Cloud Computing Terms

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources over the Internet with pay-as-you-go pricing. Instead of buying, owning, and maintaining physical data centers and servers, you can access technology services, such as computing power, storage, and databases, on an as-needed basis from a cloud provider.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is a cloud computing service model where a provider hosts the fundamental infrastructure components traditionally present in an on-premises data center, including servers, storage, and networking hardware, as well as the virtualization layer.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a cloud computing model where a third-party provider delivers hardware and software tools—usually those needed for application development—to users over the internet. A PaaS provider hosts the hardware and software on its own infrastructure.

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the Internet. It eliminates the need for organizations to install and run applications on their own computers or in their own data centers.

The public cloud is a deployment model where cloud computing services are owned and operated by a third-party provider and delivered over the public internet. The provider is responsible for all the hardware, software, and other supporting infrastructure, which is shared by multiple organizations ("tenants").

A private cloud is a cloud computing deployment model where the cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization. It can be physically located in the organization’s on-premises data center or hosted by a third-party service provider.

Hybrid cloud is a computing environment that combines a private cloud with one or more public cloud services, with proprietary software enabling communication between each distinct service. It allows workloads to move between private and public clouds as computing needs and costs change.

Multicloud is the use of multiple cloud computing services from more than one cloud provider in a single heterogeneous architecture. This can include multiple public clouds, multiple private clouds, or a combination.

In cloud computing, elasticity is the ability to automatically and dynamically increase or decrease compute, storage, or networking resources to match changing demands, without worrying about capacity planning and engineering for peak usage.

Serverless computing is a cloud execution model where the cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources. It does not mean there are no servers; it means the developers do not have to manage them. Code is executed in response to events.

Function as a Service (FaaS) is a category of cloud computing services that provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage application functionalities without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing an app. It is the core of serverless computing.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon providing on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. It is the largest and oldest of the major public cloud providers.

Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure, is a cloud computing service created by Microsoft for building, testing, deploying, and managing applications and services through Microsoft-managed data centers.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a suite of cloud computing services offered by Google. It provides a series of modular cloud services including computing, data storage, data analytics, and machine learning.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is the process of managing and provisioning computer data centers through machine-readable definition files, rather than physical hardware configuration or interactive configuration tools.

Terraform is an open-source infrastructure as code software tool created by HashiCorp. It enables users to define and provision a datacenter infrastructure using a high-level configuration language known as HashiCorp Configuration Language (HCL).

Microservices is an architectural style that structures an application as a collection of loosely coupled, independently deployable services. Each service is self-contained and implements a single business capability.

A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is a secure, isolated private cloud hosted within a public cloud. A VPC allows an organization to run their code, store data, host websites, and do anything else they could do in an on-premises private cloud, but hosted on a public cloud provider's infrastructure.

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. The goal is to provide high availability and performance by distributing the service spatially relative to end-users.

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is an object storage service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that provides industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. Data is stored in "buckets" as "objects".

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a part of Amazon.com's cloud-computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), that allows users to rent virtual computers on which to run their own computer applications.

AWS Lambda is an event-driven, serverless computing platform provided by Amazon as a part of the Amazon Web Services. It is a computing service that runs code in response to events and automatically manages the computing resources required by that code.

Auto scaling is a cloud computing feature that allows you to automatically adjust the amount of computational resources in a server farm - typically measured by the number of active servers - up or down based on the load.

In cloud computing, a region is a physical location in the world where a cloud provider has a cluster of data centers. Each region is a separate geographic area.

An Availability Zone (AZ) is one or more discrete data centers with redundant power, networking, and connectivity in a cloud provider's region. AZs are physically separate from each other, by a meaningful distance, to protect against local failures like fires or floods.

The shared responsibility model is a framework that outlines the security obligations of a cloud provider versus those of its customers. In essence, the provider is responsible for the security *of* the cloud, while the customer is responsible for security *in* the cloud.

Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a framework of policies and technologies for ensuring that the proper people in an enterprise have the appropriate access to technology resources. In the cloud, IAM services are used to control who can access and manage your cloud resources.

Cloud native is an approach to building and running applications that fully exploits the advantages of the cloud computing model. It involves using technologies like containers, microservices, and declarative APIs to build applications that are scalable, resilient, and agile.

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) is an open-source software foundation that aims to promote and sustain the growth of cloud-native technologies. It is part of the Linux Foundation.

A service mesh is a dedicated infrastructure layer for handling service-to-service communication in a microservices architecture. It provides a transparent and language-independent way to control how different parts of an application share data with one another.

An API Gateway is a management tool that sits between a client and a collection of backend services. It acts as a reverse proxy to accept all application programming interface (API) calls, aggregate the various services required to fulfill them, and return the appropriate result.

Observability is a measure of how well internal states of a system can be inferred from knowledge of its external outputs. In software, it refers to the ability to understand what is happening inside a complex system just by observing its outputs, such as logs, metrics, and traces.

Lift and shift is a strategy for migrating an application to the cloud without redesigning it. It involves moving an existing application and its data to a cloud infrastructure with minimal or no changes.

Vendor lock-in is a situation where a customer using a product or service cannot easily transition to a competitor. In cloud computing, it occurs when an application is heavily reliant on a specific cloud provider's proprietary services, making it difficult and costly to move to another cloud.

FinOps, which stands for "Cloud Financial Operations", is a cultural practice and framework that brings financial accountability to the variable spend model of the cloud. It helps organizations manage their cloud costs and get the most business value out of their cloud investment.

Cloud cost optimization is the process of reducing your overall cloud spending by identifying mismanaged resources, eliminating waste, reserving capacity for higher discounts, and right-sizing computing services to scale.

A Spot Instance is a way to purchase spare computing capacity in the cloud at a steep discount compared to on-demand prices. The catch is that the cloud provider can reclaim the capacity at any time with a short notice (usually two minutes).

A Reserved Instance (RI) is a pricing model that offers a significant discount (up to 75%) compared to on-demand pricing in exchange for a commitment to use a specific amount of computing capacity for a one- or three-year term.

Cloud migration is the process of moving a company's digital assets, services, databases, IT resources, and applications either partially or wholly to the cloud.

In computing, orchestration is the automated configuration, coordination, and management of computer systems and software. In the context of the cloud, it specifically refers to the automation of workflows for deploying and managing complex systems, especially containers and microservices.

A Service-Level Agreement (SLA) is a commitment between a service provider and a client. Particular aspects of the service – quality, availability, responsibilities – are agreed between the service provider and the service user.

A Service-Level Objective (SLO) is a key element of a Service-Level Agreement (SLA) between a service provider and a customer. SLOs are agreed upon as a means of measuring the performance of the Service Provider.

Chaos Engineering is the discipline of experimenting on a system in order to build confidence in the system's capability to withstand turbulent conditions in production. It involves proactively and deliberately injecting failure into a system to test its resilience.

Cloud security consists of a set of policies, controls, procedures and technologies that work together to protect cloud-based systems, data, and infrastructure. These security measures are configured to protect cloud data, support regulatory compliance and protect customers' privacy as well as setting authentication rules for individual users and devices.

A Cloud Service Provider (CSP) is a company that offers a cloud computing platform or services. These services can range from infrastructure (IaaS), platform (PaaS), to software (SaaS).

On-demand is a pricing model for cloud services where customers pay for the resources they use, typically on an hourly or per-second basis, with no long-term commitments or upfront costs.

Pay-as-you-go is a cloud computing payment model in which a customer is billed for the resources they actually use. There are no long-term contracts or upfront commitments.

Disaster Recovery (DR) involves a set of policies, tools, and procedures to enable the recovery or continuation of vital technology infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-induced disaster.

The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is a metric that defines the maximum acceptable length of time that a computer, system, network, or application can be down after a failure or disaster occurs.

The Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is a metric that defines the maximum acceptable amount of data loss after a recovery from a disaster, failure, or comparable event. The RPO is expressed as a length of time, e.g., "30 minutes of data".

A backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. Backups are a critical part of a disaster recovery strategy.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is a financial estimate intended to help buyers and owners determine the direct and indirect costs of a product or system. For cloud, it includes not only the direct subscription costs but also the indirect costs of migration, training, and management.

Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) is funds used by a company to acquire, upgrade, and maintain physical assets such as property, plants, buildings, technology, or equipment. In traditional IT, buying servers is a CAPEX.

An Operational Expenditure (OPEX) is an ongoing cost for running a product, business, or system. In the context of cloud computing, it refers to the recurring costs of using cloud services, such as monthly bills for compute and storage.

Cloud bursting is an application deployment model in which an application runs in a private cloud or on-premises data center and "bursts" to a public cloud when the demand for computing capacity spikes.

On-premises (often shortened to "on-prem") refers to software and technology that is located within the physical confines of an enterprise, often in the company's own data center, as opposed to running remotely on hosted servers or in the cloud.

Right-sizing is the process of matching instance types and sizes to your workload performance and capacity requirements at the lowest possible cost. It is a key part of cloud cost optimization.

An instance type is a specific configuration of CPU, memory, storage, and networking capacity for a virtual server in the cloud. Cloud providers offer a wide variety of instance types optimized for different workloads.

Cloud Cost Management is the process of effectively managing and controlling the costs associated with using cloud services. It involves monitoring usage, identifying waste, forecasting future spending, and optimizing resource allocation.

Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) is a class of security tools that are designed to identify misconfiguration issues and compliance risks in the cloud. CSPM tools work by continuously monitoring cloud environments for gaps in security policy enforcement.

A cloud misconfiguration is an error in the setup of a cloud asset that leaves it vulnerable to attack. This can include incorrect settings, overly permissive policies, or failure to follow security best practices.

Cloud-agnostic refers to a strategy of designing applications and infrastructure to be independent of any specific cloud provider. It involves using tools and technologies that can run on any cloud platform.

In cloud computing, portability is the ability to move applications and data from one cloud environment to another with minimal disruption. This can be between different public cloud providers or between a public and a private cloud.

Cloud billing is the process by which cloud providers charge customers for the use of their services. It is typically a complex process based on metered usage of many different services and resources.

In cloud computing, tagging is the practice of assigning metadata (in the form of key-value pairs) to your cloud resources. These tags can be used to organize resources, automate processes, and, most importantly, allocate costs.

Cloud governance is the set of rules, policies, and processes that an organization puts in place to control and manage its use of cloud services. It aims to enhance security, manage costs, and ensure compliance with regulations.

In the context of cloud computing, compliance refers to meeting the requirements of various laws, regulations, and standards that apply to an organization's data and workloads. This can include industry-specific standards like HIPAA (for healthcare) or PCI DSS (for payments), as well as data privacy laws like GDPR.

A managed service in the cloud is a service where the cloud provider takes on the responsibility for the operational management of the service, including maintenance, patching, backups, and scaling. This allows the customer to use the service without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure.

Operational burden refers to the time, effort, and resources required to manage and maintain a system. This includes tasks like patching, monitoring, backups, troubleshooting, and scaling.

A Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) is a cross-functional team of people within an organization who are responsible for developing and managing the cloud strategy, governance, and best practices. They act as internal cloud experts and evangelists.

A data center is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems.

A community cloud is a cloud computing deployment model where the infrastructure is shared by several organizations from a specific community with common concerns (e.g., security, compliance, jurisdiction), whether managed internally or by a third-party and hosted internally or externally.

A Cloud Architect is an IT professional who is responsible for designing and managing an organization's cloud computing strategy. This includes designing the cloud architecture, managing cloud migration plans, and overseeing governance and cost management.

A Cloud Engineer is an IT professional responsible for the hands-on implementation, monitoring, and management of cloud infrastructure. They work with the designs created by cloud architects to build and operate the cloud environment.