Not sure what all the industry acronyms stand for? You've come to the right place! Mission Critical magazine put this glossary together to spell everything out for you — literally. Click on the acronyms that are underlined to see related articles. If you notice a term that's not included, e-mail Editor-in-Chief Amy Al-Katib at al-katiba@bnpmedia.com with suggestions.

A

C

D

G

I

K

M

N

O

P

S

U

a/c

air conditioning

AC

alternating current

ADAS

advanced driver assist systems

AI

artifical intelligence

ANSI

American National Standards Institute

AOC

active optical cable

APIs

application programming interface

AR

augmented reality

BFSI

banking, financial services, and insurance

BGAN

Broadband Global Area Network

BICSI

Building Industry Consulting Services International

BIM

building information modeling

BSI

British Standards Institution

CAGR

compound annual growth rate

CapEx

capital expenditure

CDCDP

certified data center design professional

CENELEC

European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization

CISO

chief information security officer

CRAC

computer room air conditioner

CRAH

computer room air handler

CSA

canadian standards association

CSO

chief security officer

DAC

digital-to-analog converter

DC

direct current

DCIM

data center infrastructure management

DDoS attack

distributed denial-of-service attack

DevEx

development expenditure

DRaaS

disaster recovery as a service

DSL

digital subscriber line

ETSI

European Telecommunications Standards Institute

GB or Gb

gigabyte

GPU

graphical processing unit

HVAC

heating, ventilation, and air conditioning

IaaS

infrastructure as a service

IACET

International Association for Continuing Education and Training

IAQ

indoor air quality

ICT

information and communication technology

IEC

International Electrotechnical Commission

IEEE

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers

IEQ

indoor environmental quality

I/O

input/output

IIoT

Industrial Internet of Things

IoT

Internet of Things

ISO

International Organization for Standardization

IT

information technology

ITAD

IT Asset Disposition

IX

internet exchange

KPIs

key performance indicators

KVAR

kilo volt ampere reactive

kW

kilowatt

LEED

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

LEO

low-Earth orbit

M2M

machine to machine

MACs

moves, adds, and changes

mb

megabyte

Mbps

Megabits per second

ML

machine learning

MPLS

multiprotocol label switching

MPP

massively parallel processing

MSP

managed service provider

MSP

managed service provider

MTTF

mean time to failure

MW

megawatt

NAID

National Association for Information Destruction

NAS

network attached storage

OpEx

operational expenditure

OSFP

octal small formfactor pluggable

PaaS

Platform as a Service

PAM4

pulse-amplitude modulation 4-level

PCI-DSS

Payment Card Industry - Data Security Standard

PD

power delivery

PoE

Power over Ethernet

PUE

power usage effectiveness

QAM

quadrature amplitude modulation

QSFP

quad small formfactor pluggable

RFI

radio frequency interference

SaaS

Software as a Service

SFP

small formfactor pluggable

SLAa

service level agreements

SQL

Structured Query Language

STEM

science, technology, engineering, and math

TAP

test access point

TCO

total cost of ownership

TCP

transmission control protocol

TIA

Telecommunications Industry Association

TPU

tensor processing unit

UDP

user datagram protocol

ULH

ultralow harmonic

UPS

uniterruptable power supply

VFD

variable-frequency drive

vr

virtual reality

VSAT

very small aperture terminal

WDM

wavelength-division multiplexing