Windows Server 2008

A boot partition is a partition that contains the files required for a system startup.

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network protocol that enables a server to automatically assign an IP address to a computer from a defined range of numbers (i.e., a scope) configured for a given network.

• Multicasting is the ability to transmit a single stream to multiple subscribers at the same time. Unlike conventional streaming, it does not need one stream per recipient. Instead, there is one stream on any one segment of the network on which there is a subscriber. It is the task of the routers to track subscriptions and to create copies only on an as-needed basis. Unlike broadcasting, segments on which there are no subscribers do not receive the stream.
• Multicasting is an unreliable protocol, using UDP as its basis. It is possible to add reliability to it, as described later, but this is a wrapper on top of an inherently unreliable mechanism.

Preboot eXecution Environment. A way of booting a system via a LAN (without a hard drive or bootable diskette).

The system partition refers to the disk volume containing hardware specific files needed to boot Windows (NTLDR, BOOT.INI, and so on).

Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) 2.0 is a minimal Win32 operating system with limited services, built on the Windows Vista kernel. It is used to prepare a computer for Windows installation, to copy disk images from a network file server, and to initiate Windows Setup.

The range of virtual addresses that the operating system assigns to a user or separately running program is called an address space. This is the area of contiguous virtual addresses available for executing instructions and storing data.

Anycast addressing routes datagrams to a single member of a group of potential receivers that are all identified by the same destination address. This is a one-to-one-of-many association.

BOOTP (the BOOTstrap Protocol) was originally created for loading diskless computers. It was later used to allow a host to obtain all the required TCP/IP information to use the Internet. Using BOOTP, a host can broadcast a request on the network and get information required from a BOOTP server. The BOOTP server is a computer that listens for incoming BOOTP requests and generates responses from a configuration database for the BOOTP clients on that network. BOOTP differs from DHCP in that it has no concept of lease or lease expiration. All IP addresses that a BOOTP server allocates are permanent.

A forward lookup zone is a DNS zone in which hostname to IP address relations are stored. When a computer requests the IP address of a specific hostname, the forward lookup zone is queried and the result is returned.

Multicasting refers to sending a message to a select group whereas broadcasting refers to sending a message to everyone connected to a network.

An authoritative DNS zone that is primarily used to resolve IP addresses to network resource names.

Route aggregation provides for routing of traffic for networks with smaller prefixes to networks with larger prefixes. In other words, it permits a number of contiguous address blocks to be combined and summarized as a larger address block. Route aggregation reduces the number of advertised routes on large networks. When an ISP breaks its network into smaller subnets to provide service to smaller providers, it needs to advertise the route only to its main supernet for traffic to be sent to smaller providers.

Every IPv6 address, except the unspecified address (::), has a "scope",[8] which specifies in which part of the network it is valid.

The most common concept of an IP address is in unicast addressing, available in both IPv4 and IPv6. It normally refers to a single sender or a single receiver, and can be used for both sending and receiving. Usually, a unicast address is associated with a single device or host, but it is not a one-to-one correspondence. Some individual PCs have several distinct unicast addresses, each for its own distinct purpose. Sending the same data to multiple unicast addresses requires the sender to send all the data many times over, once for each recipient.