Glossary from Dedicatted DevOps company

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

Agentic AI what is it and what it’s definition? – Artificial intelligence systems capable of autonomously planning and taking actions toward specific goals, rather than only responding to direct commands. These AI agents can make decisions, execute tasks, and adapt based on outcomes. What does agentic mean in AI? It means the system has the ability to act independently — making decisions and taking actions on its own to achieve a goal. How does agentic AI differ from traditional AI? – Agentic AI can autonomously plan and take actions to reach goals, while traditional AI mainly reacts to input and follows predefined instructions without independent decision-making.

Agile is a software development methodology. This methodology delivers iteratively. It remains flexible. It collaborates closely among teams.

App Modernisation – the process of updating legacy applications with modern technologies, architectures, and practices to improve performance, security, scalability, and user experience.

API Application Programming Interface is rules for communication and data exchange between software components applications or systems.

API Gateway – An application that manages and controls incoming traffic from users for backend services, commonly used among microservices.

Automation — The use of tools and scripts to remove manual steps in development, testing, deployment, and infrastructure management.

Autoscaling — Automatically adjusting computing resources based on demand to improve performance and optimize cost. 

Artifact – built output exists from a software project. Examples are binaries, containers, or packages for deployment. These are stored and consumed as needed.

Artifact Repository — A storage system for versioning and managing build artifacts (e.g., JFrog Artifactory, Nexus).

Audit Logging — Tracking and recording activity within systems to ensure security, compliance, and troubleshooting capabilities. 

Ansible — An open-source automation tool used for configuration management, app deployment, and orchestration. 

AWS (Amazon Web Services) what is? – The world’s most widely adopted enterprise cloud platform, with DevOps-supporting infrastructure and services.

ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) – Refers to a collection of processes and tools that manage applications from planning and development through retirement.

Azure managed service what is it? – A fully managed cloud solution provided and maintained by Microsoft, where Azure handles infrastructure, updates, security, and scaling so users can focus on running their applications instead of managing the underlying systems.

B

Backup — A copy of data stored separately to ensure recovery in case of loss or failure.

Bare-Metal Server — A physical server dedicated to a single tenant without a virtualization layer.

Blue-Green Deployment — A release strategy using two identical environments to switch traffic with zero downtime.

Bottleneck (Lean) — A stage in the workflow where limited capacity slows down overall delivery and reduces efficiency.

Branching Strategy — Rules for managing code versions and collaboration (e.g., GitFlow, trunk-based development).

Build Automation — Tools and processes that compile code, run tests, and package artifacts without manual actions.

Build Pipeline – a sequence of automated stages that convert code commits into deployable builds.

Business Continuity – readiness to maintain operations during outages, disasters, system failures, or other disruptions.

Bug Tracking – system to submit, prioritize, and address software bugs and issues.

Baseline Configuration – a configuration that is designated and approved as the basis for further activities.

C

CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery/Deployment) — Practices that automate code integration, testing, and release to speed up delivery.

Cloud Computing — Delivery of computing resources (servers, storage, databases, etc.) over the internet on demand.

Cloud Migration — Moving systems, data, and workloads from on-premises environments to the cloud.

Cloud-Native — Applications designed to run in the cloud using microservices, containers, and automation.

Configuration Management — Controlling and maintaining system settings to ensure consistency across environments.

Container — A lightweight environment that packages code and dependencies to run reliably across systems.

Container Orchestration — Automated management of containerized applications at scale (e.g., Kubernetes).

Canary Deployment — A gradual rollout of changes to a subset of users to reduce risk.

Compliance — Meeting regulatory and industry standards for security, privacy, and operations.

Chaos Engineering — Intentional failure injection to test system resilience and reliability.

Change Management — Processes ensuring controlled, documented changes to infrastructure or software.

Cluster — A group of linked servers or nodes working together as a single system.

Cost Optimization — Techniques to reduce cloud spending while maintaining performance.

Continuous Monitoring — Real-time tracking of system health, performance, and security.

Command-Line Interface (CLI) — A text-based tool for interacting with systems, typically used for automation and operations.

D

Data Architecture – The structured design and organization of data, systems, and processes to ensure efficient data storage, management, integration, and accessibility across an organization.

Data Migration& Modernization – transferring data from outdated systems to modern platforms while improving its structure, quality, and performance to support current and future business needs.

Devops as a service  – what is it? (DaaS) a cloud solution where a provider automates and manages the software delivery lifecycle, helping companies release updates faster and with fewer manual efforts.

Devops consulting – what is? – Guidance and support to help companies adopt DevOps practices, automate delivery processes, and improve software performance and reliability.

Data Center — Physical facility hosting servers and network infrastructure.

Deployment — Releasing new or updated software into an environment.

Disaster Recovery (DR) — Processes to restore systems after failures or outages.

Docker — A platform for building and running containerized applications.

Downtime — Period when a service is unavailable.

E

Environment – A specific environment which the app runs on (dev, test, staging, prod).

Elasticity – Ability to automatically scale resources up or down as needed.

