Glossary
This is a glossary of terms and abbreviations developed by the Ghaf team.
Abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually is used to save space and time, to avoid repetition of long words and phrases.
The styling of abbreviations is inconsistent and includes several possible variations. Some abbreviations are formed by omitting all but the first few letters of a word. Such abbreviations usually end in a period: Mr. for mister, Oct. for October.
When abbreviations are formed from the initial letters of a phrase, they are categorized as either initialisms or acronyms:
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With initialisms, each letter is pronounced separately. For example: FBI for Federal Bureau of Investigation, CIA for Central Intelligence Agency, CD for Compact Disk, and also OK for Okay, ‘orl korrekt‘ that is a misspelling of “all correct”. Initialisms cannot be pronounced as words.
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Acronyms are another type of abbreviation formed from the initial letters but that are pronounced as if they were words themselves. For example: ROFL for ‘rolling on the floor laughing’, FEMA for Federal Emergency Management Agency, NATO for North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
All acronyms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are acronyms. ASAP that comes from ‘as soon as possible’ and appt (for appointment) are both considered abbreviations, but only ASAP is an acronym.
Appropriate Use of Articles before Abbreviations
Section titled “Appropriate Use of Articles before Abbreviations”- Articles (a, an, the) are common with initialisms. The indefinite article should be chosen according to the first sound—not the first letter:
- ‘A’ is correct before initialisms beginning with a consonant sound, including a vowel pronounced as a ‘w’ or ‘y’ sound. For example: ‘a NASA launch’, but ‘NASA launches take place’.
- When an initialism begins with a vowel sound (including silent consonants or a consonant pronounced with an initial vowel sound), ‘an’ should be used instead. For example, ‘read about an FBI raid’.
- Acronyms not require articles except when they are used adjectivally. For example: ‘the patient was diagnosed with AIDS’, but ‘the AIDS patient’; ‘the NASA launch takes place’.
So, read the abbreviation aloud: it may be either an initialism or an acronym. Focus on the sounds, not on the letters: ‘an unidentified flying object’ but ‘a UFO’ as it pronounced “a YOO-ef-OH” (/ˌjuːɛfˈəʊ/). More examples: a EULA (“YOO-luh”), a LAN router, an XML file, an HTML page.
Trivia
Section titled “Trivia”If you do not find the term or abbreviation you are looking for, share your questions using GitHub Issues.
Wikipedia is not a dictionary.
Groups of terms and abbreviations:
Project Related
Section titled “Project Related”The project code name that represents the Ghaf tree.
Source: https://connectwithnature.ae/knowledge-hub/ghaf-tree
Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery is a Ghaf software development lifecycle. Continuous Integration refers to regularly integrating code changes into a shared repository, where they are automatically tested and verified. Continuous Delivery—software is released in short iterations.
Secure Systems Research Center is a global center of excellence in the development of end-to-end security and resilience for cyber-physical and autonomous systems. SSRC is a part of TII.
Source: https://www.tii.ae/secure-systems
Technology Innovation Institute is a UAE-based research center that aims to lead global advances in artificial intelligence, autonomous robotics, quantum computing, cryptography and quantum communications, directed energy, secure communication, smart devices, advanced materials, and propulsion and space technologies.
Source: https://www.tii.ae/
Core Concepts
Section titled “Core Concepts”An Architecture Decision (AD) is a justified software design choice that addresses a functional or non-functional requirement that is architecturally significant. An Architectural Decision Record (ADR) captures a single AD and its rationale; the collection of ADRs created and maintained in a project constitute its decision log.
Source: https://adr.github.io/
Boot and Power Management Processor. The NVIDIA processor provides a set of hardware functions that support booting process handling and offloading the power management, clock management, and reset control tasks from the CPU.
Source: NVIDIA Orin Series System-on-Chip, Technical Reference Manual, Version: 1.2, Date: 29-September-2023
A board support package is a collection of software used to boot and run the embedded system.
A certificate authority or certification authority is an entity that stores, signs, issues digital certificates, and bind them to cryptographic keys.
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol is a network protocol that automatically sets IP addresses and other attributes to enable information transfer between network nodes.
