Abilene
The fibre-optic backbone operating at 2.4 gigabits per second that connects regional gigaPoPs to form the Internet2 network.

gigaPoP - gigabit Point of Presence
A regional internetworking aggregation point that supports a minimum data trasnfer rate of 1 gigabit per second.

MAX - Mid-Atlantic Crossroads
The Washington Metropolitan area gigaPoP serving the mid-Atlantic region. The University of Maryland hosts and administers this agregation point.

Middleware
The layer between the network and applications which provides identification, authentication, authorization, and security.

NGI - Next Generation Internet
A multi-agency federal initiative that developed advanced networking technologies for the support of revolutionary applications.

OC - Optical Carrier
A metric for the speed fibre-optic networks.

OC-1 = 51.85 Mbps
OC-3 = 155.52 Mbps
OC-12 = 622.08 Mbps
OC-24 = 1.244 Gbps
OC-48 = 2.488 Gbps
OC-192 = 9.952 Gbps