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Concept

75 terms in this category.

Apache Foundation (ASF)

concept

A nonprofit organization providing governance, legal protection, and infrastructure for open-source software projects.

open-source governance community

Application Programming Interface (API)

concept

A set of rules and protocols that allows software applications to communicate with each other.

integration development protocols

AsyncAPI

concept

A specification for defining and documenting event-driven and asynchronous APIs in a standardized way.

api async specification

Authentication (AuthN)

concept

The process of verifying that a user or system is who they claim to be, typically through credentials like passwords or tokens.

security identity access-control

Authorization (AuthZ)

concept

The process of determining what actions or resources an authenticated user or system is permitted to access.

security identity access-control

Bare Metal

concept

A physical server dedicated to a single tenant with no virtualization layer, offering maximum performance and control.

infrastructure hosting hardware

Basic Auth

concept

HTTP Basic Authentication sends a Base64-encoded username and password with each request. Simple but insecure without TLS.

security authentication http

Bearer Token

concept

An access token sent in HTTP headers that grants the bearer access to protected resources without additional proof.

security authentication api

Cache

concept

A temporary high-speed data storage layer that reduces latency by serving frequently accessed data.

performance storage optimization

Container

concept

A lightweight, standalone package that includes everything needed to run a piece of software: code, runtime, and libraries.

containers virtualization isolation

Container Network Interface (CNI)

concept

A specification and plugin framework that defines how container runtimes configure networking for containers.

networking kubernetes containers

Container Registry

concept

A service for storing, managing, and distributing container images, acting as the library catalog for your packaged applications.

containers images registry

Container Runtime Interface (CRI)

concept

A Kubernetes plugin interface that defines how the kubelet communicates with container runtimes to manage pod and container lifecycle.

containers kubernetes runtime

Container Storage Interface (CSI)

concept

A standard interface that enables container orchestrators to manage and provision storage from any compatible backend.

storage kubernetes containers

Database

concept

A system designed to store, organize, and retrieve structured or unstructured data efficiently.

storage data infrastructure

eBPF (eBPF)

concept

A Linux kernel technology that lets you run sandboxed programs in the kernel without changing kernel code or loading modules.

linux networking observability

Egress

concept

Outbound network traffic leaving a cluster, network, or security boundary toward external destinations.

networking security traffic

Egress Gateway

concept

A dedicated, controlled exit point that routes and monitors all outbound traffic from a cluster or service mesh.

networking security service-mesh

Ephemeral

concept

Describes short-lived, disposable resources designed to be created and destroyed on demand without lasting side effects.

cloud-native containers infrastructure

Firewall

concept

A network security device or software that monitors and filters incoming and outgoing traffic based on defined rules.

security networking

Gateway

concept

A network entry point that routes, filters, and manages traffic between clients and backend services.

networking api traffic-management

GraphQL

concept

A query language for APIs that lets clients request exactly the data they need in a single request.

api query-language facebook

gRPC (gRPC)

concept

A high-performance, open-source RPC framework that uses HTTP/2 and Protocol Buffers for efficient communication.

api rpc performance

Helm Chart

concept

A packaged collection of Kubernetes resource templates and configuration that Helm uses to deploy applications.

kubernetes packaging deployment

HTTP (HTTP)

concept

The foundational application-layer protocol for transmitting hypermedia documents and powering communication on the World Wide Web.

protocol web networking

Idempotency

concept

A property where performing an operation multiple times produces the same result as performing it once.

reliability api-design infrastructure

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

concept

The practice of managing and provisioning infrastructure through machine-readable definition files rather than manual processes.

iac automation best-practices

Ingress

concept

Inbound network traffic entering a cluster or network, or the Kubernetes resource that manages external access to services.

networking kubernetes traffic

JSON (JSON)

concept

A lightweight, human-readable data interchange format based on JavaScript object syntax, used everywhere from APIs to config files.

data-format serialization web

JSON Web Token (JWT)

concept

A compact, URL-safe token format for securely transmitting claims between parties, commonly used for authentication.

security authentication tokens

JSON-RPC

concept

A lightweight, stateless RPC protocol that uses JSON for encoding requests and responses.

api rpc json

Large Language Model (LLM)

concept

A neural network trained on massive text datasets that can generate, analyze, and reason about human language.

ai machine-learning nlp

Logs

concept

Recorded events and messages from applications and systems, providing a trail of what happened and when.

observability debugging monitoring

Message Broker

concept

Middleware that routes, transforms, and delivers messages between distributed services.

messaging middleware integration

Messaging

concept

A pattern for asynchronous communication between services using messages passed through intermediaries.

distributed-systems async integration

Metrics

concept

Numerical measurements collected over time that quantify the behavior and performance of systems.

observability monitoring performance

NoSQL Databases

concept

Non-relational databases designed for flexible schemas, horizontal scaling, and specific data models.

database scalability distributed-systems

OAuth 2.0 (OAuth2)

concept

An authorization framework that lets third-party apps access resources on behalf of a user without exposing their credentials.

