Glossary of terms

Glossary of terms

term

definition

AAF

Australian Access Federation.  A way for Australian academic institutions to authenticate users from other member institutions.

AAR

Arcitecta ARchive, a custom format similar to a JAR file used by Mediaflux and DaRIS.  See Downloading Mediaflux software for a utility to extract them.

Arcitecta

Arcitecta is the vendor of the Mediaflux data storage system.

Asset

A "file" in Mediaflux.  Also includes metadata associated with that file.

aterm

Arcitecta terminal.  A command-line tool for programming and accessing Mediaflux.

curation

Data curation is the organization and integration of data collected from various sources.

DaRIS

Distributed and Reflective Informatics System.  Mediaflux application for biomedical imaging (such as DICOM) data management, integrating instruments and research computing infrastructure.

data integrity

Data integrity is the maintenance of, and the assurance of the accuracy and consistency of data over its entire life-cycle.

Domain

An administrative grouping of computers into a network, with central authentication.  We most often use it in the sense of a Network Domain or  Windows Domain.

Figshare

figshare is an online open access repository where researchers can preserve and share their research outputs, including figures, datasets, images, and videos.

HPC

High-Performance Computing.  The University of Melbourne provides the Spartan HPC service for the use of researchers.

HTTPS

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure.  One of the ways of accessing your files stored in Mediaflux.  Has the advantage of offering strong data integrity guarantees.  Mediaflux Explorer, Mediaflux Desktop and the Unimelb command-line clients use this.

JAR file

Java ARchive, a file format for distributing Java applications.

Java

An object-oriented programming language that executes in a Java Virtual Machine, allowing it to run anywhere.

Mediaflux

Storage service that offers many ways to access your data (web browser, dedicated client, network drive, SFTP, etc.).

metadata

Metadata are data about other data.

Namespace

A "directory" in Mediaflux.

NetApp

NetApp, Inc. is a provider of network file storage among other Hybrid Cloud services.  In the context of Research Computing Services, NetApp is used to refer to the SMB and NFS network shares provided by that platform.

Network mount

Linux/Unix nomenclature for a network drive.

Network drive

A way to treat a remote network storage area as if it was a local drive.

Omeka

Omeka is a free, open source content management system for online digital collections.

Python

An interpreted, high-level, general-purpose programming language

S3

Amazon Simple Storage Service, or the protocol used to access it.

secure token

A token (alphanumeric string) that can be used to access Mediaflux instead of using a username/password.  Generally for instrument facilities to allow uploading data from an instrument without requiring a user to log in.

SFTP

Secure File Transfer Protocol, one of the ways of accessing your files stored in Mediaflux.

Sharable Link

A generated link (URL) which refers to data within Mediaflux.  The link can be sent to another user to share those data with them as a download.  See Downloading.

SLURM

Slurm Workload Manager.  Free and open source job scheduler used by many of the world's supercomputers and computer clusters.

Spartan

The University of Melbourne's HPC platform, based on the Slurm Workload Manager.

VPN

Virtual Private Network.