IT Glossary & Dictionary

Configuration entries that define which network traffic is allowed or blocked based on source, destination, port, and protocol.

A lightweight web framework for Python that provides essentials for building web applications without imposing structure.

A column that creates a link between two tables by referencing the primary key of another table.

A formatted string literal prefixed with f that allows embedding Python expressions directly inside curly braces.

A technique for searching natural language text in databases using word stemming, ranking, and relevance scoring.

A programming paradigm that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions, avoiding state changes and mutable data.

An automatic memory management process that identifies and reclaims memory no longer in use by a program.

A function that yields values one at a time using the yield keyword, enabling memory-efficient iteration over large datasets.

A mutex in CPython that allows only one thread to execute Python bytecode at a time, limiting true parallelism.

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.

Google's suite of cloud computing services running on the same infrastructure that Google uses for its consumer products.

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

A database that uses graph structures with nodes, edges, and properties to store and query highly connected data.

A query language for APIs that lets clients request exactly the data they need, reducing over-fetching and under-fetching.

A command-line utility for searching plain-text data for lines matching a regular expression pattern.

A high-performance RPC framework using Protocol Buffers and HTTP/2 for efficient service-to-service communication.

The Grand Unified Bootloader, a program that loads the operating system kernel into memory during system startup.

A one-way function that converts input data into a fixed-size string of characters, used for data integrity and password storage.

A data structure that maps keys to values using a hash function, providing average O(1) time complexity for lookups, insertions, and deletions.

Hypermedia As The Engine Of Application State — a REST constraint where API responses include links to related actions and resources.

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.

The second major version of HTTP that improves performance through multiplexing, header compression, and server push.

The latest HTTP version that uses QUIC instead of TCP, providing faster connections and better performance on unreliable networks.

The protocol used for transferring web pages and data between browsers and servers, with HTTPS adding encryption.

An HTTP mechanism that reuses a single TCP connection for multiple requests, reducing the overhead of establishing new connections.

The practice of securing all web traffic with TLS encryption, ensuring data integrity and privacy between browsers and servers.

Standardized three-digit codes returned by web servers to indicate the result of a client's HTTP request.

A computing environment that combines on-premises infrastructure with public cloud services, allowing data and applications to move between them.

A cloud service model providing virtualized computing resources like servers, storage, and networking over the internet.

A framework for managing digital identities and controlling who can access which cloud resources and services.

A network protocol used for diagnostic and error reporting, including ping and traceroute functionality.

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

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.

An object whose state cannot be modified after creation, providing thread safety and predictable behavior in concurrent systems.

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

A data structure that improves the speed of data retrieval operations on database tables at the cost of additional storage.

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.

A data structure in Unix filesystems that stores metadata about a file, excluding its name and data.

The process of verifying that user-supplied data meets expected formats, types, and ranges before processing it.

A unique numerical label assigned to each device on a computer network for identification and communication.

The traditional Linux firewall tool that filters network packets using configurable chains of rules organized in tables.

The latest version of the Internet Protocol with 128-bit addresses, designed to replace IPv4 and solve address exhaustion.