G

gateway

A hardware or software solution that enables communications between two dissimilar networking systems or protocols. A gateway can operate at any layer of the OSI model.

Gb (gigabit)

1 billion bits or 1000Mb.

Gbps (gigabits per second)

The throughput of a given network medium in terms of 1 billion bps.

GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son)

A backup strategy of maintaining backups on a daily, weekly, and monthly schedule. Backups are made on a five-day or seven-day schedule. A full backup is performed at least once a week. On all other days full, incremental, or differential backups (or no backups at all) are performed. The daily incremental, or differential, backups are known as the son. The father is the last full backup in the week (the weekly backup). The grandfather is the last full backup of the month (the monthly backup).

Gigabit Ethernet

The IEEE 802.3z specification that defines standards for data transmissions of 1Gbps.

See also [1000BaseX]

guaranteed flow control

A method of flow control in which the sending and receiving hosts agree on a rate of data transmission. After the rate is determined, the communication takes place at the guaranteed rate until the sender is finished. No buffering takes place at the receiver.