1.1 Glossary

This document uses the following terms:

accounting: Information gathered and maintained by the management service about the runtime behavior of processes. The management service provides an accounting state switch with two settings: enabled and disabled. When enabled, accounting information is gathered and persisted across invocations of the management service. Accounting information gathered by the management service on one computer can be persisted by the management service on a different computer. When the accounting state is disabled, no accounting data is gathered or persisted.

accounting client: A WSRM server whose accounting data is being logged on another WSRM server.

accounting process: Process whose properties are stored in the WSRM accounting database.

accounting server: A WSRM server that is logging the accounting data of another WSRM server.

Active Directory: The Windows implementation of a general-purpose directory service, which uses LDAP as its primary access protocol. Active Directory stores information about a variety of objects in the network such as user accounts, computer accounts, groups, and all related credential information used by Kerberos [MS-KILE]. Active Directory is either deployed as Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) or Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS), which are both described in [MS-ADOD]: Active Directory Protocols Overview.

application pool: A grouping of one or more URLs or websites served by an implementation of the core web server in IIS.

Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF): A modified version of Backus-Naur Form (BNF), commonly used by Internet specifications. ABNF notation balances compactness and simplicity with reasonable representational power. ABNF differs from standard BNF in its definitions and uses of naming rules, repetition, alternatives, order-independence, and value ranges. For more information, see [RFC5234].

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].

calendar: A method of controlling which resource allocation policy (RAP) is selected as the current resource policy. The calendar maintains start and end dates and times for RAP and is either enabled or disabled. When enabled, the management service continuously monitors start and end dates and times of the scheduled RAP to activate the correct current resource policy. When disabled, the RAP scheduled on the calendar has no effect on which RAP is the current resource policy.

committed memory: The number of bytes that have been allocated by processes, and to which the operating system has committed a RAM page frame or a page slot in the page file (or both).

Component Object Model (COM): An object-oriented programming model that defines how objects interact within a single process or between processes. In COM, clients have access to an object through interfaces implemented on the object. For more information, see [MS-DCOM].

condition: A method of controlling which RAP is selected as the current resource policy. Conditions are rules that are automatically triggered in response to notifications of any of the conditional events. A condition is composed of a condition state and RAP. When a conditional event is triggered, conditions with the associated Name attribute value are evaluated in the order of their ID attribute value; that is, a condition with the ID value 0 will be evaluated first and so on. In condition evaluation, the condition state is evaluated and if it is found to be TRUE, the RAP associated with that condition is selected as the current resource policy. If no condition has its condition state as TRUE, the condition with the name ANY is evaluated.

condition state: A part of a condition consisting of a predicate that evaluates some current state of the computer being managed. The predicate is a series of expressions separated by AND and OR operators, evaluated in order. Expressions are selected from the following fixed set: an equality or inequality test of the amount of hardware memory, an equality or inequality test of the number of processors, or a predicate test of the online or offline status of a cluster node or cluster resource group.

conditional events: Unscheduled events that can trigger the following WSRM policy changes: Processor hot add, Memory hot add, Cluster node goes up or down, or Cluster resource group goes online or offline.

conflicting objects: Objects, one being imported and one in the current WSRM configuration, which match in name and type but differ in content.

current resource policy: While in the running management state, the management service always selects exactly one RAP to be the current resource policy.

Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM): The Microsoft Component Object Model (COM) specification that defines how components communicate over networks, as specified in [MS-DCOM].

domain: A set of users and computers sharing a common namespace and management infrastructure. At least one computer member of the set must 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].

domain name: A domain name or a NetBIOS name that identifies a domain.

dynamic fair-share scheduling (DFSS): A scheduling algorithm that is fair toward every process in the system.

event identifier: A numerical value used to identify an event which can occur at the WSRM server.

exclusion list: A list of processes that cannot be managed because of the negative system impact such management could create. Processes in an exclusion list are unmanaged and can consume resources freely. Both system-defined and user-defined exclusion lists are defined.

fully qualified domain name (FQDN): An unambiguous domain name that gives an absolute location in the Domain Name System's (DNS) hierarchy tree, as defined in [RFC1035] section 3.1 and [RFC2181] section 11.

Group Policy: A mechanism that allows the implementer to specify managed configurations for users and computers in an Active Directory service environment.

HRESULT: An integer value that indicates the result or status of an operation. A particular HRESULT can have different meanings depending on the protocol using it. See [MS-ERREF] section 2.1 and specific protocol documents for further details.

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.

Internet Information Services (IIS): The services provided in Windows implementation that support web server functionality. IIS consists of a collection of standard Internet protocol servers such as HTTP and FTP in addition to common infrastructures that are used by other Microsoft Internet protocol servers such as SMTP, NNTP, and so on. IIS has been part of the Windows operating system in some versions and a separate install package in others. IIS version 5.0 shipped as part of Windows 2000 operating system, IIS version 5.1 as part of Windows XP operating system, IIS version 6.0 as part of Windows Server 2003 operating system, and IIS version 7.0 as part of Windows Vista operating system and Windows Server 2008 operating system.

little-endian: Multiple-byte values that are byte-ordered with the least significant byte stored in the memory location with the lowest address.

machine group: A grouping of WSRM servers. Pre-authored policy can be exported to the servers in a machine group simultaneously.

management client: An application that uses the WSRM Protocol interfaces for the purpose of presenting a user interface that allows a user to perform the functions exposed by the WSRM Protocol.

management service: An agent that implements the WSRM Protocol on a given computer by applying specified resource policies, returning requested accounting information, and storing the accounting data dumped by the other management services running on remote servers.

management state: A state switch with two values, running and stopped, that tells whether the management service can be active or inactive. "Running" means the service will perform all resource management and accounting functions according to its current policies. "Stopped" means that it will remain in an inactive state, doing nothing except making configuration changes that will take effect when the management service becomes active again; for example, import, export, creation, deletion, or modification of resource allocation policy.

