Glossary
No resource would be complete without a comprehensive glossary of terms. We’ve compiled a list of terms and their definitions to better help you navigate.
Cryptography, Public Key Cryptography The mathematical science used to secure the confidentiality and authentication of data by replacing it with a transformed version that can be reconverted to reveal the original data only by someone holding the proper cryptographic algorithm and key.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the function of integrating systems that relate to the customer quite literally everything from marketing through sales to accounts receivable, bill collection and customer support call center systems into a single business system. Siebel successfully transformed (through acquisition and good marketing) their sales force automation market leadership into CRM system leadership. Many CRM projects gave rise to the requirement for EAI products.
CPI-C Common Programming Interface-Communications IBM's SNA peer-to-peer API that can run over SNA and TCP/IP. It masks the complexity of APPC.
CPFR The Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) offering will enable collaboration among all supply-chain-related activities. This collaboration will include setting common cross-enterprise goals and performance measures, creating category/item goals across partners and collaborating on sales and order forecasts. Performance will be monitored as collaborative activities are executed providing participants with the ability to evaluate partners. (www.cpfr.org)
Country Catalogue GTIN and/or GLN catalogue administered by an EAN Member Organisation. Commonly referred to as country data pools.
CORBA Common Object Request Broker Architecture - a standard maintained by the OMG.
Context switching Going beyond the framework of content switching, it is increasingly important to know the context of a document. Knowing that this document is an invoice related to that purchase order, for example, is at the heart of what inter-business process management systems need to address. Furthermore, being able to apply routing algorithms that vary based on information contained within the document goes far beyond the traditional routing and even the more modern content routing paradigms.
Context-Inspired Component Architecture The ANSI ASC X12 standards body has defined the CICA (pronounced "see-saw") as a method for creating syntax-neutral business messages. Business messages can be broken down into constituent components which can be reused in a variety of different formats - X12, EDIFACT or RosettaNet for example.
Content switching Content switches are a nominal improvement over Routing Switches which are a nominal improvement over IP routers. Routing Switches can inspect packet addressing details through functionality imbedded in silicon, operating at many times the speed of equivalent general purpose, multi-protocol IP routers. As an extension to routing switches, content switches can inspect packet headers to determine protocol used http or https for example. Https packets require more processing since they need to be decrypted and typically involve purchasing transactions. Being able to switch traffic across a group of servers addresses a particular problem in server farms where a content switch can balance the load, improving customer satisfaction.
Connectionless Communications Connectionless communications do not require a dedicated connection between applications. The Internet and the US Postal System are both connectionless systems. Packets of information or envelopes are inserted in one end of the system. Each packet has a destination address which is read by network devices that in turn forward the packet closer to its destination. Packets can be lost, received out of sequence or easily duplicated. The receiving application must have the intelligence to check sequence, eliminate duplications and request missing packets. Network resources are consumed only for the duration of the packet processing. In contrast, the telephone network is a connection-oriented system. Both ends of the phone call must be available for communications at the time of the session and network resources are consumed for the duration of the call.
Communications Protocol A formally defined system for controlling the exchange of information over a network.
Communications Middleware Software that provides inter-application connectivity based on communication styles such as message queuing, ORBs and publish/subscribe. IBMÕs MQseries is a Message-Oriented Middleware (MOM) product.
Common Key Some systems of cryptographic hardware require arming through a secret-sharing process and require that the last of these shares remain physically attached to the hardware in order for it to stay armed. In this case, "common key" refers to this last share. It is not assumed secure, as it is not continually in an individual's possession.
COM Component Object Model - Microsoft's standard for distributed objects. Com is an object encapsulation technology that specifies interfaces between component objects within a single application or between applications. It separates the interface from the implementation and provides APIs for dynamically locating objects and for loading and invoking them.
Certificate Request An uncertified public key created by a trading partner as part of the Rivest Shamir Adleman (RSA) key-pair generation. The certificate request must be approved by a certification authority (CA), which issues a certificate, before it can be used to secure data. See CA, public key, RSA, trading partner, and uncertified public key.
Certificate Refers to a public key certificate. Certificates are issued by a certification authority (CA), which includes adding the CA's distinguished name, a serial number and starting and ending validity dates to the original request. The CA then adds its digital signature to complete the certificate. See CA and digital signature.
Category Scheme Structured grouping of category levels used to organise and assign products. Collaboration Arrangement: The process in which a seller and a buyer form a collaborative partnership. The collaboration arrangement establishes each party's expectations and what actions and resources are necessary for success.
Category A classification assigned to an item that indicates the higher level grouping to which the item belongs. Items are put into logical like groupings to facilitate the management of a diverse number of items. Category Hierarchy: The classification of products by department, category and subcategory; for example, "Bakery, Bakery Snacks, Cakes."
Catalog A catalog is like the telephone yellow pages, only it is electronic and includes much more explicit detail on products and services offered by suppliers. With a simple click of a mouse, a buyer can access a catalogue and obtain a global list of suppliers and their products. The catalogue is divided into several different layers of data ranging from category and product type to length and width details. A buyer can look for product information on a catalogue search engine similar to the Internet's Yahoo or Netscape Navigator. Once the buyer types in the key words, moments later he or she has a comprehensive listing of suppliers, categories and product data.
CA Certifying Authority or Certificate Authority refers to a secure server that signs end-user certificates and publishes revocation data. Before issuing a certificate, the CA follows published policies to verify the identity of the trading partner that submitted the certificate request. Once issued, other trading partners can trust the certificate based upon the trust placed in the CA and its published verification policy. See certificate.
