1.1 Glossary

This document uses the following terms:

activity: A synchronization boundary; ORPC calls to objects within the boundary are serialized based on their causality identifiers.

activity identifier: A GUID that identifies an activity.

authentication level: A numeric value indicating the level of authentication or message protection that remote procedure call (RPC) will apply to a specific message exchange. For more information, see [C706] section 13.1.2.1 and [MS-RPCE].

Authentication Service (AS): A service that issues ticket granting tickets (TGTs), which are used for authenticating principals within the realm or domain served by the Authentication Service.

causality identifier (CID): A GUID that is passed as part of an ORPC call to identify a chain of calls that are causally related.

class factory: An object (3 or 4) whose purpose is to create objects (3 or 4) from a specific object class (3 or 4).

class identifier (CLSID): A GUID that identifies a software component; for instance, a DCOM object class or a COM class.

distributed transaction: A transaction that updates data on two or more networked computer systems. Distributed transactions extend the benefits of transactions to applications that must update distributed data.

domain: A set of users and computers sharing a common namespace and management infrastructure. At least one computer member of the set has to act as a domain controller (DC) and host a member list that identifies all members of the domain, as well as optionally hosting the Active Directory service. The domain controller provides authentication of members, creating a unit of trust for its members. Each domain has an identifier that is shared among its members. For more information, see [MS-AUTHSOD] section 1.1.1.5 and [MS-ADTS].

dynamic endpoint: A network-specific server address that is requested and assigned at run time. For more information, see [C706].

global partition: The default, required partition on a COMA server.

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).

Interface Definition Language (IDL): The International Standards Organization (ISO) standard language for specifying the interface for remote procedure calls. For more information, see [C706] section 4.

object class: In COM, a category of objects identified by a CLSID, members of which can be obtained through activation of the CLSID.

object remote procedure call (ORPC): A remote procedure call whose target is an interface on an object. The target interface (and therefore the object) is identified by an interface pointer identifier (IPID).

OBJREF: The marshaled form of an object reference.

partition: A container for a specific configuration of a COM+ object class.

partition identifier: A GUID that identifies a partition.

remote procedure call (RPC): A communication protocol used primarily between client and server. The term has three definitions that are often used interchangeably: a runtime environment providing for communication facilities between computers (the RPC runtime); a set of request-and-response message exchanges between computers (the RPC exchange); and the single message from an RPC exchange (the RPC message).  For more information, see [C706].

security identifier (SID): An identifier for security principals that is used to identify an account or a group. Conceptually, the SID is composed of an account authority portion (typically a domain) and a smaller integer representing an identity relative to the account authority, termed the relative identifier (RID). The SID format is specified in [MS-DTYP] section 2.4.2; a string representation of SIDs is specified in [MS-DTYP] section 2.4.2 and [MS-AZOD] section 1.1.1.2.

transaction: A unit of interaction that guarantees the ACID properties— atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability—as specified by the MSDTC Connection Manager: OleTx Transaction Protocol ([MS-DTCO])

transaction manager: The party that is responsible for managing and distributing the outcome of atomic transactions. A transaction manager is either a root transaction manager or a subordinate transaction manager for a specified transaction.

transaction sequence number (TSN): A positive number that identifies a single transaction within a transaction stream.

transaction stream: An object that supplies a series of transactions, each identified by a monotonically increasing sequence number.

transaction stream ID: A GUID that identifies a transaction stream.

Unicode: A character encoding standard developed by the Unicode Consortium that represents almost all of the written languages of the world. The Unicode standard [UNICODE5.0.0/2007] provides three forms (UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32) and seven schemes (UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-16 BE, UTF-16 LE, UTF-32, UTF-32 LE, and UTF-32 BE).

universally unique identifier (UUID): A 128-bit value. UUIDs can be used for multiple purposes, from tagging objects with an extremely short lifetime, to reliably identifying very persistent objects in cross-process communication such as client and server interfaces, manager entry-point vectors, and RPC objects. UUIDs are highly likely to be unique. UUIDs are also known as globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) and these terms are used interchangeably in the Microsoft protocol technical documents (TDs). Interchanging the usage of these terms does not imply or require a specific algorithm or mechanism to generate the UUID. 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 UUID.

Windows NT account name: A string identifying the name of a Windows NT operating system account.

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.