Cloud glossary of terms

Access Control List - A document that defines who can access a particular bucket or object. Each bucket and object in Amazon S3 has an ACL. The document defines what each type of user can do, such as write and read permissions.

The combination of an access key ID (for example, AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE) and a secret access key (for example, wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY). You use access keys to sign API requests that you make to AWS

A unique identifier that's associated with a secret access key; the access key ID and secret access key are used together to sign programmatic AWS requests cryptographically.

An item that watches a single metric over a specified time period and starts if the value of the metric crosses a threshold value over a predetermined number of time periods.

Amazon Web Services is a suite of cloud computing services that make a comprehensive cloud platform offered by Amazon.com. AWS offers over three dozen cloud services spanning the IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS models of cloud computing, and is the most popular cloud service provider.

A fully managed service that makes it easy for developers to create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs at any scale.

An application is a group of computer programs designed to allow a user to perform a set of functions or tasks.

An application programming interface (API) is an interface that allows the user to access information from another service and integrate this service into their own application. Through a set of defined requests, the asking application is allowed to access limited pieces of the called upon application’s functionality. APIs are used to share limited functionality between programs. One example of an API is the Facebook share button on this page, another is Yelp’s use of Google maps to display nearby restaurants.

A formal relationship with AWS that's associated with all of the following:

• The owner email address and password
• The control of resources created under its umbrella
• Payment for the AWS activity related to those resources

The AWS account has permission to do anything and everything with all the AWS account resources. This is in contrast to a user, which is an entity contained within the account.

Microsoft Azure, formerly known as Windows Azure, is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. Azure was originally launched as a PaaS solution but now provides both PaaS and IaaS services.

Backend as a service (BaaS), or mobile backend as a service (mBaaS) is a model of cloud computing in which the vendor provides web and mobile application developers with tools and services to create a cloud backend for their applications. BaaS vendors typically use custom Software Development Kits (SDKs) and APIs to give developers the ability to connect their applications to backend cloud storage and features such as user management, push notifications, and social network integration.

A broad term used to describe unconventional data sets which are either too large or too complex to be dealt with using traditional data-processing techniques.

A web service for provisioning, managing, and deploying Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) certificates for use with cloud services.

An application that runs in the cloud.

Cloud backup is the process of backing up data to a remote, cloud-based server.

Cloud computing is the delivery of information technology services over a network, usually the internet. In the cloud computing model, infrastructure, data, and software are hosted by the vendor and delivered to the user as a service, much like a utility company would deliver water or electricity.

To consider cloud-based technology solutions before all others.

To consider other solutions before cloud-based technology solutions.

A cloud management platform (CMP) is a product that gives the user integrated management of public, private, and hybrid cloud environments.

Cloud migration is the process of transferring all of, or a piece of, a company’s data, applications, and services from on-premise to the cloud.

Applications developed specifically for cloud platforms.

A Cloud Service Provider (CSP) is a company that offers a cloud computing service, such as PaaS, IaaS, or SaaS, to individuals or other businesses.

Cloud sourcing is the act of replacing traditional on-premise IT operations with low-cost cloud-based services.

Cloud storage is a model of computer storage in which data is stored in facilities (often multiple facilities) managed by a hosting company (cloud service provider) and is accessed remotely by the user via a network.

A group of linked computers that work together as if they were a single computer, for high availability and/or load balancing.

A COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) product is one that is used "as-is." COTS products are designed to be easily installed and to interoperate with existing system components. Almost all software bought by the average computer user fits into the COTS category: operating systems, office product suites, word processing, and e-mail programs are among the myriad examples. One of the major advantages of COTS software, which is mass-produced, is its relatively low cost.

Cloud computing offerings targeted toward individuals for personal use, such as Dropbox or iCloud.

A pricing model whereby the service provider charges its customers based on the amount of the service the customer consumes, rather than a time-based fee. For example, a cloud storage provider might charge per gigabyte of information stored.

A container is a virtualisation instance in which the kernel of an operating system allows for multiple isolated user-space instances. Unlike virtual machines (VMs), containers do not need to run a full-blown operating system (OS) image for each instance. Instead, containers are able to run separate instances of an application within a single shared OS.

A content delivery network (CDN) is a network of distributed services that deliver content to a user based on the user’s geographic proximity to servers. CDNs allow speedy content delivery for websites with high traffic volume or large geographic reach.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications allow a business to manage relationships with current and future customers by providing the business with tools to manage sales, customer service, and technical support roles. SaaS CRM applications, such as Salesforce.com, are very popular.

A feature that allows customers to provision, manage, and terminate services themselves, without involving the service provider, via a web interface or programmatic calls to service APIs.

The process of moving data between two or more storage systems, data formats, warehouses or servers

A database is an organised collection of data.