NetBIOS: A particular network transport that is part of the LAN Manager protocol suite. NetBIOS uses a broadcast communication style that was applicable to early segmented local area networks. A protocol family including name resolution, datagram, and connection services. For more information, see [RFC1001] and [RFC1002].

process matching criteria (PMC): A resource policy object that selects a subset of currently executing processes. Since processes are dynamically created and terminated by the operating system in the course of running workloads, the WSRM Protocol uses PMCs as a means of identifying processes for resource management purposes. PMCs specify partial or full values to be matched against process property fields. Each PMC includes a name and a nonempty set of matching values and can also include a nonempty set of exclusion values. All running processes under management whose path and the associated user name match the values provided in a PMC are selected by that PMC, provided that they are not already selected by another PMC and do not match the exclusion values. Processes selected by a PMC specification at any given time are said to match, or be in, the PMC. A process can be selected by only one PMC at a time. The term resource group" and PMC are used interchangeably.

processor affinity: An element of process matching criteria (PMC), the association between a task or process and a specific processor needed to execute that task. Processor affinity takes advantage of the fact that some remnants of a process might remain in one processor's state (in particular, in its cache) from the last time the process ran, and so scheduling it to run on the same processor the next time could make the process run more efficiently than if it were to run on another processor.

registry: A local system-defined database in which applications and system components store and retrieve configuration data. It is a hierarchical data store with lightly typed elements that are logically stored in tree format. Applications use the registry API to retrieve, modify, or delete registry data. The data stored in the registry varies according to the version of the operating system.

Remote Administration Protocol (RAP): A synchronous request/response protocol, used prior to the development of the remote procedure call (RPC) protocol, for marshaling and unmarshaling procedure call input and output arguments into messages and for reliably transporting messages to and from clients and servers.

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].

residual PMC: The residual PMC matches all of the processes that are not included in the exclusion list or do not match another process matching criteria. The residual PMC gets an unallocated percentage of CPU in a RAP that can never be less than 1 percent. Other resource allocation, such as a processor affinity mask, an amount of physical memory, or an amount of virtual memory, do not apply to residual PMC.

resource allocation: The part of a RAP that specifies the part of a computer's hardware resources that can be allocated to the processes in a PMC. A resource allocation can specify any of the following: a percentage of processor bandwidth, a processor affinity mask, an amount of physical memory, or an amount of virtual memory. A resource allocation includes a specification of at least one resource.

resource allocation policy (RAP): A named specification for allocating computer resources to all of the managed processes on a computer. A RAP specifies how the managed resources of a computer can be divided among managed processes running on the computer by providing an ordered list of PMC names, each with an associated resource allocation. All processes not matched by any PMC named in the list and not included in the exclusion list are selected into an implicit "residual" PMC.

resource group: Used interchangeably with process matching criteria (PMC) in Windows System Resource Manager (WSRM) Protocol [MS-WSRM].

resource management: A method of allocating the hardware resources of a computer to tasks being performed on that computer. It includes a system of accounting for hardware resources by task. The purpose of the WSRM Protocol is to control the resource management of a computer.

resource policy: A declarative resource allocation rule set used by the WSRM Protocol to specify the desired resource management behavior of a computer.

resource policy object: A persistent object that is maintained by the management service, created by a management client, or built-in to the management service. Resource policy objects specify the desired resource management behavior of the computer whose resources are under management.

schema: The set of attributes and object classes that govern the creation and update of objects.

schema-validity assessment: The determination of whether the name and namespace of an information element matches a definition in a specified XML schema.

service: A process or agent that is available on the network, offering resources or services for clients. Examples of services include file servers, web servers, and so on.

session identifier: Unique identifier that an operating system generates when a session is created. A session spans the period of time from logon until logoff from a specific system.

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP): A member of the TCP/IP suite of protocols that is used to transport Internet messages, as described in [RFC5321].

smart import-conflict resolution: An import of conflicting objects in which one of the conflicting objects is assigned a new unique name to resolve the conflict. All references to the renamed object are updated accordingly.

terminal services (TS): A service on a server computer that allows delivery of applications, or the desktop itself, to various computing devices. When a user runs an application on a terminal server, the application execution takes place on the server computer and only keyboard, mouse, and display information is transmitted over the network. Each user sees only his or her individual session, which is managed transparently by the server operating system and is independent of any other client session.

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 Internal Database: Built-in relational database component of Windows Server 2008 for use by other Windows components.

workgroup: A collection of computers that share a name. In the absence of a domain, a workgroup allows a convenient means for browser clients to limit the scope of a search.

working set: The set of memory pages recently touched by the threads of a process. If free memory in the computer is above a threshold, pages are left in the working set of a process even if they are not being used. When free memory falls below a threshold, pages are trimmed from the working set.

WSRM configuration: The current PMC, RAP, calendar events, and conditions of the WSRM system.

WSRM management service: See management service.

XML: The Extensible Markup Language, as described in [XML1.0].

XML schema definition (XSD): The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard language that is used in defining XML schemas. Schemas are useful for enforcing structure and constraining the types of data that can be used validly within other XML documents. XML schema definition refers to the fully specified and currently recommended standard for use in authoring XML schemas.

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.