Cloud Hosting Glossary: Terms and Definitions from A to Z

Cloud hosting glossary from A-Z

A

AIOps (Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations)
Application of AI to automate IT processes, detect issues faster, and reduce downtime. Smart monitoring on steroids.

API (Application Programming Interface)
A set of rules that lets software applications talk to each other. Think of it as the waiter between your frontend and backend.

Agile
A project approach based on working iteratively in short sprints. Developers love it, PMs live by it.

Ansible
Open-source tool for automating provisioning, configuration management, and app deployment.

Auto Healing
Automatic recovery mechanism in cloud-native systems. Detects and fixes failures without human intervention. Less downtime, more reliability.

Auto-scaling
Automatically adds or removes resources based on load. Perfect for sales peaks or Black Friday.

Availability Zone
A distinct physical location within a cloud region, designed for high availability and redundancy.

B

Back-up
A backup copy of your data, essential for recovery in case of data loss. Hosted Power backs up automatically, encrypted, and securely.

Bare Metal Server
A physical server without a virtualization layer. Maximum performance, minimal overhead.

Bash
Command-line shell widely used for scripting and system management.

Blue/Green Deployment
A release strategy where old and new versions run side by side. After validation, traffic switches over.

Build Pipeline
The automated process of compiling, testing, and deploying code. Connects developers to production without drama.

C

CDN (Content Delivery Network)
Distributes your content worldwide for faster load times and better performance.

CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery/Deployment)
DevOps practices where code is automatically tested and deployed. Faster releases, less drama.

Cache Busting
Technique to prevent browsers from loading outdated files. A developer lifesaver.

Canary Deployment
Rolls out new software to a small user group first. Lower risk, more control.

Chaos Engineering
Deliberately causing failures to test how robust your system really is. Break things to make them stronger.

Cloud-Native
Architecture optimized for the cloud: scalable, flexible, and microservice-ready.

Cloud Provider
External party offering IT infrastructure, like AWS, Google Cloud, Azure. Hosted Power is cloud-agnostic.

Composable Commerce
Modular e-commerce approach combining separate services (e.g., checkout, search, payments) via APIs. Flexible, scalable, and future-proof.

Computer Vision
AI technology that analyzes images, like OCR or object detection. Often used in medical and industrial applications.

Container
A lightweight, isolated environment for applications. Think: virtual machine on a diet.

Cronjob
A scheduled task on a server. Useful for backups, reports, or auto-scripts.

D

Dark Launch
Deploying new features behind the scenes, hidden from users. Ideal for internal testing.

DDoS Attack (Distributed Denial of Service)
An attack that overwhelms your infrastructure with traffic. Hosted Power = protection included.

Deployment
Pushing new code or infrastructure live. With us: fast, secure, and automated.

DevOps
Collaboration between development and operations. Enables faster releases with fewer headaches.

DevSecOps
Security fully integrated into your DevOps flow. Security from day one.

DNS (Domain Name System)
Translates domain names into IP addresses. Think: the internet’s phone book.

Docker
Tool to build and run containers. Fast, lightweight, and consistent.

E

Edge Computing
Brings data and processing closer to users for faster response. Great for real-time apps.

Elasticity
Ability to scale up or down quickly depending on load. TurboStack loves it.

Egress Traffic
Outbound traffic from a cloud environment. Important for costs and monitoring.

Environment
A separate setting for your app, like dev, staging, or production.

F

Failover
Automatically switches to a backup component during a failure. For maximum uptime.

Feature Flag
Technique to turn features on or off without deploying new code.

File System
The way files are organized and managed on disks.

FinOps
Practice that aligns IT and finance to optimize cloud costs. Smart scalability without bill shock.

Firewall
Secures your network traffic. Smart, fast, and standard with Hosted Power.

G

Git
Version control system where developers track, collaborate, and roll back code.

GitLab
Platform for Git repositories with CI/CD, issue tracking, and pipelines. Hosted Power approved.

GitOps
Managing infrastructure and deployments via Git. One source of truth, zero chaos.

GPU (Graphics Processing Unit)
Processor for heavy computation, often used in AI, ML, or video rendering.

Gradio / Streamlit
Tools to quickly build interactive AI demos or dashboards. Ideal for prototyping or internal tooling.

Gzip
Compression method to speed up websites. More speed, less data traffic.

H

Helm
Package manager for Kubernetes. Handles complex deployments like a boss.

High Availability (HA)
System design that prevents outages through redundancy. 99.999% uptime, baby.

Hosted Power
Your reliable partner in cloud-native hosting. TurboStack. FinOps. GitOps. Rocket Deploy. Vrooom!

HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security)
Security mechanism that enforces HTTPS-only traffic. No more excuses.

Hybrid Cloud
Mix of private, public, and on-premise cloud. Flexibility without vendor lock-in.

Hyperscaler
Large-scale cloud provider like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.

Hugging Face Transformers
Open-source library for thousands of NLP models like BERT, GPT-2, or Mistral. The standard for text generation and chatbots.

I

Immutable Infrastructure
Infrastructure isn’t changed but replaced. Makes rollbacks a breeze.

Ingress
In Kubernetes: rule that manages how traffic is routed to your services.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Managing infrastructure through code. For version control, automation, and peace of mind.

IP Whitelisting
Security method where only specific IPs are granted access.

J

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
Lightweight data format. A developer's daily bread.

Job (Kubernetes)
A one-time task in a container environment. Perfect for backups or migrations.

K

Kubernetes (K8s)
Open-source platform to automate deployment, scaling, and managing containers.

Kubectl
Command-line tool to manage Kubernetes clusters. Power to the DevOps.

Kustomize
Tool for declarative Kubernetes configuration without templates.

