Agilent Technologies Agilent E5810A, User Manual

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Glossary 163
Glossary
D
device
A unit that receives commands from a controller. Typically a device is an
instrument but could also be a computer acting in a non-controller role, or
another peripheral such as a printer or plotter.
DHCP
Short for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, a protocol for assigning
dynamic IP addresses to devices on a network. With dynamic
addressing, a device can have a different IP address every time it
connects to the network.
In some systems, the device's IP address can even change while it is still
connected. DHCP also supports a mix of static and dynamic IP
addresses.
Dynamic addressing simplifies network administration because the
software keeps track of IP addresses rather than requiring an
administrator to manage the task. This means that a new computer can
be added to a network without manually assigning it a unique IP address.
DHCP client support is built into Windows NT workstations.
DNS
Short for Domain Name System (or Service), an Internet service that
translates domain names into IP addresses. Because domain names are
alphabetic, they are easier to remember. The Internet, however, is really
based on IP addresses. Every time you use a domain name, therefore, a
DNS service must translate the name into the corresponding IP address.
For example, the domain name
www.example.com
might translate to
198.105.232.4. The DNS system is a distributed system. If one DNS
server does not know how to translate a particular domain name, it asks
another one, and so on, until the correct IP address is returned.
E
Ethernet (MAC) Address
The Media Access Control Address, also known as the link-level
address, the Ethernet (station) Address, the LANIC ID and Hardware
Address. This is a unique 48-bit address assigned by the manufacturer
for each Ethernet device. It is usually displayed as 12 hexadecimal
characters, sometimes with colon or dash separators between every
two characters, such as "00:03:d3:00:00:17" or "00-03-d3-00-00-17".