IT Glossary - ITU Online IT Training
Service Impact Notice: Due to the ongoing hurricane, our operations may be affected. Our primary concern is the safety of our team members. As a result, response times may be delayed, and live chat will be temporarily unavailable. We appreciate your understanding and patience during this time. Please feel free to email us, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

IT Glossary
Key Terms To Know In The IT Industry

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

Time-based One-time Password (TOTP)

An algorithm that generates a one-time password based on the current time, used for securing user authentication processes.

You will find this term commonly used in Security

Time-of-Check to Time-of-Use (TOCTOU)

A software bug caused by changes in a system between the checking of a condition and the use of the results of that check, which can lead to errors or security vulnerabilities.

You will find this term commonly used in Software Development, Security

Time-Sharing System

A type of operating system that allows many users to share the computer resources simultaneously. It was an advance over batch processing systems, where the computer would execute one program at a time.

You will find this term commonly used in Operating Systems, Computer Science

Time-stamp Counter (TSC)

A CPU register that counts the number of cycles since reset.

You will find this term commonly used in Hardware/Software Development

Time-to-Live (TTL)

A mechanism that limits the lifespan or lifetime of data in a computer or network. TTL may be implemented as a counter or timestamp attached to or embedded in the data.

You will find this term commonly used in Networking

Time-to-Market

The period of time between the initial concept for a product and its eventual launch to the market. Reducing time-to-market is critical in industries where products are rapidly evolving.

You will find this term commonly used in General IT, Business

Timing Attack

An attack that uses the time taken by a system to execute cryptographic operations to find vulnerabilities.

You will find this term commonly used in Cybersecurity

Title Case

A text format where the first letter of each word is capitalized, used in programming and documentation.

You will find this term commonly used in General IT

Tizen

An open-source, Linux-based operating system for a wide range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, PCs, and smart home appliances. It is a project within the Linux Foundation and is governed by a Technical Steering Group.

You will find this term commonly used in Operating Systems, IoT

Tkinter

A Python binding to the Tk GUI toolkit. It is the standard Python interface to the Tk GUI toolkit and is Python's de facto standard GUI (Graphical User Interface) package.

You will find this term commonly used in Software Development

TLD (Top-Level Domain)

The highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. Examples include .com, .net, .org, .gov, .edu, and country-specific TLDs such as .uk, .ca, and .jp.

You will find this term commonly used in Web Development, Internet

TLS (Transport Layer Security)

A cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network. Websites use TLS to secure all communications between their servers and web browsers.

You will find this term commonly used in Security, Cybersecurity

Tmux

A terminal multiplexer for Unix-like operating systems. It allows multiple terminal sessions to be accessed simultaneously in a single window. It is useful for running more than one command-line program at the same time.

You will find this term commonly used in Software Development, System Administration

Toggle

A user interface element that allows the user to change a setting between two states.

You will find this term commonly used in User Interface Design

Token

A small hardware device or software application used to generate secure authentication codes for accessing a network or service.

You will find this term commonly used in Security, Cybersecurity

Token Ring

A networking protocol in which nodes are arranged in a ring topology and token passing is used as a method for preventing collisions and for controlling access to the network.

You will find this term commonly used in Networking

Token Ring Network

A local area network (LAN) in which all computers are connected in a ring or star topology and pass one or more logical tokens from host to host. Only a host that holds a token can send data on the network.

You will find this term commonly used in Networking

Token-Based Authentication

A security technique that authenticates the users who attempt to log in to a server, a network, or a database, or to access a service. This method uses tokens instead of traditional passwords.

You will find this term commonly used in Security, Cybersecurity

Tokenization

The process of substituting a sensitive data element with a non-sensitive equivalent, referred to as a token, that has no extrinsic or exploitable meaning or value.

You will find this term commonly used in Security, Cybersecurity

Tomcat

Apache Tomcat is an open-source implementation of the Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages, Java Expression Language, and Java WebSocket technologies. It powers numerous large-scale, mission-critical web applications.

