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Abbreviations in the IT world

Especially in the IT world, many people throw abbreviations or abbreviations around. We would like to give you an insight and explain one or the other in detail.

shortcut	meaning	description
ADSL	Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line	is the currently most common connection technology for broadband connections for consumers. It was developed as a variant of the DSL technology with the proviso to function over the existing telephone connection line without impairing telephony over the landline connection, and at the same time to offer the target customer group (private households, small businesses) a suitable asymmetric (unequal) data transmission rate with higher reception to offer as a sending rate.
API	Application Programming Interface	A programming interface, more precisely an interface for application programming, often just called API (literally "application programming interface"), is a program part that is made available by a software system to other programs for connection to the system.
BIOS	Basic input/output system	Is a very small program (firmware) which starts immediately after switching on a computer. It is stored in non-volatile memory on the motherboard and checks the hardware and initializes the boot of an operating system. Configurations can be made in the BIOS settings, such as the boot order of the various data carriers. One of the tasks of the BIOS is to first make the PC functional and then to start an operating system. The BIOS has now largely been replaced by the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI for short).
BSI	Federal Office for Security in Information Technology	The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) is a civil higher federal authority based in the Federal City of Bonn, which is part of the Federal Ministry of the Interior and is responsible for IT security issues. The guiding principle of the BSI is: "As the national cyber security authority, the BSI shapes information security in digitization through prevention, detection and response for the state, business and society."
C	-	An imperative programming language developed by computer scientist Dennis Ritchie at Bell Laboratories in the early 1970s for systems programming of the Unix operating system.
C++	-	A programming language standardized by the ISO. It was developed in 1979 by Bjarne Stroustrup at AT&T as an extension of the C programming language.
CAPTCHA	Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart	A captcha ("fully automated public Turing test to distinguish computers from humans") is used to determine whether a human or a machine (robot program, bot for short) is involved. As a rule, this is used to check who made entries in Internet forms, because robots are often misused here. Captchas are used for security. In contrast to the classic Turing test, captchas aim to ensure that computers (and not people) can clearly distinguish between machines and people.
CMS	content management system	A content management system is software for the collaborative creation, editing and organization of content (content), mostly on websites, but also in other forms of media. These can consist of text and multimedia documents. In many cases, an author with access rights can operate such a system with little programming or HTML knowledge, since the majority of systems have a graphical user interface. Well-known representatives are, for example, Joomla!, Typo3, WordPress.
colocation		Server housing or server homing, collocation [from English collocate] and co-location refers to the accommodation and network connection of a customer server in the data center of an Internet Service Provider (ISP). This means that, in contrast to hosting, the hardware is not provided by the provider but by the customer or tenant. The provider only provides infrastructural services.
DNS	domain name system	The Domain Name System (DNS) is one of the most important services in many IP-based networks. Its main task is to answer name resolution requests. DNS works in a similar way to directory inquiries. The user knows the domain (the name of a computer on the Internet that people can remember) – for example bitmacher.de. He sends this as a request to the Internet. The domain is then converted there by the DNS into the associated IP address (the "connection number" on the Internet) - for example an IPv4 address in the form 192.0.4.76 or an IPv6 address like 2001:db6:85a6:8d4:1719: 8a2e:380:7347, and thus leads to the correct computer.
EDP	electronic data processing	Electronic data processing (EDP) is the collective term for the collection and processing of data by electronically calculating machines or computers.
FTP	File Transfer Protocol	File Transfer Protocol is a stateful network protocol specified in RFC 959 from 1985 for transferring files over IP networks. FTP is located in the application layer (layer 7) of the OSI layer model. It is used to transfer files from server to client (downloading), from client to server (uploading) or client-controlled between two FTP servers (File Exchange Protocol). In addition, directories can be created and read out with FTP, and directories and files can be renamed or deleted. Websites in particular are saved and published on FTP servers. You can think of this as a data drive that you can only connect to with special programs (eg: Filezilla).
GMX	Global Message Exchange	Most take GMX as a brand name and assume no meaning behind it. GMX stands for Global Message eXchange and is an email service provider from Germany. Above all, GMX has become known for free e-mail addresses and the associated service.
GPRS	General Packet Radio Service	("General packet-oriented radio service") is the designation for the packet-oriented service for data transmission in GSM networks.
GSM	Global System for Mobile Communication	Standard for fully digital mobile networks
HA cluster	High-availability cluster	High-availability clusters are used to increase availability or for better reliability.
HTML	Hypertext Markup Language	HTML is a type of programming language used to program websites. This code is then interpreted by a web server and a website is created. Here's an interesting article
HTTP	Hypertext Transfer Protocol	The hypertext transfer protocol is a stateless protocol for transferring data at the application layer over a computer network.
