The Top 30 Cloud Computing Words, Phrases, and Acronyms You Need to Know

API

Application Programming Interface acts as a gateway that provides indirect and direct cloud infrastructure and software services to users. It is an interface that enables the development of services and applications required for the provisioning of cloud software, hardware, and other platforms. 

AWS

Amazon Web Services is a comprehensive and evolving cloud computing platform that provides a reliable, scalable, flexible, easy-to-use, and cost-effective cloud computing solutions. It one of the most used cloud service provider offerings with over 90+ cloud services. 

Auto Scaling

Is service in AWS that automatically tracks and adjusts the compute resources needed to maintain the performance for applications hosted on AWS public cloud.  Auto scaling ensures that a sufficient number of  EC2 instances are available to run the application.

Azure

Azure is a cloud platform offered by Microsoft. It is used to build, deploy, and manage applications and services through Microsoft managed global network of data centers.

BaaS

Backend-as-a-Service is a cloud computing service model that acts as middleware and provides developers with various ways to connect their mobile and web apps to the cloud services via SDK’s and API’s.  It lets developers outsource all the behind the scene development aspects of a mobile or web application to a vendor so that they can spend more time on writing and maintaining the front-end of the application. BaaS is referred to as mobile Backend as a Service (mBaaS) when connecting mobile apps to cloud-based services.

Big Data

A tech term that describes large volumes of data in a structured, semi-structured, and unstructured form that can be leveraged for gleaning valuable business insights using machine learning and advanced analytics techniques. Big Data is characterized by the four V’s – Volume of the data, Variety of the data, Veracity, i.e. trustworthiness of the data, and Velocity.

Cloud Backup

Also referred to as remote backup or online backup is a strategy for backing up data to a cloud-based remote server. Cloud backup data is stored and can be accessed through various connected and distributed resources that comprise the cloud. It backs up data using a third-party cloud computing service where users can create, edit, manage, and restore services, data or applications when they need to do so.

Cloud Broker

A third-party entity (individual or organization) that acts like an intermediary and facilitates the selection of cloud computing services on behalf of the organization.

Cloud Computing Architecture

Cloud computing architecture refers to the various components and subcomponents in terms of software capabilities, databases, applications, etc. required to leverage the power of cloud resources to solve challenging business problems. It defines the components along with the relationships between them. 

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the ubiquitous, convenient, and on-demand delivery of computing power, storage, applications, database, analytics, intelligence, and other IT resources over the Internet (the cloud) with a pay-as-you-go-pricing model to provide faster innovation, economies of scale, and flexible resources.

Cloud Service Provider

A CSP is a business or an organization that provides cloud computing services either as Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS) to other individuals or organizations for a fee. Some of the popular cloud service providers include Google Cloud Platform, Amazon AWS, and Microsoft Azure. 

Consumption Model

It is a pay-as-you-go cloud computing model where usage is metered and users pay only for the services and resources they consume

COLO

Colocation is a kind of data center facility where organizations can rent space for servers and other computing hardware resources. COLO provides the power, bandwidth, cooling, and security for the servers that you maintain and manage.

Data Migration

The process of moving data, applications, or business elements between multiple formats, storage systems, warehouses, and servers. 

Elasticity

The ability of a cloud service to provide on-demand offerings by adapting to a client’s changing workload demands. Elasticity is an immediate reaction to switching resources when the demand goes up or down, i.e. when there is adding or dropping off services in real-time from the client.

Extensibility

It is a measure of the ability of a cloud solution to extend a system by adding new runtime and framework support through community build packs.

External Cloud

A private or public customized cloud solution provided by a third-party outside the organization to meet client requirements.

GCP

Google cloud computing platform is a suite of public cloud computing services that offers dozens of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS services. 

IaaS

Infrastructure as a Service is a cloud computing model where a vendor provides virtualized cloud computing resources over the Internet (the cloud). In IaaS, the cloud service provider hosts all the infrastructure components present in the on-premise data center including storage, networking hardware, servers, and also the hypervisor or the virtualization layer.

IT Infrastructure

It refers to the organization's entire collection of software, hardware, data centers, networks, facilities, and other related virtual resources that are needed to support a given IT environment. 

Internal Cloud

A cloud computing service model that is implemented within the organizations’ physical boundaries using dedicated resources and IT infrastructure. It is basically a private cloud instance meant ideally for in-house use.

Load Balancing

It is a programmatic way of detecting the amount of traffic and distributing across various available servers to improve the performance and reliability of applications, websites, databases, and other services. Load balancing helps organizations manage application demands or workload demands by distributing the resources among multiple servers, computers, or networks.

Middleware

A software platform that sits between a device/application and another device/application and connects the enterprise applications or software components.

On-Premise

Infrastructure or software that is installed on runs on the systems within the premises of an organization or individual using the software, instead of a remote facility like a cloud or a server farm. 

PaaS

A complete development and deployment platform in the cloud. Platform as a Service is a cloud computing service model in which cloud vendors provide developers with all the hardware and software environment required for building applications and services over the Internet(the cloud). 

Private Cloud

Cloud infrastructure provisioned for the use of multiple users within an organization or business. Private cloud services are not available for the use of the general public and are operated by a third-party or the organization or by both. These services can be hosted either on-premises or off-premises.

Public Cloud

Computing services offered by third-party cloud service providers over the public Internet so anybody can pay and use them. Public cloud services could be free or chargeable based on the usage of storage, bandwidth, or CPU cycles consumed. 

SaaS

Software as a Service is a cloud computing service model in which the vendor delivers the software and applications over the Internet so the applications need not be purchased, installed, and run on the user’s system. SaaS users have to subscribe to the provider’s software and access it using the vendor API’s or the web. 

Serverless Computing

It is a platform for providing compute, storage, and network resources without the need of managing machines. In this execution model, the cloud provider runs the server and dynamically allocates machine resources so you don’t have to worry about the underlying infrastructure.

Virtual Machine

It is an emulation of a computer system that is used for running applications, programs, or operating systems. Basically, a machine within a machine that can run multiple instances of the same OS. 

What now?

Remember that the cloud computing terminology will continue to evolve with so many new phrases and terms being added as the market evolves. However, the basic cloud computing terms presented in this article will be relatively consistent.  Though this list is not complete, it has the basic cloud computing terminology needed for working with the cloud and follow all the cloud conversations. 

Now that you know the cloud terminology, all you need is a mentored cloud training to get started working on your cloud computing skills.