You will find this term commonly used in Web Development

Toolchain

A set of programming tools used together to perform complex software development tasks.

You will find this term commonly used in Software Development

Top-Down Design

A method of design where the system is decomposed from a high-level overview of the system to the details of its parts. This approach helps in understanding the overall system architecture and its components.

You will find this term commonly used in Software Development, Systems Design

Top-Down Programming

A programming approach that begins with the specification of large parts of a program and from there develops lower-level details. It contrasts with bottom-up programming, which starts with smaller components and integrates them into larger ones.

You will find this term commonly used in Software Development

Topology

The arrangement of the various elements (links, nodes, etc.) of a computer network. Common topologies include bus, star, ring, mesh, and tree.

You will find this term commonly used in Networking

Topology Discovery

The process of discovering the layout of a network, including devices and connections.

You will find this term commonly used in Networking

Tor (The Onion Router)

Free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. The name is derived from an acronym for the original software project name "The Onion Router".

You will find this term commonly used in Security, Privacy

Torque Script

A scripting language used for game development in the Torque game engine.

You will find this term commonly used in Game Development

Touch ID

A fingerprint recognition feature designed and released by Apple Inc. that allows users to unlock Apple devices, make purchases, and authenticate users in apps using their fingerprint.

You will find this term commonly used in Security, Mobile Computing

Touchscreen

An electronic visual display that the user can control through simple or multi-touch gestures by touching the screen with one or more fingers.

You will find this term commonly used in General IT, Hardware

Trace Routing

A computer network diagnostic tool for displaying the route (path) and measuring transit delays of packets across an Internet Protocol (IP) network.

You will find this term commonly used in Networking

Traceback

A report showing the sequence of function calls that led to an error in a program.

You will find this term commonly used in Software Development

Traceroute

A network diagnostic tool used to track the pathway taken by a packet on an IP network from source to destination, revealing the route of packets across an IP network.

You will find this term commonly used in Networking

Tracert

A command-line utility similar to traceroute, used in Windows operating systems to diagnose network connectivity issues by displaying the route packets take to reach a host and measuring transit delays.

You will find this term commonly used in Networking

Traffic Analysis

The process of intercepting and examining messages in order to deduce information from patterns in communication, which can be performed even when the messages are encrypted.

You will find this term commonly used in Cybersecurity, Network Security

Traffic Engineering

The process of optimizing the performance of a telecommunications network by dynamically analyzing, predicting, and regulating the behavior of data transmitted over that network, often using sophisticated modeling and simulation techniques.

You will find this term commonly used in Networking, Telecommunications

Traffic Management

The practice of managing data transfer on networks through the prioritization of certain data streams, controlling bandwidth allocation, and managing network congestion to ensure efficient and reliable data transmission.

You will find this term commonly used in Networking, IT Management

Traffic Shaping

The practice of regulating network traffic to optimize or guarantee performance, improve latency, or increase usable bandwidth for some applications over others.

You will find this term commonly used in Networking

Transaction

A sequence of information exchange and related work (such as database updating) that is treated as a unit for the purposes of satisfying a request and for ensuring database integrity.

You will find this term commonly used in Databases

Transaction Log

A log that records all transactions that have been executed by a system to ensure data integrity.

You will find this term commonly used in Databases

Transaction Processing

The collection, storage, modification, and retrieval of transactions of an enterprise. Transaction processing ensures that data integrity is maintained in multi-access environments and in the event of system failure.

You will find this term commonly used in Databases, General IT

Transactional Database

A type of database that prioritizes correct and complete transactions. It uses a series of operations that are treated as a single unit, ensuring that either all operations within the transaction are completed or none are.

You will find this term commonly used in Databases

Transactional Email

Email sent to facilitate an agreed-upon transaction between the sender and the recipient. Transactional emails are typically automated and triggered by a user's actions, such as order confirmations, receipts, and password resets.

You will find this term commonly used in Communications, E-commerce

Transactional Memory

A concurrency control mechanism that simplifies the development of concurrent programs by allowing blocks of instructions to execute in an atomic manner.