K9s
Terminal UI tool to manage Kubernetes clusters easily. Real-time insights without kubectl complexity.

L

Latency
Time between a request and response. The lower, the better.

Let’s Encrypt
Free service for TLS certificates. Security without the price tag.

Load Balancer
Distributes traffic across servers. More stability, better performance.

Logging
Recording server and app activity. Essential for debugging.

Langflow
Low-code drag-and-drop tool to build LLM workflows visually. Great for non-AI teams.

Load Testing
Simulating user traffic to test performance. Crucial for sales peaks or launches.

M

Managed Kubernetes
Kubernetes managed by a provider. Less hassle, more dev focus. E.g., EKS (AWS), GKE (Google), AKS (Azure).

Metrics Server
Kubernetes component that collects resource usage of pods and nodes. Key for autoscaling and monitoring.

Monitoring
Continuous tracking of performance, resources, and errors. Hosted Power = proactive monitoring.

MongoDB
NoSQL database handling flexible data. Common in modern web apps.

Multi-tenant
One environment serving multiple clients, with separated data.

N

Namespace
In Kubernetes: logical separation of resources. Order in chaos.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) & Chatbots
AI that understands and generates human language. Used in chatbots, sentiment analysis, summaries.

NFS (Network File System)
Protocol for shared file systems over a network.

Nginx
Lightweight web server and reverse proxy. Blazing fast and scalable.

Node
A physical or virtual machine in a Kubernetes cluster. Runs the show.

O

OAuth
Authentication protocol for secure access without sharing passwords.

Observability
The ability to understand what’s happening in your systems via logs, metrics, and traces.

On-call Rotation
Schedule where team members take turns being on standby for incidents. Often combined with alert tools like PagerDuty or Opsgenie.

OpenTelemetry
Framework for collecting metrics, logs, and traces. Full observability in one place.

Orchestration
Automating container management. Kubernetes and Rancher are your friends.

P

PaaS (Platform as a Service)
Platform to run apps without managing the underlying infrastructure. TurboStack = semi-PaaS.

Pod
Smallest unit in Kubernetes. Contains one or more containers.

Predictive Modeling & Tabular Data
Machine learning on structured data like spreadsheets. Used for churn, fraud, risk prediction.

Prometheus
Monitoring tool for metrics, often used with Grafana.

Provisioning
Automatically assigning resources like servers or databases. At Hosted Power: lightning-fast.

Q

Quality of Service (QoS)
Manages network traffic to ensure performance. Prioritizes critical services like payment pages.

R

RAG Frameworks (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
Combines LLMs with your own data. Frameworks like LangChain or LlamaIndex use vector DBs like FAISS or ChromaDB.

Rancher
Management platform for Kubernetes. Makes complex infrastructures manageable.

Redundancy
Systems with backup components for failover. For stress-free uptime.

Reverse Proxy
Intercepts traffic to redirect requests. Often with Nginx or HAProxy.

Rocket Deploy
Our punchy term for ultra-fast deployment via TurboStack. Vrooom!

S

SBOM (Software Bill of Materials)
List of all software components and dependencies. Transparency = security.

Scalability
The ability to easily scale resources up or down. No more bottlenecks.

Scikit-learn
Popular Python library for classic ML models (regression, classification). Great for MVPs and internal tools.

Serverless Computing
Running code without managing servers. The cloud takes care of it.

Sovereign Cloud
Cloud solution that complies with national laws and data sovereignty. For privacy-sensitive sectors.

SSH (Secure Shell)
Secure way to log into servers. For those who love the command line.

SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer / Transport Layer Security)
Encrypts data traffic for secure connections. Always on with Hosted Power.

Stateful / Stateless
Indicates whether a service retains its state. Important for architecture choices.

Streamlit
See Gradio / Streamlit.

T

Terraform
Tool for Infrastructure as Code. Ideal for building scalable cloud environments.

TLS (Transport Layer Security)
Modern standard for secure data communication over HTTPS.

Traefik
Modern reverse proxy alternative to NGINX with auto-TLS and service discovery.

TurboStack
Hosted Power’s own platform for automated cloud management. Super fast. Super smart. Super dev.

TurboStack AI (Vision)
Hosted Power’s AI vision: GPUs on-demand, run open-source models locally, AI-integrated DevOps. Privacy-first. Dev-friendly. Future-ready.

V

Vault
Tool for managing secrets like API keys and passwords. Encrypt all the things.

Vertical Scaling
Adding more power to a single server. Opposite of horizontal scaling.

Version Control
Managing changes in code. Git is king.

VPS (Virtual Private Server)
Virtual server on shared hardware. More control, lower cost.

W

WAF (Web Application Firewall)
Protects web apps from attacks like XSS and SQL injection. Better safe than sorry.

Webhook
Automatic HTTP request between apps. Often used for CI/CD triggers.

White-labeling
Hosted Power tech, your branding. Ideal for agencies and resellers.

Worker Node
The server in a Kubernetes cluster that runs containers.

X

XGBoost / LightGBM
Boosting algorithms for high-performance ML on tabular data. Winners in Kaggle competitions. Great for risk scores, churn models, predictions.

Y

YAGNI (You Aren’t Gonna Need It)
Programming principle warning against over-engineering. Focus on what’s needed now.

YAML
Language for config files, widely used in Kubernetes. Developer poetry.

YOLOv8 (Ultralytics)
Real-time object detection, lightweight and fast. Ideal for edge devices or cloud VPS use.

Z

Zabbix
Monitoring solution for networks, servers, and apps. Alternative to Prometheus.

Zero Downtime Deployment
Deploying new code live without user impact. TurboStack approved. E.g., via Blue/Green or Canary Deployments.

Zero Trust Architecture
Security approach where nothing and no one is trusted by default. Access = always earned.