IT Glossary & Dictionary

An agentless automation tool for configuration management, application deployment, and task automation using YAML playbooks.

A server that acts as the single entry point for API requests, handling routing, authentication, rate limiting, and monitoring.

A declarative GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes that automatically syncs cluster state with Git repositories.

A packaged, versioned output of a build process — such as a Docker image, JAR file, or compiled binary — ready for deployment.

A centralized storage system for build artifacts like compiled binaries, packages, and container images used in CI/CD pipelines.

A deployment strategy using two identical environments where traffic is switched from the old version to the new one instantly.

A deployment strategy that gradually rolls out changes to a small subset of users before deploying to the entire infrastructure.

The discipline of deliberately introducing failures into a system to test its resilience and identify weaknesses before they cause outages.

Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment — automated practices for building, testing, and deploying code changes.

The practice of systematically managing and maintaining consistent server configurations across infrastructure.

A lightweight virtualization method that packages applications with their dependencies into isolated, portable containers.

The automated management of containerized applications including deployment, scaling, networking, and health monitoring across clusters.

A storage and distribution service for container images, similar to a package repository but for Docker images.

A practice where every code change that passes automated tests is automatically deployed to production.

A platform for building, shipping, and running applications in lightweight, isolated containers.

A tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications using a YAML configuration file.

A mechanism for persisting data generated by Docker containers, surviving container restarts and removals.

A popular log management platform combining Elasticsearch (search), Logstash (processing), and Kibana (visualization).

A dynamic value stored outside the application code that configures behavior without hardcoding sensitive or environment-specific data.

The acceptable amount of unreliability allowed for a service, calculated as 100% minus the Service Level Objective.

A technique that allows enabling or disabling features in production without deploying new code, enabling safe rollouts and A/B testing.

A distributed version control system that tracks changes in source code during software development.

A branching model for Git that defines a strict workflow with feature, develop, release, hotfix, and main branches.

A CI/CD platform integrated into GitHub that automates build, test, and deployment workflows using YAML configuration.

A practice where Git repositories serve as the single source of truth for both application code and infrastructure configuration.

An open-source analytics and visualization platform for creating dashboards from various data sources.

An endpoint or mechanism that reports whether an application is running correctly and ready to handle requests.

A package manager for Kubernetes that simplifies deploying and managing applications using reusable, configurable charts.

A deployment strategy where new versions replace existing instances entirely rather than updating them in place.

An approach where servers are never modified after deployment — changes require building and deploying entirely new server instances.

The process of detecting, responding to, and resolving service disruptions to minimize impact and restore normal operations.

The practice of managing infrastructure through machine-readable configuration files rather than manual processes.

The divergence between the actual state of infrastructure and its defined desired state, caused by manual changes or untracked modifications.

An open-source service mesh that provides traffic management, security, and observability for microservices on Kubernetes.

An open-source automation server for building, testing, and deploying software through configurable CI/CD pipelines.

An open-source container orchestration platform that automates deploying, scaling, and managing containerized applications.

A Kubernetes object that stores non-sensitive configuration data as key-value pairs, injected into pods as environment variables or files.

A Kubernetes object for storing sensitive data like passwords, tokens, and certificates, with base64 encoding and optional encryption at rest.

The process of collecting, centralizing, and indexing log data from multiple sources for unified search and analysis.

A file containing build rules and commands that automates compilation and common project tasks using the make utility.

A communication mechanism that enables asynchronous message passing between services, decoupling producers from consumers.

An architectural style where an application is composed of small, independent services that communicate over APIs.

The practice of collecting, analyzing, and alerting on system metrics and logs to ensure application health and performance.

A high-performance web server and reverse proxy known for its stability, low resource usage, and ability to handle many concurrent connections.

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

A tool for creating identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single configuration file.

Defining CI/CD pipeline configurations as version-controlled code files rather than through UI-based pipeline builders.

A structured analysis conducted after an incident to understand what happened, why, and how to prevent recurrence — without assigning blame.