Glossary - W

WAIS

Wide Area Information Servers (Service) (networking)
A distributed information retrieval system which offers simple natural language input, indexed searching for fast retrieval, and a "relevance feedback" mechanism which allows the results of initial searches to influence future searches. WAIS is supported by Apple Computer, Thinking Machines and Dow Jones. Clients are able to retrieve documents using keywords. The search returns a list of documents, ranked according to the frequency of occurrence of the keyword(s) used in the search. The client can retrieve text or multimedia documents stored on the server. It uses the ANSI Z39.50 service. Public domain implementations are available.

WAL (communications)

WATS Acces Line (telephone, network)
A dedicated special access line from a customer's phone system to a nearby local telco office.

WAN

Wide Area Network (network)
A network which encompasses interconnectivity between devices over a wide geographic area. Such networks would require public rights-of-way and operate over long distances.

WATM

Wireless ATM
An emerging technology for interfacing wireless and ATM networks.

WATS (communications)

Wide Area Telephone Service (telephone, network)
A long distance service provided by telephone companies in the United States and designed for customers with high call volumes over wide geographic areas. It is basically a discounted toll service. Rates are based on total usage rather than a call-by-call basis as in message telecommunications service.
There are two types of WATS services - in and out WATS, i.e. those WATS lines that allow you to dial out and those on which you receive incoming calls (the typical 800 line service). You subscribe to in- and out-WATS services separately.
See also WAL.

Wave

Windows audio file format.

WBEM

Web Based Enterprise Management (network, management, web, vendor consortium)
A vendor consortium founded by Microsoft and Intel to do work on Web-based management scheme, protocol and request broker.
See also HMMP.

WDM

Wavelenght Division Multiplexing (network)
An optical transmission technique, whereby two or more signals are sent through a single fiber, using lasers with different wavelengths. Lucent Technologies has succeeded to transmit information at 1 terabit/s. WDM requires more sophisticated electro-optical equipment at each end and in the regenerators.

Web

World Wide Web (network, Internet)
World information system available through Internet. See WWW.

WebCrawler (network, Internet)

A WWW search engine. The aim of the WebCrawler Project is to provide a high-quality, fast, and free Internet search service. The WebCrawler may be reached at http://webcrawler.com/.

WFMC - WMC

WorkFlow Management Coalition (standardization, workflow)
Workgroup about workflow.

WG

Working Group (standardization, Internet)
A working group, within the IETF, is a group of people who work under a charter to achieve a certain goal.
That goal may be the creation of an Informational document, the creation of a protocol specification, or the resolution of problems in the Internet. Most working groups have a finite lifetime. That is, once a working group has achieved its goal, it disbands.
There is no official membership for a working group. Unofficially, a working group member is somebody who is on that working group's mailing list; however, anyone may attend a working group meeting.
See also Birds Of a Feather.

White Pages (network, Internet)

The Internet supports several databases that contain basic information about users, such as email addresses, telephone numbers, and postal addresses. These databases can be searched to get information about particular individuals. Because they serve a function akin to the telephone book, these databases are often referred to as "white pages.
See also Knowbot, WHOIS, X.500.

WHOIS (network, Internet)

An Internet program which allows users to query a database of people and other Internet entities, such as domains, networks, and hosts, kept at the DDN NIC. The information for people shows a person's company name, address, phone number and email address. Many servers respond to TCP queries on port 43, in a manner roughly analogous to the DDN NIC whois service described in RFC 954 [NICNAME/WHOIS]. Other sites provide this directory service via the finger protocol or accept queries by electronic mail for directory information.
An Internet directory service for looking up names of people on a remote server. On Unix the client command is:
whois -h server_name person_name
You can also type "telnet server_name 43" and then type the person's name on a separate line. For a list of whois servers, FTP/Gopher: sipb.mit.edu or:
whois -h sipb.mit.edu whois-servers
As the above command demonstrates, whois can find information about things other than users, e.g. domains, networks and hosts.
See also white pages, Knowbot, X.500, finger.

Wide Band - Wideband (communications, network)

See broadband.

Workflow

The "flow" of tasks as they pass from one worker to another, especially in a workgroup environment:

• operating system: The scheduling of independent jobs on a computer. See also time-sharing, WFL.
• job: The set of relationships between all the activities in a project, from start to finish. Activities are related by ifferent types of trigger relation. Activities may be triggered by external events or by other activities.
• The movement of documents around an organisation for purposes including sign-off, evaluation, performing activities in a process and co-writing.

World Wide Web

WWW

W3

Web

World Wide Web (network, Internet)
A hypertext-based, distributed information system created by researchers at CERN (European Center on Nuclear Research) in Switzerland. Users may create, edit or browse hypertext documents. The clients and servers are freely available. You can find an FAQ (where else!) on the web. A consortium the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has been created in 1995 to work on the development around the web.

Worm (networking, security)

(From "Tapeworm" in John Brunner's novel "The Shockwave Rider", via XEROX PARC). A program that propagates itself over a network, reproducing itself as it goes. Compare virus. Nowadays the term has negative connotations, as it is assumed that only crackers write worms.
Perhaps the best-known example was the Great Worm!!. Compare Trojan horse.

WRT

With Respect To (network, Internet)

WYSIWYG

What You See is What You Get (GUI, graphic interface)

W3C

World Wide Web Consortium (world wide web, standard, vendor consortium)
Vendor consortium organisation on World Wide Web.
W3C Web site: http://www.w3.org/.

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