IOF	internet of things	The Internet of Things (also: "everything network") is a collective term for technologies of a global infrastructure of information societies, which makes it possible to network physical and virtual objects with each other and to let them work together through information and communication technologies. Examples: - Parcel tracking via the Internet – Parcel service providers offer the parcel recipient the opportunity to track their shipment during the transport process. For this purpose, the shipment is clearly identified at the respective transport stations using barcodes or 2D codes and the current status is automatically transmitted to a control center. This status can be read by the parcel recipient via a corresponding website. - Reordering of printer cartridges - The printer uses chip technology to identify its printer cartridges and thus monitors their level. If the fill level falls below a predefined limit, the printer prompts the user to reorder via the manufacturer's website.
IP	IP address	An IP address is an address in computer networks which – like the internet – is based on the internet protocol (IP). It is assigned to devices that are connected to the network, making the devices addressable and therefore accessible. The IP address can designate a single recipient or a group of recipients (multicast, broadcast). Conversely, multiple IP addresses can be assigned to a computer. The IP address is primarily used to be able to transport data from its sender to the intended recipient. Similar to the postal address on an envelope, data packets are provided with an IP address that uniquely identifies the recipient. Based on this address, the "post offices", the routers, can decide in which direction the package should be forwarded. Unlike postal addresses, IP addresses are not tied to a specific location.
IT	information technology	IT is a generic term and combines four main areas: business IT, industrial IT, communication IT and entertainment IT. The term EDP is a subtopic of IT.
Java	-	an object-oriented programming language and a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, which was acquired by Oracle in 2010. The programming language is a part of Java technology - this basically consists of the Java Development Tool (JDK) for creating Java programs and the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) for running them.
JS	JavaScript	a scripting language that was originally developed for dynamic HTML in web browsers to evaluate user interactions, change content, reload or generate it and thus expand the possibilities of HTML and CSS. Today, JavaScript is also used outside of browsers, for example on servers and in microcontrollers.
JBIG2	Joint Bi-level Image Experts Group	a method for image compression of binary images for both lossless and lossy compression. JBIG2 was developed by the Joint Bi-level Image Experts Group and was published in 2000 as the international standard ITU T.88 and in 2001 as ISO/IEC 14492.
JPEG	Joint Photographic Experts Group	goes back to the Joint Photographic Experts Group, which developed the JPEG standard. It is the common name for the ISO/IEC 10918-1 standard and CCITT Recommendation T.81 presented in 1992, which describes various methods of image compression.
KB	kilobyte	Not KGB but KB. What could that stand for? Correct ! For kilobytes (kB) or kilobits (kb). Other units are.....
LAN	Local Area Network	LAN denotes a private network. For example, the computer network here at home, or the server network in your company is a LAN.
LTE	Long Term Evolution	is a mobile phone standard.
MAC	Media Access Control	Oh no. At this point we do not mean a product from Apple. The so-called MAC address is meant here. This is a unique network identification of devices. Each network card has a unique and non-diallable number. It would be a bit like a person's social security number.
NAS	Network-attached storage	Digital film and music collectors will be able to tell you immediately what the term NAS stands for. Network Attached Storage and loosely translated means "in the network storage". If you want more information, we can recommend the following article.
OSI	Open Systems Interconnection Model	Ask your IT contact person what the so-called OSI model could be. If he doesn't answer, flee immediately. The Open Systems Interconnection Model is a reference model for network protocols. This is the basic knowledge of all computer network activities.
Perl	-	a free, platform-independent and interpreted programming language (scripting language) that supports multiple programming paradigms. Linguist Larry Wall designed it in 1987 as a synthesis of C, awk, the Unix commands, and other influences.
POP3	Post Office Protocol	The full form of this abbreviation is not used very often. This is a method for a computer program such as Outlook to retrieve e-mails from a server.
PGP	Pretty Good Privacy	Pretty Good Privacy is a data encryption and signing program developed by Phil Zimmermann. PGP uses what is known as a public key method, in which there is a uniquely assigned pair of keys.
PHP	Personal Home Page Tools	"Hypertext Preprocessor" (originally "Personal Home Page Tools") is a scripting language with a syntax based on C and Perl.
QR code	Quick response code	Everyone is talking about him, but nobody knows what he means. Quick Response ("quick response", as a brand term "QR Code") is a method of writing down information in such a way that it can be found and read by machine particularly quickly.
