1.1 Glossary

This document uses the following terms:

Business Data Connectivity (BDC): A shared service that stores information about business application data that exists outside a server farm. It can be used to display business data in lists, Web Parts, search results, user profiles, and custom applications. Previously referred to as Business Data Catalog.

directory service (DS): A service that stores and organizes information about a computer network's users and network shares, and that allows network administrators to manage users' access to the shares. See also Active Directory.

distinguished name (DN): A name that uniquely identifies an object by using the relative distinguished name (RDN) for the object, and the names of container objects and domains that contain the object. The distinguished name (DN) identifies the object and its location in a tree.

entity: An instance of an EntityType element that has a unique identity and an independent existence. An entity is an operational unit of consistency.

EntityInstance: A set of Field values that have a unique identity that represents a specific instance of an Entity, and are stored in a line-of-business (LOB) system.

globally unique identifier (GUID): A term used interchangeably with universally unique identifier (UUID) in Microsoft protocol technical documents (TDs). Interchanging the usage of these terms does not imply or require a specific algorithm or mechanism to generate the value. Specifically, the use of this term does not imply or require that the algorithms described in [RFC4122] or [C706] must be used for generating the GUID. See also universally unique identifier (UUID).

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP): An application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems (text, graphic images, sound, video, and other multimedia files) on the World Wide Web.

identifier: A string value that is used to uniquely identify a component of the CSDL and that is of type SimpleIdentifier.

member group: A group of users that is specific to a user profile service. Examples of types of member groups are distribution lists, security groups, and SharePoint sites. A member group contains metadata such as the group name, email address, URL, and a list of members.

partition: An area within a shared services database, such as an area that isolates different tenants within a service, or the process of creating such an area in a shared services database.

SOAP: A lightweight protocol for exchanging structured information in a decentralized, distributed environment. SOAP uses XML technologies to define an extensible messaging framework, which provides a message construct that can be exchanged over a variety of underlying protocols. The framework has been designed to be independent of any particular programming model and other implementation-specific semantics. SOAP 1.2 supersedes SOAP 1.1. See [SOAP1.2-1/2003].

SOAP action: The HTTP request header field used to indicate the intent of the SOAP request, using a URI value. See [SOAP1.1] section 6.1.1 for more information.

SOAP body: A container for the payload data being delivered by a SOAP message to its recipient. See [SOAP1.2-1/2007] section 5.3 for more information.

SOAP fault: A container for error and status information within a SOAP message. See [SOAP1.2-1/2007] section 5.4 for more information.

synchronization engine: A code module that creates an integrated view of objects that are stored in multiple, connected data sources, and manages information in those data sources.

user profile: A collection of properties that pertain to a specific person or entity within a portal site.

user profile store: A database that stores information about each user profile.

Web Services Description Language (WSDL): An XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints that operate on messages that contain either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages are described abstractly and are bound to a concrete network protocol and message format in order to define an endpoint. Related concrete endpoints are combined into abstract endpoints, which describe a network service. WSDL is extensible, which allows the description of endpoints and their messages regardless of the message formats or network protocols that are used.

WSDL message: An abstract, typed definition of the data that is communicated during a WSDL operation [WSDL]. Also, an element that describes the data being exchanged between web service providers and clients.

WSDL operation: A single action or function of a web service. The execution of a WSDL operation typically requires the exchange of messages between the service requestor and the service provider.

XML namespace: A collection of names that is used to identify elements, types, and attributes in XML documents identified in a URI reference [RFC3986]. A combination of XML namespace and local name allows XML documents to use elements, types, and attributes that have the same names but come from different sources. For more information, see [XMLNS-2ED].

XML namespace prefix: An abbreviated form of an XML namespace, as described in [XML].

XML schema: A description of a type of XML document that is typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, in addition to the basic syntax constraints that are imposed by XML itself. An XML schema provides a view of a document type at a relatively high level of abstraction.

MAY, SHOULD, MUST, SHOULD NOT, MUST NOT: These terms (in all caps) are used as defined in [RFC2119]. All statements of optional behavior use either MAY, SHOULD, or SHOULD NOT.