Source: Computer Networks: A Systems Approach, https://book.systemsapproach.org/internetworking/basic-ip.html#host-configuration-dhcp
A direct memory access is a process in which data may be moved directly to or from the main memory of a computer system by operations not under the control of the central processing unit.
Source: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/direct-memory-access
eMMC, e-MMC
Section titled “eMMC, e-MMC”embedded MultiMediaCard
end-user license agreement
firmware
The Google Android Look Alike application. Mobile client application for connecting to a Cloud Android device in Secured Google Cloud Platform VMs. Users see a remotely rendered Android phone desktop on their own device screen and interact with the Cloud Android device like the real mobile device. All application processing runs in the cloud.
graphical user interface
An intrusion detection system (also intrusion prevention system or IPS) monitors network traffic for suspicious activity and report when such activity is discovered.
input–output memory management unit
The Internet Protocol is a set of rules for communication over the Internet, such as sending email, streaming video, or connecting to a website.
An Instruction Set Architecture is part of the abstract model of a computer that defines how the CPU is controlled by the software.
Source: https://www.arm.com/glossary/isa
Kernel-based Virtual Machine, an open-source virtualization technology built into Linux.
Kernel-based Virtual Machine Secured, an open-source project.
Source: https://github.com/jkrh/kvms
labwc, LabWC
Section titled “labwc, LabWC”Lab Wayland Compositor, a window-stacking compositor for Wayland, an open-source project.
Source: https://github.com/labwc/labwc
memory management unit
Message Signaled Interrupts
A Linux distribution based on the Nix package manager and build system.
Source: https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Overview_of_the_NixOS_Linux_distribution
original equipment manufacturer
operating system
Peripheral Component Interconnect
Peripheral Component Interconnect Express
A generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer.
Source: QEMU’s documentation
The Server Base System Architecture specifies a hardware system architecture, based on Arm 64-bit architecture, that server system software, for example operating systems, hypervisors, and firmware can rely on.
Source: Arm® Server Base System Architecture 7.1 Platform Design Document
A stock keeping unit, is a unique code used by sellers to identify and track products.
A system on chip, a microchip that contains the necessary electronic circuits for a fully functional system on a single integrated circuit (IC).
simple public-key infrastructure
solid-state drive
Trusted computing base defines the security requirements by providing separation of users and data or resources.
Source: Department of Defense trusted computer system evaluation criteria, DoD 5200.28-STD, 1985
Transport Layer Security, a security protocol.
An universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter, a hardware communication protocol.
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface is a specifications that defines a new model for the interface between personal-computer operating systems and platform firmware.
Source: Unified Extensible Firmware Interface Forum
user interface
Virtual Function I/O
Source: https://docs.kernel.org/driver-api/vfio.html
virtual machine
Virtual Machine Manager
zero trust architecture, zero trust security model
SCS Related
Section titled “SCS Related”certificate authority
Certificate Management System
Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm
The GNU Privacy Guard (also GnuPG) is a complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC4880.
Source: https://gnupg.org/
A hardware security module is a crypto processor designed for the crypto key lifecycle protection.
OpenSSL
Section titled “OpenSSL”Cryptography and SSL/TLS Toolkit.
Source: https://www.openssl.org/
A public key infrastructure is the framework of encryption and cybersecurity.
PyNaCl
Section titled “PyNaCl”A Python binding to libsodium, which is a fork of the Networking and Cryptography library.
Source: https://pypi.org/project/PyNaCl/
registration authority
A software bill of materials is a machine-readable document of all software components, open source licenses, and dependencies in a target software.
A supply chain security is a process of securing the machinery of the development, building, and release environment.
secure cryptoprocessor
Section titled “secure cryptoprocessor”A security chip that performs encryption and decryption operations.
software artifact
Section titled “software artifact”An immutable blob of data; primarily refers to software, but SLSA can be used for any artifact.
Source: https://slsa.dev/spec/v0.1/terminology
Supply chain Levels for Software Artifacts is a security framework, a check-list of standards and controls to prevent tampering, improve integrity, and secure packages and infrastructure in your projects, businesses or enterprises.
Source: https://slsa.dev/