Glossary
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NAK
negative acknowledgment: A response sent from a receiver, telling the
sender that the information was not received or contained errors. Compare
with: acknowledgment.
NAT
Network Address Translation: An algorithm instrumental in mini-
mizing the requirement for globally unique IP addresses, permitting an orga-
nization whose addresses are not all globally unique to connect to the
Internet, regardless, by translating those addresses into globally routable
address space.
NBP
Name Binding Protocol: In AppleTalk, the Transport-level protocol
that interprets a socket client's name, entered as a character string, into the
corresponding DDP address. NBP gives AppleTalk protocols the capacity to
discern user-defined zones and names of mechanisms by showing and
keeping translation tables that map names to their corresponding socket
addresses.
NCP
Network Control Protocol: A protocol at the Logical Link Control
sublayer of the Data Link layer used in the PPP stack. It is used to allow mul-
tiple Network layer protocols to run over a nonproprietary HDLC serial
encapsulation.
neighboring routers
Two routers in OSPF that have interfaces to a
common network. On networks with multi-access, these neighboring
routers are dynamically discovered using the Hello protocol of OSPF.
NetBEUI
NetBIOS Extended User Interface: An improved version of the
NetBIOS protocol used in a number of network operating systems including
LAN Manager, Windows NT, LAN Server, and Windows for Workgroups,
implementing the OSI LLC2 protocol. NetBEUI formalizes the transport
frame not standardized in NetBIOS and adds more functions. See also: OSI.
NetBIOS
Network Basic Input/Output System: The API employed by
applications residing on an IBM LAN to ask for services, such as session ter-
mination or information transfer, from lower-level network processes.
NetView
A mainframe network product from IBM, used for monitoring
SNA (Systems Network Architecture) networks. It runs as a VTAM (Virtual
Telecommunications Access Method) application.
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