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:

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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

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:

Ghaf

The project code name that represents the Ghaf tree.
Source: https://connectwithnature.ae/knowledge-hub/ghaf-tree

CI/CD

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.

note

Currently, Continuous Deployment is not set up. Continuous Deployment—code is deployed to customers automatically.

SSRC

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

TII

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

ADR

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/

BPMP

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

BSP

A board support package is a collection of software used to boot and run the embedded system.

CA

A certificate authority or certification authority is an entity that stores, signs, issues digital certificates, and bind them to cryptographic keys.

DHCP

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

DMA

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

embedded MultiMediaCard

EULA

end-user license agreement

FW

firmware

GALA

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.

GUI

graphical user interface

IDS

An intrusion detection system (also intrusion prevention system or IPS) monitors network traffic for suspicious activity and report when such activity is discovered.

IOMMU

input–output memory management unit

IP

The Internet Protocol is a set of rules for communication over the Internet, such as sending email, streaming video, or connecting to a website.

ISA

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

KVM

Kernel-based Virtual Machine, an open-source virtualization technology built into Linux.

KVMS

Kernel-based Virtual Machine Secured, an open-source project.
Source: https://github.com/jkrh/kvms

labwc, LabWC

Lab Wayland Compositor, a window-stacking compositor for Wayland, an open-source project.
Source: https://github.com/labwc/labwc

MMU

memory management unit

MSI

Message Signaled Interrupts

NixOS

A Linux distribution based on the Nix package manager and build system.
Source: https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Overview_of_the_NixOS_Linux_distribution

OEM

original equipment manufacturer

OS

operating system

PCI

Peripheral Component Interconnect

PCIe

Peripheral Component Interconnect Express

QEMU

A generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer.
Source: QEMU’s documentation

SBSA

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

SKU

A stock keeping unit, is a unique code used by sellers to identify and track products.

SoC

A system on chip, a microchip that contains the necessary electronic circuits for a fully functional system on a single integrated circuit (IC).

SPKI

simple public-key infrastructure

SSD

solid-state drive

TCB

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

TLS

Transport Layer Security, a security protocol.

UART

An universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter, a hardware communication protocol.

UEFI

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

UI

user interface

VFIO

Virtual Function I/O
Source: https://docs.kernel.org/driver-api/vfio.html

VM

virtual machine

VMM

Virtual Machine Manager

ZTA

zero trust architecture, zero trust security model

CA

certificate authority

CMS

Certificate Management System

EdDSA

Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm

GPG

The GNU Privacy Guard (also GnuPG) is a complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC4880.
Source: https://gnupg.org/

HSM

A hardware security module is a crypto processor designed for the crypto key lifecycle protection.

OpenSSL

Cryptography and SSL/TLS Toolkit.
Source: https://www.openssl.org/

PKI

A public key infrastructure is the framework of encryption and cybersecurity.

PyNaCl

A Python binding to libsodium, which is a fork of the Networking and Cryptography library.
Source: https://pypi.org/project/PyNaCl/

RA

registration authority

SBOM

A software bill of materials is a machine-readable document of all software components, open source licenses, and dependencies in a target software.

SCS

A supply chain security is a process of securing the machinery of the development, building, and release environment.

secure cryptoprocessor

A security chip that performs encryption and decryption operations.

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

SLSA

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/

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