megabits per second / Gigabits per second.

U

A measurement of rack space; 1.75 inches / 44.45 millimetres. All rack mounted equipment has a height measured in integer multiples of 1U.

All our standard racks will accommodate equipment which is 19 inches / 480 millimetres in width, being the standard rack-mountable equipment width.

A full rack typically has space for 42U - 47U of equipment, depending on the manufacturer and model of the rack. Half-rack and quarter-rack enclosures are of course divisions of the full rack capacities.

VPS

VPS stands for "Virtual Private Server" and allows multiple Virtual Servers to run within one physical server.

Each VPS gets its own portion of resources, which are usually guaranteed to be available to that particular VPS. For instance, imagine that a dedicated server has a specification of 8GB of RAM, and 320GB of hard disk. In these terms 256 mbps of RAM and 10GB could be guaranteed to be available to a specific VPS. That would mean that regardless of what resources the other VPSs on the same server are using, that amount of RAM and hard disk will be available for use.

GigE / FE port

The speed at which a physical port on one of our switches has the capability to send and receive data.

Ethernet = 10Mbps

Fast Ethernet (FE) = 100Mbps

Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) = 1000Mbps (1Gbps)

Of course, in most cases, the committed data rate selected by the customer will be somewhat less than the speed achievable by the port.

SSL

Short for Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol for transmitting private documents via the internet. SSL uses a cryptographic system that uses two keys to encrypt data - a public key known to everyone and a private or secret key known only to the recipient of the message.

Routing

The process of moving a packet of data from source to destination. Routing is usually performed by a dedicated device called a router. Routing is a key feature of the internet because it enables messages to pass from one network to another and eventually reach the target machine. Each intermediary router performs routing by passing along the message to the next computer. Part of this process involves analysing a routing table to determine the best path.

Transit

This is the service of allowing network traffic to cross or "transit" a computer network, usually used to connect a smaller Internet Service Provider to the larger internet. Technically, it consists of two bundled services.

Bandwidth

This is the amount of data that can be transmitted along a channel during a specified period of time. In most cases it is measured in bits per second (bps). The term is usually used to refer to the speed of different types of internet services. Faster services are said to have higher bandwidth than slower ones.

Control Panel

The control panel is an area that a customer can log in to using a web browser, which can be used to manage their servers, hosting and Redstation account.

Managed Servers

Redstation's managed servers are bespoke dedicated server systems.

Dedicated Servers

A dedicated server is a single computer specifically designed to operate software and applications efficiently. It will be connected to the internet, and rented by a customer for their exclusive use. Redstation offers a range of Dell servers, which can be assembled to a client's specification and rapidly deployed.

Firewall

A security system consisting of a combination of hardware and software that limits the exposure of a computer or computer network to attack; firewalls are commonly used on equipment that is connected to the internet.

SLA

Service Level Agreement

Switch

A device that filters and forwards packets between LAN segments. Switches operate at the data link layer (layer 2) and sometimes the network layer (layer 3) of the OSI Reference Model and therefore support any packet protocol. LANs that use switches to join segments are called switched LANs or, in the case of Ethernet networks, switched Ethernet LANs.

Data Centre

Is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. It generally includes redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls such as air conditioning and fire suppression, and security devices.

CPU

Central Processing Unit. The CPU is the "brains" of the computer. Sometimes referred to simply as the central processor, but more commonly called processor. The CPU is where most calculations take place. In terms of computing power, the CPU is the most important element of a computer system.

On large machines, CPUs require one or more printed circuit boards. On personal computers and small workstations, the CPU is housed in a single chip called a microprocessor.

PDU

Power Distribution Unit. An electrical device used to control the distribution of power to individual loads. The PDU may be a stand-alone controlled device or it may be integrated directly into the UPS (uninterruptible power supply).

SSH

Secure Shell is a cryptographic network protocol for secure data communication, remote shell services or command execution and other secure network services between two networked computers. It connects, via a secure channel over an insecure network, a server and a client.

Name server

A program that translates names from one form into another. For example, the internet relies on Domain Name Servers (DNSs) that translate domain names into IP addresses.

DNS

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical naming system built on a distributed database for computers, services, or any resource connected to the internet or a private network. Most importantly, it translates domain names meaningful to humans into the numerical identifiers associated with networking equipment for the purpose of locating and addressing these devices worldwide.

Raid 1

An acronym for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. RAID is now a general term for computer data storage systems whereby data is divided and copied among multiple physical disk drives. The physical disks are said to be in a RAID array which the OS treats as one single disk.

Remote hands

Remote hands are deemed as any intervention to a customer's equipment specifically requested by the customer, where the customer's instructions are followed precisely. These instructions and their outcomes are the responsibility of the customer.

RIPE

Is the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia. It is headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

An RIR oversees the allocation and registration of internet number resources (IPv4 addresses, IPv6 addresses and Autonomous System (AS) Numbers) in a specific region.

The RIPE NCC supports the technical and administrative coordination of the infrastructure of the Internet. It is a not-for-profit membership organisation with over 7,038 (as of September 2010) members located in over 70 countries in its service region.

Any individual or organisation can become a member of the RIPE NCC. The membership consists mainly of internet service providers (ISPs), telecommunication organisations, educational institutions, governments, regulatory agencies, and large corporations.

FM200

It is a waterless fire suppression medium

Vesda

VESDA is a brand of air-sampling smoke detector which is capable of detecting the microscopic particles of combustion - also known as smoke.

SPLA

Services Provider License Agreement