An amalgamation of “development” and “operations,” DevOps is the combination of tasks performed by an organisations applications development and systems operations teams. The DevOps software development method emphasises collaboration, communication and integration between developers and other IT personnel with the goal of streamlining software development and quality assurance.

A business term that describes innovations that improve products or services in unexpected ways. These innovations change the methods used to accomplish a task, and re-shape the market for that task. Cloud computing is considered a disruptive technology because of its elasticity, flexible pricing models, and maintenance cost compared to traditional IT service provisioning.

Demilitarised Zone - is a physical or logical subnet that separates a local area network (LAN) from other untrusted networks - usually, the public internet.

Open-source software that automates the deployment of applications inside virtualised software containers.

The domain name system (DNS) is a naming database in which internet domain names are located and translated into Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

Denial of Service or "DoS" describes the ultimate goal of a class of cyber attacks designed to render a service inaccessible.

In cloud computing, elasticity is a term used to reference the ability of a system to adapt to changing workload demand by provisioning and de-provisioning pooled resources so that provisioned resources match current demand as well as possible.

An enterprise application is an application (or software) that is intended for large scale use by a (large) business.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software allows a business or organisation to manage a suite of integrated applications which are used to collect, manage, and store data on a variety of business activities. ERP solutions are often offered as a service.

Evergreen IT refers to running services comprised of components that are always up to date. Evergreen IT encompasses not only the services at the user level but all of the underlying infrastructures, whether on-site or outsourced.

The ability of a cloud solution to add new runtime and framework support via community build packs.

A system in which multiple databases appear to function as a single entity. However, the databases typically involved in this kind of system exists independently of the others. Once the different databases are “combined”, one federated database is formed.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a comprehensive cloud platform offered by Google, Inc. that consists of both infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) offerings.

See virtual machine. 

A list of computer hardware that is compatible with a particular operating system or device management software.

A host machine is a piece of physical hardware that hosts virtual machines.

A hybrid cloud is a cloud computing environment that is comprised of a mix of private cloud, public cloud, and on-premises solutions. In a hybrid cloud, private and public cloud infrastructures remain distinct from one another but are bound together by technology that allows data and services portability between them.

A cloud service provider (CSP) whom has the ability and the architecture to scale appropriately at global level as increased demand is added to the system (for example AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform).

A hypervisor or virtual machine monitor (VMM) is a piece of software that allows physical devices to share their resources among virtual machines (VMs) running on top of that physical hardware. The hypervisor creates, runs and manages VMs.

Information technology (IT) infrastructure is a combined set of hardware and virtual resources that support an overall IT environment.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a model of cloud computing in which the vendor hosts virtualised computing resources, as well as network and storage resources, and provides them to the user as a service via the internet.

Infrastructure as code (IaC) uses DevOps methodology and versioning with a descriptive model to define and deploy infrastructure, such as networks, virtual machines, load balancers, and connection topologies. Just as the same source code always generates the same binary, an IaC model generates the same environment every time it deploys.

An integrated development environment (IDE) is an application that provides a programming environment for developers. An IDE typically includes a code editor, automation tools, and a debugger.

Linux is an open-source operating system, built on Unix that is used for the majority of cloud services

The process of distributing computing workloads across multiple resources, such as servers. In cloud computing, a load balancer acts as a reverse proxy and distributes application traffic to multiple servers to prevent any single application server from becoming a point of failure.

A managed services provider (MSP) is an IT services provider that provides fully outsourced network, application, and system services across a network to clients.

A cloud marketplace is an online marketplace, operated by a cloud service provider (CSP), where customers can browse and subscribe to software applications and developer services that are built on, integrate with, or supplement the CSP’s main offering. Amazon’s AWS Marketplace and Microsoft’s Azure store are examples of cloud marketplaces.

Microservices or microservice architecture is a way of designing applications in which complex applications are built out of a suite of small, independently deployable services. These ‘microservices’ run their own processes and communicate with one another using lightweight mechanisms such as language-agnostic APIs. Microservices are independently deployable and scalable, and can even be written in different languages.

Microsoft Azure, formerly known as Windows Azure, is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. Azure was originally launched as a PaaS solution but now provides both PaaS and IaaS services.

Middleware is software that connects software components or enterprise applications.

Multi-tenancy is a mode of operation for software in which multiple instances of one or many applications run in a shared environment. In a cloud computing model, pooled physical and virtual resources are dynamically assigned and reassigned to tenants according to consumer demand.

A multi-cloud strategy is the concurrent use of separate cloud service providers for different infrastructure, platform, or software needs. A multi-cloud approach can help prevent vendor lock-in, and may help an enterprise deal with diverse workloads and partners. However, a multi-cloud approach can complicate many processes, such as security and governance, and a Cloud management platform is recommended for this approach.

