Glossary of Terms

The section of the Toolbox lists terminology used in the Toolbox that is not explained or discussed elsewhere in the Toolbox.

24×7

When the industry talks about 24×7, it simply means that the facility is available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. In other words, all the time.

A data centre with 24×7 access means that any client of the data centre can enter it any time of day or night, any day of the week. This is especially important if they need access to equipment located there for planned or emergency maintenance work.

A network that operates 24×7 means that it is providing Internet access services continuously, regardless of time of day, day of week, holidays, and so on.

“Eye-balls”

The content providers’ terminology to describe end-users who consume the content they provide.

These are the customers of commercial service providers, staff in enterprise networks, staff/students/researchers at Universities and Colleges, students and staff at Schools, home users of access providers, etc.

Hyperscale Content Providers

A phrase in common use to describe the world’s biggest content providers, by measure of traffic and global presence. These might well include (but are not limited to):

  • Amazon AWS
  • Google Cloud
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Alibaba AliCloud
  • IBM
  • Oracle
  • Apple
  • Meta
  • Akamai​

gTLD & ccTLD

gTLD means “Generic Top Level Domain” and refers to operators of the generic top level domains, such as .com, .net, .org, etc.

ccTLD means “country code Top Level Domain” and refers to operators of the country top level domains.