N

Name Service Provider Interface (NSPI)

Part of the DSProxy process that can accept Microsoft Outlook client directory requests and pass them to an address book provider.

namespace

A collection of resources that have been defined using some common name. Domain Name System (DNS) namespace is hierarchical and can be partitioned, whereas Microsoft Windows NT 4 and earlier used a flat namespace.

naming context

Active Directory is partitioned into three naming contexts: Domain Naming context, Configuration Naming context, and Schema Naming context. These naming contexts are used to store information about the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 organization in Active Directory.

native content file

One of the two files that make up a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 database, the native content file or streaming file (ending in .stm) holds all non–Message Application Programming Interface (MAPI) information.

native mode

A Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 organization that has been converted from mixed mode after it no longer contains any Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 servers. Native mode organizations can support both Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 2003 servers and provide access to all the features of Exchange Server 2003 at the expense of breaking backwards compatibility with Exchange Server 5.5.

NDR

See non-delivery report (NDR).

netdiag

A Microsoft Windows Server 2003 support tool that performs a series of tests that check services and connectivity within an organization.

Network Load Balancing

A clustering technology of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 that load balances network client requests between multiple services.

Network Monitor

A powerful tool that can capture all the frames set to or transmitted by a host and analyze the contents of these frames at the bit level.

Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP)

A Microsoft Windows Server 2003 service managed by Internet Information Services (IIS) that allows for discussion forum–type of messages to be stored, created, and read by client software. NNTP was one of the first collaboration protocols on the Internet, used with USENET. Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 provides NNTP virtual server capabilities for hosting newsgroups in public folders.

node

A server that is a member of a cluster.

NNTP

See Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP).

non-delivery report (NDR)

An automatically generated e-mail message that notifies a user (and possibly the Microsoft Exchange administrator) if the Exchange Server system was unable to deliver a message to the intended recipient.

NSPI

See Name Service Provider Interface (NSPI).