The industry that we deliver our services into seem to be particularly afflicted by acronyms. This is not a new thing but occasionally there are some variations that come out of the proverbial woodwork which are too good to ignore.
My current favourite is SNMP – the acronym for “Simple Network Management Protocol” about which you can find more information here. Its more mischievous definition is “Simply Not My Problem“.
Some acronyms were invented from the outset – TWAIN – a standard for imaging devices going back to the 1980’s apparently stands for “Technology With An Interesting Name”.
There are also instances where an acronym used in one industry is also used in another with different meanings, which can lead to confusion. The table below lists a couple of examples which can be very useful when included in glossary of a document just to check that you peers are actually reading the documents . . .
| Acronym | Information Technology Application | Internal Air Transport Association (IATA) |
| LUN | Logical Unit Number | Lusaka International Airport |
| HBA | Host Bus Adaptor | Hobart Airport Australia |
| SAN | Storage Area Network | San Diego International Airport |
| MTA | Message Transfer Agent | Matamata Airport (New Zealand) |