What is ... ?

• AWS - Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a widely adopted cloud platform offered by Amazon. It provides a broad range of cloud computing services that enable businesses and developers to build, deploy, and manage applications and services. AWS is used by organizations of all sizes to improve agility, reduce costs, and enhance scalability. Its pay-as-you-go pricing model and global infrastructure allow businesses to innovate and scale without the need for large upfront investments in hardware.
• Azure - Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure, is a cloud computing platform and service provided by Microsoft. It offers a broad range of cloud services, including computing, analytics, storage, and networking. This enables businesses and developers to build, deploy, and manage applications and services through Microsoft's global network of data centers. Organizations of all sizes use Azure to enhance their IT infrastructure, improve agility, and reduce costs. Its pay-as-you-go pricing model, extensive global infrastructure, and integration with the Microsoft ecosystem make it a popular choice for enterprises and developers.
• CI/CD - CI/CD stands for Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (or Continuous Deployment). It is a set of practices and tools that enable developers to deliver code changes more frequently and reliably.
• Continuous delivery (CD) - Continuous Delivery builds on Continuous Integration by automating the release process, ensuring that code changes can be deployed to production reliably and frequently. Continuous Delivery aims to keep the codebase in a deployable state at all times.
• Continuous integration (CI) - Continuous Integration is the practice of automating the integration of code changes from multiple contributors into a shared repository several times a day. The primary goals are to detect integration issues early, improve software quality, and reduce the time required to validate and release new software updates.
• Cloud computing - Cloud computing (by NIST) is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.
• Container - Containerization is operating system-level virtualization or application-level virtualization so that software applications can run in isolated user spaces called containers in any environment, regardless of type or vendor. (wiki)
• Community cloud - The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a specific community of consumers from organizations that have shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be owned, managed, and operated by one or more of the organizations in the community, a third party, or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises. (by NIST)
• DevOps - DevOps is a methodology (and this is the most important part! It's not a role, but a methodology.) in the software development and IT industry. Used as a set of practices and tools, DevOps integrates and automates the work of software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) as a means for improving and shortening the systems development life cycle. (wiki).
• DevSecOps - DevSecOps is an augmentation of DevOps to allow for security practices to be integrated into the DevOps approach. Contrary to a traditional centralized security team model, each delivery team is empowered to factor in the correct security controls into their software delivery. Security practices and testing are performed earlier in the development lifecycle. (wiki).
• Docker - Docker is a set of platform as a service (PaaS) products that use OS-level virtualization to deliver software in packages called containers. The software that hosts the containers is called Docker Engine. Docker is a tool that is used to automate the deployment of applications in lightweight containers so that applications can work efficiently in different environments in isolation. (wiki). Besides Docker, there are also other containerization tools like Podman, CRI-O, containerd, and more.
• FinOps - Short for Financial Operations (FinOps), is an evolving cloud financial management discipline and cultural practice that brings together technology, finance, and business teams to collaborate on managing the financial implications of cloud computing. The primary goal of FinOps is to optimize cloud spending while enabling innovation, agility, and efficiency within an organization.
• Git - Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.
• Greenfield - Refers to projects or investments that are initiated from scratch, on undeveloped or "green" land. The term is commonly used in various contexts such as real estate, construction, and business.
• Hybrid cloud - The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities, but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load balancing between clouds). (by NIST)
• IaC - Infrastructure as code (IaC) is the ability to provision and support your computing infrastructure using code instead of manual processes and settings. Manual infrastructure management is time-consuming and prone to error. Infrastructure as code lets you define your infrastructure's desired state without including all the steps to get to that state. Organizations use infrastructure as code to control costs, reduce risks, and respond with speed to new business opportunities. (by AWS)
• IaaS - Infrastructure as a Service (by NIST) is the capability provided to the consumer is to provision processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications; and possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g., host firewalls).
• Kubernetes - Also known as K8s, is an open source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
• Migration - In the context of cloud computing, cloud migration is the process of moving digital business operations, including data, applications, and other business elements, from on-premises infrastructure to a cloud computing environment. Cloud migration can also involve moving from one cloud provider to another or adopting a hybrid cloud model that combines on-premises and cloud resources.
• MVP - In the business and startup world, an Minimum Viable Product (MVP) refers to a version of a new product that includes only the essential features needed to be deployed. The goal is to quickly release the product to market to gather user feedback and iterate on the product based on real-world data.
• PaaS - Platform as a Service (by NIST) is the capability provided to the consumer is to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages, libraries, services, and tools supported by the provider. The consumer doesnot manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly configuration settings for the application-hosting environment.
• Platform engineering - Refers to the practice of designing, building, and maintaining the foundational infrastructure, tools, and services that enable software development and operations teams to deliver products and services efficiently and reliably. Platform engineers focus on creating platforms that abstract away the complexities of underlying infrastructure, automate common tasks, and provide self-service capabilities for developers.
• Private cloud - The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization comprising multiple consumers (e.g., business units). It may be owned, managed, and operated by the organization, a third party, or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises. (by NIST)
• Public cloud - The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for open use by the general public. It may be owned, managed, and operated by a business, academic, or government organization, or some combination of them. It exists on the premises of the cloud provider. (by NIST)
• SaaS - Software as a Service (by NIST) is the capability provided to the consumer is to use the provider’s applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through either a thin client interface, such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email), or a program interface. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings.
• SRE - Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) is a discipline that incorporates aspects of software engineering and applies them to infrastructure and operations problems. The main goals of SRE are to create scalable and highly reliable software systems. SRE practices were initially developed at Google. Two free books describe this role explicitly - the SRE book and the Workbook.
• Terraform - Terraform is an infrastructure as code tool originally by HashiCorp, that lets you define both cloud and on-prem resources in human-readable configuration files that you can version, reuse, and share. You can then use a consistent workflow to provision and manage all of your infrastructure throughout its lifecycle. Terraform can manage low-level components like compute, storage, and networking resources, as well as high-level components like DNS entries and SaaS features.
• War room - In IT, a "war room" is a physical or virtual space where a team of specialists comes together to address critical issues, typically involving system outages, major incidents, or high-priority projects. The term is derived from military strategy rooms where key personnel would gather to plan and execute missions. In an IT context, a war room is used to expedite problem-solving and decision-making processes.