RAID	Redundant Array of Independent Disks	Let me guess, you know just as little now as before what that could be? RAID are often used in the server environment. This is an automatic disk mirroring process. RAID 1 on two disks, each 1TB, also offers you a net storage of 1TB.
R.A.M.	Random access memory	Random Access Memory, is the place in a computer where the operating system, application programs, and data in current use are kept so that they can be quickly reached by the computer's processor.
S.E.M	Search engine marketing	Search engine marketing is a sub-area of ​​online marketing and includes all measures to attract visitors to a website via web search engines. Search engine marketing is divided into search engine advertising (SEA) and search engine optimization (SEO). SEM is often also used as a synonym for search engine advertising, which refers to the display of advertisements, so-called sponsor links (paid listing), which are displayed on the search results page according to the principle of keyword advertising.
SEO	Search Engine Optimization	Search engine optimization refers to measures that serve to ensure that websites and their content appear in the top positions in organic search engine rankings (natural listings). By deliberately influencing the placement of websites, images, videos or other content in search engines, their reach should be increased. The optimization includes all different types of searches such as image, video or news searches.
SERP	Search engine result page	The search engine ranking describes the order in which the results obtained when using the search engine are listed. This ranking is determined by the search engine operator and aims to present pages with the greatest possible relevance to the searcher. The pages on which the search results are displayed are also called search engine result pages, or SERPs for short. Since SERPs work according to the principle of the top N query, it is of crucial importance for a website operator that the page is among the first N, for example 10, results (e.g. 1st page on Google)
SLA	Service Level Agreement	Contract between client and service provider for order quality
SMS	Short message service	The short message service is a telecommunications service for the transmission of text messages, which are usually called short messages or SMS. It was first developed for GSM mobile communications and is also available in landline networks as landline SMS in various countries.
SQL	Structured Query Language	SQL is a database language for defining data structures in relational databases and for editing (inserting, changing, deleting) and querying data stocks based on them.
SSD	Solid State Drive	The SSD are very fast, non-mechanical hard drives. The first SSD disks were USB sticks. They are now used in the computer and server area. Most hosting providers use TB SSD hard drives.
SSL	Secure Sockets Layer	Secure Sockets Layer, the old name for Transport Layer Security, a network protocol for the secure transmission of data
TCP	Transmission Control Protocol	The network protocol that defines how data should be exchanged between computers)
TFT	Thin film transistor display	TFT screens are often used colloquially. Thin-film transistor display is the advertised form. Did you know this abbreviation?
TMG	Telemedia Act	The Telemedia Act regulates the legal framework for so-called telemedia in Germany (e.g. the imprint of a website). It is one of the central provisions of internet law. The TMG largely summarizes in one law what was previously divided into three different sets of rules.
URL	Uniform resource locator	Uniform Resource Locator is a naming standard for network resources
USB	Universal Serial Bus	Ok, no cheating now. What could USB stand for? USB is now available in version 3 and is one of the most popular and most frequently used forms of connection for various devices.
VOD	Video on Demand	Video-on-demand describes the possibility of downloading digital videos from an online service on request or watching them directly via streaming. Well-known representatives are Netflix, Amazon Video, Maxdome, Sky Ticket...
VOIP	Voice over IP	IP telephony (short for internet protocol telephony and internet telephony) or Voice over IP (literally for voice transmission via the internet protocol) is telephoning over computer networks that are built according to internet standards. In this case, information typical for telephony, ie voice and control information, for example for setting up a connection, is transmitted via a data network. Computers, telephone terminals specializing in IP telephony or classic telephones connected via special adapters can set up the connection for the participants in the call.
VPN	Virtual Private Network	Virtual private network is a.. Oops, I already gave it away. If you want to work from home in a company, the administrator provides a so-called VPN connection. This means you can connect to the company from a computer via VPN. Then you can work as if you were sitting in an office.
VR	virtual reality	Virtual reality, VR for short, is the representation and simultaneous perception of reality and its physical properties in a real-time, computer-generated, interactive virtual environment.
WAN	Wide Are Network	In contrast to the LAN, WAN refers to a large geographical area. Networks across countries or even continents are meant here.
XML	Extensible Markup Language	Extensible Markup Language is a syntax or form of representation for hierarchically structured data in text form. This method is often used on the Internet, for example with RSS.
ZIP	-	The ZIP file format (from English zipper 'zip') is a format for lossless compressed files, which on the one hand reduces the space required for archiving and on the other hand acts as a container file in which several related files or entire directory trees can be combined. The file extension for zip archived files is.zip.

This list is a hodgepodge that has accumulated over the years. Many of the abbreviations described here were taken from Wikipedia. We added some of them ourselves.