DCNSA Level III
Server Maintenance glossary
Every term this guide defines, A to Z, each with the chapter that teaches it. Open it when a word in a question is unfamiliar, and test yourself on it in the last week: cover the definition and say it in one sentence.
14 terms from the free first chapter
C
- Corrective maintenance
Carried out after a fault has already occurred, to fix it: replacing a failed drive, restoring a corrupted file, restarting a crashed service.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
D
- Devices
Attached hardware and peripherals, checked for failing components before they take a dependent service down with them.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
- Disaster
An event causing serious disruption or loss to server operations or data, large enough to threaten the organisation's ability to function until it is resolved.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
- Disks
Storage capacity, health and performance, tracked over time (see the chapter on server monitoring) rather than checked only when a warning already appears.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
L
- Loss
Data or capability that has gone missing or become unusable, the specific harm a disaster or a lesser fault can cause.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
M
- Maintenance
The planned, ongoing work of keeping a server healthy and performing well, the preventive counterpart to the reactive work of recovering from a disaster once one has already happened.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
- Memory
Available RAM and memory-related performance, watched for the kind of gradual consumption that precedes a slowdown or a crash.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
N
- Network
Connectivity, bandwidth and network-related configuration, checked as part of the same discipline developed in Network Troubleshooting.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
P
- Periodic maintenance
Carried out at fixed, regular intervals regardless of the server's current condition, for example monthly patching applied on the same date every month whether or not any specific vulnerability has been flagged.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
- Predictive maintenance
Uses monitoring data and trends to anticipate a likely failure before it happens, acting on an early warning sign (rising error rates, a disk's SMART data degrading) rather than a fixed schedule.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
- Preventive maintenance
Planned, routine work carried out before a problem occurs, to reduce the chance of one happening at all: cleaning, checking connections, applying known-safe updates.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
R
- Recover
The broader process of returning a server or service to normal operation after a disruption, which may involve restoring data but also rebuilding configuration, reinstalling roles, or failing over to another server entirely.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
- Restore
Returning lost or corrupted data to a working state from a backup, the narrow, data-focused half of recovering from loss.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
T
- Time
System clock accuracy, critical for authentication (a domain's Kerberos authentication fails if clocks drift too far apart), logging (events must be timestamped consistently to be useful) and scheduled tasks to function correctly.
Taught in Select server maintenance methods, procedures and tools
The full glossary adds every term from the other 7 chapters, A to Z, each with the chapter that teaches it.