security authorization identity

Observability (o11y)

concept

The ability to understand a system's internal state from its external outputs: logs, metrics, and traces.

monitoring debugging sre

OLAP (OLAP)

concept

A computing approach optimized for complex analytical queries across large datasets, using multidimensional data models.

analytics data databases

Open Container Initiative (OCI)

concept

An open governance structure for creating industry standards around container image formats and runtime specifications.

containers standards cloud-native

Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP)

concept

A nonprofit foundation producing widely adopted resources, tools, and standards for application security.

security best-practices vulnerabilities

OpenAPI Specification

concept

A standard, language-agnostic specification for describing RESTful APIs in a machine-readable format.

api documentation specification

OpenID Connect (OIDC)

concept

An identity layer on top of OAuth 2.0 that lets applications verify user identity and obtain basic profile information.

security authentication identity

OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP)

concept

The native protocol for transmitting telemetry data between OpenTelemetry components and backends.

observability protocol telemetry

Port Forwarding

concept

Redirecting network traffic from one address and port to another, commonly used for local debugging of remote or containerized services.

networking debugging development

Protocol Buffers

concept

A language-neutral, platform-neutral binary serialization format developed by Google for structured data.

serialization grpc performance

QUIC (QUIC)

concept

A modern transport protocol built on UDP that provides multiplexed, encrypted connections and powers HTTP/3.

protocol networking performance

Remote Procedure Call (RPC)

concept

A protocol that allows a program to execute a procedure on a remote server as if it were a local function call.

networking protocols distributed-systems

Representational State Transfer (REST)

concept

An architectural style for designing networked applications using stateless HTTP methods and resource-based URLs.

api architecture http

SCIM (SCIM)

concept

A protocol for automating user identity provisioning and deprovisioning across multiple systems and services.

security identity provisioning

SDK (SDK)

concept

A collection of tools, libraries, and documentation that helps developers build software for a specific platform or service.

development libraries tooling

Secure Shell (SSH)

concept

A cryptographic network protocol for secure remote access, command execution, and tunneling over untrusted networks.

security networking protocols

Server-Sent Events (SSE)

concept

A server push technology enabling a client to receive automatic updates from a server over a single, long-lived HTTP connection.

protocol real-time streaming

Serverless

concept

A cloud execution model where the provider manages infrastructure and dynamically allocates resources per request.

cloud architecture faas

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

concept

A formal contract between a service provider and customer defining expected service levels and consequences.

reliability business contracts

Service Level Indicator (SLI)

concept

A quantitative measure of a specific aspect of service reliability, like latency, availability, or error rate.

reliability metrics sre

Service Level Objective (SLO)

concept

A target value or range for a service level measured by an SLI, like 99.9% availability over 30 days.

reliability sre metrics

Service Mesh

concept

A dedicated infrastructure layer for managing service-to-service communication, providing observability, security, and reliability.

networking infrastructure istio

SOAP (SOAP)

concept

A protocol for exchanging structured information in web services using XML-based messaging over HTTP and other transports.

api protocol xml

Stream

concept

A continuous, ordered flow of data or events processed incrementally in real time.

streaming real-time data

Structured Query Language (SQL)

concept

The standard language for managing and querying relational databases.

database query-language data

TCP (TCP)

concept

A connection-oriented transport protocol that provides reliable, ordered delivery of data between applications over IP networks.

networking protocol transport

TLS (TLS)

concept

A cryptographic protocol that provides end-to-end encryption, authentication, and data integrity for communications over networks.

security encryption networking

Traces

concept

Records of requests as they flow through distributed systems, showing the path and timing across services.

observability distributed-systems debugging

UDP (UDP)

concept

A connectionless transport protocol that sends datagrams without guarantees of delivery, ordering, or duplicate protection.

networking protocol transport

Virtual Machine (VM)

concept

A software-based emulation of a physical computer that runs its own OS and applications in an isolated environment.

virtualization infrastructure cloud

VPN (VPN)

concept

A technology that creates encrypted tunnels between networks, enabling secure remote access and private communication.

networking security encryption

VPS (VPS)

concept

A virtualized server environment that provides dedicated resources on shared physical hardware with root-level access.

infrastructure hosting virtualization

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

concept

A security layer that filters and monitors HTTP traffic to protect web applications from common attacks.

security networking protection

WebAssembly (WASM)

concept

A portable, high-performance binary instruction format designed as a compilation target for multiple programming languages.

runtime performance portability

WebAssembly System Interface (WASI)

concept

A standardized system interface that lets WebAssembly modules securely access OS-level resources like files and networking.

runtime wasm portability

WebSockets

concept

A protocol providing full-duplex, persistent communication channels over a single TCP connection between client and server.

protocol real-time networking

XML (XML)

concept

A markup language for encoding documents and data in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable.

data-format serialization legacy

YAML (YAML)

concept

A human-readable data serialization format widely used for configuration files in DevOps tools and Kubernetes manifests.

configuration data-format serialization