API (Application Program Interface)
A formalized set of software calls and routines that can be referenced by an application program in order to access supporting network services. For example, a robust API can be used to execute a T&B or proposal system's functionality and transfer output to an XML-based commerce network. At least one proprietary API schema is currently used to eliminate user-intervention in broadcast system integration. This robust system is context-sensitive, allowing the API to interact with a dynamic program interface and can be quickly deployed (in weeks) for most complex integration environments.

Back end
The systems running a data base or any system that holds application data.

Browser
The user interface to the Internet or Internet protocol-based system. Runs on user's local computer.

CCB (Configuration Control Board)
Committee that manages and coordinates changes to a base configuration of a system.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
A formatting template that separates web page's typography from layout and structure.

Collaborative commerce
A network that extends the productivity and cost savings of Enterprise Solutions (see below) by linking the ES's of business partners via an online exchange. It allows for secure distribution of information that helps both parties reduce transaction costs and increase productivity. One example is the potential gains realized by sharing clearance data from a T&B system with the stewardship systems used by agencies for account maintenance. Instead of the manual process that occurs over an extended period today, trading partners would be able to recognize the need for make-good negotiation in real time, which would greatly increase the frequency of in-flight make-goods and reduce the costs associated with post-facto discrepancy resolution. Collaborative Commerce can only be deployed in an environment of comprehensive EDI standards or with XML, which eliminates the need for comprehensive standards.

Connectivity
A computer buzzword that refers to a program or device's ability to link with other programs and devices. For example, a program that can import data from a wide variety of other programs and can export data in many different formats is said to have good connectivity. On the other hand, computers that have difficulty linking into a network have poor connectivity.

DOM (Document Object Model)
The structure of HTML page (built from objects of text, graphics, forms).

Enterprise Solutions
ES's are applications that integrate and streamline mission-critical internal processes within the four walls of an organization, and across remote locations of geographically dispersed organizations — such as broadcast groups, rep firms, and large advertising agencies. ES's allow information to flow across independent system chains, such as those used by broadcasters to budget, coordinate & support sales teams, propose business, price, allocate & schedule inventory, and book financial information. Locally, these systems greatly reduce the cycle time, errors, and burnout associated with repetitive data entry/re-entry, leading to significant cost reductions and productivity gains. At the global level, ES's allow managers of multi-site operations to plan, gauge performance, prioritize resources and deploy creative multi-market/multi-media solutions in a real time, proactive manner. The deployment of ES's are greatly accelerated by extensible open protocols such as XML, which can be cost-effectively deployed in a web-based environment.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
The standard protocol for transferring files from computer to computer over the Internet.

Front end
The user's local system running a browser and/or web server providing pages, data, applications to users.

GIF (Graphic Interchange Format)
8-bit color palette graphics file format.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
Computer language to create web documents, provides instructions that tell the browser how to display pages.

J2EE (JAVA 2 Enterprise Edition)
Widely recognized as the most versatile and extensible environment for developing and deploying enterprise applications, the J2EE platform consists of a set of services, application programming interfaces (APIs), and protocols that provide the functionality for developing Web-based applications which are distributed across multiple computing tiers.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
24-bit RGB color graphics file format.

MVC (Model View Controller)
The architecture for developing systems using Enterprise Java Beans.

PNG (Portable Network Format)
Graphics File Format 8-Bit palette, 16 Bit Grayscale.

RUP (Rational Unified Process)
The methodology for developing software systems, uses case-driven iterative approach.

SSI (Server Side Includes)
The HTML code that is replaced by data from the server before being displayed in web browser.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)
A protocol developed by Netscape for transmitting private documents via the Internet. SSL works by using a private key to encrypt data that's transferred over the SSL connection. Both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer support SSL, and many Web sites use the protocol to obtain confidential data information, such as credit card numbers. By convention, Web pages that require an SSL connection start with http.

Transaction processing
A type of computer processing in which the computer responds immediately to user requests. Each request is considered to be a transaction. Automatic teller machines for banks are an example of transaction processing. The opposite of transaction processing is batch processing, in which a batch of requests is stored and then executed all at one time. Transaction processing requires interaction with a user, whereas batch processing can take place without a user being present.

UML (Unified Modeling Language)
Standard modeling methodology for communicating design of Object Oriented Systems.

VML (Vector Markup Language)
The method used to embed vector graphs into XML documents, speeding up transmission of graphics data.

VPN (Virtual Private Network)
VPN-Virtual Private Network- A logical connection between members of a distributed private network, includes remote users and telecommuters, that allows free and secure communication through an untrusted, public network.

XML (Extensible Markup Language)
It allows designers to create their own customized tags (markup) enabling the definition, transmission, validation, and interpretation of data between applications and between organizations. For "structured data" think of such things as spreadsheets, proposal documents, financial transactions, ratings data, log files, etc. Programs that produce such data store it on disk, for which they can use either a binary format or a text format. The latter allows you, if necessary, to look at the data without the program that produced it. XML is a set of rules, guidelines, and conventions — whatever you want to call them — for designing text formats for such data, in a way that produces meta data/files that are easy to generate and read (by a computer), that are unambiguous, and that avoid common pitfalls, such as lack of extensibility, lack of support for internationalization/localization, and platform dependency.

XML Processor
A software module used to read XML documents and provide access to their content and structure. It is assumed that an XML processor is doing its work on behalf of another module, called the application.