You will find this term commonly used in Software Development

Transceiver

A device that can both transmit and receive communications, in particular a combined radio transmitter and receiver. Transceivers are used in networking to connect nodes and facilitate communication.

You will find this term commonly used in Networking

Transclusion

Including part of a document within another document by reference.

You will find this term commonly used in Web Development

Transcoding

The direct digital-to-digital conversion of one encoding to another. This is often done to incompatible or obsolete data in order to convert it into a more suitable format.

You will find this term commonly used in Digital Media

Transcoding in Streaming Media

The process of converting a media file or stream from one format to another, typically to ensure compatibility across different platforms and devices. It is crucial in digital media distribution to accommodate various bandwidths and device capabilities.

You will find this term commonly used in Digital Media, Networking

Transfer Protocol

A set of rules that define how data is transferred over a network.

You will find this term commonly used in Networking

Transformer (in AI)

A deep learning model architecture used primarily in the field of natural language processing (NLP).

You will find this term commonly used in AI

Transformer Networks

A type of deep learning model that relies on self-attention mechanisms to draw global dependencies between input and output, widely used in the field of natural language processing (NLP).

You will find this term commonly used in AI

What's Your
Career Path?
AWS Cloud Practitioner Career Path

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Total Hours
62 Hrs 56 Min
icons8-video-camera-58
475 On-demand Videos

Original price was: $129.00.Current price is: $51.60.

Add To Cart
IT Manager’s Survival Bundle Training Series – 10 Courses

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Total Hours
174 Hrs 15 Min
icons8-video-camera-58
773 On-demand Videos

Original price was: $179.00.Current price is: $47.40.

Add To Cart
AZ-104 Learning Path : Become an Azure Administrator

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Total Hours
109 Hrs 6 Min
icons8-video-camera-58
433 On-demand Videos

Original price was: $129.00.Current price is: $51.60.

Add To Cart
Entry Level Information Security Specialist Career Path

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Total Hours
113 Hrs 4 Min
icons8-video-camera-58
513 On-demand Videos

Original price was: $129.00.Current price is: $51.60.

Add To Cart
Certified Ethical Hacker Career Path

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Total Hours
129 Hrs 51 Min
icons8-video-camera-58
807 On-demand Videos

Original price was: $129.00.Current price is: $51.60.

Add To Cart
ICD 9, ICD 10, ICD 11 : Medical Coding Specialist Career Path

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Total Hours
37 Hrs 56 Min
icons8-video-camera-58
193 On-demand Videos

Original price was: $99.00.Current price is: $29.00.

Add To Cart
Video Editor Career Path

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Total Hours
24 Hrs 2 Min
icons8-video-camera-58
154 On-demand Videos

Original price was: $129.00.Current price is: $51.60.

Add To Cart
Cisco Network Engineer Career Path

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Total Hours
129 Hrs 56 Min
icons8-video-camera-58
473 On-demand Videos

Original price was: $129.00.Current price is: $51.60.

Add To Cart
Web Designer Career Path

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Total Hours
34 Hrs 37 Min
icons8-video-camera-58
172 On-demand Videos

Original price was: $129.00.Current price is: $51.60.

Add To Cart
Comprehensive IT User Support Specialist Training: Accelerate Your Career

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Total Hours
128 Hrs 51 Min
icons8-video-camera-58
621 On-demand Videos

Original price was: $129.00.Current price is: $51.60.

Add To Cart
Leadership Mastery: The Executive Information Security Manager

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Total Hours
95 Hrs 34 Min
icons8-video-camera-58
348 On-demand Videos

Original price was: $129.00.Current price is: $51.60.

Add To Cart
Google DevOps Engineer Career Path

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

Total Hours
43 Hrs 22 Min
icons8-video-camera-58
479 On-demand Videos

Original price was: $129.00.Current price is: $51.60.

Add To Cart

Cyber Monday

70% off

Our Most popular LIFETIME All-Access Pass