Encryption – The process of encoding a message into an unreadable format.

Engineering Services – specialized technical and consulting services that support the full lifecycle of systems, software, and infrastructure — including research, design, development, integration, deployment, optimization, and ongoing maintenance. These services help organizations build reliable, scalable, and innovative solutions that meet business, operational, and regulatory requirements.

Endpoint – A network-accessible resource such as an API URL or device.

F

Failover – Automatic switching to a backup system upon failure of the primary.

Feature Flag – A switch to enable or disable a feature, without redeploying.

Feedback loop – Continual user feedback or results monitoring improves delivery.

Firewall – Security system controlling allowed network traffic.

G

Generative AI what is? – It is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that can create content such as text, images, code, or audio content based on learned patterns in data rather than being specifically programmed to perform a task. Generative AI can create new content from prompts. DevOps with generative AI can be a powerful tool for services and consulting.

Generative AI in Azure Machine Learning – A suite of services and tools that enable developers to build, deploy and manage applications powered by generative AI (large-language models, image models, etc.) using Azure.

Git — A version control system for tracking code changes.

GitOps — Managing infrastructure and deployments declaratively with Git.

Golden Image — Pre-configured template for creating identical environments.

Google cloud managed services what is it? – Cloud solutions where Google handles the infrastructure, maintenance, security, and scaling, allowing organizations to run applications without managing the underlying systems.

H

High Availability (HA) – A system designed to minimize downtime.

Hybrid Cloud – A combination of public and private cloud.

Helm – Package manager for Kubernetes applications.

I

IaC (Infrastructure as Code) – Provisioning infrastructure via code instead of manually configuring beyond it.

IoT Platforms – software systems that connect, manage, and analyze data from Internet-of-Things devices to enable monitoring, automation, and integration with other applications.

Immutable Infrastructure – Resources should not be modified, only replaced in order to ensure consistency.

J

JSON – A lightweight data interchange format commonly used by APIs.

Jenkins — A popular automation server for CI/CD.

K

Kubernetes – (K8s) acts as a container orchestration platform for automating deploying and scaling.

KPI (Key Performance Indicator) — Metrics used to measure operational performance.

L

Latency – Request and response time.

Load Balancer — Tool that distributes traffic across multiple servers.

Log Management — Collecting and analyzing logs for troubleshooting and security.

Lean — A methodology focused on eliminating waste in workflows.

M

Microservices – Architect applications as services that are small and independent.

Monitoring – Tracking system health and performance in real time.

Multi-Cloud – Using multiple cloud providers for flexibility and redundancy.

N

Namespace — Logical grouping of resources, often used in Kubernetes.

Network Policy — Rules governing connectivity and security between workloads.

Node — A server (physical or virtual) running workloads in a cluster.

O

Observability – Understanding the internal state of a system using logs, metrics and traces.

Orchestration – Automatic coordination of complex deployments and scaling.

On-Premises – Infrastructure in a company’s physical premises.

P

Pipeline — Automated series of steps for building, testing, and deploying code.

Provisioning — Allocating and configuring cloud resources or servers.

Platform Engineering — Building self-service platforms to improve developer productivity.

Q

Quality Assurance (QA) — Ensuring software quality through testing practices.

Query — Request for information from a database or monitoring system.

Quarantine Environment — Isolated system for testing risky changes.

R

Rollback – Reverting to a previously deployed stable version following issues.

Runtime – The environment surrounding an application when it is run.

Release Management – Coordinating and controlling software releases.

S

Security Compliance – The practice of ensuring that an organization follows required laws, regulations, standards, and internal policies to protect data, systems, and operations from security risks.

Software as a service (SaaS) – Software delivered over the internet.

SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) – Engineering service reliability through automation.

Scalability — Ability to grow system capacity efficiently.

Serverless — Running code without managing servers directly.

Security Hardening — Enhancing system security by reducing vulnerabilities.

T

Terraform — IaC tool for provisioning cloud infrastructure.

Telemetry — Collection of performance and operational data for monitoring.

Testing Automation — Running tests automatically during the development cycle.

U

Uptime – The percentage of time a system remains online and functional.

Unified Monitoring – View logs, metrics, and traces across systems in one place.

Upgrade – Updating software or systems with improved versions.

V

Version Control – For tracking and managing changes to code and configuration.

Virtual Machine (VM) – An emulated computing environment running on a physical server.

Vulnerability Scan – Automated detection of security weaknesses.

W

Workflow Automation – Using automation to accomplish repeatable tasks.

Webhooks – Event-based triggers for external service notifications.

White-Box Monitoring – Monitoring based on internal system data.

X

XML – Markup language for structured data exchange.

XaaS (Anything as a Service) – General term for cloud services.

Y

YAML — Human-readable configuration format used in CI/CD and Kubernetes.

Yottabyte — A unit of data equal to 10²⁴ bytes.

Z

Zero-Downtime Deployment – deploying new code without service interruption.

Zero Trust – security model requiring users to authenticate for every action.