A cloud computing service model by which a customer can provision additional cloud resources on-demand, without involving the service provider. Resources are typically provisioned through an online control panel.

On premise technology is software or infrastructure that is run on computers on the premises (in the building) of the person or organisation using the software or infrastructure. Microsoft Office Suite is an example of on-premise software because it needs to be installed on the computer that runs it, while Office365 is not, because it is accessed via the internet and run remotely.

Open Source is a development model in which a product’s source code is made openly available to the public. Open source products promote collaborative community development and rapid prototyping. OpenStack and CloudFoundry are examples of an open source cloud computing platform.

OpenStack is a free, open-source cloud platform that is primarily deployed as an infrastructure as a service offering.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is Oracles Cloud service provider platform for managing and creating Cloud services.

A cost model for cloud services that encompasses both subscription-based and consumption-based models, in contrast to the traditional IT cost model that requires up-front capital expenditures for hardware and software.

An example of cloud washing, Personal Cloud is a marketing term often used to describe network attached storage (NAS) devices. A NAS device is a computer connected to a network that provides data storage services to other devices on the network.

In computing, a platform is defined as a computer system that applications run on, or as a base of technologies on which other technologies (such as applications) are built.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a model of cloud computing in which a cloud service provider (CSP) provides the hardware and software tools necessary to create, deploy and manage applications at scale to the user via the internet, as a service.

A document defining permissions that apply to a user, group, or role; the permissions in turn determine what users can do in the cloud. A policy typically allows access to specific actions, and can optionally grant that the actions are allowed for specific resources. Policies can also explicitly deny access as part of a “Lease Privileged” security policy

A private cloud is a cloud infrastructure that is provisioned for use by a single organisation comprised of multiple users. A private cloud can be managed and operated by the organisation, a third party, or some combination of them, and it can exist on or off premises.

A public cloud is a cloud infrastructure that is hosted by cloud services provider and is made available to the public via the internet.

In computer science, a resource is any component within a computer system that is of limited availability.  

Scalability is the ability of a process, system, or framework to handle a growing workload. In other words, a scalable system is adaptable to increasing demands. The ability to scale on demand is one of the biggest advantages of cloud computing.

A service level agreement (SLA) is a contractual agreement between a customer and a cloud service provider (CSP) which defines the level of service, availability and performance guaranteed by the CSP.

Shared resources, also known as network resources, are computing resources that can be accessed remotely through a network, such as a Local Area Network (LAN) or the internet.

Software as a service (SaaS), is a model of cloud computing in which applications (software) are hosted by a cloud service provider (CSP) and provided to the user as a service. SaaS applications are licensed on a subscription basis and are made available to users over a network, typically the internet.

Because SaaS applications can be accessed at any time, at any place, and on any platform, they have become a popular model for delivery of many business applications. A well-known example of SaaS is Microsoft’s Office 365, which provides Microsoft’s famous suite of productivity software including MS Word and Excel as a service.

A Software development kit (SDK), also known as a developer’s toolkit or devkit, is a set of development tools that aids or allows the creation of applications for a certain platform. SDKs typically include APIs, sample code, documentation, debuggers and other utilities.

A pricing model that lets customers pay a fee to use the service for a particular time period, often used for SaaS services. See also Consumption-based pricing model.

A feature or characteristic of a product, service, etc. that distinguishes it from others of a similar nature and makes it more appealing.

A person or application under an account that needs to make calls or accesses services.

The nature of a user’s interaction with and perception of a system.

User interface (UI) is the way that the user and computer system interact.

The memory area of an operating system where application software executes.

A provisioning model in which services are available as needed, and users are charged for specific usage, in a manner similar to municipal utilities such as electricity or water.

This is a catchall term and can be a Cloud Service Provider (CSP), Managed Service Provider (MSP) or a software service provider.

Vendor lock-in is when a customer finds themselves “locked-in” or stuck with a certain cloud service provider (CSP). Vendor lock-in is characterised by extreme difficulty in moving from one CSP to another, usually due to lack of standardised protocols, APIs, data structures, and service models.

A vertical cloud is a cloud computing solution that is built or optimised for a specific business vertical such as manufacturing, financial services, or healthcare.

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is a desktop operating system hosted within a virtual machine.

A virtual machine is a software computer that runs an operating system or application environment, just as physical hardware would. The end user has the same experience on a VM as they would on dedicated hardware.

Essentially, a VM is a machine within a machine. By running VMs, a hardware computer can run multiple instances of the same operating system. Applications running on separate instances cannot interfere with each other, so if one app crashes, it will not affect apps on other VMs.

See Hypervisor.

A private cloud that exists within a shared or public cloud, for example, the Amazon VPC that allows Amazon EC2 to connect to legacy infrastructure on an IPsec VPN.

Web Application Firewall helps protect web applications by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic between a web application and the Internet.