(1) In a federated system, an identifier that is used in a distributed request to refer to an object at a remote data source. The objects that nicknames identify are referred to as data source objects. Examples of data source objects are tables, views, synonyms, table-structured files, and search algorithms. See also data source object.
(2) In the OSI Communications Subsystem licensed program, a 1- to 8-character name that identifies an object or entity in an OSI network. Nicknames are provided by OSI Communications Subsystem to enable users to use simple names instead of the often long, multipart, sometimes binary-coded identifiers required by OSI protocols.
(3) See alias.